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This Day in Business History

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May 1

1704		The first newspaper advertisement (an announcement seeking a buyer for a Long Island estate) is published in the Boston News-Letter.
1794		America's labor union history begins, as a group of shoemakers gathers in Philadelphia hoping to legitimize their wage scales and guard against competition from bargain-basement priced labor. They christened themselves the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers. The Cordwainers' move to unionize was due to the shift from "economic clientage" to an open wage system that occurred in America during the late 18th century.
1810		U.S. Congress passes Macon's Bill No. 2, granting President James Madison the power to resume trade with England and France or to declare an embargo with either nation. Macon's Bill was unpopular at home and abroad: Federalist forces lambasted it, while the French viewed it as a clear demonstration of America's pro-British leanings. The hostilities hardly abated and, a few short years later, the nation entered the War of 1812.
1830		One of the most passionate and enduring figures in the American union movement, "Mother" Mary Harris Jones is born in Ireland. Jones immigrated to the United States and married an ironworker. After she lost her husband in 1867, and all her worldly goods in the Chicago fire of 1871, Jones sought help from the Knights of Labor, then a nascent labor organization enjoying its first fruits of success. Jones identified with the Knights' push to ameliorate workers' lives, and readily lent her help to their cause, proving to be a fierce organizer and a tremendous public speaker, who inspired crowds of workers to join forces with the labor movement. By 1890, Jones had became one of the flag-bearers for the United Mine Workers, crusading in the name of organizing and aiding the nation's coal miners. Jones passed away in November of 1930, just as America and its workers were descending into the depths of the Great Depression.
1830		Nikola Tesla is granted a patent for the "electrical transmission of power".
1971		Amtrak rail system dedicated to passenger service begins operation.

May 2

1670		King Charles II of England grants a permanent charter to the Hudson's Bay Company, made up of the French explorers who opened the lucrative North American fur trade to London merchants. The charter conferred on them not only a trading monopoly but also effective control over the vast region surrounding North America's Hudson Bay.
1985		New York-based brokerage firm E.F. Hutton & Co. pleads guilty to charges that it engineered a massive check-writing swindle. Before a court in Scranton, Pennsylvania, E.F. Hutton's lawyers admitted that the firm soaked hefty sums of money from its various bank accounts without paying any interest. According to Attorney General Edward Meese, the firm wrote approximately $4 billion in checks between the summer of 1980 and February 1982. In return for this complex, and lucrative, scheme, E.F. Hutton consented to pay roughly $10 million, which covered fines, as well as restitution to the victimized banks. However, none of the roughly 24 employees involved in the swindle faced criminal charges; Meese and his team granted some immunity and opted not to prosecute the rest on the grounds that they had not "personally benefited" from their "corporate scheme."

May 3

1886		At the McCormick Reaper Works in Chicago, police officers attack strikers; two unarmed strikers were killed, while others were beaten and wounded. August Spies, an anarchist and staunch supporter of workers' rights, witnessed the incident and immediately called for action against the "atrocious act of the police." Workers gathered the next day in Chicago's Haymarket Square for what proved to be a fateful protest: a bomb was thrown during one speech, prompting the police to open fire on the crowd. The Haymarket Riot left eight officers dead and many more wounded, including scores of workers. Though police and prosecutors were unable to find evidence that the radicals were connected to the bomb, a band of seven anarchists were charged with, and in four cases hung for, murder.
1933		Nellie Taylor Ross takes control of the United States Mint. Tabbed for the post by President Franklin Roosevelt, Ross became the first woman ever to helm the Mint. During her tenure at the Mint, Ross shepherded through a number of initiatives, including the unveiling of the dime and the production of the steel penny, which was designed to aid the nation's finances during World War II. However, for Ross, the Mint was simply another stop in an eventful political career. Indeed, Ross's run at the Mint was the second time in less than a decade that she had thrown open the doors of political office to women. In 1924, Ross stepped into the fray after her husband, Governor William Bradford Ross of Wyoming, died during the last stages of his re-election bid; Ross successfully steered the campaigning to victory and became the nation's first female governor.

