Opening Statement
History of Taxation: Narrative and Links
History of Taxation: Links Summary

A brief opening statement before I begin my essay:

I am the founding Executive Director of the Tax History Foundation and Museum, Inc. At our physical address, 466 Central Avenue, Suite 8 and 9, Northfield, Illinois we have a 350-volume Tax Law Library. It’s an antique, representing the typical library of a quality CPA/Tax Law firm before digitalization.  Today, most CPAs access these sources via the electronic media.  I, also, have several hundred secondary sources, which I have collected over the last 25 years.

I have responsibility for only one site. www.taxhistoryfoundation.org.  I may neither accept responsibility or credit for other sites in the Cyberspace Community.   My mission is to encourage the study of accounting, commerce and economic history.  I am constantly looking for historical material, to read, study and share with others. If you have found this website, I hope that you will bookmark it and return from time to time. Also, I hope that you will contact me,

Like all not-for-profit tax exempt entities, Tax History Foundation and Museum is in need of your financial generosity. Please consider mailing a check payable to Tax History Foundation and Museum, Inc.  Mail it to: 466 Central Avenue, Suite 8 and 9, Northfield, Illinois 60093.

My essay is intended to be an on going essay.  I hope to be permitted to share more sources as I find them on the web.  If you have found a source, please e-mail me about it.

Now! My essay on web crawling through the History of Taxation:

Like many of us who are connected via the Internet, I like to web crawl. One evening, I started clicking my way through a favorite topic.  I found a site by New York City's Museum of Financial History.   I’m about a 1000 miles west of New York City and I find it rather inconvenient to travel there. The Internet allows me to travel to New York City and visit the Museum of Financial History unrestricted by their regular hours of operations.  I just click http://www.financialhistory.org/ and I may discover their exhibitions.

Manifest Destiny was a concept first introduced to me by my 8th grade American History teacher, Mr. Powers, at Edgewood junior high school in Highland Park, Illinois.  We learn, in 1803, Thomas Jefferson contracted with Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

What was the subject of this contract?

Approximately 828,000 square miles of real estate between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains.   Our United States Government paid $15 million dollars for this real estate.  President Thomas Jefferson did not know if he had the authority under the new Constitution of the United States to consummate this real estate transaction and concluded that the price was so right that no one would object.

Please, divide $15 million by 828,000 acres. Verify that the cost was just slightly less than five cents per acre.   The United States Senate approved this deal on October 20, 1803. ^[1]   If you were a member of the United States Senate in 1803, would you have voted to in favor of this treaty?

Please tell me by e-mailing me.

What do you think were the arguments pro and con during the Senate’s debate?

In the late 18th century, Boston, Philadelphia and New York City were rival financial centers. At www.financialhistory.org, the historians at the Museum of Financial History represent that by 1797, New York City was # 1.   I’m less concerned as to which city was #1, than learning about the history of financial and capital markets.

A very important development we learned in Mr. Power’s 8th grade American History classroom was the building of the Erie Canal.  The Canal linked the Hudson River with Lake Erie. ^[2] Completion of the canal reduced the cost of transporting goods and it helped to develop river towns, Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse.

What I learned at www.financialhistory.org is that the ·Bank for Savings NYC·collected deposits from new immigrants from the laboring class. By 1830 it owned 30% of the stock issued by the Erie Canal Company. The midsection of the canal was completed by 1819.   Another source stated, ·part of it was operating by 1820 and by 1823 boats could go from the Hudson (River) to Rochester.  When the canal was finished in 1825 the first boats traveled from Buffalo to New York City. I learned at www.financialhistory.org that by 1822 John Jacob Astor owned $212,000 worth of stock in the Canal Company.

Next, crawling to http://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/history/index.html , a site belonging to our U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, I discovered the history of federal deposit insurance.  There is a 76 page document to download and read from the International Conference on Deposit Insurance held in Washington, D.C., 1988.   One will find on this site, a historical photograph of our 1933-1945 President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 16, 1933.  On that date, he signed the Banking Act of 1933.  He is pictured here with the two Congressional leaders most responsible for this legislation, Senator Carter Glass (Virginia) and Representative Henry Steagall (Alabama).

