Author: Donald R. Adams, Jr.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1512800015
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180
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Book Description
Stephen Girard, the second richest American of his time after John Jacob Astor, was the last of the great merchant bankers and the first of the great investment bankers. This is a study not only of an influential man and the bank he operated in Philadelphia but also of the growing interdependence between the institutions of government and finance in early nineteenth-century America. In a period when precedents were being set in a new nation and large corporations were beginning to predominate in the business of banking, Girard, a man of undisputed business acumen, established in Philadelphia what was to become the largest private bank of its time and as such a monument to free enterprise. At the same time, along with Astor and other influential financiers, Girard was instrumental in financing the War of 1812 and in establishing the second Bank of the United States. His close association with the Madison administration and the Treasury Department made him a key figure in the evolving relationship between the federal government and the financial community. Applying modern statistical techniques to the comprehensive records of the old Girard Bank, Donald Adams has uncovered a great deal of information, hitherto largely unavailable to scholars, about banking practices in early America. In this book he analyzes day-to-day operations—the kinds of loans that were typical, the devices for maintaining liquidity, the organization of staff—as well as long-run investment decisions and their impact on the formation of American finance. While other studies have been made of the anatomy and influence of early chartered and corporate banks, Adams' is the first history of America's largest private bank. It provides a rare glimpse of the inner structure and strategy of an important financial institution and of the entrepreneurial and political activities of its founder.
Author: Andy Serwer
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1588344975
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
What does it mean to be an American? What are American ideas and values? American Enterprise, the companion book to a major exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, aims to answer these questions about the American experience through an exploration of its economic and commercial history. It argues that by looking at the intersection of capitalism and democracy, we can see where we as a nation have come from and where we might be going in the future. Richly illustrated with images of objects from the museum’s collections, American Enterprise includes a 1794 dollar coin, Alexander Graham Bell’s 1876 telephone, a brass cash register from Marshall Fields, Sam Walton’s cap, and many other goods and services that have shaped American culture. Historical and contemporary advertisements are also featured, emphasizing the evolution of the relationship between producers and consumers over time. Interspersed in the historical narrative are essays from today’s industry leaders—including Sheila Bair, Adam Davidson, Bill Ford, Sally Greenberg, Fisk Johnson, Hank Paulson, Richard Trumka, and Pat Woertz—that pose provocative questions about the state of contemporary American business and society. American Enterprise is a multi-faceted survey of the nation’s business heritage and corresponding social effects that is fundamental to an understanding of the lives of the American people, the history of the United States, and the nation’s role in global affairs.
Author: Lawrence B. Glickman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300238258
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 355
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Book Description
An incisive look at the intellectual and cultural history of free enterprise and its influence on American politics Throughout the twentieth century, "free enterprise" has been a contested keyword in American politics, and the cornerstone of a conservative philosophy that seeks to limit government involvement into economic matters. Lawrence B. Glickman shows how the idea first gained traction in American discourse and was championed by opponents of the New Deal. Those politicians, believing free enterprise to be a fundamental American value, held it up as an antidote to a liberalism that they maintained would lead toward totalitarian statism. Tracing the use of the concept of free enterprise, Glickman shows how it has both constrained and transformed political dialogue. He presents a fascinating look into the complex history, and marketing, of an idea that forms the linchpin of the contemporary opposition to government regulation, taxation, and programs such as Medicare.
Author: Peter E Austin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317314719
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
In 1995, the Baring Brothers collapsed over a weekend, brought down by the 'rogue trader' Nick Leeson. Utilizing British and American archives, this work charts Baring Brothers development from wool merchants to one of the most powerful global financial institutions. It also analyses the errors which led to its downfall.
