Charles Barney Harding

Charles Barney Harding (September 11, 1899 – October 25, 1979) was an American financier who served as chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, Smith, Barney & Co., and the New York Botanical Gardens. Harding was born in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania on September 11, 1899 and grew up in a townhouse on Fifth Avenue. He was the eldest of four children born to James Horace Harding (1863–1929) and Dorothea Elizabeth Allen (née Barney) Harding (1871–1935). His siblings were Catherine (née Harding) Tailer (wife of polo player Lorillard Suffern Tailer), socialite and philanthropist Laura Barney Harding (who was a close friend of Katharine Hepburn), and banker William Barclay Harding. His father was a banker and financier who served as a director of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and the New York Municipal Railways System. His maternal grandparents were Charles D. Barney and Laura (née Cooke) Barney (a daughter of Philadelphia financier Jay Cooke). His grandfather, a former member of his great-grandfather's firm, Jay Cooke & Company, founded Charles D. Barney & Co. in 1873 before retiring in 1907. The business continued, under the same name with his father helping to run the firm. Harding prepared at the Groton School in Massachusetts before attending the United States Military Academy at West Point, from where he graduated in 1920. After graduation, he served two years as a lieutenant in the field artillery. Years later, Harding joined the U.S. Navy Reserve shortly before the U.S. entered World War II. He went on active duty in May 1941, and was discharged four years later as a captain. In 1922, he joined the family business, Charles D. Barney & Co. and was made a partner in 1925. In 1937, the firm merged with Edward B. Smith & Co. to form Smith, Barney & Co. which began operations January 1, 1938. At his direction, the firm "recruited business school graduates, then put them through eight‐and‐a‐half months of training in what was sometimes referred to on The Street as 'Harding Tech.