The Exchange Artist
Jane Kamensky's “The Exchange Artist” recounts the tale of Andrew Dexter, the man behind the first bank breakdown in the United States. The organization was the Farmer's Exchange Bank in remote Gloucester, Rhode Island, which Dexter obtained in 1808. The bank succeeded as it had attracted many clients by the year 1809. Dexter was an early pioneer of forceful and deceitful ways to deal with bank administration and created systems that would later add to endless bank loses over the nineteenth century. Depending on a huge measure of archival exploration, Kamensky's book painstakingly records Dexter's saving money vocation, and the businesses his banks used to fund such as the Exchange Coffee House in Boston. Kamensky a lecturer in the History Department at Brandeis University writes in an energetic exposition that is enhanced with intriguing recorded points of interest. She has inquired about each component of her story comprehensively, empowering her to recount Dexter's biography. Equally, she gives a narration about
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Exchange Coffee House from the woodworkers’ duties and bricklayers who built it, to the fire organizations that unsuccessfully endeavored to spare building (Kamensky 45). She utilizes computer produced symbolism of structural interiors. Moreover, the book empowers the reader to grasp the building's corridors as it showed up in 1809. To begin with, Kamensky’s book shows her connection with Andrew Dexter. She was entranced by his life and maybe significantly more, the loss of his personality. In 1810, almost everybody in the eastern United States had known his name. For a sometime, he was an original villain criticized in the scores of daily papers from Massachusetts to Kentucky and Alabama. The man is an outstanding example of a money-making legend. By the mid twenty-first century, he had ended up being a reference to the America’s historical account. The more the author dug through the life of Dexter, the more she was convinced that Dexter's story was significant and essential to the American history. Dexter's condition was a life of its own, flooded with the brevity and undesirable results that finally made the United States. To truly comprehend the beginnings of the country in reality where the Americans belong today, people have to figure out with both desire and disappointments (Kamensky 62). This captivating and chronicled story of the conception of theoretical enterprise freedom in America opened in the 1790s when businessman Andrew Dexter, Jr. made a fraudulent business model. He established it both on land and the banks. Equally, he uninhibitedly printed the paper cash he expected to fund the then tallest building in the United States; the Exchange Coffee House, a 153-room, seven-story monster in downtown Boston. The tale of Dexter's ascent and consequent breakdown offers a critical lesson to the rising youthful country. Moreover, the revelations present striking parallels to the current mortgage failures and approaching monetary breakdown experienced today. Andrew Dexter's life story guaranteed a lot to be borrowed by nearly every American citizen who is interested in the nation’s history (Kamensky 65). Additionally, first class traders established the initial banks in the U.S., and used them frequently for safeguarding the merchant's money. Situated in real urban areas, these establishments were extensive, conservatively manned, and were effective to meet the needs of the clients (Carnes 142). Moreover, the American economy grew and its management of accounting framework extended due to the huge quantities of deposits to new banks. The expansion of banking system resulted in the realization of key developments. Some of the new organizations withdrew from the customary methodology of the founding banks in a manner that made them delicate (Carnes 146). Others went too far into extortion. During Dexter's time, banks used papers known as bank notes that were considered as cash, yet were not recognized as a currency. Organizations were not committed to respecting the currency at the time. However, the organizations realized profits because they were guaranteed by banks to recover their profits at a standard interest. Notes were acknowledged in installments and through discounts. The process covered the expense of giving back the notes to the issuing bank, and the apparent estimation of the bank's guarantee to recover the notes. The majority of America’s first banks preserved the notes by barring issuance and kept up a sound level of special stores in respect to their dissemination (Bodenhorn 59). Andrew Dexter's incredible commitment to the historical backdrop of American style of keeping money was that his associates spearheaded procedures to sidestep this danger of note reclamation. His development was to pick up control (or possibly generous impact) at a few banks situated in far-flung places and utilize each to spread or share notes from his different banks. Initially, Dexter picked up control of a bank in Boston and extra foundations in Berkshires, Maine, Rhode Island as well as Detroit in the territory of Michigan during the period 1806-1808 (Kamensky 79). Clients in Boston received notes from Detroit while those in Berkshires received notes from Rhode Island. The travelling cost incurred for far off areas made note reclamation unconvincing, due to his "wildcat" managing an accounting procedure that was obscure to Americans at the time. Moreover, he was ready to expand his dissemination past what might have been practical. The note issuance was utilized to back advances to Dexter, which in this way were utilized to fabricate the Exchange Coffee House. Finished in 1809, this designated structure was seven stories high, far taller than other structure in the United States and had incurred a lot of money to construct.
