100 Years of Wall Street
RELIVE 100 YEARS OF
SENSATIONAL EVENTS AND UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTERS FROM THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS STREET
FOR THE FIRST TWO DECADES OF
THE 20TH CENTURY, Wall Street was unsafe for the individual investor; today, millions of
ordinary Americans feel secure placing their nest eggs and retirement accounts in a
soaring market. How did the shark-infested waters of the world's most famous, if not
notorious, street become the trusted center of global finance? How has The Street
developed under the mixed stewardship of entrepreneurial wizards, swindlers,
visionaries and government regulators?
100 Years of Wall Street, a
richly illustrated popular history of the American century's greed and ingenuity,
catastrophes and triumphs, is also the very human story of rich and powerful men whose
actions changed the shape of the economic landscape often overnight. J.P. Morgan, Andrew
Carnegie, Michael Milken each in his own way had enormous influence over the way other
people would live their lives.
Best-selling author Charles
R. Geisst's dramatic narrative singles out the important historical events while
interweaving profiles of forceful personalities, behind-the-scenes anecdotes and curious
facts to produce a kaleidoscopic view of "The Street." In addition to the 150
photographs, most of them rarely reproduced, there are charts to explain historical
convulsions in the markets and reproductions of such memorabilia as early mutual fund
literature and stock certificates from mining and railroad companies.
An introduction to Wall
Street lore that reveals many aspects of history that will be unfamiliar even to
knowledgeable investors and investment professionals, 100 Years of Wall Street is very
much the story of America itself. From Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting to the booming
Reagan years to the electric economy of the present, the fortunes of Wall Street have
reflected or directed many of the aspirations, achievements and miscalculations of the
nation as a whole.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
CHARLES R. GEISST'S PREVIOUS
BOOK, Wall Street: A History (1997), was a New Yo^ Times Business Bestseller and a
selection of the History Book Club and the Book-of-thc-Month Club International. The
author of 11 other books, Geisst is professor of finance at Manhattan College in New York.
Formerly a capital markets analyst and investment banker in the City of London, he is also
an experienced consultant in financial markets with such clients as Cazenove & Co.,
S.G. Warburg & Co., the Hudson Institute and J.P. Morgan & Co. A frequent guest on
radio and television programs about business and finance, Geisst also has published widely
in professional journals and news magazines.
179 pages