Today, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, an agency of the United States Government, insures each depositor’s bank account up to $100,000.

Perhaps your father or grandfather deposited money in a bank where his account would have been backed by the F.D.I.C. in 1934.  His account, I learned was insured up to $2,500.  What is significant is F.D.I.C.insurance is credited with restoring the public·s confidence in the stability of banks following the Great Depression initiated with the infamous stock market crash of October 1929.

At www.financialhistory.org I was introduced to the role of banks in the commercial development of the United States. 

At www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/brief/brhist.pdf, I was able to read about Banks in the late 18th and early 19th century.  I was reminded that in 1789 banks were chartered by special acts of either one of the state legislatures or the United States Congress.

I learned that until 1809, there were no bank failures.  In that year, our forefathers experienced the first bank failure, Farmers Bank of Glouchester, Rhode Island and five years later, 1814, there was the first wave of bank failures.  

New York became the first state to enact a program of ·Bank Obligation Insurance.  Syracuse businessman Joshua Forman devised the plan based on suggestions by Hong Merchants from Canton.    Under this plan banks were required to pay into an Insurance Fund supervised by a Board of Commissioners with the power to examine or audit the books of accounts of the insured bank.

Between 1831-1858, six additional states enacted insurance programs. These five states were Vermont, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Iowa. 3 of those 5 states were in the Old Northwest Territory and one just west of the Mississippi River.  Earlier we found a site about the Erie Canal connecting New York City and the Hudson River to Lake Erie and to the five lakes of the Great Lakes Basin.

When I was a student at Illinois State University (Normal, Illinois), I spent hours in the library collecting bibliographical information.  Sitting in my home/study I entered the Leslie Brock Center for the Study of Colonial Currency at www.virginia.edu/~econ/brock.html.  I learned of the College of Idaho’s History Professor, Leslie Brock (1903-1985) who taught at the College of Idaho from 1947 until his retirement in 1969. At this site, we find a manuscript, which was unpublished at the time of his death, Colonial Currencies, Prices and Exchange Rates. 

This website lead me to www.ex.ac.uk/~Rdavies/arian/money.html  I found another interesting paper on ·Sources of Information on Monetary History Contemporary Developments and Prospects for Electronic Money.

There once was a journalist named Charles Dow  (1851-1902).  His is a name that any reader of a business section of any daily newspaper might know.  The Dow Jones industrial average is perhaps the most quoted market indicator.    www.cftech.com/BrainBank/FINANCE/DowJonesAvgsHist.html  At this site we learn what stocks were included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the past century. If the Dow Jones is any indicator, it suggest that 100 years ago investors may have been most interested in securities backed by real machinery, factories and other hard assets. Charles Dow started with just 11 stocks in his 1884 index. All railroads.

October 4, 1916 a 12 stock index were replaced by 20 Industrials.  You may find this list on page 7 of 18 pages at www.cftech.com/BrainBank/FINANCE/DowJonesAvgsHist.html thus I need not repeat them here. 

One of many questions I've asked:  As the Dow Jones Industrial Index is only a few of the many stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, how well do these stocks reflect American commerce at various dates in American History? The ten oldest companies in the United States are displayed on this site. I find most interesting about these companies is their industrial categories·conveyor belts, insurance, adhesives and coatings, a seed company, two banks, mutual assurance company, bakery supplies and building supplies.  All ten companies were founded between 1702-1790. Are you able to guess the location of the two banks dating back to 1784? If you guessed Boston and New York City you are correct and that takes us back to www.financialhistory.org

Academy of Accounting Historians

www.weatherhead.cwru.edu/accounting is the home page of the Academy of Accounting Historians.

^[1] Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, The Reader's Companion to American History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991, p. 682. I find this 1200 page reference book extremely useful.

[2] Ibid. 357.

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