Brown Brothers Harriman. Never heard of it? In the firm's first hundred years, it helped to make paper currency standard in the US, underwrote the easiest railroad and trans-Atlantic steamship companies and created the first foreign exchange system between the US dollar and British pound. It went on in the 20th century to shape the global economic and security systems that remain the world's institutional architecture. As the US faces the challenge of reinventing itself in the post-pandemic future, the story of Brown Brothers Harriman offers crucial lessons. In this SDG we will explore how to take the power of money so that it builds up rather than tears down; how to ensure that those who have benefited greatly from American capitalism serve and contribute in return; and how the US might once again play a global role to increase the prosperity and security for all. Brown Brothers Harriman grappled with those questions for more than 200 years. Now we all have to do the same.
Week one: Immigrant roots. introduction and Chapter 1
Week two: Infrastructure projects and the Bubble. Chapters 2 and 3
Week three: The Arctic Passage? Profiting on war. Chapters 4 and 5
Week four: Are there ethics in business? Ambitious or just plain greedy?. Chapter 6 and 7
Week five: A country of their own. Chapter 8 and
Benjamin Harrison, The United States and the 1909 Nicaraguan Revolution, Caribbean Quarterly 1995 (PDF provided)
Week six; Becoming the nation's banking template and part of the 'in' group running the nation Chapters 9 and 10
Week seven: The Business of America is Business. Chapter 11 and
Allen Lynch, Wilson and Self-Determination, Review of International Studies, 2002, (PDF provided)
Week eight: The Depression. Chapters 12 and 13 and Vincent Carosso, Washington and Wall Street: The New Deal and Investment Bankers, 1933 – 1940, The Business History Revnie, Winter 1970 Vol 44 No 4 PP 425 -445. (PDF provided)
Week nine: There are many ways of serving. Chapters 14 and 15
Week ten: The demise of Brown Brothers power Chapters 16 and 17
Zachary Karabell, Inside Money: Brown Brothers Harriman and the American Way, Penguin Press. May 18, 2021.
Edwin J. Perkins, The House of Brown: America’s Foremost International Bankers 1800 – 1880, The Journal of Economic History, Vol 33, No. 1 pp 317 -320 (PDF provided)