The Lords of Creation.

ALLEN, Frederick Lewis.

$2,200.00

Item Number: 84532

New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1935.

First edition of Allen’s classic account of the financial history leading up to the Great Crash. Octavo, original cloth. Fine in a near fine dust jacket with light rubbing and wear. Illustrated from 16 photographs on 8 plates. Scarce in the original jacket.

In Lords of Creation, he expansively "carries the narrative of Only Yesterday [1931] back to the pre-WWI financial and social episodes" and forward into the New Deal. Allen vividly profiles leading Wall Street titans and details "the rapid growth of Standard Oil, the panic of 1907, the 'Money Trust investigation' of 1912 and Federal Reserve legislation… the general theme is the immense financial power which became concentrated in the hands of a few commanding financiers" (New York Times). In the decades following the Civil War, America entered an era of unprecedented corporate expansion, with ultimate financial power in the hands of a few wealthy industrialists who exploited the system for everything it was worth. The Rockefellers, Fords, Morgans, and Vanderbilts were the “lords of creation” who, along with like-minded magnates, controlled the economic destiny of the country, unrestrained by regulations or moral imperatives. Through a combination of foresight, ingenuity, ruthlessness, and greed, America’s giants of industry remolded the US economy in their own image. They established their power and authority, ensuring that they—and they alone—would control the means of production, transportation, energy, and commerce—creating the conditions for the stock market collapse of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed.