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The edges of two credit cards, prominently displaying the MasterCard and Visa logos.

Our Plastic Obsession

The story of credit cards is the story of industry versus regulators. Industry won.
by Richard Vague via Democracy Journal on December 12, 2024
Crowd marching on Wall Street.

Nationalize the Banks

Grassroots support for public banks early in the 20th century revealed the popularity of socialism-aligned economic ideas.
by Christopher W. Shaw via Catalyst on September 20, 2024
The Tontine Building, Wall Street, New York, 1797.

From “Boring” to “Roaring” Banking

On the mechanics of Wall Street’s influence on key institutions of American democracy, from the New Deal to today.
by Anna Pick via Public Seminar on April 29, 2024
A advertisement for the BankAmericard depicting it as a card for the American family.

How Did America Become the Nation of Credit Cards?

Americans have always borrowed, but how exactly did their lives become so entangled with the power of plastic cards?
by Sean H. Vannatta via Aeon on April 22, 2024
Uncle Sam on ladder hanging up Postal Savings Bank sign

A People’s Bank at the Post Office

The Postal Savings System offered depositors a US government-backed guarantee of security, but it was undone by for-profit private banks.
by Matthew Wills, Christopher W. Shaw via JSTOR Daily on April 16, 2024
Depositors of a failed bank hold a protest during the Great Depression.

A Decisive Influence: The American Public’s Role in Financial Regulation

The history of grassroots banking politics has been overlooked — and even denied.
by Christopher W. Shaw via Process: A Blog for American History on March 12, 2024
The Vessel in New York City.

Stumbling Into Submission: How Real Estate And Finance Capital Conquered New York City

Hudson Yards received a $6 billion cocktail of public subsidies, including tax breaks and infrastructure improvements, to create a billionaires' playground.
by Katelin Penner via The Metropole on September 6, 2023
Political cartoon of the Lincoln Administration, reading "Running the 'Machine'", 1864.

Blues, Grays & Greenbacks

How Lincoln's administration financed the Civil War and transformed the nation's decentralized economy into the global juggernaut of the postwar centuries.
by Nicholas Guyatt via New York Review of Books on May 4, 2023
Image of Jewish Daily Forward Day after bank closed

The Bank Of United States

East European Jews and the lost world of immigrant banking.
by Rebecca Kobrin via The Gotham Center on December 21, 2021
William Wells Brown

William Wells Brown, Wildcat Banker

How a story told by a fugitive from slavery became a parable of American banking gone bad.
by Ross Bullen via The Public Domain Review on November 24, 2021
Black employees photographed at St. Luke Penny Savings Bank

The Forgotten Stories of America's Black Wall Streets

A century after the Tulsa Race Massacre, what happened there is finally more widely known—but other "Black Wall Street" stories remain hidden.
by Olivia B. Waxman, Arpita Aneja via TIME on May 28, 2021
Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders
partner

Postal Banking is Making a Comeback. Here’s How to Ensure it Becomes a Reality.

Grass-roots pressure will be key to turning the idea into reality.
by Christopher W. Shaw via Made By History on July 21, 2020
partner

Citibank: Exploiting the Past, Condemning the Future

In 2011, Citigroup published a 300-page 200th anniversary commemoration Celebrating the Past, Defining the Future. Is it a past to celebrate?
by Alan J. Singer via HNN on November 3, 2019
Bank of England.

The Invention of Money

In three centuries, the heresies of two bankers became the basis of our modern economy.
by John Lanchester via The New Yorker on July 29, 2019
Workers with a steam plough on a sugar plantation in Puerto Rico.

How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean

The expansion of banks like Citigroup into Cuba, Haiti, and beyond reveal a story of capitalism built on blood, labor, and race.
by Peter James Hudson via Boston Review on June 18, 2019
Crowd at New York's American Union Bank during a bank run early in the Great Depression.

Rewarding Risk

Federal deposit insurance and the 1980s bank crisis.
by Kathleen Day via Perspectives on History on April 3, 2019

Banking Against (Black) Capitalism

A review of "The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap."
by Armond Towns, Carolyn Hardin via Los Angeles Review of Books on March 19, 2018

For People of Color, Banks Are Shutting the Door to Homeownership

Reveal’s analysis of mortgage data found evidence of modern-day redlining in 61 metro areas across the country.
by Aaron Glantz, Emmanuel Martinez via Reveal on February 15, 2018
Customers at an African American bank in Harlem.
partner

We Need More Government, Not Less, in The War on Poverty

The myth of the “dependent” poor.
by Mehrsa Baradaran via Made By History on December 8, 2017

The Rise and Fall of Black Wall Street

Richmond was the epicenter of black finance. What happened there explains the decline of black-owned banks across the country.
by Alexia Fernández Campbell via The Atlantic on August 31, 2016
Bank in Revere, Massachusetts.

Partisan Banking and the Emergence of Free Banking in Early 19th-Century Massachusetts

The critical role that banking played in the political struggles of early American history.
by Nicholas Curott via Dissertation Reviews on April 21, 2016

A Brief History of the ATM

How automation changed retail banking.
by Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo via The Atlantic on March 26, 2015
A political cartoon of Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland emptying the U.S. treasury.

Radical Tariffs Aren’t New, But They Have Been Disastrous

An American story.
by Scott Reynolds Nelson via Perspectives on History on April 14, 2025
Collage of shattered photos of Bear Stearns, George W. Bush, and law enforcement officers.

The Weekend That Shook the World

Lessons from Bear Stearns's collapse 17 years ago.
by Garrett M. Graff via Washington Post on April 1, 2025
Farmer working a mule-drawn plow.

Racism Isn’t the Only Cause of the Racial Wealth Gap

Widening the lens to capitalism itself could yield insights on how to close the gap.
by Eric Herschthal via The New Republic on March 6, 2025

Opus Dei, Embezzlement, and Human Trafficking

The Catholic order has branches all over the world, and a deep history of unethical and illegal behavior.
by Mark Oppenheimer, Gareth Gore via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on January 21, 2025
Photo illustration of Luigi Mangione and John Dillinger.

Why the CEO Shooter Makes the Perfect American Folk Hero

Our country has a long history of admiring particular acts of violence.
by Elliott Gorn via Slate on December 18, 2024
Advocates of student loan forgiveness protest outside the Supreme Court.

Reflections on the Geopolitical Roots of U.S. Student Loan Debt

The emergence of student loan debt in the late 1960s can be situated within a broader shift towards neoliberal governance.
by Britain Hopkins via Process: A Blog for American History on October 29, 2024
Percentage sign written in clouds.

The Federal Reserve’s Little Secret

No one really knows how interest rates work—not the experts who study them, the investors who track them, or the officials who set them.
by Rogé Karma via The Atlantic on June 27, 2024
Zoology plate of parasitic worms.

Is Finance a "Parasite"?

Tracing financial capital—from J. P. Morgan to BlackRock.
by Anna Pick, Scott Aquanno, Stephen Maher via Public Seminar on June 25, 2024
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