After graduating from St. Paul's School and Harvard College, Morgan trained as a finance executive working for his father and grandfather.

He supported New York's Society for the Lying-In Hospital, the Red Cross, the Episcopal Church, and endowed the creation of a rare book and manuscript collection at the Morgan Library.

[7] The firm's involvement with British and French interests fueled charges the bank was conspiring to maneuver the United States into supporting the Allies in order to rescue its loans.

[8] Those dealings became strained over the course of the war as a result of poor personal relations with French emissaries, relationships that were heightened in importance by the unexpected duration of the conflict, its costs, and the complications flowing from American neutrality.

[11] At the beginning of World War I, US Treasury Secretary William McAdoo and others in the Wilson administration were very suspicious of J. P. Morgan & Co.'s enthusiastic role as British agent for purchasing and banking.

When the United States entered the war, this gave way to close collaboration, in the course of which Morgan received financial concessions.

In 1919 he was for a time chairman of the international committee, composed of American, British and French bankers, for the protection of the holders of Mexican securities.

[16] Morgan personified banking, and drew attacks from politicians, especially in the U.S. Senate's Pecora hearings of 1932, which "created a tidal wave of anger against Wall Street".

[17][18] He was a director in numerous corporations, including the U.S. Steel Corp., the Pullman Co., the Aetna Insurance Co., and the Northern Pacific Railway Co.[10] He died of a stroke on March 13, 1943, in Boca Grande, Florida.

Belle da Costa Greene, Morgan's personal librarian, became the first director and continued the aggressive acquisition and expansion of the collections of illuminated manuscripts, authors' original manuscripts, incunabula, prints, and drawings, early printed Bibles, and many examples of fine bookbinding.

On November 12, 1949 the yacht struck a rock near the beach in Acapulco and, although all passengers and crew were rescued, was deemed a total loss.