HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW
ABOUT FINANCIAL HISTORY?
continued from page 37
in inventiveness to survive and thrive
through depressions, recessions, world
wars and a technological revolution.”
Deluxe was built into a first rate American
business and is now in the business of
building other businesses.
Bart Ward is CEO of the Investment
Advisory firm of Ward & Company, Ltd.
Since 1993 he has written the weekly Wall
Street history and market-oriented column, “The Corner.” He has his degree in
history from UCLA.
“Celebrating a Century:100 Years of Innovation.”
Deluxe Corporation Annual Report. 2014.
“The Federal Reserve System — Purposes and
Functions.” Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Ninth Edition. 2005.
“Getting Through Transition Is Not Easy, but
Transition Represents a Path to Follow.”
Deluxe Corporation Annual Report. 2005.
International Directory of Company Histories.
“John H. Harland Company, Vol. 17.” St.
James Press. 1997.
Sources
International Directory of Company Histories.
“Deluxe Corporation, Vol. 22.” St. James
Press. 1998.
Blake, Terry. A History of Deluxe Corporation:
1915–1990. Deluxe Corporation. 1990.
O’Neil, Erin. “The History of the Checking
Account.” Banks.com. February 7, 2014.
“A Brief History of Checking.” Pearson Education, Inc. 2007.
Woodards, Chris. “A Brief History of Checking
Accounts.” Ezine Articles. January 3, 2011.
Cross of Gold
continued from page 23
maintaining a gold reserve of $150 million
in gold coin and bullion.
On April 5, 1933, during his first term
as president in the dark days of the Great
Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt dealt
a body blow to the gold standard by
ordering all gold coins, gold bullion and
gold certificates turned into the Federal
Reserve at the price of $20.67 per ounce,
increased two months later to $35 per
ounce. With this tactic, Roosevelt sought
to counter the deflation, which he believed
was holding back the economy.
Almost four decades later, on August 15,
1971, President Richard Nixon, in an effort
to head off a pending international gold
run and to combat domestic inflation,
announced that the United States would
no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed
price. It was the last gasp of American
allegiance to the gold standard.
In 1953, a poll of 277 professors of
American history or government found
William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold”
speech to be among the top 50 “most significant” documents in the history of the
United States.
Ron Hunka, a freelance writer who lives
in Austin, Texas, has written several
articles for Financial History about notorious frauds, mainly in Texas. Elsewhere,
he has published articles about the history of notable castles and monasteries he
visited in Germany, Austria, Switzerland
and Liechtenstein.
Sources
Berg, A. Scott. Wilson. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 2013.
Bryan, Steven. The Gold Standard at the
Turn of the Twentieth Century. New York:
Columbia University Press. 2010.
Encyclopedia of American History. The Development of the Industrial United States, 1870
to 1899, Revised Edition, vol. VI. “Coinage
Act, 1873.”
Kazin, Michael. A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc., 2006.
Leinwand, Gerald. William Jennings Bryan: An
Uncertain Trumpet. Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers, Inc. 2007.
TRIVIAQUIZ
By Bob Shabazian
1. Who was Ida May Fuller?
2. What is the Fed Funds Rate?
3. Forbes magazine recently ranked the
NFL Dallas Cowboys as the world’s
most valuable sports franchise. What
is its estimated value?
4. When did coal production begin in
the United States?
5. How is a company’s market
capitalization determined?
6. What distinguishes a bear market
from a market correction?
7. Volatile markets can result in wild
swings in the Dow Jones Industrial
Average. What was the largest single
day point drop in this average?
What was the biggest single day
percentage loss?
8. The S&P 500 stock index closed
above 100 on June 4, 1968. How
many years went by before it closed
above 1,000?
9. The Federal Reserve System consists
of 12 regional banks. Who heads the
New York Federal Reserve Ban