Twenty-One Years in the Boston Stock Market, or Fluctuations Therein from January 1, 1835 to January 1, 1856
Boston: Redding and Company, 1856.
First Edition. 8vo, 80 pp, in original printed wappers. Some loss of paper on the spine, creasing to front wrap; very good. First edition of one of the earliest American publications to provide the general public with reliable data on the price fluctuations of stocks and dividends over time. Martin, a professional broker, tracked prices, interest rates, dividends, and other information for New England bank, insurance, manufacturing, and railroad stocks, and provided his readers with extensive commentary to aid in interpreting the data. The period covered should prove particularly useful for reference, he argues, as it “comprises the great Bank Panic which commenced in 1837, failures, depression of Bank stock, with reduction of dividends, its reinstatement in public confidence, the subsequent Railroad Panic, and the divers fluctuations which, during twenty years most public stocks undergo.” Notices of the book in contemporary periodicals praised it as “exceedingly useful and interesting” and lamented only that no similar study had been made of the New York Stock Market. Martin resisted the suggestion that he should undertake the project, instead continuing his work in Boston. In 1871, he published Seventy-Three Years History of the Boston Stock Market (1798-1871), and later Eighty-Eight Years… and finally A Century of Finance, Martin’s History of the Boston Stock and Money Markets…1798 to 1898. Sabin 44895.
Item #19044
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