John Jacob Astor was a German-born American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor. Astor made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by exporting opium into China, and by investing in real estate in or around New York City. He was the first prominent member of the Astor family and the first multi-millionaire in the United States.
John Jacob Astor portrait by John Wesley Jarvis, c. 1825
John Jacob Astor, by Gilbert Stuart, c. 1794
Sarah Cox Todd
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued. Historically the trade stimulated the exploration and colonization of Siberia, northern North America, and the South Shetland and South Sandwich Islands.
A fur trader in Fort Chipewyan, Northwest Territories in the 1890s
A fur shop in Tallinn, Estonia in 2019
Fur muff manufacturer's 1949 advertisement
Cossacks collecting yasak in Siberia