Few of us Question the slips of green paper that come and go in our purses, pockets, and wallets. Yet confidence in the money supply is a recent phenomenon: prior to the Civil War, the United States did not have a single, national currency. Instead, countless banks issued paper money in a bewildering variety of denominations and designs-more than ten thousand different kinds by 1860. Counterfeiters flourished amid this anarchy, putting vast quantities of bogus bills into circulation.
Stephen Mihm is Associate Professor of History at the University of Georgia.
Table of Contents
Prologue: Confidence and the Currency 1
1 Bordering on Alchemy 20
2 Cogniac Street Capitalism 63
3 The Bank Wars 103
4 The Western Bankers 157
5 Passing and Detecting 209
6 Ghosts in the Machine 260
7 Banking on the Nation 305
Epilogue: Confidence in the Country 360
Abbreviations 377
Notes 379
A Note on Sources 428
Acknowledgments 436
Index 443
What People are Saying About This
With imaginative research and crystalline prose, Stephen Mihm casts unprecedented light on the confidence games at the heart of early American capitalism. He also introduces us to an irresistible cast of characters, whose brazen exploits provide a new frame for understanding nineteenth century economic debate. A Nation of Counterfeiters is a brilliant synthesis of business and cultural history. This is a book to take seriously.
Michael Zuckerman
Mihm brings to teeming life a world most Americans never knew existed, a world in which every single purchase was inflected with an additional layer of anxiety about the very currency in which the purchase was to be transacted. Written with exceptional intelligence and bracing wit, A Nation of Counterfeiters is fresh, fascinating and altogether original. — Michael Zuckerman, University of Pennsylvania
Bruce H. Mann
A meticulous and imaginative reconstruction of an entire counterfeit economy that intersected and overlapped with the 'legitimate' economy. A Nation of Counterfeiters is marvelous and unusual history. There really is nothing like it in the literature. — Bruce H. Mann, Harvard Law School
Richard Sylla
Stephen Mihm's elegant study demonstrates that 'making money' once had a more literal meaning, when thousands of banks printed their own currency notes and numerous counterfeiters profitably imitated them. Mihm offers an absorbing and enlightening history of the complex relations between money, national stability, and the forging of American character. — Richard Sylla, New York University
Jackson Lears
With imaginative research and crystalline prose, Stephen Mihm casts unprecedented light on the confidence games at the heart of early American capitalism. He also introduces us to an irresistible cast of characters, whose brazen exploits provide a new frame for understanding nineteenth century economic debate. A Nation of Counterfeiters is a brilliant synthesis of business and cultural history. This is a book to take seriously. — Jackson Lears, author of Something for Nothing: Luck in America
