Panic of 1873

Annotation

William Hope Harvey published Coin’s Financial School (1893) as a means of educating the public on the "battle of the standards" between gold and silver coinage. A national sensation, Harvey's book exposed the difference between wealth earned through currency (such as banking, lending, and speculation) and wealth generated by farmers, craftsmen, and other producers. The link below brings you to the full text of Harvey's book, but, also and more importantly, to a political cartoon that gives a shorthand explanation of what he saw as the critical problem. Balanced by the hand of politics, the scales of economic justice are being undercut by "Financial Manipulators" who used hoarded gold to change the amount of money received for products like cotton or wheat. Harvey's Biblical citation on the opposing page suggests how knowledge of these "crimes" is the essential ingredient to combating the problem.