A Nation of Counterfeiters
Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States
Published on 1. July 2009
480 pages
978-0-674-04101-1 (ISBN)
Description
Prior to the Civil War, the U.S. did not have a single, national currency. Counterfeiters flourished amid this anarchy, putting vast quantities of bogus bills into circulation. Their success, Mihm reveals, is the story of the rise of a country defined by freewheeling capitalism and little government control.
More details
Edition
Digital original
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, MA; London
United States
Target group
Adult education
US School Grade: College Graduate Student
Edition type
Digital original
ISBN-13
978-0-674-04101-1 (9780674041011)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
05/2009
Harvard University Press
€37.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Stephen Mihm is Assistant Professor of History at University of Georgia.
Content
Contents Prologue: Confidence and the Currency 1. Bordering on Alchemy 2. Cogniac Street Capitalism 3. The Bank Wars 4. The Western Bankers 5. Passing and Detecting 6. Ghosts in the Machine 7. Banking on the Nation Epilogue: Confidence in the Country Abbreviations Notes A Note on Sources Acknowledgments Index List of Illustrations 1. Three-dollar note from Merchants Bank in New York, 1816 2. Five-dollar note from Abington Bank, 1859, stamped ?counterfeit? 3. Thirty-shilling note, printed in New Jersey, ca. 1764 4. Stephen Burroughs as a young man in the 1790s 5. Stephen Burroughs near the end of his life, early 1830s 6. Cogniac Street, 2001 7. Thousand-dollar note of the Bank of the United States of Pennsylvania, 1840 8. Lyman Parkes, counterfeiter, 1846 9. Counterfeit ten-dollar note, 1835 10. Satirical fifty-cent note, 1837 11. Daniel Brown, ca. 1830 12. Lucy Brown, ca. 1830 13. One-dollar note of the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company, 1837 14. Detail of Kirtland one-dollar note, 1837 15. One-hundred-dollar note of the Bank of Gallipolis, 1839 16. ?Hard Times? token, verso (back) view, 1841 17. ?Hard Times? token, obverse (front) view, 1837 18. James Brown?s house in 2005 19. ?Raised note,? ca. 1848 20. The Counterfeit Note, 1859 21. Van Court?s Counterfeit Detector, 1858 22. Thompson?s Autographical Counterfeit Detector, 1849 23. One-dollar note of the Concord Bank of Massachusetts, ca. 1850s 24. The siderographic process of engraving bank notes, 1852 25. Doctored bank notes, ca. 1848 26. Bank note illustrating Waterman Ormsby?s ?unit system,? ca. 1851 27. U.S. five-dollar note, ca. 1861 28. U.S. one-dollar note, obverse (front) view, 1862 29. U.S. one-dollar note, verso (back) view, 1862 30. Buying counterfeit Confederate notes, 1863 31. Five-dollar note of the First National Bank of Decatur, Michigan, ca. 1870 32. Five-dollar note of the Stones River National Bank of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, ca. 1872 33. Hanging of Henry Wirz at the Old Capitol Prison, 1865 34. William P. Wood, ca. 1865 35. William Michael Harnett, Still Life: Five Dollar Bill, 1877 36. Ten-dollar Federal Reserve note, obverse (front) view, 1914 37. Ten-dollar Federal Reserve note, verso (back) view, 1914