The Exchange Coffee House was a blend perusing room, café, stock trade floor, an inn, and a general emporium for business. Besides, it was propelled by comparative establishments in different urban communities, yet considered as something much more terrific. Foundations similar to the structure had succeeded somewhere else. However, Dexter's Exchange Coffee House was based on a scale that was thoroughly out of order to the needs of Boston's vendors. Moreover, Boston's stock brokers enjoyed their stay due to the structure’s open air area (Kamensky 86). The building was never valued and was later destroyed in a fire that could not be successfully engaged by firefighters. The building was tall and the fire brigades could not pump water higher enough to reach the
glares. The high expenses and mounting obligations from the Exchange Coffee House instilled pressure on Dexter to acquire huge loans from his banks, and especially from the one where he had total control, the Farmer's Exchange Bank in Gloucester. After a short time, he was obtaining $20,000 every day from that establishment, orchestrating to have its notes delivered by messenger to Boston. In the long run, coalitions of shippers who had become mindful of the bank's practices sought out to compel other organizations to introduce notes to compete with Dexter’s banks (Bodenhorn 63). Furthermore, they induced the Rhode Island lawmaking body to explore its accounting books. At the point when the bank had shut its entry ways, Dexter owed the bank more than a half million dollars and fled with his family to Canada. It is stressful to understand how Dexter figured out how to persuade such a large number of individuals that his banks were beneficial endeavors (Rickards 119). But then it took quite a while before the confusions of his plan made up for the lost time with him and a circle of Boston traders and loan bosses started a battle to rein in the universal paper cash. A daily paper war, to a great extent the dealers' had endeavors cut Dexter down, and he was compelled to escape to Halifax, abandoning Boston where he had an enormous building with incredible potential. Conclusively, Dexter managed the Exchange Coffee House, which at seven stories
With differing economies and the growth of specie and paper money, Brands argues that the basis of knowledge about the money system of this time lays a foundation for how Carnegie, Rockefeller, and others were able to manipulate the market and gain wealth. Leading into price manipulation by those in corporate
During the 1800’s, business leaders who built their affluence by stealing and bribing public officials to propose laws in their favor were known as “robber barons”. J.P. Morgan, a banker, financed the restructuring of railroads, insurance companies, and banks. In addition, Andrew Carnegie, the steel king, disliked monopolistic trusts. Nonetheless, ruthlessly destroying the businesses and lives of many people merely for personal profit; Carnegie attained a level of dominance and wealth never before seen in American history, but was only able to obtain this through acts that were dishonest and oftentimes, illicit. Document D resentfully emphasizes the alleged capacity of the corrupt industrialists. In the picture illustrated, panic-stricken people pay acknowledgment to the lordly tycoons. Correlating to this political cartoon, in 1900, Carnegie was willing to sell his holdings of his company. During the time Morgan was manufacturing
In the summer of 1832 and Congress renewed the Bank’s charter even though it wasn’t due until 1836. Jackson hesitated to approve of the charter, so Henry Clay and Nicholas Biddle went on the offensive to attempt to persuade Jackson to pass the bill. Jackson, having had his opinion on the banks cemented by Clay’s presence in the organization, then committed to de-establishing the Second National Bank. He waged war against Biddle in particular to make sure Biddle lost power. He vetoed the bank bill, and after winning the race to be reelected, he closed Biddle’s bank. He ordered his Secretary of the Treasury to move money from the Second National Bank to smaller, state banks. When Congress returned from its summer recess, it censured him for his actions. In 1836, Bank of US was dead, and the new democratic-congressmen expunged Jackson’s censure. Because Jackson had no formal plan for managing the nation’s funds after the Second National Bank closed, it caused problems in Van Buren’s administration. He destroyed the Bank of the United States, in the main, for personal reasons. Jackson hated the bank before his presidency because as a wealthy land and slave owner he had lost money due to its fiscal policies. He believed that Congress had no right under the constitution to charter a
2) Davis, Gareth. The Destruction of the Second Bank of the United States Rationale and
The issue of whether or not America should have a National Bank is one that is debated throughout the whole beginning stages of the modern United States governmental system. In the 1830-1840’s two major differences in opinion over the National Bank can be seen by the Jacksonian Democrats and the Whig parties. The Jacksonian Democrats did not want a National Bank for many reasons. One main reason was the distrust in banks instilled in Andrew Jackson because his land was taken away. Another reason is that the creation of a National Bank would make it more powerful than...
