Introduction: the many panics of 1837; 1. A very gamblous affair; 2. The pressure of 1836; 3. Practical economists; 4. Mysterious whispers; 5. The many panics in 1837; 6. Parallel crises; 7. States of suspense; Epilogue: panic-less panics of 1837.
Reveals how people transformed their experiences of financial crisis into a single event that would serve as a turning point in American history.
Jessica M. Lepler is an Associate Professor of History at the University of New Hampshire. The Society of American Historians awarded her Brandeis University doctoral dissertation, '1837: Anatomy of a Panic', the 2008 Allan Nevins Prize. She has been the recipient of a Hench Post-Dissertation Fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society, a Dissertation Fellowship from the Library Company of Philadelphia's Program in Early American Economy and Society, a John E. Rovensky Dissertation Fellowship in Business History and a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship from the US Department of Education.
'Finally a historian who understands that panics were caused by
people panicking … This masterful telling of a complex tale -
Dickensian in its intricacy - walks the reader through a series of
moments in which individuals had no choice but to take a position
that more often than not guaranteed the frightening outcome they
sought to avoid. By rejecting the naturalization of economic
theory, Jessica Lepler has vividly captured the world as it must
have looked to the governors of the Bank of England, to the bill
brokers and cotton factors of New Orleans, to Nicholas Biddle and
poor old Philip Hone. The brutal market 'corrections' of 1837 (and
after) stood as the defining events of the lives of this generation
of Americans.' John Lauritz Larson, Purdue University, Indiana
'In this compelling and moving account, Jessica Lepler shows us how
a bank war could undermine British faith in American borrowers and
cause a cascade of doubts about America's future. The chain of debt
is the same as five years ago, although the vividly drawn cast of
characters is radically different. Compulsively readable, this will
change the way you think about the intimate relationship between
slavery and capitalism.' Scott Nelson, College of William and Mary,
Virginia
'The Many Panics of 1837 is a gripping narrative about what
happened to disrupt financial markets and individual investors in
1837. But Lepler has also given us a theoretically deft account of
how the history of this year has been written and why its many
iterations matter. This book is essential reading for anyone
interested in how we construct the past and how the past we
construct shapes what we can know about the world we inhabit now.'
Mary Poovey, Samuel Rudin Professor in the Humanities, New York
University
'Lepler combines financial, business and economic history with
social, cultural and political history in a transnational context
in The Many Panics of 1837 to demonstrate that human agency remains
at the heart of seemingly large impersonal forces. Lepler argues
persuasively in this well-written tale of three cities that the
transition from the best of times to the worst of times explains
the psychology of what was so panicky about the panic of 1837 … I
have already adopted this book for use in my class on the early
American republic.' Michael J. Gagnon, The Journal of American
History
'… offers cultural context for the Panic of 1837 that earlier
treatments have lacked. Navigating impressively through a wealth of
business correspondence and private letters of various merchants
and financiers, large and small, as well as the contemporary press,
Lepler paints a vivid picture of the thoughts that passed through
the minds of individuals as their fortunes took a fateful turn in
the spring of that year … Lepler makes the complex interactions of
this market easy to understand.' Peter L. Rousseau, EH.net
'Lepler defines the heretofore poorly understood Panic of 1837 in
terms of human emotional response … productive, historically
grounded examinations of the ways in which feelings and ideas made
and were remade by the history of finance … draw[s] on ideas,
culture, politics, business, institutions, law, and economics …
acknowledge[s] 'real' economic change, while insisting that this
change is bound up with changes in subjectivity.' Hannah Farber,
Enterprise and Society
'Jessica Lepler's book on the panics of 1837 is at the very
forefront of [a] new methodological approach to the history of
capitalism and her work is a testament to the great insights this
new approach can yield. In this vibrant and often witty work,
Lepler has reconstructed the events that led to the economic crisis
of 1837 on both sides of the Atlantic. Her surprising, yet
convincing conclusion, is that the suspension of specie payments by
New York banks on 10 May 1837 was not the beginning of the crisis,
but in many ways its end. Abandoning this traditional starting
point she argues that it was at this point that financial certainty
began to be restored to the nation and that such certainty enabled
calm to prevail.' Joanna Cohen, Reviews in History
'In its careful reconstruction of the day-by-day unfolding of
small, localized crises, this book provides a fascinating account
of this complex series of small-scale events that eventually became
known as the Panic of 1837. … [Lepler] weaves local stories into a
network of international significance. … It is a complex story, to
be sure, but one that's well worth taking the time to understand.'
Sean Patrick Adams, Common-place
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