jason.zweig
"Stocks Down"
The despair of this speculator in railroad stocks is obvious. During the 1840s in the U.S., merchants and other members of the middle class began trading stocks widely, and the first guidebooks about speculating on Wall Street were published. The most popular railroad shares were called "fancy stocks," trading at huge multiples of their earnings and with enormous volatility that often wiped out amateur speculators. This trader crushes in his hand a pamphlet called "The Art of Making a Fortune in 2 Hours." (Some things never change.) One of the stocks in the recommended list is the Morris Canal and Banking Co., which wags nicknamed "the Morrison Kennel" because it was such a dog. "Fortunes have been lost and won upon its fluctuations," wrote William Armstrong, a "reformed stock gambler," in 1848.
Currier and Ives engraving, 1849.
The Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a36251/
"Stocks Down"
The despair of this speculator in railroad stocks is obvious. During the 1840s in the U.S., merchants and other members of the middle class began trading stocks widely, and the first guidebooks about speculating on Wall Street were published. The most popular railroad shares were called "fancy stocks," trading at huge multiples of their earnings and with enormous volatility that often wiped out amateur speculators. This trader crushes in his hand a pamphlet called "The Art of Making a Fortune in 2 Hours." (Some things never change.) One of the stocks in the recommended list is the Morris Canal and Banking Co., which wags nicknamed "the Morrison Kennel" because it was such a dog. "Fortunes have been lost and won upon its fluctuations," wrote William Armstrong, a "reformed stock gambler," in 1848.
Currier and Ives engraving, 1849.
The Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a36251/