Johnson Roger. Historical Beginnings. The Federal Reserve

Boston USA : Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 1999. — 55 p.English. Historical Beginnings…Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.As essential as our central banking system appears to be in the complex economy of the 1970s, the political and legislative struggle to create the Federal Reserve System was long and often extremely bitter, and the final product was the result of a carefully crafted yet somewhat tenuous political compromise. Indeed, until nearly the beginning of the twentieth century the United States had been a nation dominated by its frontier and its enormous expanse of rich and fertile land. Born in the dawn of the modern age, the United States in its first decades was a land of small farms and nearby towns with few cities of any consequence, and the young nation seemed far
more interested in becoming a successful experiment in democracy rather than an economic power. As a result, the institutions necessary to a commercial society-large cities, a common medium of exchange, and a mechanism to regulate that medium-were greeted with indifference if not outright hostility. Yet, America's very success as an experiment in democracy, and its tremendous agricultural production, provided the base for an urban and, ultimately, an industrial society.