When Wall Street met Main Street : the quest for an investors' democracy / Julia C. Ott.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ott, Julia C., 1974-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

New York Stock Exchange--History.

New York Stock Exchange.

Securities industry--United States--History.

Securities industry.

Securities--United States--History.

Securities.

Wall Street (New York, N.Y.)--History.

Wall Street (New York, N.Y.).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (348 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The financial crisis that began in 2008 has made Americans keenly aware of the enormous impact Wall Street has on the economic well-being of the nation and its citizenry. How did financial markets and institutions-commonly perceived as marginal and elitist at the beginning of the twentieth century-come to be seen as the bedrock of American capitalism? How did stock investment-once considered disreputable and dangerous-first become a mass practice?Julia Ott tells the story of how, between the rise of giant industrial corporations and the Crash of 1929, the federal government, corporations, and financial institutions campaigned to universalize investment, with the goal of providing individual investors with a stake in the economy and the nation. As these distributors of stocks and bonds established a broad, national market for financial securities, they debated the distribution of economic power, the proper role of government, and the meaning of citizenship under modern capitalism.By 1929, the incidence of stock ownership had risen to engulf one quarter of American households in the looming financial disaster. Accordingly, the federal government assumed responsibility for protecting citizen-investors by regulating the financial securities markets. By recovering the forgotten history of this initial phase of mass investment and the issues surrounding it, Ott enriches and enlightens contemporary debates over economic reform.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction: The Quest for an Investors' Democracy

Chapter One. The Problem with Financial Securities

Chapter Two. The "Free and Open Market" Responds

Chapter Three. "Be a Stockholder in Victory!"

Chapter Four. Mobilizing the Financial Nation

Chapter five. The Postwar Struggle for the Financial Nation

Chapter Six. Swords into Shares

Chapter Seven. The Corporate Quest for Shareholder Democracy

Chapter Eight. Finance Joins in the Quest for Shareholder Democracy

Chapter Nine. "The People's Market"

Epilogue: The Enduring Quest

Abbreviations

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-674-06121-7

OCLC:

758478380