May 4

1930		1,028 leading economists sign a petition protesting the fiercely protectionist Smoot-Hawley tariff. While the petition didn't derail the bill--Smoot-Hawley passed into the law books the following month--the economists' warnings proved prophetic, as a number of foreign nations retaliated against Smoot-Hawley by enacting their own hefty tariffs and quotas on imports that successfully exacerbated America's fiscal woes.
1932		Following a high-wattage trial, the notorious mob kingpin Al Capone is sentenced to an eleven-year jail term and forced to pay $80,000 in fines. But, while Capone was an alleged killer, as well as the force behind gambling rings and bootlegging networks, his trip to prison wasn't tied to any of these eminently punishable enterprises. Rather, Capone had been tripped up for repeatedly failing to pay his taxes. Capone's fiscal offences, which had been unearthed by the band of Treasury agents now enshrined in pop-culture history as the "Untouchables," landed him first in an Atlanta prison; two years into his term, Capone was shuttled to the recently opened Bay Area prison, Alcatraz. However, Capone never served out his sentence: suffering from an advanced bout of syphilis, he was set free in 1939 for an extended stay in a Baltimore hospital.

May 5

1895		Following the lead of Richard Bland (Missouri) and journalist-turned-political-firebrand, William Jennings Bryan (Nebraska), Democrats in Congress mount the charge for the free coinage of silver. Though the Democrats were the minority party in the House, their legislation on behalf of silver was not without support. With the nation still licking its wounds from the depression of 1893, there was growing sentiment behind a shift from the gold standard to silver. While the Democrats failed to push the free coinage of silver into the law books, Bryan and his allies in the party remained undeterred. The following year, the Democrats tabbed Bryan as their presidential nominee, in hopes that he could ride the silver issue all the way to the Oval Office. Though Bryan roused the troops at the Democratic convention, famously chiding the Republicans and hard money advocates for attempting to "crucify mankind on a cross of gold," his fiery oratory and unswerving support for silver proved to be no match for his competitor, the Republican nominee and chosen candidate of Big Business, William McKinley.
1933		William Woodin steps into his role as the 51st Secretary of the Treasury during one of the most turbulent and dramatic periods in America's fiscal history. Tabbed by President Franklin Roosevelt for the Treasury post, Woodin was immediately enlisted in the battle against the Depression. And, just four days after Woodin assumed office, President Roosevelt called the now-famous "banking holiday" that temporarily shuttered America's financial institution. Over the next ten days, Roosevelt, Woodin and other leaders worked to stabilize America's finances and stem the public's frantic drive to yank their funds from the nation's banks. The "holiday" also gave Roosevelt time to push the Emergency Banking Act through the legislative chain; quickly adopted by Congress, the legislation not only granted the president increased economic authority, but enlarged the responsibilities of Woodin and the Treasury. Indeed, when the banks reopened, they were now under the watchful eye of the secretary of the Treasury. Along with minding America's fiscal institutions, Woodin was also charged with pumping the economy with new Federal Reserve notes and taking measures to bolster the public's faith in the economy. However, the hefty task of righting the nation's economic ills soon took a toll on Woodin's health; he resigned on December 31, 1933, less than a year after taking over at the helm of the Treasury.

