The founding fortunes : how the wealthy paid for and profited from America's revolution

Resource Information

The work The founding fortunes : how the wealthy paid for and profited from America's revolution represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Manchester City Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The founding fortunes : how the wealthy paid for and profited from America's revolution

Title remainder

how the wealthy paid for and profited from America's revolution

Statement of responsibility

Tom Shachtman

Creator

• Shachtman, Tom, 1942-

Author

• Shachtman, Tom, 1942-

Subject

• Rich people -- Political activity -- United States -- History -- 18th century
• To 1865
• United States -- Commerce | History -- 18th century
• Businesspeople -- Political activity -- United States -- History -- 18th century
• United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Finance
• United States -- Economic conditions -- To 1865
• History

Genre

• History

Language

eng

Summary

"In The Founding Fortunes, historian Tom Shachtman offers an in-depth look at a time when money became as vital as guns in securing victory on the Revolutionary War's battlefields, and how some of America's wealthiest men risked their fortunes to aid the new country even as they reaped benefits from its independence. While history teaches that successful revolutions depend on participation by the common man, the establishment of a stable and independent United States first required wealthy colonials uniting to disrupt the very system that had enriched them, and then funding a very long war. While some fortunes were made during the war at the expense of the poor, many of the wealthy embraced the goal of obtaining for their poorer countrymen an unprecedented equality of opportunity, along with independence. Tom Shachtman tells this story through tracing the lives of a dozen men who made and lost fortunes, and deeply affected the finances of the new country. In addition to nuanced views of the well-known wealthy such as Robert Morris and John Hancock, and of the less wealthy but influential Alexander Hamilton, The Founding Fortunes offers insight into the contributions of those often overlooked by popular history: Henry Laurens, the plantation owner who replaced Hancock as President of Congress; pioneering businessmen William Bingham, Jeremiah Wadsworth, and Stephen Girard; privateer magnate Elias Hasket Derby; and Hamilton's successors at Treasury, Oliver Wolcott, Jr. and Albert Gallatin. Revelatory and insightful, The Founding Fortunes provides a riveting history of economic patriotism that still resonates today"--

Assigning source

Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

973.3/1

Index

index present

LC call number

HC104

LC item number

.S53 2020

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography