The Museum of American Finance is the United States's only independent

public museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

dedicated to preserving, exhibiting and teaching about American finance and financial history. Located in the

Financial District A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies and other related finance corporations have their head offices. In major cities, financial districts are often home to s ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, New York City, it is an affiliate of the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

. It is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization chartered by the Board of Regents of the New York State Department of Education. With education at the core of its mission, it is an active national-level advocate on behalf of

financial literacy Financial literacy is the possession of the set of skills and knowledge that allows an individual to make informed and effective decisions with all of their financial resources. Raising interest in personal finance is now a focus of state-run progr ...

. The museum was founded in 1988 as the Museum of American Financial History but was renamed the Museum of American Finance in 2005. Until December 2006, it was located at

26 Broadway 26 Broadway, also known as the Standard Oil Building or Socony–Vacuum Building, is an office building adjacent to Bowling Green in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The 31-story, structure was designed in the Renai ...

. On January 11, 2008, the Museum opened in a new location at

48 Wall Street 48 Wall Street, formerly the Bank of New York & Trust Company Building, is a 32-story, skyscraper on the corner of Wall Street and William Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Built in 1927–1929 in the Neo ...

, the former headquarters of the

Bank of New York The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, commonly known as BNY Mellon, is an American investment banking services holding company headquartered in New York City. BNY Mellon was formed from the merger of The Bank of New York and the Mellon Fina ...

. In 2018, their building experienced a flood and as of October 2022, they remain in search of a permanent home.

Financial education

In 2010, the Museum founded its Center for Financial Education, which offers classroom programs for students in grades

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th ce ...

through masters of business administration (

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

) in addition to its tour programs. In 2011, it launched the Museum Finance Academy (MFA), an eight-week after school personal finance program open to high school juniors and seniors. In 2011–2013, the Museum partnered with

Junior Achievement JA (Junior Achievement) Worldwide is a global non-profit youth organization founded in 1919 by Horace A. Moses, Theodore Vail, and Winthrop M. Crane. JA works with local businesses, schools, and organizations to deliver experiential learning ...

to offer its "Finance Park" program within the Center for Financial Education.

Collections and exhibitions

As part of its mission to document US financial history, the Museum actively collects documents and artifacts related to the

financial markets A financial market is a market in which people trade financial securities and derivatives at low transaction costs. Some of the securities include stocks and bonds, raw materials and precious metals, which are known in the financial ma ...

, money and banking. Its world-class collection includes more than 10,000 stocks,

bond Bond or bonds may refer to: Common meanings * Bond (finance), a type of debt security * Bail bond, a commercial third-party guarantor of surety bonds in the United States * Chemical bond, the attraction of atoms, ions or molecules to form chemica ...

s, prints,

engravings Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

, photographs,

bank notes A banknote—also called a bill (North American English), paper money, or simply a note—is a type of negotiable promissory note, made by a bank or other licensed authority, payable to the bearer on demand. Banknotes were originally issued ...

, checks and books. Permanent exhibitions focus on the

, money, banking,

entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

and Alexander Hamilton. Temporary exhibitions have included "

Barings Barings LLC, known as Barings, is an international investment management firm owned by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company ( MassMutual). It operates as a subsidiary of MassMutual Financial Group, a diversified financial services organis ...

in America: An Interactive Investment Experience" (December 2012 – April 2013), " Checks & Balances:

Presidents President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

and American Finance" (November 2011 – March 2013), "Tracking the Credit Crisis" (ongoing since 2009); " Alexander Hamilton: Lineage and Legacy" (April 2011 – March 2012); "Scandal! Financial Crime Chicanery and Corruption That Rocked America" (2010–11) and "Women of Wall Street" (2009–10). The exhibit "Alexander Hamilton: Indispensable Founder and Visionary" had its grand opening on October 29, 2014. Former Secretary of the Treasury

Timothy Geithner Timothy Franz Geithner (; born August 18, 1961) is a former American central banker who served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013. He was the President of the Federal Reserve Bank o ...

cut the ribbon to open the exhibit, which is located in the Hamilton room in the museum. The exhibit was co-curated by John Herzog, Founder of the Museum of American Finance, and Mariana Oller, the Chair of the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society.This exhibit was created to commemorate the 225th anniversary of Alexander Hamilton becoming the first Secretary of the Treasury that year. The exhibit is currently one of the main attractions of the Museum, and features rare objects associated with Alexander Hamilton and his financial programs. Their collections were not harmed in the flood that closed the museum's Wall Street location in 2018.

Programs and events

Prominent speakers from across the financial industry participate in the Museum's Financial History and Practices Lecture/Symposia Series, with subject matter ranging from discussions of current financial practices to observations on significant events and individuals in America's financial history. Speakers have included

John Bogle John Clifton "Jack" Bogle (May 8, 1929 – January 16, 2019) was an American investor, business magnate, and philanthropist. He was the founder and chief executive of The Vanguard Group, and is credited with creating the index fund. An avid inve ...

