Given the failure of Professor Woody Holton to cite a sample of the secondary publications by an active group of financial historians who cover the period 1780 to 1820 in his recent note entitled Abigail Adams: Bond Speculator in the William & Mary Quarterly and in his book, Unruly Americans and the Origins of Constitution, I hereby offer a selective supplemental bibliography with the purpose of keeping interested scholars aware of the relevant scholarship in the two narrow fields of colonial financial history and early national financial history.  Sincerely, Ed Perkins

Professor Richard Sylla, Stern Business School, New York University

“Banks and State Public Finance in the New Republic, 1790-1860.”  Journal of Economic History 47 (June 1987), 391-403.  Co-authors:  John B. Legler and John J. Wallis.

"U.S. Securities Markets and the Banking System, 1790-1840." Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review 80, no.3 (May/June 1998), 83- 103.

“The Changing Nature of American Public Debt, 1690-1835," in La DettePublique aux XVlle et XIXe Siecles son Developpement sur le Plan Local, Regional et National (with John A. James), Colloque International-International Colloquium, Spa 12-16 IX 1978 Actes-Handelingen  (Brussels, 1980), 243-272.

"American Banking and Growth in the Nineteenth Century: A Partial View of the Terrain." Explorations in Economic History, 9 (Winter 1971-72), 197-227.

"Hamilton and the Federalist Financial Revolution, 1789-1795. New York Journal of American History 65, 3 (Spring 2004), 32-3.

"Emerging Financial Markets and Early U.S. Growth." Explorations in Economic History,  42 (Jan. 2005), 1-26. With Peter L. Rousseau.

"Integration of Trans-Atlantic Capital Markets, 1790-1845," Review of Finance. forthcoming 2006. (Co-authors: J. Wilson and R. Wright.)  

"Political Economy of Early US Financial Development," chap. for volume on Political Economy of Financial Institutions, Stephen Haber, Douglass C. North, and Barry Weingast, eds., forthcoming 2007.

"The Transition to a Monetary Union in the United States, 1787-1795." Financial History Review, forthcoming 2006.

 *   *   *   *   *

Professor Robert Wright, Stern School of Business, New York University

Books:

Financial Founding Fathers: The Men Who Made America Rich.  (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). With David Jack Cowen.

The First Wall Street: Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, and the Birth of American Finance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

The Wealth of Nations Rediscovered: Integration and Expansion in American Financial Markets. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Hamilton Unbound: Finance and Creation of the American Republic. (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002).

Origins of Commercial Banking in America, 1750-1800. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001).

Articles:

"Thomas Willing (1731-1821): Philadelphia Financier and Forgotten Founding Father." Pennsylvania History (Fall 1996), 525-560.

"The First Phase of the Empire State's 'Triple Transition': Banks' Influence on the Market, Democracy, and Federalism in New York, 1776-1838," Social Science History (Winter 1997), 521-558.

"Ground Rents Against Populist Historiography: Mid-Atlantic Land Tenure, 1750-1820," Journal of Interdisciplinary History (Summer 1998), 23-42.

"Artisans, Banks, Credit, and the Election of 1800,"  Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (July 1998), 211-239.

"Bank Ownership and Lending Patterns in New York and Pennsylvania, 1781-1831," Business History Review (Spring 1999), 40-60.

"A Historiographical Overview of Early U.S. Finance (1784-1836): Institutions, Markets, Players, and Politics." Commissioned essay for the National Park Service, 1999. Co-author: David Cowen.

 *   *   *   *   *

Professor Edwin J. Perkins, History Department, University of Southern California

Books:

American Public Finance and Financial Services, 1700- 1815. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1994).

The Economy of Colonial America. 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).

Financing Anglo-American Trade: The House of Brown, 1800-1880. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975). 

Perkins on U.S. Financial History and Related Topics. Forthcoming from University Press of America in 2009.  This edited volume includes all the articles and manuscripts listed below.

Articles:

"Conflicting Views on Fiat Currency: Britain and Its North American Colonies in the Eighteenth Century," Business History, XXXIII (1991), no. 3, pp. 8-30.

"The Entrepreneurial Spirit in Colonial America: The Foundations of Modern Business History." Business History Review, LXIII (1989), 160-186.

"Madison' Debt Discrimination Proposal Revisited: The Application of Present Value Financial Analysis." Unpublished ms. available on request from the author—12 pages.

"Jeffersonian Principles and the Shaping of American Financial Services, 1790-1815." Unpublished ms. available on request from the author—14 pages.

*   *   *   *   *

Professor Peter Rousseau, Economics Department, Vanderbilt University

"A Common Currency: Early U.S. Monetary Policy and the Transition to the Dollar," Financial History Review, 13:1 (March, 2005), 97-122.

"Emerging Financial Markets and Early US Growth," Explorations in Economic History,  42 (Jan. 2005), 1-26. With Richard Sylla.  

 *   *   *   *   *

Professor Farley Grubb, Economics Department, University of Delaware

"The Constitutional Creation of a Common Currency in the U.S., 1748-1811: Monetary Stabilization Versus Merchant Rent Seeking," in Jurgen Nautz and Lars Jonung, eds., Conflict Potential in Monetary Unions.  Stuttgart: Steiner Vering, 2007, pp. 19-60.

"The Net Worth of the U.S. Federal Government, 1784-1802," American Economic Review—Papers and Proceedings, Vol. 97, No. 2, pp. 280-284, May, 2007.

"The U.S. Constitution and Monetary Powers: An Analysis of the 1787 Constitutional Convention and How a Constitutional Transformation of the Nation's Monetary System Emerged." Financial History Review, Vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 43-71, April 2006.

"State Currencies and the Transition to the U.S. Dollar: Reply-Including a New View from Canada."  American Economic Review, Vol. 95, no. 4, pp. 1341-1348, Sept. 2005

"The Circulating Medium of Exchange in Colonial Pennsylvania , 1729-1775: New Estimates of Monetary Composition, Performance, and Economic Growth,"  Explorations in Economic History, Vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 329-360, Oct. 2004

"Creating the U.S. Dollar Currency Union, 1748-1811: A Quest for Monetary Stability or a Usurpation of State Sovereignty for Personal Gain?"  American Economic Review, Vol. 93, no. 5, pp. 1778-1798, Dec. 2003   

**Bibliography compiled by Edwin Perkins, History, emeritus, University of Southern California.  E-mail contact: perkinsej@aol.com

If you like this bibliography consider making a donation.

*   *   *   *   *

Responses

Dear Professor Perkins,

Thanks for the bibliography to which you refer above.   I touch on such matters, unavoidably, in my courses on American Literary and Intellectual History.   But while I had previously glanced at Holton's book, I am so biased towards Charles Beard, Richard Hofstadter, and Bray Hammond that I have been suspicious of Alfred Young, Gary Nash, Holton, and others who romanticize or sentimentalize populist influences on the Revolution and/or the Constitution.   Governments exist, as Madison wrote in Federalist 10, in order to protect "faculties."  Aside from any moral considerations Madison (like Lenin) got it right. Thanks again,  Wilson J. Moses

*   *   *   *   *

posted 21 September 2008