Book Review: The Men Who Made America Rich

The last couple of years have witnessed renewed interest in the U.S. revolutionary period. Robert Wright, a professor of economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University, and David Cowen, a money manager, have contributed The Men Who Made America Rich, a thin but interesting volume concerning several individuals who were instrumental in establishing the financial institutions of post-revolutionary America.

They offer nine biographical sketches of some household names, such as Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury secretary of the new republic, and Andrew Jackson, the eighth president, who refused to renew the charter for the Second Bank of the United States.

Some are not so well known outside of academia, such as Thomas Willing, the president of the First Bank of the United States, and William Duer, a political leader during the Revolution and a freewheeling speculator who was sued by the U.S. government for "irregularities" during his stint with the Treasury Department. The impact of the unwinding of Duer's leverage not only put him in debtors prison, but sparked the first financial crisis of the new republic, the Panic of 1792.

Ironically, the history of financial markets in the U.S. is also the history of speculative excesses, panics and crises. The biographical sketches in this book make clear that from the early days of the United States, finance and financial innovation were integral to the success of the country.

Although the Federalists controlled the executive branch for the first eight years and established the First Bank of the United States, support among the Jeffersonian Democrat-Republicans was also sufficient to establish a second bank when the original institution's charter expired.