jason.zweig
"Stocks Up"
The smugness of this speculator in railroad stocks is palpable. 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.
Currier and Ives engraving, 1849.
The Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2001706289/
"Stocks Up"
The smugness of this speculator in railroad stocks is palpable. 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.
Currier and Ives engraving, 1849.
The Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2001706289/