Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T10:20:11.516Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Metropolitan Development, Regional Financial Centers, and the Founding of the Fed in the Lower South

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Kerry A. Odell  and
David F. Weiman
Kerry A. Odell
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Scripps College, Claremont, CA 91711-3948.
David F. Weiman
Affiliation:
Program Director, Social Science Research Council, 810 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10019 and Professor, Department of Economics, Queens College, Flushing, NY 11367.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Lower South remained a financial outlier in postbellum America, partly because it lacked developed metropolises. As focal points of regional economic networks, metropolises spawn externalities necessary for financial intermediaries. This cumulative process was constrained in the Lower South by the plantation system and staple monoculture. Only after 1880 did metropolitan networks form around new wholesale distribution centers, notably Atlanta and Dallas. Unlike coastal ports, these cities mediated more diverse commercial and financial transactions and attracted more correspondent banks. Consequently, Atlanta and Dallas were the most likely Federal Reserve cities in their districts, a view shared by local banks.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , March 1998 , pp. 103 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Brian, Arthur W.. “Urban Systems and Historical Path Dependence.” In Cities and Their Vital Systems: Infrastructure Past, Present, and Future, edited by Ausubel, Jesse H. and Herman, Robert, 85–97. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. Atlanta as the Southeastern Center of Commerce and Finance. Atlanta: Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, 1914.Google Scholar
ATT Archives. Warren, NJ.Google Scholar
Baughman, James. “The Evolution of Rail-Water Systems of Transportation in the Gulf Southwest, 1836–1890.” Journal of Southern History 34, no. 3, (1968): 357–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Banking and Monetary Statistics. Washington, DC: GPO, 1942.Google Scholar
Bodenhom, Howard. “The More Perfect Union: Regional Interest Rates in the United States, 1880–1960.” Unpublished Manuscript. Bradsi reel's, various dates.Google Scholar
Brownell, Blame A. “The Urban South Comes of Age, 1900–1940.” In The City in Southern History, edited by Brownell, Blaine A. and Goldfield, David, 123–58. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Calomiris, Charles W., and Kahn, Charles M.. “The Efficiency of Self-Regulated Payments Systems: Learning from the Suffolk System.” NBER Working Paper No. 5442. Cambridge, MA, 01 1966.Google Scholar
Campen, James T., and Mayhew, Anne. “The National Banking System and Southern Economic Growth: Evidence from One Southern City, 1870–1900.” this JOURNAL 48, no. 1 (1988): 127–37.Google Scholar
Cannon, J. G.Clearing Houses. National Monetary Commission, Senate Document 491, 61st Cong., 2nd Sess. Washington, DC: GPO, 1910.Google Scholar
Carson, W. J. “Cotton Financing.” Federal Reserve Bulletin 9, nos. 2–6 (1923): 162–71, 319–27, 442–54, 566–76, 679–83.Google Scholar
Conzen, Michael P. “The Maturing Urban System in the United States, 1840–1910.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 67, no. 1 (1977): 88–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
David, Paul A., and Rosenbloom, Joshua. “Marshallian Factor Market Externalities and the Dynamics of Industrial Location.” Journal of Urban Economics 28, no. 3 (1990): 349–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Lance. “The Investment Market, 1870–1914: The Evolution of a National Market.” This JOURNAL 25, no. 3 (1965): 355–99.Google Scholar
Duncan, Beverly, and Lieberson, Stanley. Metropolis and Region in Transition. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1970.Google Scholar
Economides, Nicholas. “Network Externalities with Application to Finance.” Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments 2, no. 5 (1993): 89–97.Google Scholar
Garrett, Franklin M. “History of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.” Unpublished Manuscript, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Archives.Google Scholar
Garvy, George. Debits and Clearing Statistics and Their Use, revised edition. Washington, DC: GPO, 1959.Google Scholar
Gras, N. S. B.An Introduction to Economic History. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1969 ‘1922’.Google Scholar
James, John A.Money and Capital Markets in Postbellum America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
James, John A. “Financial Underdevelopment in the Postbellum South.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 11, no. 3 (1981): 443–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keehn, Richard. “Federal Bank Policy, Bank Market Structure, and Bank Performance: Wisconsin, 1863–1914.” Business History Review 48, no. 1 (1974): 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, Maury. “The Strategy of Southern Railroads.” American Historical Review 73, no. 4 (1968): 1052–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krugman, Paul. Geography and Trade. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Laurence, Laughlin J.. Banking Reform. Chicago: The National Citizens' League, 1912.Google Scholar
