Readers who enjoy biographies and the history of business will find food for thought in this very comprehensive history of the world's largest brokerage and investment firm, Merrill Lynch, and biography of founder Charles E. Merrill (1885-1956). Perkins, a history professor at the University of Southern California and a specialist in U.S. financial services, focuses on Merrill's business career rather than his personal life, although Perkins does delve into Merrill's upbringing near Jacksonville, FL, and his education at Amherst. Scholarly and detailed but readable, the book discusses Merrill's success with the Safeway food chain, the business climate during the 1920s and 1930s, his relationship with Edmund Lynch (who died in 1938), and the war and postwar years and his success in opening offices nationwide (100 by 1950) that attracted flocks of middle-class investors to the stock market. Perkins concludes with a look at the firm today. For business and general collections.--Steven J. Mayover, Free Lib. of Philadelphia
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith is the world's most successful brokerage firm. Perkins (History/University of Calif., Los Angeles) tells of its founder and how, with his eponymous partners, he brought the blessings of investing to the masses. Perkins focuses on Charlie Merrill as businessman, foregoing deep character delineation. In a stab at financial hagiography, comparison is made to larger-than-life folk like J.P. Morgan. Undeniably, Charlie (as he is called to this day) wielded an important influence on Wall Street and how the Street did business, but contrary to the author's manifest intent, this first published biography somehow makes him seem less a visionary than a comic strip bigwig. The narrative of Charlie, an everyday southern gent who rose to great power and wealth, never ignites. From his college days, through his days as the boss of both the Safeway grocery chain and his own Wall Street business, to his semi-retirement and ultimate demise, Charlie seems, frankly, like a tedious fellow-one with penchants for bridge, obedience to his commands, and, not least, trophy wives. (For a more passionate view, one might consult the works of his son, poet James Merrill). The founder's personal story is lightly integrated with the ascendance of Merrill Lynch. Promoting first-rate public relations, new marketing techniques as well as intensive brokers' training, Merrill Lynch did, indeed, democratize investing and became a great enterprise with branches as ubiquitous as Starbucks. But one still awaits the definitive study of MLPF&S as a business phenomenon. Meanwhile, the present text, if not animated, is clear and generally accurate (despite Perkins's grating habit of callingthe back office, where bookkeeping is done, by the more theatrical but mistaken term, "backstage"). A decent, not definitive attempt to depict, at once, the history of a business and its founder, sounding more like a curriculum vitae than a full-blown biography of Merrill and his company.
