Evan Solmon: The Federal Reserve

Question:
    How was Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich beneficial in establishing a centralized banking system in the United States and was it ultimately for the betterment of the country as a whole? Or did it merely serve the interests of a select few wealthy families?
Thesis Statement:
The Aldrich-Vreeland Act was a response to The Panic of 1907, a devastating financial crisis in the United States when the New York Stock Exchange plummeted fifty percent, thus necessitating a central banking system of the United States: the enactment of The Federal Reserve. Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich, nicknamed the General Manager of the Nation, was an American politician, a leader of the Republican Party in the senate, and played an instrumental role in the institution of the Federal Reserve System as he helped to pass the Aldrich-Vreeland Act, which served as its precursor.

•    Beginning links explaining the attempts of the first and second banks
•    Causes of the Banking Crisis of 1907 and its call for desperate and immediate response
•    The Aldrich-Vreeland Act
•    The Federal Reserve