Goldman worked as a peddler with a horse-drawn cart and later as a shopkeeper in
Philadelphia, where he initially rented the room in a boarding-house previously rented by his old friend Joseph Sachs. He later became a shopkeeper, after setting up a clothing store on Market Street. In 1869, Goldman relocated to New York City in search of a more profitable work. He set up a shingle on Pine Street in lower
Manhattan, with the legend "Marcus Goldman & Co.", identifying himself as a broker of
IOUs. From his earliest days of his business, Goldman was able to single-handedly transact as much as $5 million worth of
commercial paper a year. Successful though he was, Goldman's business was insignificant compared to that of the other Jewish-German bankers of the day. Concerns like
J. & W. Seligman & Co., with
working capital of $6 million in 1869 (equivalent of $ million in ), were already modern-day investment bankers immersed in underwriting and trading railroad bonds. In 1882, Goldman invited his son-in-law Samuel Sachs to join him in the business and changed the firm's name to M. Goldman and Sachs. Business boomed—soon the new firm was turning over $30 million worth of paper a year—and the firm's capital was now $100,000 (equivalent of $ million in ). For almost fifty years after its inception, all of Goldman Sachs's partners were members of intermarried families. In 1885, Goldman took his own son Henry and his son-in-law Ludwig Dreyfuss into the business as junior partners and the firm adopted its present name, Goldman Sachs & Co. In 1894, Henry Sachs entered the firm, and in 1896, the firm joined the
New York Stock Exchange. When Goldman retired, he left the firm in the hands of his son
Henry Goldman and his son-in-law
Samuel Sachs. In 1904, two of Sachs' sons, Arthur and Paul, joined the firm immediately after graduating from
Harvard University. == Personal life and death ==