Breaking the Banks in Motor City: The Auto Industry, the 1933 Detroit Banking Crisis and the Start of the New Deal

by Darwyn H. Lumley

Overview

This history tells the relatively unknown story of how the Detroit automobile industry played a major role in the 1933 banking crisis and the subsequent New Deal reforms that drastically changed the financial industry. Spurred by failed decision making and conflicts of interest by automobile industry leaders, Detroit banks experienced a critical emergency, precipitating the federal closure of banks on March 4, 1933, the first in a series of actions by which the federal government acquired power over economics previously held by states and private industrial and financial interests.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786444175
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	07/15/2009
Pages:	202
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Darwyn H. Lumley 2007–2009 president of the Society of Automotive Historians, has written for a number of automotive publications and lives in Vista, California.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction     

1. More Money Needed     
2. “Wall Street Sees Ford as a Banker”     
3. “In the Way Our Reports Were Being Made,
It Never Was Material.”     
4. “It Is Going to Be Awfully Hard Work”     
5. “Woe unto Those by Whom It Cometh”     
6. “Your Friends Won’t Hold It Against You”     
7. The Banking System Ceases to Function     

Epilogue     
Chronology     
Notes     
Bibliography     
Index     

Editorial Reviews

this book is a rarity, a work of business and financial history with a very strong automotive bent. It’s not a story that people without a business background will easily grasp, but it’s real, thankfully not drowned in numbers and therefore, worthy”—Hemmings Classic Car; “this complicated story is admirably well condensed into a relatively short treatise”—The Flying Lady.

From the Publisher

"this complicated story is admirably well condensed into a relatively short treatise"

The Flying Lady

this book is a rarity, a work of business and financial history with a very strong automotive bent. It's not a story that people without a business background will easily grasp, but it's real, thankfully not drowned in numbers and therefore, worthy

Hemmings Classic Car