In “A History of the United States in Five Crashes,” author Scott Nations explains the five large crashes in the U.S. up until this point, and how they affected the nation. In 1987 there was yet another horrible crash of the stock market. This occurred on October 19^th, 1987, now referred to as Black Monday. All of the major world markets also fell at this time. Some potential causes of this was fear of interest rates getting higher, computerized trading being introduced, and hostility in the Persian Gulf. Despite all this, the crash was resolved fairly quickly compared to the 1929 crash, about two years. Although, the crash did have lasting impacts on the economy and how people spent their money.

In “Washington Think Tank Calculates N.A.F.T.A.’s Impact on Jobs, there is a chart and a map to explain the impact NAFTA had on the economy and jobs. This is the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was a treaty between Canada, the United States, and Mexico in 1994, which broadened the scope of trade allowed in North America. The chart and graph show that while more money came in from exports and imports, there was a large amount of job losses throughout the U.S. The greatest impact from job losses were in the places heavily dealing with trading, such as the Eastern U.S. along with Texas and California.

In “Buying into Downtown Revival: The Centrality of Retail to Postwar Urban Renewal in American Cities,” author Lizabeth Cohen mainly discusses the main argument that consumption and civic engagement are important factors in local and national history. She discusses the power of the retail market and department stores in general, especially in the New Haven, Connecticut and Boston, Massachusetts areas. Today, department stores are decreasing, and they are not a huge sect of our economy. However, in the 1940s, they were huge. Gimbel’s Department Store greatly affected the economy and culture in both Philadelphia and New York City.

In “Changing Continuity of the South,” author David Goldfield discusses the drastic changes the South between 1940 and 1980, mostly economically. Goldfield explains how his state of North Carolina is known for its higher education institutions, Research Triangle Park, and a national banking center. This shows how one state alone became a large technological and economic advancement in the nation. In 1938, a report came out saying that the South was the “Nation’s No. 1 Economic Problem,” however Goldfield argues that since this article came out the South has made great change and progress.  

In “A History of the United States in Five Crashes,” author Scott Nations explains the five large crashes in the U.S. up until this point, and how they affected the nation. In 1929, the market crashed again. The 1920s were booming, with everyone spending like they were rich. This came crashing down in October of 1929 when the stock market crashed, and the nation entered the Great Depression for the next ten years. The end of the Great Depression did not come until the start of World War II, when nearly 17 million unemployed people were given war jobs through the draft and the jobs left after people went away to war.

In “Why the Great Depression Was Great,” author Michael Bernstein discusses why the Great Depression was as massive and ongoing as it was. This depression lasted about 10 years, when most of the other recessions the nation has been through have not lasted nearly as long. Many economists try to figure out why this one lasted, and why war was the only means of getting out of it.

In “The Path to Freedom,” author Walter Greason discusses the transition of the nation from more agricultural to more industrial, as well as the Civil Rights Movement and the path that African Americans had to take. He talks about some of the first notable people in the Civil Rights generation and everything they did to invoke social change across the nation.

In “A History of the United States in Five Crashes,” author Scott Nations explains the five large crashes in the U.S. up until this point, and how they affected the nation. In 1907, the market crashed for one of the first times. There was a Panic of 1907, causing for chaos in the banks and many people believed an issue was the lack of a central bank in the United States. The Federal Reserve System was created because of this crash.

In “The Economics of World War 1,” the article discusses the economy of the United States at the time of the first World War, and how it economically affected the nation after it was over. He shares that the total cost of the war for the United States was about $32 billion. This was over half of the nation’s gross nation product. Before the war, the country was in a recession. But during the war, between 1914 and 1918, there was a boom, often what can come from wartimes. Before the U.S. entered the war, the nation maintained neutrality and many Europeans bought U.S. goods during the war. Once the country entered the war, unemployment declined massively due to all of the new manufacturing jobs and the loss of many men from the workforce in the draft. He concludes that the greatest impact that the war had on America was the lasting ideals that it put in the country, on economics and other political options.

In “DuPont’s Advertising Director Describes the Impact of World War 1,” we learn even more about World War 1 and the impact it had on the nation. This time we learn more about the advertising and business side of the issue rather than the economic side. The war had an effect on advertising because it took away many advertising opportunities, but it also added many such as the need for propaganda and other wartime needs. The war also turned advertising more patriotic, making every business realize that they are an American business and there is a big picture to it all.

In “The Star-Spangled Scotchman,” author Andrew Carnegie tells of his life along with his business partner William Coleman. The pair formed the Columbia Oil Company together in 1861. The company boomed, making the men over a million dollars in its lifetime. Carnegie was also a partner in the Keystone Bridge Company, which manufactured iron railway bridges. This company also added to his great wealth.

In “Henry Demarest Lloyd Exposes Standard Oil Monopoly,” Lloyd exposes the truth about how much kerosene we use and how this has created a monopoly for Standard Oil. He says that people use more kerosene than they do Bibles, and this intensive use of the resource is all controlled by one company, Standard Oil, which many people did not know. Technically the company produces one fiftieth-sixtieth of the petroleum, but it controls the price of all of it, and refines almost all of it. This means that the company does not have a true monopoly, how it gets away without legal trouble. This is why Lloyd exposes the company, sharing of their monopolistic ways.

In “Teddy Roosevelt Advocates Regulation,” TR discusses how the wealth of the nation was once sufficiently regulated, but with the influx of new laws and customs, adjustments on regulation needed to be made. At the beginning of his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt makes it clear in this statement that regulations need to be made to clear up the distribution and accumulation of wealth in America.

