Volume II which covers 1900 to 1975, marks an improvement. Markham is on more solid ground, and most of his entries ring true. His coverage broadens to include greater detail on insurance, consumer finance, mortgage lending, and other complementary financial services. Some of the facts in different sections appear contradictory, however. For example, he states that the nation had as many as 18 million stockholders in 1929, but a later entry indicates that brokerage firms had a mere 1.5 million active accounts that same year. Were there 16.5 stockholders without brokerage accounts? Doubtful. In most accounts of the 1920s boom and crash, writers have typically put the figure at 10 million or higher, whereas I believe thenumber was under 5 million and perhaps as low as 3 million stockholders. I could cite more instances of questionable assertions in the text, but we must move on. This three-volume publication defies a normative description. Covering the entire span of U.S. history from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, it is perhaps best identified as a chronologically organized encyclopedia, or a gazette, of American financial services. The coverage is undeniably comprehensive. Jerry Markham focuses broadly on the monetary system, commercial banking, savings and loans, investment banking, securities brokerage, consumer credit, insurance companies, and many of their precursors. Totaling over 1,300 pages, the detail is overwhelming and intimidating.
The first comprehensive financial history of the United States in more than thirty years. Accessible to undergraduate level readers, it focuses on the growth and expansion of banking, securities, and insurance from the colonial period right up to the incredible growth of the stock market during the 1990s and the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.
The author traces the origins of American finance to the older societies of Europe and Northern Africa, and shows how English merchants transferred their financial systems to America. He explains how financial matters dominated the founding and development of the colonies, and how financial concerns incited the Revolution. And he shows how the Civil War began the transformation of America from a small economy largely dependent on foreign capital into a complex capitalist society. From the Civil War, the nation's financial history breaks down into periods of frenzied speculation, quiet growth, periodic panics, and furious periods of expansion, right up through the incredible growth of the stock market during the 1990s.
List of Illustrations -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. A New Century: 1. The Twentieth Century Begins -- 2. Insurance, Banking, and Underwriting -- 3. The Panic of 1907 -- 4. The Federal Reserve and the Money Trust -- 5. Banking and Securities Before the War -- Chapter 2. America Enters the War: 1. World War I -- 2. War and the Stock Market -- 3. The Futures Markets -- 4. Banking in the Twenties -- Chapter 3. The Crash: 1. The Stock Market Expands -- 2. The Market Surge and Investment Trusts -- 3. The Stock Market Crash of 1929 -- 4. The Banking Crisis -- 5. Congress Investigates the Stock Market -- Chapter 4. Regulating Finance : 1. Monetary Policy and the Depression -- 2. The Federal Securities Laws -- 3. Commodity Market Reforms -- 4. The Market Suffers -- 5. Investment Companies and Insurance Regulation -- Chapter 5. War and the Rebuilding of Finance: 1. World War II and Finance -- 2. After the War -- 3. Korea and the War on the Investment Bankers -- 4. The Fed and the 1950s -- Chapter 6. A New Era Begins: 1. Institutional Investors -- 2. Banking, Gold, and Trading -- 3. The Securities Markets -- 4. Institutions and Paperwork -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Name Index -- Subject Index.
