1.
Harper's Weekly
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Harpers Weekly, A Journal of Civilization was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects and it carried extensive coverage of the American Civil War, including many illustrations of events from the war. During its most influential period, it was the forum of the political cartoonist Thomas Nast, along with his brothers James, John, and Wesley, Fletcher Harper began the publishing company Harper & Brothers in 1825. Following the successful example of the Illustrated London News, Harper started publishing Harpers Magazine in 1850, in 1857, his company began publishing Harpers Weekly in New York City. By 1860 the circulation of the Weekly had reached 200,000, among the recurring features were the political cartoons of Thomas Nast, who was recruited in 1862 and worked with the Weekly for more than 20 years. Nast was a feared caricaturist, and is called the father of American political cartooning. He was the first to use an elephant as the symbol of the Republican Party and he also drew the legendary character of Santa Claus, his version became strongly associated with the figure, who was popularized as part of Christmas customs in the late nineteenth century. Harpers Weekly was the most widely read journal in the United States throughout the period of the Civil War, so as not to upset its wide readership in the South, Harpers took a moderate editorial position on the issue of slavery. Publications that supported abolition referred to it as Harpers Weakly, the Weekly had supported the Stephen A. Douglas presidential campaign against Abraham Lincoln, but as the American Civil War broke out, it fully supported Lincoln and the Union. The photograph inspired many free blacks in the North to enlist, some of the most important articles and illustrations of the time were Harpers reporting on the war. Besides renderings by Homer and Nast, the magazine also published illustrations by Theodore R. Davis, Henry Mosler, and the brothers Alfred and William Waud. In 1863, George William Curtis, one of the founders of the Republican Party, became the editor of the magazine. His editorials advocated civil service reform, low tariffs, and adherence to the gold standard, after the war, Harpers Weekly more openly supported the Republican Party in its editorial positions, and contributed to the election of Ulysses S. Grant in 1868 and 1872. It supported the Radical Republican position on Reconstruction, in the 1870s, the cartoonist Thomas Nast began an aggressive campaign in the journal against the corrupt New York political leader William Boss Tweed. Nast turned down a $500,000 bribe to end his attack, Tweed was arrested in 1873 and convicted of fraud. Nast and Harpers also played an important part in securing Rutherford B. Hayes 1876 presidential election, later on Hayes remarked that Nast was the most powerful, single-handed aid had. After the election, Nasts role in the magazine diminished considerably, since the late 1860s, Nast and George W. Curtis had frequently differed on political matters and particularly on the role of cartoons in political discourse. Harpers publisher Fletcher Harper strongly supported Nast in his disputes with Curtis, in 1877, Harper died, and his nephews, Joseph W. Harper Jr. and John Henry Harper, assumed control of the magazine
2.
Wall Street
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Wall Street is an eight-block-long street running roughly northwest to southeast from Broadway to South Street, at the East River, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the markets of the United States as a whole. Several other major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Wall Street area, including the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, there are varying accounts about how the Dutch-named de Walstraat got its name. A conflicting explanation is that Wall Street was named after Walloons— the Dutch name for a Walloon is Waal, among the first settlers that embarked on the ship Nieu Nederlandt in 1624 were 30 Walloon families. The Dutch word wal can be translated as rampart, however, even some English maps show the name as Waal Straat, and not as Wal Straat. But soon after that, the Dutch governor, Kieft, sent his men out there one night, few of them escaped, but they spread the story of what had been done, and this did much to antagonize all the remaining tribes against all the white settlers. Shortly after, Nieuw Amsterdam erected a palisade for defense against its now enraged red neighbors. The space between the walls is now called Wall Street, and its spirit is still that of a bulwark against the people. In the 1640s basic picket and plank fences denoted plots and residences in the colony, in 1685, surveyors laid out Wall Street along the lines of the original stockade. In these early days, local merchants and traders would gather at disparate spots to buy and sell shares and bonds, Wall Street was also the marketplace where owners could hire out their slaves by the day or week. The rampart was removed in 1699, the slave market operated from 1711 to 1762 at the corner of Wall and Pearl Streets. It was a structure with a roof and open sides, although walls may have been added over the years. The city directly benefited from the sale of slaves by implementing taxes on every person who was bought, in the late 18th century there was a buttonwood tree at the foot of Wall Street under which traders and speculators would gather to trade securities. The benefit was being in proximity to each other, in 1792, traders formalized their association with the Buttonwood Agreement which was the origin of the New York Stock Exchange. The idea of the agreement was to make the more structured and without the manipulative auctions. Persons signing the agreement agreed to each other a standard commission rate, persons not signing could still participate. In 1789 Wall Street was the scene of the United States first presidential inauguration when George Washington took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall on April 30,1789 and this was also the location of the passing of the Bill Of Rights. Alexander Hamilton, who was the first Treasury secretary and architect of the early United States financial system, is buried in the cemetery of Trinity Church, in the first few decades, both residences and businesses occupied the area, but increasingly business predominated
3.
