Article of the Week 10/3: IRB 1

For this quarter's IRB, I am reading "The Man Who Made Wall Street" by Dan Rottenberg. Rottenberg used to write a financial column in the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1978 to 1997. Another financial history book he wrote was "Revolution on Wall Street." Many years ago Rottenberg served as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. This section introduces the biography and Rottenberg discusses briefly about how Pierpoint (J.P.) Morgan was credited with the exponential growth of Wall Street, but he would not have done so if it were not for Anthony Drexel who mentored him for many years. He also talks about how Drexel's father Francis made a living as a painter and eventually moved on to currency exchanged. This influenced Anthony to enter the financial industry. He wrote this with the idea of educating people about a little known man in the financial industry who was one of the builders of Wall Street today, but many do not know about him besides his affiliation with Drexel University. Rottenberg wrote this book for educating many researchers and historians about Drexel and his contributions to Wall Street. His audience is the researchers and historians about Wall Street and those who are interested in the origins of finance. He accomplished his purpose by using full detail in stories and developments of Drexel's life. He also uses vivid imagery to show what 19th century America was like and how this impacted the financial industry.