Causes Of The Panic Of 1907
The Importance of the Panic of 1907
Peering back through time with the perspective afforded by hindsight, historians are often able to identify certain dates of importance, and to accurately characterize them as watershed events. Very often the people living through these times fail to do this because they lack the proper distance. Observing the twentieth century as a whole, the Panic of 1907 ranks as just such a watershed ("Panic of 1907", 2). It marked a turning point in the nature of government involvement (interference?) in the everyday lives of people through the medium of the banking system.
For those with conservative tendencies, the formation of the Federal Reserve system ...
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barons), into the twentieth (New Deal and the Great Society) and up to the present day (pervasive entitlement mentality).
Depending upon one's viewpoint and political leaning, the erosion of individual liberty could actually be seen as the dominant theme of the past two centuries in the United States. But, of course, those with the opposite political perspective could easily make the case that this same time period represents the equalization of prosperity to a large degree (with further progress still to be strived for and, hopefully, attained at some future point in time). Erosion on the one hand, progress on the other - the two poles of the political debate neatly encapsulated.
Yet whether one leans toward one side of this debate or the other, history has definitively proved that 1907 was an event of great magnitude and importance. The events of that year acted, some might say, as the proverbial 'last straw' that finally broke the public's confidence in a banking ...
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cash from some of its six other branches, which also faced rushes by customers, to cover withdrawals." (Williams).
Similarly, on the third day: "The run started Tuesday [...] patrons had withdrawn at least $700,000 by noon, temporarily emptying the branch's vaults." ("Bank Run").
However, the Panic of 1907, as well as many of the other panics of the nineteenth century, were not caused by insolvent financial institutions. In fact, the Knickerbocker Trust (the first major victim of the 1907 panic) eventually made good with all of its depositors by 1910. So if banks were solvent, why did they have such difficulty obtaining currency with which to pay depositors? The short answer is ...
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"Causes Of The Panic Of 1907." Essayworld.com. December 3, 2015. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Causes-Of-The-Panic-Of-1907/105242.
"Causes Of The Panic Of 1907." Essayworld.com. December 3, 2015. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Causes-Of-The-Panic-Of-1907/105242.
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