May 6

1935		The Works Progress Administration (WPA) begins the monumental task of sending scores of unemployed Americans back to work. Perhaps the key program developed during the New Deal, President Franklin Roosevelt's "alphabet soup" of government agencies aimed at alleviating the damage wrought by the Great Depression, the WPA handed Americans decent-paying jobs on a myriad of public works projects. But WPA jobs were hardly sinecures; workers employed via the agency constructed a head-spinning array of public structures, including parks, playgrounds, schools and post-offices. And, through its creatively inclined arms (the Federal Art Project and Federal Theater Project), the WPA set painters, actors, musicians and writers to work on public arts projects that depicted the lives of America's workers. All told, the WPA (which was renamed the Works Projects Administration in 1939) was responsible for employing 8.5 million Americans during its eight-year tenure. Despite these considerable fruits, the WPA was an expensive program--the agency spent roughly $11 billion during its lifetime--which prompted attacks from more penurious voices in the nation. By the summer of 1943, World War II had almost entirely usurped the efforts of America's work force, and the WPA was permanently closed.
1994		In a ceremony presided over by England's Queen Elizabeth II and French President Francois Mitterand, a rail tunnel under the English Channel is officially opened, connecting Britain and the European mainland for the first time since the Ice Age. The channel tunnel, or "Chunnel," connects Folkestone, England, with Sangatte, France, 31 miles away.

May 7

1769		George Washington launches a legislative salvo at Great Britain's fiscal and judicial attempts to maintain its control over the American colonies. With his sights set on the British policy of "taxation without representation," Washington brought a package of non-importation resolutions before the Virginia House of Burgesses. The resolutions, drafted by George Madison largely in response to England's passage of the Townshend Act in 1767, also decried parliament's plan to send American criminals to England for trial. Though Virginia's Royal Governor promptly fired back by disbanding the House of Burgesses, the revolutionaries were undeterred: during a makeshift meeting held at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia's delegates gave their support the non-importation resolutions. As a result, Virginia sealed off a good chunk of its trade with England pending the repeal of the Townshend Acts. This proved to be a contagious maneuver, as the other American colonies spent the summer adopting their own non-importation resolutions.
1998		American auto giant Chrysler Corp. signs a $38 billion deal with German-based Daimler-Benz AG. The merger, first hatched in January 1998 by Daimler chief Juergen Schrempp, created a company that, at least on paper, was well-equipped to do battle in the global marketplace. Not only did Chrysler stand to make a belated move into the German market, but Daimler gained even greater access to American consumers. Moreover, the new company, DaimlerChrysler, was stocked with a diverse roster of products, ranging from mid-priced Chryslers to swank Mercedes that cut across a wide swath of the global car market. While yet another international alliance between two industry behemoths raised the hackles of some anti-trust forces, the DaimlerChrysler deal ultimately gained official approval on both sides of the Atlantic.

May 8

1914		W.W. Hodkinson creates the film financing and distribution company Paramount Pictures.
1974		Industrial economist and labor relations expert George P. Shultz steps down as secretary of the Treasury. Shultz was one of the stalwart figures during Richard Nixon's often embattled tenure in the White House. Shultz held a variety of fiscally minded posts during Nixon's terms in office: along with a stint as Secretary of Labor, Shultz also served as the first director of the Office of Management and Budget. In 1972, Nixon tabbed Shultz to be the 62nd secretary of the Treasury.