Author: Robert E. Wright
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226910296
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 219
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Book Description
When Americans think of investment and finance, they think of Wall Street—though this was not always the case. During the dawn of the Republic, Philadelphia was the center of American finance. The first stock exchange in the nation was founded there in 1790, and around it the bustling thoroughfare known as Chestnut Street was home to the nation's most powerful financial institutions. The First Wall Street recounts the fascinating history of Chestnut Street and its forgotten role in the birth of American finance. According to Robert E. Wright, Philadelphia, known for its cultivation of liberty and freedom, blossomed into a financial epicenter during the nation's colonial period. The continent's most prodigious minds and talented financiers flocked to Philly in droves, and by the eve of the Revolution, the Quaker City was the most financially sophisticated region in North America. The First Wall Street reveals how the city played a leading role in the financing of the American Revolution and emerged from that titanic struggle with not just the wealth it forged in the crucible of war, but an invaluable amount of human capital as well. This capital helped make Philadelphia home to the Bank of the United States, the U.S. Mint, an active securities exchange, and several banks and insurance companies—all clustered in or around Chestnut Street. But as the decades passed, financial institutions were lured to New York, and by the late 1820s only the powerful Second Bank of the United States upheld Philadelphia's financial stature. But when Andrew Jackson vetoed its charter, he sealed the fate of Chestnut Street forever—and of Wall Street too. Finely nuanced and elegantly written, The First Wall Street will appeal to anyone interested in the history of the United States and the origins of its unrivaled economy.
Author: Howard Bodenhorn
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195147766
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
Examines the different state banking systems in the U.S. from 1790 through 1860.
Author: Benjamin C. Waterhouse
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476766673
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 313
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Book Description
This groundbreaking account of the development of American business from the colonial period to the present explains that the history of the United States can best be understood not as a search for freedom—but as a search for wealth and prosperity. The Land of Enterprise charts the development of American business from the colonial period to the present. It explores the nation’s evolving economic, social, and political landscape by examining how different types of enterprising activities rose and fell, how new labor and production technologies supplanted old ones—and at what costs—and how Americans of all stripes responded to the tumultuous world of business. In particular, historian Benjamin Waterhouse highlights the changes in business practices, the development of different industries and sectors, and the complex relationship between business and national politics. From executives and bankers to farmers and sailors, from union leaders to politicians to slaves, business history is American history, and Waterhouse pays tribute to the unnamed millions who traded their labor (sometimes by choice, often not) or decided what products to consume (sometimes informed, often not). Their story includes those who fought against what they saw as an oppressive system of exploitation as well as those who defended free markets from any outside intervention. The Land of Enterprise is not only a comprehensive look into our past achievements, but offers clues as to how to confront the challenges of today’s world: globalization, income inequality, and technological change.
Author: Jonathan Barron Baskin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521655361
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
An overview of the role of institutions and organisations in the development of corporate finance.
Author: Thomas K. McCraw
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674067665
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 496
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Book Description
In 1776 the U.S. owed huge sums to foreign creditors and its own citizens but, lacking the power to tax, had no means to repay them. This is the first book to tell the story of how foreign-born financial specialists—the immigrant founders Hamilton and Gallatin—solved the fiscal crisis and set the nation on a path to long-term economic prosperity.
Author: Hannah Farber
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469663643
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350
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Book Description
Unassuming but formidable, American maritime insurers used their position at the pinnacle of global trade to shape the new nation. The international information they gathered and the capital they generated enabled them to play central roles in state building and economic development. During the Revolution, they helped the U.S. negotiate foreign loans, sell state debts, and establish a single national bank. Afterward, they increased their influence by lending money to the federal government and to its citizens. Even as federal and state governments began to encroach on their domain, maritime insurers adapted, preserving their autonomy and authority through extensive involvement in the formation of commercial law. Leveraging their claims to unmatched expertise, they operated free from government interference while simultaneously embedding themselves into the nation’s institutional fabric. By the early nineteenth century, insurers were no longer just risk assessors. They were nation builders and market makers. Deeply and imaginatively researched, Underwriters of the United States uses marine insurers to reveal a startlingly original story of risk, money, and power in the founding era.
