Marriner Stoddard Eccles (September 9, 1890 – December 18, 1977) was an American economist and banker who served as the 7th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1934 to 1948. After his term as chairman, Eccles continued to serve as a member of the

Federal Reserve Board of Governors The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, commonly known as the Federal Reserve Board, is the main governing body of the Federal Reserve System. It is charged with overseeing the Federal Reserve Banks and with helping implement the m ...

until 1951. Eccles was known during his lifetime chiefly as having been the Chairman of the Federal Reserve under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He has been remembered for having anticipated and supporting the theories of

John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in ...

relative to "inadequate aggregate spending" in the economy which appeared during his tenure. Timberlake, Richard
"The Tale of Another Chairman:
... e legacy of W.M. Martin and Marriner Eccles, former Fed chairmen", ''The Region'' (

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...

magazine), June 1999. Retrieved March 29, 2012. As Eccles wrote in his memoir ''Beckoning Frontiers'' (1951):

As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth ... to provide men with buying power. ... Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929–1930 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. ... The other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.

Early life

Born in

Logan, Utah Logan is a city in Cache County, Utah, United States. The 2020 census recorded the population was 52,778. Logan is the county seat of Cache County and the principal city of the Logan metropolitan area, which includes Cache County and Franklin ...

to David and Ellen (Stoddard) Eccles, a Mormon polygamist family, on September 9, 1890. He was the eldest of the nine children by Ellen Stoddard, David Eccles' second wife. His family was extended by another twelve siblings from his father's first wife. Eccles was educated at the public schools of Baker, Oregon and attended

Brigham Young College Brigham Young College was a college and high school in Logan, Utah. It was founded by Brigham Young on 6 August 1877, 23 days before his death. He deeded several acres of land to a board of trustees for the development of a college. This was ...

and served a

Latter-day Saint Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into sev ...

mission to

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. After his mission, while working in a family enterprise in Blacksmith Fork Canyon, he learned of the untimely death of his father, David Eccles.

Career

He was subsequently able to reorganize and consolidate the assets of his father's industrial

conglomerate Conglomerate or conglomeration may refer to: * Conglomerate (company) * Conglomerate (geology) * Conglomerate (mathematics) In popular culture: * The Conglomerate (American group), a production crew and musical group founded by Busta Rhymes ** ...

and banking network. Eccles expanded the banking interests into a large western chain of banks called Eccles-Browning Affiliated Banks. He was a millionaire by age 22. The company withstood several

bank run A bank run or run on the bank occurs when many clients withdraw their money from a bank, because they believe the bank may cease to function in the near future. In other words, it is when, in a fractional-reserve banking system (where banks no ...

s during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

and, as a leading banker, Eccles became involved with the creation of the

Emergency Banking Act __NOTOC__ The Emergency Banking Act (EBA) (the official title of which was the Emergency Banking Relief Act), Public Law 73-1, 48 Stat. 1 (March 9, 1933), was an act passed by the United States Congress in March 1933 in an attempt to stabilize t ...

of 1933 and the

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is one of two agencies that supply deposit insurance to depositors in American depository institutions, the other being the National Credit Union Administration, which regulates and insures cr ...

. After a brief stint at the Treasury Department and with the support of treasury secretary

Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Henry Morgenthau Jr. (; May 11, 1891February 6, 1967) was the United States Secretary of the Treasury during most of the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He played a major role in designing and financing the New Deal. After 1937, while s ...

, Eccles was appointed by President Roosevelt as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Eccles was reappointed chairman in 1936, 1940, and 1944 and served until 1948. In February 1944, Roosevelt appointed Eccles for another 14-year term on the board and Eccles stayed on the

board Board or Boards may refer to: Flat surface * Lumber, or other rigid material, milled or sawn flat ** Plank (wood) ** Cutting board ** Sounding board, of a musical instrument * Cardboard (paper product) * Paperboard * Fiberboard ** Hardboard, a ty ...

until 1951, when he resigned a few months after the

1951 Accord This article is about the history of the United States Federal Reserve System from its creation to the present. Central banking prior to the Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System is the third central banking system in United States hist ...