Gold reserve
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It has been estimated that all the gold mined by the end of 2011 totaled 171,300 tonnes. At a price of US$1,500 per troy ounce, reached on 12 April 2013, the total value of all gold ever mined would exceed US$8.2 trillion at that valuation. However, there are varying estimates of the amount of gold mined to date. Another reason is that countries are not particularly open about how much gold they are mining. In addition, it is difficult to account for gold output in illegal mining activities, during most of history, a nations gold reserves were considered its key financial asset and a major prize of war. A typical view was expressed in a memorandum by the British Chief of the Imperial General Staff from October 1939. The transport of many hundreds of tons of bullion presents a difficult problem, the ideal would of course be to have the gold transferred to this country or to the United States of America. The gold reserves of Belgium and Holland amount to about £70 million, note, H. M. Treasury has particularly requested that this information, which is highly confidential should in no circumstances be divulged. At present this gold is believed to be stored at Brussels and The Hague respectively, the Belgian government rushed to ship the gold to a safe place, Dakar, the capital of Senegal, then part of the French colonial empire. After the Germans occupied Belgium and France in 1940, they demanded the Belgian gold reserve back, in 1941, Vichy French officials arranged the transport of 4,944 boxes with 198 tons of gold to officials of the German Reichsbank. Since early 2011, the holdings of the IMF have been constant at 90.5 million troy ounces. The IMF regularly maintains statistics of national assets as reported by various countries and these data are used by the World Gold Council to periodically rank and report the gold holdings of countries and official organizations. On 17 July 2015, China announced that it increased its reserves by about 57 percent from 1,054 to 1,658 metric tons. The gold listed for each of the countries in the table may not be stored in the country listed. Gold leasing by central banks could place into doubt the reported gold holdings in the table below
4.
United States Department of the Treasury
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The Department of the Treasury is an executive department and the treasury of the United States federal government. It was established by an Act of Congress in 1789 to manage government revenue, the Department is administered by the Secretary of the Treasury, who is a member of the Cabinet. On February 13,2017, the Senate confirmed Steven Mnuchin as Secretary of the Treasury, the first Secretary of the Treasury was Alexander Hamilton, who was sworn into office on September 11,1789. Hamilton was asked by President George Washington to serve after first having asked Robert Morris, Hamilton almost single-handedly worked out the nations early financial system, and for several years was a major presence in Washingtons administration as well. His portrait is on the obverse of the U. S. ten-dollar bill while the Treasury Department building is shown on the reverse. Besides the Secretary, one of the best-known Treasury officials is the Treasurer of the United States whose signature, along with the Treasury Secretarys, the Treasury prints and mints all paper currency and coins in circulation through the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the United States Mint. The Department also collects all federal taxes through the Internal Revenue Service, the Congress had no power to levy and collect taxes, nor was there a tangible basis for securing funds from foreign investors or governments. The delegates resolved to issue paper money in the form of bills of credit, the Congress stipulated that each of the colonies contribute to the Continental governments funds. With the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4,1776, despite the infusion of foreign and domestic loans to pay for a war of independence, the United Colonies were unable to establish a well-organized agency for financial administration. Michael Hillegas was first called Treasurer of the United States on May 14,1777, the Treasury Office was reorganized three times between 1778 and 1781. The $241.5 million of paper Continental Dollars devalued rapidly, by May 1781, the dollar collapsed at a rate of from 500 to 1000 to 1 against hard currency. Protests against the worthless money swept the colonies and angry Americans coined the expression not worth a Continental, Robert Morris was designated Superintendent of Finance in 1781 and restored stability to the nations finances. Morris, a colonial merchant, was nicknamed the Financier because of his reputation for procuring funds or goods on a moments notice. His staff included a Comptroller, a Treasurer, a Register, and auditors, who managed the finances through 1784. The Treasury Board of three Commissioners continued to oversee the finances of the confederation of former colonies until September 1789, the First Congress of the United States was called to convene in New York on March 4,1789, marking the beginning of government under the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton took the oath of office as the first Secretary of the Treasury on September 11,1789, Hamilton had served as George Washingtons aide-de-camp during the Revolution, and was of great importance in the ratification of the Constitution. Because of his financial and managerial acumen, Hamilton was a choice for solving the problem of the new nations heavy war debt. Hamiltons first official act was to submit a report to Congress in which he laid the foundation for the financial health
5.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
6.
