Founded in 1863, the National Banking System was the monetary framework of the United States prior to the founding of the Federal Reserve in 1913. While U.S. Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase played the leading public role in its creation, two brothers, investment banker Jay Cooke and lobbyist Henry Cook, were indispensable drivers of the system’s enacting legislation.

Patrick Newman is an assistant teaching professor of economics at the University of Tampa and a fellow of the Mises Institute.
Economic History and DevelopmentEconomyFiscal Policy/Debt
Other Independent Review articles by Patrick Newman
Summer 2024 Playing the Defense: The Beef Trust, Cronyism, and the 1891 and 1906 Meat Inspection Acts
Spring 2023 Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World
Winter 2016/17 Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics and American Economics in the Progressive Era