Industrial development of the late 18th century (around 1865-1900) is often characterized by it’s affluent, aggressive and monopolistic industrial leaders of the likes of men such as Andrew Carnegie, William H. Vanderbilt, and John D. Rockefeller. Due to their ruthless strategies, utilization of trusts, and exploitation of cheap labor in order to garner nearly unbreakable monopolies and massive sums of wealth, these men are often labelled as “robber barons”. At the same time, they are also often referred to as “industrial statements” for their organization, and catalyst of, industrial development; not to forget their generous contributions to the betterment of American society. Therefore, whether or not their aforementioned advances in industry were undertaken for their own personal benefits, one cannot ignore their positive effects on America. Thus, one can conclude that not only were the captains of industry both “robber barons” and “industrial statements”, but that that these two labels, in fact, go hand-in-hand.
After he was elected as the president of the United States, the corruption with financial business got his full attention that he had to warn the nation that “Special Privilege,” which is the Second Bank of the United States, has corrupted it.[2] In this
Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, Marie Gabrielle Capet and Marie Marguerite Carreaux de Rosemond was done Adelaide Labille Guiard in 1785. It was done in Paris, France and the medium is oil on canvas. Adelaide Labille Guiard was born in 1749 and died in 1803. She was one of few to practice and master at miniatures, pastels and oil paintings. Due to male dominance in these practices, women were not accepted as pupils, due to society perception that women are not able to follow instructions as easily as men.
Ernst, Joseph Albert. Money and politics in America, 1755–1775; a study in the Currency act of
Mooney, Richard. "Banker of America." The Boston Globe 4 Apr. 1999: L1 "Powerful house of Morgan Changes with the Times." The San Diego Union-Tribune 24 Feb. 1986: 18 Sinclair, Andrew. Corsair: The Life of J. Pierpont Morgan. Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1981.
Friedman, Milton and Jacobson Schwartz, Anna. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. Princeton, 1963
Narration is one literary element of a story that controls the meaning and themes perceived by the reader. The author uses this as a way of putting themselves in their writing; they portray a personal reflection through the narrator. We see this in pieces of literature, such as Charlotte Gilman’s, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, an intense short story that critics believe to be an autobiography. Charlotte Gilman wrote this piece in 1892, around the time of her own personal mental depression, after the birth of her child. This story invites the readers into the mind of a well-educated writer who is mentally ill, and takes you through the recordings of her journal, as her mental health deteriorates so does the credibility of her writing. The author uses the element of the narrators’ mental health to create a story with different meanings and themes to her audience. Gilman uses the role of an unreliable narrator to persuade the audience’s perception of protagonists’ husband John and create a theme of entrapment.
In fighting against an aristocratic economic overtake, like many before, the Jacksonian Democrats were vehemently opposed to the encroachment upon individual economic equality. For Andrew Jackson, that threat was the Second Bank of the United States. Criticizing the National Bank because, “it appears that more than a fourth part of the stock is held by foreigners and the ...
The Bank of the United States is a symbol of the long held American fear of centralization and government control. The bank was an attempt to bring some stability and control and was successful at doing this. However, both times the bank was chartered, forces within the economy ultimately destroyed it. The fear of centralization and control was ultimately detrimental to the U.S. economy.
Imagery in literature brings a story to life for the reader. It draws the reader in and surrounds them with the environment of the narrative. The use of imagery will make the reader fully understand the circumstances under which the characters of a story live. In "The Yellow Wallpaper", by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator of the story often describes the wallpaper, each time giving more details. The vivid descriptions allow the reader into the psyche of the narrator, which illustrates her ever-deepening mental illness. The imagery presented in the wallpaper through the narrator's words show her descent into insanity coupled with her desire for independence.