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.

Early Wall Street: 1830-1940 traces the development of New York's financial district, from the low-lying city of the early 19th century, through the building boom of the 1870s and 1880s, and into the skyscraper era. A sequence of views shows 40 Wall Street as a modest three-story walk-up topped by a figure from Greek mythology, then the stately Victorian structure that replaced it, and finally, the skyscraper that missed being the tallest building in the world by a spire's length. A rare 1860s photograph captures the first New York Stock Exchange building when the marble on the exterior was still pristine. In these images, Wall Street celebrates, and Wall Street mourns. Stagecoaches clog Broadway, clipper ships dock at East River piers, and elevated trains chug through the financial district.

Early Wall Street: 18301940 traces the development of New Yorks financial district, from the low-lying city of the early 19th century, through the building boom of the 1870s and 1880s, and into the skyscraper era. A sequence of views shows 40 Wall Street as a modest three-story walk-up topped by a figure from Greek mythology, then the stately Victorian structure that replaced it, and finally, the skyscraper that missed being the tallest building in the world by a spires length. A rare 1860s photograph captures the first New York Stock Exchange building when the marble on the exterior was still pristine. In these images, Wall Street celebrates, and Wall Street mourns. Stagecoaches clog Broadway, clipper ships dock at East River piers, and elevated trains chug through the financial district.

From the end of the nineteenth century until the onset of the Great Depression, Wall Street embarked on a stunning, unprecedented, and often bloody period of international expansion in the Caribbean. A host of financial entities sought to control banking, trade, and finance in the region. In the process, they not only trampled local sovereignty, grappled with domestic banking regulation, and backed US imperialism—but they also set the model for bad behavior by banks, visible still today. In Bankers and Empire, Peter James Hudson tells the provocative story of this period, taking a close look at both the institutions and individuals who defined this era of American capitalism in the West Indies. Whether in Wall Street minstrel shows or in dubious practices across the Caribbean, the behavior of the banks was deeply conditioned by bankers’ racial views and prejudices. Drawing deeply on a broad range of sources, Hudson reveals that the banks’ experimental practices and projects in the Caribbean often led to embarrassing failure, and, eventually, literal erasure from the archives.

In this wide-ranging volume, a financial historian updates the first history of Wall Street, recounting the speculative fever of the 1990s and the scandals at Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, and Conseco. 27 halftones.

As stock prices and investor confidence have collapsed in the wake of Enron, WorldCom, and the dot-com crash, people want to know how this happened and how to make sense of the uncertain times to come. Into the breach comes one of Wall Street's legendary investors, Leon Levy, to explain why the market so often confounds us, and why those who ought to understand it tend to get chewed up and spat out. Levy, who pioneered many of the innovations and investment instruments that we now take for granted, has prospered in every market for the past fifty years, particularly in today's bear market. In The Mind of Wall Street he recounts stories of his successes and failures to illustrate how investor psychology and willful self-deception so often play critical roles in the process. Like his peers George Soros and Warren Buffett, Levy takes a long and broad view of the rhythms of the markets and the economy. He also offers a provocative analysis of the spectacular Internet bubble, showing that the market has not yet completely recovered from its bout of "irrational exuberance." The Mind of Wall Street is essential reading for all of us, whether we are active traders or simply modest contributors to our 401(k) plans, as volatile and unnerving markets come to define so much of our net worth.

Argues that post-crisis Wall Street continues to be controlled by large banks and explains how a small, diverse group of Wall Street men have banded together to reform the financial markets.