, Sallie Krawcheck, David Walker, Abby Joseph Cohen, Henry Kaufman,

Niall Ferguson Niall Campbell Ferguson FRSE (; born 18 April 1964)Biography
Niall Ferguson

and Neil Barofsky. Other programs include the Lunch and Learn Series, which features talks, demonstrations and presentations during lunchtime, as well as walking tours and film screenings. The Museum's annual gala honors an individual with the Whitehead Award for Distinguished Public Service and Financial Leadership, which is named after former Deputy Secretary of State and co-chair of Goldman Sachs John C. Whitehead. Honorees have included

Paul Volcker Paul Adolph Volcker Jr. (September 5, 1927 – December 8, 2019) was an American economist who served as the 12th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987. During his tenure as chairman, Volcker was widely credited with having ended th ...

Pete Peterson Douglas Brian "Pete" Peterson (born June 26, 1935) is an American politician and diplomat. He served as a United States Air Force pilot during the Vietnam War and spent over six years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese army after his plane w ...

William Donaldson Charles William Donaldson (4 January 1935 – 22 June 2005) was a British satirist, writer, playboy and, under the pseudonym of Henry Root, author of '' The Henry Root Letters''. Life and career Son of Charles Glen Donaldson (1904–1956) an ...

Felix Rohatyn Felix George Rohatyn ( ; May 29, 1928 – December 14, 2019) was an American investment banker and diplomat. He spent most of his career with Lazard, where he brokered numerous large corporate mergers and acquisitions from the 1960s through ...

and William Harrison Jr. Since 2012, the Museum of American Finance has partnered with the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society co-hosting several events of the yearly CelebrateHAMILTON and Happy Birthday Hamilton! programs in July and January. Events included ''"The Essence of Alexander Hamilton's Greatness"'' by AHA Society founder, Rand Scholet, Hamilton vs. Jefferson historical interpreters "Debate", "Conversation with the Curators" with John Herzog, founder of the Museum of American Finance and Mariana Oller, Chair of the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society on the process of collecting original Hamilton documents and then creating the "Alexander Hamilton: Indispensable Founder and Visionary" exhibit with them, the "New Discoveries in the life of Alexander Hamilton" Talk by Author and Historian Michael E. Newton, and the presentation of his new book "Alexander Hamilton – The Formative Years".

Publications

The Museum also regularly

publishes Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

on subjects pertaining to the history of finance. Its quarterly magazine, ''Financial History'', reaches members in 50 US states and 20 other countries. The magazine publishes

vetted Vetting is the process of performing a background check on someone before offering them employment, conferring an award, or doing fact-checking prior to making any decision. In addition, in intelligence gathering, assets are vetted to determine th ...

articles by financial historians and journalists on historically significant events and individuals and other related topics in the world of finance. In 2011, the Museum commemorated the 100th issue of ''Financial History'' with a full-color double edition. The Museum also publishes books and

catalog Catalog or catalogue may refer to: *Cataloging **'emmy on the 'og **in science and technology ***Library catalog, a catalog of books and other media ****Union catalog, a combined library catalog describing the collections of a number of libraries ...

s including, most recently, ''The Revolutionary Beginning of the American Stock Market'', which features many of the documents in the "America's First IPO" exhibit.

Intellectual leadership

In 1987, John E. Herzog, then CEO of Herzog Heine Geduld, Inc., established the Museum in response to the

stock market crash A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of stock prices across a major cross-section of a stock market, resulting in a significant loss of paper wealth. Crashes are driven by panic selling and underlying economic factors. They often foll ...

of that year. He provided the bulk of the institution's early leadership and is now chairman and trustee emeritus. The Museum's intellectual leadership is currently provided by eminent financial historians, including board trustee

Niall Ferguson Niall Campbell Ferguson FRSE (; born 18 April 1964)Biography
Niall Ferguson

, chairman of the board Richard E. Sylla, President and CEO David Cowen, and ''Financial History'' magazine editorial board member

Robert E. Wright Robert Eric Wright (born January 1, 1969 in Rochester, N.Y.) is a business, economic, financial, and monetary historian and the inaugural Rudy and Marilyn Nef Family Chair of Political Economy at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dak ...

Gallery

Museum of American Finance Main Gallery by Markus Hartel.jpg, Main gallery Museum of American Finance Money Gallery by Elsa Ruiz.JPG, Money gallery Hamilton Room by Elsa Ruiz.jpg, Hamilton Room Information section by Markus Hartel.JPG, Information section

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1988 establishments in New York City Finance in the United States History museums in New York City Museums established in 1988 Museums in Manhattan Museums of economics Numismatic museums in the United States Smithsonian Institution affiliates Financial District, Manhattan Financial history of the United States