In “James Henry Hammond and the Plantation as a Business Enterprise,” author Drew G. Faust observes the life of Hammond and his plantation as these awful places were truly businesses to be managed. He compared it to “war without the glory” because of all the work and money put into it, and not getting much out of it, especially at first. Hammond was very wealthy and estimated the total value of his plantation to be over $90 thousand, and net income ended up only being $775 at the beginning. Because of this, he put many changes in place, turning the plantation into a business in order to increase profit. After his first year of management, he earned 9.5% return on his capital, a profit of almost nine thousand. As cruel as slavery was and is, Hammond using a business model on his plantation made him “successful” in relative terms.

In “The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism,” author Calvin Schermerhorn also discusses how slavery was really a business for slave masters. This seriously affected the American economy and was a huge aspect to early capitalism. North American capitalism truly developed due to every aspect of the slavery process, including trading, transport, financing and more.

This article from the New York Times details the relationship between American capitalism and slavery. First, author Matthew Desmond discusses the atrocities of American capitalism. Joel Rogers called it “low-road capitalism” meaning that business compete over the price instead of the quality of goods and wages are depressed. Because of this, poverty spreads greatly and the amount of inequality grows. Desmond explains, “The richest 1 percent of Americans own 40 percent of the country’s wealth.” This creates a broken system as the top one percent keeps growing and controlling the country. The amount of people in poverty also keeps growing while they do not have much control over this. Then Desmond points out a reason for why the system may have gotten like this. Slavery was a big source of wealth in the economy. Mississippi had the most millionaires and it was because of slavery. Cities in the South had more money than densely populated places such as New York City simply because of slavery. Despond explains that realistically slavery occurred not all that long ago in regard to history as a whole and because of this we still feel the effect that slavery has on America’s capitalistic economy.

In American Economy, the section “A Factory Girl Leads a Tour of the Lowell Mills” discusses the Lowell Mills, the textile mills in Massachusetts, named after Francis Cabot Lowell and his manufacturing system. The section is like a written tour of the factory and all the different rooms inside, explaining what is done where.

In Wright’s One Nation Under Debt, he continues to make the analogy to life from even before conception to the afterlife. Chapter 7, titled “Life” discusses the life of bondholders in Virginia and how this affected the U.S. national debt during this time. Many holders of federal bonds lived in Virginia. Most of these Virginian bondholders were Federalists, including “legal legend” John Blair. Chapter 8, titled “Blessings” is all about the growth of the American economy, and the good things that can come out of seemingly bad things. What is bad for one country can be a blessing for another. In the 1790s, the American economy got a boost due to the series of wars in England following the French revolution. Chapter 9, titled “Death and Reincarnation” is about how the American economy flourished and then dropped once again. Jackson triumphed by eliminating all of the debt by paying it all back. But all too soon he was defeated by the debt coming back with full force.

In the American Economy, an article titled “The Artist of His Country” details Eli Whitney and his plans regarding his cotton gin invention. Whitney’s own statement is included in the article where he discusses his plans and ideas for the invention and mass production as a whole. He does not want it to just be about his one machine but include more and require the great work of many parts to create the great mass production that everyone wants to achieve.

In Wright’s One Nation Under Debt, he continues to make the analogy to life from the beginning to the end. Chapter 4 is titled “Gestation,” taking meaning from the process of carrying a baby in the womb. In this case, it means the development of something over time. In this section we learn about the development of the U.S. national debt and how it relates to the Constitution. In Chapter 5, Wright discusses the “Birth” of national debt, especially in regard to “Alexander’s Grand Plan.” His plan includes paying off debts, gaining money through tariffs, and creating a national bank. These three things were his way of trying to fix the money issues in America. In Chapter 6, Youth and Maturity, Wright discusses the growing debt and how it continuously affects the country.

In the American Economy, an article titled “William M. Gouge Decries Banks as Corporations” which he wrote in 1833 is included. Throughout the article Gouge explains how banks can be compared to corporations, which he thinks is bad for the people. According to him, “Corporations are unfavorable to the progress of national wealth” due to the amount of displaced power they have. Banks trust everything to people who are paid for what they do. Because of this, Gouge says that they are less trustworthy than people who work for small companies who know their bosses well and do not form a huge corporation.

In One Nation Under Debt, author Robert E. Wright uses the metaphor of a life to explain the United States national debt. In the first three chapter he discusses “A Twinkle in the Eye,” (the importance of government debt), “Parentage” (European precedents), and “Conception” (the financing revolution). He explains the importance of our national debt and how it affects the people, as well as how it has changed so much over the past two centuries. The author discusses how the U.S. was “parented” by the English as colonies and prior to this the Europeans set many precedents for the country as a whole on debt and credit. Lastly, he discusses the creation of our debt and how it began with the birth of credit and how that affected our nation’s money supply. Just these first three chapters made me think about our debt more and how it greatly affects the nation. It is interesting to learn where all these trillions of dollars in debt came from and how it all began.

In American Economy, The Way to Wealth by Benjamin Franklin is presented. This is Franklin’s advice from his Poor Richard’s Almanac on “the way to wealth” meaning how to obtain wealth through things like agriculture, industry, and being frugal. In American Economy the reader also learns about the taxation of colonies by the British. This led to the Boston Tea Party, and eventually the American Revolution. These passages show how wealth affects our nation and how the money system can lead to war and destruction.