Francis Martin Drexel was born at Dornbirn, Tyrol, Austria near the Swiss border in 1792. He was the son of a merchant, Francis Joseph Drexel, and apprenticed with a local painter after attending school in Milan. Fleeing from a conscription measure imposed by the French government on Tyrol after a revolt, Drexel wandered through Switzerland, Germany, and France working as an itinerant laborer and part-time portrait painter.

In 1817, Drexel moved to the United States and established himself as an artist in Philadelphia. He met Katherine Hookey (1795-1870), the fourth daughter of Anthony Hookey and Ann Mary (Malsberger) Hookey. The Hookeys were an established family in Philadelphia with English Quaker and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. Katherine and Francis married in 1821. In 1826, Francis Drexel left his family in Philadelphia and spent four years touring South America as a portrait painter. While traveling abroad, Drexel learned the nuances of currency exchange - a skill he would later use to earn a great fortune when he returned to the United States in 1830. After a number of years experimenting in business while maintaining his career as an artist, Drexel finally made a permanent career change. In 1837, Drexel opened a brokerage house in Philadelphia called Drexel and Company. Amidst the turmoil created by the end of the Second Bank of the United States, unpredictable currency system, and opportunities created by the gold rush, Drexel thrived.

Francis and Katherine Drexel had six children: Mary Johanna (1821 or 1822-1873), Francis Anthony (1824-1885), Anthony Joseph (1826-1893), Joseph Wilhelm (or “William”) (1831-1888), Heloise (1837-1895), and Caroline (1838-1911). The three sons were brought into the family business in their early teens, and by the time Francis A. and Anthony J. were made partners, the rebranded firm Drexel & Co. was operating as a private bank in Philadelphia’s 3rd Street financial district. Because the United States lacked a national bank, private banks accumulated wealth by investing in new industries and the sale of war bonds. Drexel & Co. was heavily involved in financing the Mexican American War, the American Civil War, and the burgeoning railroad industry. After Francis Martin Drexel’s death in 1863, Francis A. Drexel was named senior partner yet preferred to manage internal operations of the business, while Anthony J. sought out clients and partnerships as director. Joseph W. served as a partner and representative of Drexel & Co. in Chicago, Germany, Paris, and in New York. Anthony J. Drexel mentored and partnered with J.P. Morgan and began one of the most powerful banking interests in the world in Drexel, Morgan & Co. By the end of the nineteenth century, Anthony Drexel and his brothers had significantly increased the wealth of an already lucrative banking firm.

The children of Anthony Joseph Drexel and Ellen Bicking Rosét (1832-1891) married into other prominent Philadelphia families. Their eldest daughter Emilie Taylor Drexel (1851-1883) married Edward Biddle III (1851-1933), while Frances Katherine Drexel (1852-1892) married James W. Paul, Jr. (1851-1908). Sarah Rozet Drexel (1860-1929) married John Ruckman Fell (1858-1895) in 1879 and Alexander Van Rensselaer (1850-1933) in 1898, after Fell’s death. John Rozet Drexel (1863-1935) married Alice Gordon Troth (1865-1947), Anthony J. Drexel, Jr. (1864-1934) married Margarita Armstrong (1869-1948), and George W.C. Drexel (1868-1944) married Mary S. Irick (1864-1948).

Anthony and Ellen Drexel were especially close with Francis A. Drexel’s daughters Elizabeth Langstroth Drexel Smith (1855–1890) and Katharine Mary Drexel (1858–1955) when they took the girls into their home after the death of their mother Hannah Langstroth (1826-1858). Francis A. Drexel had a third daughter, Louise Bouvier Drexel Morrell (1863–1945), with Emma Bouvier (1833–1883), his second wife. These family members and the descendants of these family lines are present throughout the material in this collection. Their debuts into society, relationships, travel, deaths, and various accomplishments are documented in contemporary society pages.

Among the wealthiest families in Philadelphia, the Drexels invested heavily in business, philanthropy and property in the region and the greater United States. After living in the Rittenhouse neighborhood for a few years, in 1856 Anthony J. Drexel bought property between 38th and 40th streets on Walnut Street in West Philadelphia. He built a home for his growing family and eventually several other houses for his children and their spouses. The family also stayed in Drexel’s country mansion Runnymede in Lansdowne, Pa. Drexel and his lifelong friend and business partner, George W. Childs, co-owner and publisher of the influential Public Ledger daily newspaper, bought property in Wayne and built up the suburban village. Childs introduced Drexel to Ulysses S. Grant in 1863, and the three remained close acquaintances who had adjacent summer homes in Long Branch, New Jersey. George W. Childs bought a tract of land in Bryn Mawr, about 13 miles northwest of Philadelphia, and called his new residence Wootton, after the old English for “woodland.” The Queen Ann style mansion was passed to Childs’ godson and namesake, George W.C. Drexel, in 1894 after Childs’ death. When George and Mary S. Irick Drexel died without heirs in 1944 and 1948 respectively, the property and its furnishings were inventoried and sold. Sarah Drexel Fell Van Rensselaer, daughter of Anthony J. and Ellen Rosét, owned two properties of note with her first husband, John R. Fell: a mansion at Camp Hill in Fort Washington and 1801 Walnut Street, on Rittenhouse Square.

Francis Anthony Drexel and his family spent much of the year at a summer mansion estate in Torresdale, northeast of Philadelphia, and extended their philanthropy in Catholic organizations and education in that area. Most notably, in 1888 the St. Francis de Sales Industrial School in Eddington, Pa. was founded and supported by Elizabeth Drexel Smith and Louise Drexel Morrell. Elizabeth, Katharine, and Louise Drexel were heavily influenced by the charitable giving and Catholicism of Emma Bouvier. After traveling with her family and observing the conditions under which impoverished Native and Black communities were forced to live, Katharine Drexel funded Catholic missions and schools in the western and southern United States. After an audience with Pope Leo XIII, Katharine shaped a plan to become a nun and form her own order whose mission would be to serve both populations. In 1891, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People was established with Mother Katharine as its spiritual and financial leader. The temporary headquarters for the order was the Torresdale summer estate, before moving to Cornwells Heights near Eddington. Saint Katharine Drexel was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 2000.

Anthony J. Drexel gave to charities and institutions, such as the Church of the Savior, hospitals, and the Fairmount Park Art Association. (He was the Association’s first president.) In the 1860s Drexel began to consider funding a school, and his close relationship with his nieces in later decades influenced his considerations about the focus of such a school. Drexel's intention became to establish a practical vocational school without restrictions based on gender, religion, or social class which students could easily commute to by train. In December 1891, the Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and Industry dedicated its Main Building on 32nd and Chestnut Streets. Anthony Drexel died two years later in 1893.

Francis Martin Drexel, Katherine Hookey, and many of their relatives and descendants are buried at the Drexel mausoleum and plots in the Woodlands Cemetery in West Philadelphia, just blocks from where they lived on Walnut Street. Nearly 300 descendants of Anthony J. Drexel attended a family reunion in Philadelphia at the 100th anniversary of Drexel University in 1991.