. Eccles had also participated in post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Bretton Woods negotiations that created the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

and

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...

. Eccles retired to

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

in 1951 to run his companies and write his memoirs, titled ''Beckoning Frontiers: Public and Personal Recollections''. He further consolidated industrial and family assets, finally organizing a series of foundations representing assets that he had managed for various family members. These foundations have served Utah and the

Intermountain West The Intermountain West, or Intermountain Region, is a geographic and geological region of the Western United States. It is located between the front ranges of the Rocky Mountains on the east and the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada on the wes ...

in support of educational, artistic, humanitarian, and scientific activities. He died in

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, t ...

in 1977 and was entombed in the Larkin Sunset Lawn Mausoleum.

Personal life

In 1913, he married the former May Campbell Young. The couple did not have a happy marriage, caused partly by Eccles' lack of attention towards her, and although they were legally married 35 years until their divorce in 1948, they separated soon after the marriage and lived largely separate lives. His grand-niece, Hope Eccles, is married to former

Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve The vice chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is the second-highest officer of the Federal Reserve, after the chair of the Federal Reserve. In the absence of the chair, the vice chair presides over the meetings Board of ...

Randal Quarles Randal Keith Quarles (born September 5, 1957) is an American private equity investor and attorney who served as the first Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve for supervision from 2017 to 2021. He concurrently served as the chair of the Financial ...

Legacy

Eccles was and is seen as an early proponent of demand stimulus projects to fend off the ravages of the

. Eccles was famously rebuked by Congresswoman Jessie Sumner ( R, IL) during a House of Representatives hearing on the increasingly liberal policies of the Roosevelt administration and the Federal Reserve, when she said, "''you'' just love socialism." He became known as a defender of

Keynesian Keynesian economics ( ; sometimes Keynesianism, named after British economist John Maynard Keynes) are the various macroeconomic theories and models of how aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) strongly influences economic output an ...

ideas, though his ideas predated Keynes' ''

The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money ''The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money'' is a book by English economist John Maynard Keynes published in February 1936. It caused a profound shift in economic thought, giving macroeconomics a central place in economic theory and ...

'' (1936). In that respect, he is considered by some to have seen

monetary policy Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to control either the interest rate payable for federal funds, very short-term borrowing (borrowing by banks from each other to meet their short-term needs) or the money s ...

having secondary importance and that as a result he allowed the Federal Reserve to be sublimated to the interests of the Treasury. In this view, the Federal Reserve after 1935 acquired new instruments to command monetary policy, but it did not change its behavior significantly. Further, his defense of the Federal Reserve-Treasury accord in 1951 is sometimes seen as a reversal of his previous policy stances. Marriner Eccles received the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet ...

, alongside his brother

George S. Eccles George S. Eccles (1900–1982), the sixth of nine children of Utah industrialist David Eccles and his wife Ellen Stoddard Eccles. He grew up in Logan, Utah and graduated from Columbia University in New York, where he met fellow student Dolo ...

, at the 1972 Achievement Summit in Salt Lake City. The

Eccles Building The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building houses the main offices of the Board of Governors of the United States' Federal Reserve System. It is located at the intersection of 20th Street and Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. Th ...

that houses the headquarters of the

Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States of America. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a ...

in Washington, D.C. was named after Eccles in 1982. The naming was a component of the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act lead-sponsored by Senator

Jake Garn Edwin Jacob "Jake" Garn (born October 12, 1932) is an American politician and member of the Republican Party who served as a United States senator representing Utah from 1974 to 1993. Garn became the first sitting member of Congress to fly in sp ...

(R, UT) and Congressman

Fernand St. Germain Fernand Joseph St Germain (January 9, 1928 – August 16, 2014) was an American politician from Rhode Island. He was a member of the Democratic Party and served in the Rhode Island House of Representatives and the United States House of Rep ...

( D, RI).

References

External links