New York Clearing House
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The New York Clearing House Association created in 1853, is the first and largest U. S. bank clearing house and has helped the banking system in America’s financial capital to develop. Initially, it simplified the chaotic settlement process among the banks of New York City and it later served to stabilize currency fluctuations and bolster the monetary system through recurring times of panic. Since the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913, it has used technology to meet the demands of a complex banking system. In the decade before the Clearing House was founded, banking had become increasingly complex, from 1849 to 1853 –years highlighted by the California gold rush and construction of a national railroad system–the number of New York banks increased from 24 to 57. Settlement procedures were unsophisticated, with banks settling their accounts by employing porters to travel from bank to bank to exchange checks for bags of coin, or “specie. ”As the number of banks grew, exchanges became a daily event. The official reckoning of accounts, however, did not take place until Fridays, often resulting in record keeping errors and encouraging abuses. Each day, the porters would gather on the steps of one of the Wall Street banks for their “Porters’ Exchange. ”In 1853, there was a positive response and The New York Clearing House was organized officially on October 4 of that year. One week later, on October 11 in the basement of 14 Wall Street,52 banks participated in the first exchange, on its first day, the Clearing House exchanged checks worth $22.6 million. Within 20 years, the average daily clearing topped $100 million, today, the average is in excess of $20 billion. The New York Clearing House brought order to what had been a web of exchanges. Specie certificates soon replaced gold as the means of settling balances at the Clearing House, once certificates were exchanged for gold deposited at member banks, porters encountered fewer of the dangers they had faced previously while transporting bags of gold from bank to bank. Certificates relieved the strain on the cash flow, thus reducing the likelihood of a run on deposits. Member banks had to do weekly audits, keep minimum reserve levels and log daily settlement of balances which further assured more ordered, between 1853 and 1913, the U. S. experienced rapid economic expansion as well as ten financial panics. One of the Clearing House’s first challenges was the panic of 1857, when the panic began, leaders of the member banks met and devised a plan that would shorten the duration of the panic–and more importantly, maintain public confidence in the banking system. When specie payments were suspended, the Clearing House issued loan certificates that could be used to settle accounts, known as Clearing House Loan Certificates, they were, in effect, quasi-currency, backed not by gold but by discounted county and state bank notes held by member banks. Bearing the words “Payable Through the Clearing House, ” a Clearing House Loan Certificate was the joint liability of all the banks, and thus, in lieu of specie. The new monetary system, with its stringent audits and minimum reserve standards, since the inception of the Federal Reserve System, the New York Clearing House has concentrated on facilitating the smooth completion of financial transactions by clearing the payments. The clearing process, while highly structured, is in theory, member banks exchange checks, coupons and other certificates of value among themselves, after which the Clearing House records the resulting charges to their accounts
7.
Panic of 1873
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The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered a depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 until 1879, and even longer in some countries. In Britain, for example, it started two decades of stagnation known as the Long Depression that weakened the economic leadership. The Panic was known as the Great Depression until the events in the early 1930s set a new standard, the Panic of 1873 and the subsequent depression had several underlying causes, of which economic historians debate the relative importance. The first symptoms of the crisis were financial failures in the Austro-Hungarian capital, Vienna, the American Civil War was followed by a boom in railroad construction. 33,000 miles of new track were laid across the country between 1868 and 1873, much of the craze in railroad investment was driven by government land grants and subsidies to the railroads. At that time, the industry was the nations largest employer outside of agriculture. A large infusion of cash from speculators caused abnormal growth in the industry as well as overbuilding of docks, factories, at the same time, too much capital was involved in projects offering no immediate or early returns. As a result, the United States Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1873, before the Act, the United States had backed its currency with both gold and silver, and it minted both types of coins. The Act moved the United States to a de facto gold standard, the Act had the immediate effect of depressing silver prices. This hurt Western mining interests, who labeled the Act The Crime of 73, but the coinage law also reduced the domestic money supply, which raised interest rates, thereby hurting farmers and anyone else who normally carried heavy debt loads. The resulting outcry raised serious questions about how long the new policy would last and this perception of instability in United States monetary policy caused investors to shy away from long-term obligations, particularly long-term bonds. The problem was compounded by the boom, which was in its later stages at the time. In September 1873, the U. S. economy entered a crisis and this followed a period of post-Civil War economic over-expansion that arose from the Northern railroad boom. It came at the end of a series of setbacks, the Black Friday panic of 1869, the Chicago fire of 1871, the outbreak of equine influenza in 1872. In September 1873, Jay Cooke & Company, a component of the United States banking establishment. Cookes firm, like others, had invested heavily in the railroads. At a time when investment banks were anxious for more capital for their enterprises, while businesses were expanding, the money they needed to finance that growth was becoming scarcer. Cooke and other entrepreneurs had planned to build the second transcontinental railroad, cookes firm provided the financing, and ground was broken near Duluth, Minnesota, for the line on 15 February 1870
8.
Great Depression
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The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place during the 1930s. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, in most countries it started in 1929 and it was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is commonly used as an example of how far the economy can decline. The depression originated in the United States, after a fall in stock prices that began around September 4,1929. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide GDP fell by an estimated 15%, by comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s, however, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II. The Great Depression had devastating effects in both rich and poor. Personal income, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%, unemployment in the U. S. rose to 25% and in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries, farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%. Facing plummeting demand with few sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as mining and logging suffered the most. Even after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 optimism persisted for some time, john D. Rockefeller said These are days when many are discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come, prosperity has always returned and will again. The stock market turned upward in early 1930, returning to early 1929 levels by April and this was still almost 30% below the peak of September 1929. Together, government and business spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the period of the previous year. On the other hand, consumers, many of whom had suffered losses in the stock market the previous year. In addition, beginning in the mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U. S, by mid-1930, interest rates had dropped to low levels, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment were depressed. By May 1930, automobile sales had declined to below the levels of 1928, prices in general began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930