Lockhart, Oliver C. “The Development of Interbank Borrowing in the National Banking System, 1869–1914, Parts I and II.” Journal of Political Economy 29, nos. 2–3 (1921): 138–60, 222–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meinig, D. W.Imperial Texas. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Meyer, David R. “A Dynamic Model of the Integration of Frontier Urban Places into the United States System of Cities.” Economic Geography 56, no. 1 (1980): 120–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miron, Jeffrey A.The Economics of Seasonal Cycles. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Myers, Margaret G. The New York Money Market, Vol. 1: Origins and Development. New York: Columbia University Press, 1931.Google Scholar
Odell, Kerry A.Capital Mobilization and Regional Financial Markets: The Pacific Coast States, 1850–1920. New York: Garland Publishers, 1992.Google Scholar
Odell, Kerry A. “Take the Money and Run: What Happens When Disasters Hit Financial Centers.” Unpublished Manuscript.Google Scholar
Pred, Allan. Urban Growth and City-Systems in the United States, 1840–1860. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Price, Jacob. “Economic Function and the Growth of American Port Towns.” Perspectives in American History 8 (1974): 123–84.Google Scholar
Rand, McNally Co. The Banker's Directory of the United States and Canada. Chicago: Rand McNally Co., 1880, 1900, 1910.Google Scholar
Ransom, Roger, and Sutch, Richard. One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Robbins, Sidney J., and Terleckyj, Nestor E.. Money Metropolis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, John W.The Lusty Texans of Dallas. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1951.Google Scholar
Smith, James G. “The Concentration of Funds and Transactions in the New York Money Market with Special Reference to Bankers' Balances.” In The New York Money Market, Vol. 2: Sources and Uses of Funds, edited by Beckhart, William H. and Smith, James G., 153–284. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932.Google Scholar
Spratt, John. The Road to Spindletop. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1955.Google Scholar
Stover, John F. The Railroads of the South, 1865–1900. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1951.Google Scholar
Sylla, Richard. “Federal Policy, Banking Market Structure, and Capital Mobilization in the United States, 1863–1913.” this JOURNAL 29, no. 4 (1969), 657–86.Google Scholar
U.S. Comptroller of the Currency. Report of the Comptroller of the Currency, 1915. Washington, DC: GPO, 1915.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. Commercial Survey of the Southeast, Domestic Commerce Series, no. 19. Washington, DC: GPO, 1927.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Commerce, Cotton Production and Distribution in the Gulf-Southwest, Domestic Commerce Series, no. 49. Washington, DC: GPO, 1931.Google Scholar
U.S. Senate, Reserve Bank Organization Committee. Letter to the Federal Reserve Board Relative to the Location of the Federal Reserve Banks, Senate Doc. 485, 63rd Cong., 2nd Sess. Washington, DC: GPO, 1914.Google Scholar
Vance, James E.The Merchant's World: The Geography of Wholesaling. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970.Google Scholar
Vance, Rupert B., and Smith, Sara. “Metropolitan Dominance and Integration.” In The Urban South, edited by Vance, Rupert B. and Demerath, Nicholas J., 114–34. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1954.Google Scholar
Wall, Norman J. “Demand Deposits of Country Banks.” U.S. Department of Agriculture, Technical Bulletin, no. 575. Washington, DC: GPO, 1937.Google Scholar
Wallis, Clyde V.The Southwestern Market and Dallas as its Geographic and Economic Center. Dallas: Industrial Dallas Co., 1930.Google Scholar
Watkins, Leonard L.Bankers' Balances: A Study of the Effects of the Federal Reserve System on Banking Relationships. Chicago: A.W. Shaw, 1929.Google Scholar
Weiher, Kenneth. “The Cotton Industry and Southern Urbanization, 1880–1930.” Explorations in Economic History 14, no. 2 (1977): 120–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiman, David F. “The Economic Emancipation of the Non-Slaveholding Class: Upcountry Fanners in the Georgia Cotton Economy.” This JOURNAL 45, no. 1 (1985): 71–93.Google Scholar
Weinian, David F. “From Old South to New: Metropolitan and Regional Development in the Lower South, 1860 to 1920.” In The Changing American Countryside: Past, Present, and Future, National Rural Studies Committee Conference Proceedings, edited by Castle, Emery and Baldwin, Barbara, 37–51. Corvallis, OR: Western Rural Development Center at Oregon State University, 1995.Google Scholar
West, Robert C.Banking Reform and the Federal Reserve, 1863–1923. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
White, Eugene N.The Regulation and Reform of the American Banking System, 1900–1929. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willis, Henry Parker. The Federal Reserve System: Legislation, Otganization, Operation. New York: Ronald Press, 1923.Google Scholar
Vaim, Woodward C.. Origins of the New South, 1877–1913. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Wright, Gavin. Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy since the Civil War. New York: Basic Books, 1986.Google Scholar