Wall Street to Main Street: Charles Merrill and Middle-Class Investors

by Edwin J. Perkins

• ISBN13: 9780521027793
• ISBN10: 0521027799
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-11-02
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Wall Street to Main Street focuses on the spectacularly successful career of financier Charles Merrill (1885-1956), the founder of Merrill Lynch & Co., the world's largest brokerage and investment firm. Merrill was the most innovative entrepreneur in the United States financial services sector in the twentieth century and the most important figure in promoting common stocks as a prudent long-term investment vehicle for members of the American middle class. With more than 100 branch offices across the nation, his firm solicited millions of middle-class households and became famous for bringing Wall Street to Main Street in the post-World War II era. Today, American investors hold, either directly or indirectly through mutual funds, a greater percentage of common stocks in their financial portfolios than do the citizens of any other country. Based on archival sources, this book is the first biography published about the career of this major Wall Street figure.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
1 The Return to Wall Street	1	(13)
2 Growing Up in Florida	14	(21)
3 A Northern Education	35	(17)
4 The Lure of New York	52	(15)
5 Off to a Flying Start	67	(18)
6 The Booming Twenties	85	(24)
7 The Safeway Decade	109	(18)
8 Reform on Wall Street	127	(17)
9 Third Career: New Strategies on Wall Street	144	(18)
10 Testing New Strategies: The War Years	162	(19)
11 Sharing Power with Win Smith	181	(12)
12 The Postwar Years, 1945-1950	193	(17)
13 Last Years at the Helm, 1951-1956	210	(27)
14 Merrill's Legacy	237	(20)
Epilogue: Merrill Lynch in the 199os	257	(8)
Appendix: Unpublished Manuscripts	265	(8)
Bibliography	273	(8)
Index	281