When Wall Street met Main Street : the quest for an investors' democracy / Julia C. Ott.
Ott, Julia C., 1974-
2011
HG4572 .O87 2011 (Mapit)
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Title When Wall Street met Main Street : the quest for an investors' democracy / Julia C. Ott.
Author Ott, Julia C., 1974-
ISBN 9780674050655 (alk. paper)
0674050657 (alk. paper)
Imprint Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011.
Language English
Description 313 p., [26] p. of plates : ill., maps. ; 24 cm.
Call Number HG4572 .O87 2011
Dewey Decimal Classification 332.64/273
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.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Record Appears in On-Campus Resources > Books
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Introduction : the quest for an investors' democracy
The problem with financial securities
The "free and open market" responds
"Be a stockholder in victory!"
Mobilizing the financial nation
The postwar struggle for the financial nation
Swords into shares
The corporate quest for shareholder democracy
Finance joins in the quest for shareholder democracy
"The people's market"
Epilogue : the enduring quest.

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