May 9

1977		President Jimmy Carter proposes a tax hike aimed at bolstering Social Security's "fiscal integrity." Along with bumping the tax rate up from 7 percent to 7.5 percent, the president's proposal also called for federal funds to be shifted to Social Security if unemployment ever left the retirement program impotent. The latter point aroused considerable debate and prompted legislators to perform a heady round of revisions to the tax bill. In the winter of 1977, Congress gave the green light to the overhauled version of the president's legislation.
1970		Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers since 1946, dies in an airplane crash at age 62. Born in Wheeling, West Virginia, Reuther's socialist leanings were fostered by his father, a master brewer who had left Germany to escape the repressive Lutheran authorities, and to avoid what he viewed as the increasing militarization of his homeland. He imbued his sons with the values of labor organization and social equality. Reuther dropped out of high school to become an apprentice die maker at the Wheeling Steel Company. Before he could finish his training, he moved to Detroit during the heavy production years of the Model T, and talked his way into a job as a die maker in a Ford factory. Reuther returned to high school while working at the Ford plant, and he maintained his interest in Socialism and organized labor. During the Depression, he and his brothers traveled to Germany to visit their relatives. The totalitarian conditions in Germany, and the bitter split between the National Socialists and the Left, disappointed the brothers terribly. They continued on to Russia, where Walter employed his skill as a die maker in Russian auto plants that had purchased Ford machinery. They remained in Gorki from 1933 to 1935, where was greatly moved by the camaraderie of the autoworkers. Reuther returned to Detroit, and began his career as an activist and labor organizer. At first considered a radical and a Communist, Reuther worked his way up the ranks of the UAW as the union became a more and more legitimate force. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal reached out to the leftist elements of the labor movement, and in response Reuther's left moved center to meet the Democratic Party. Reuther played vital roles in the formation of the UAW and in the merger of the AFL-CIO. He championed integrationist policies when few other labor organizers cared. During Reuther's benevolent reign of the UAW, autoworkers became members of the middle class, as measured by earnings, employment security, medical care, and retirement pensions.

May 10

1837		The battle over the Second Bank of the United States (SBUS), which pitted states' rights advocates against proponents of the federal financial institution, takes its toll on the nation's economy. The failure of cash-strapped banks in New York unleashed the Panic of 1837, one of the most devastating economic crises in the nation's history. The panic wiped out hundreds of banks, and scores of small businesses and farmers who relied on the support of local fiscal institutions. Unemployment climbed to unprecedented peaks, while tension and anguish gripped good chunks of the country; in New York, the militia had to be called in to keep order on Wall Street. All told, the panic stretched on for seven years.
1869		In a remote corner of Utah, the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads and makes transcontinental railroad service possible for the first time in U.S. history. Although travelers would have to take a roundabout journey to cross the country on this railroad system, the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Point, Utah, forever closed a chapter of U.S. history. No longer would western-bound travelers need to take the long and dangerous journey by wagon train, and the west would surely lose some its wild charm with the new connection to the civilized east.

May 11

1894

With organizational support from Eugene Debs and the then-mighty American Railway Union, Pullman Palace Car Company workers begin a nationwide strike. Though Debs was a fierce and well-organized leader--he successfully marshaled a parallel boycott of Pullman's rail cars--company chief George Pullman and his fellow rail managers won the support of Federal and state troops, which led to a long and violent skirmish in early July, leaving 34 men dead. Desperately seeking reinforcements, Debs turned to the American Federation of Labor (AFL) but Samuel Gompers and the other AFL leaders offered scant support. Pullman and the rail managers soon prevailed over the strikers, many of whom were subsequently barred from working in the rail industry.

May 12

1902		Union chief John Mitchell calls for a nationwide strike; 140,000 members of the United Mine Workers heed his charge. The ensuing strike dragged on for five months, as mine owners refused to acknowledge the coal union, or to enter negotiations. Meanwhile, coal prices skyrocketed, fraying the public's collective nerves and inciting calls for the government to negotiate a settlement. Though the Constitution didn't sanction intervention by the White House, President Teddy Roosevelt stepped in to speed up the negotiations. The mine owners rebuffed these efforts, prompting the president to threaten to hand control of the mines to the Army. Roosevelt's gambit proved effective and the mine owners finally sat down for a serious round of negotiations. By October of 1902, the strikers had returned to work and a newly formed Commission of Arbitration had kicked off a probe into the conditions at the nation's mines. That following spring, the Commission handed down its findings, which included recommendations of pay hikes and reduced hours for workers, and that mine owners recognize the coal union.
1949		The Soviet Union lifts its eleven-month blockade against West Berlin. The blockade had been broken by a massive U.S.-British airlift of vital supplies to West Berlin's two million citizens.

May 13

1898		Thomas Edison sues American Mutoscope and Biograph Pictures, claiming that the studio infringed on his patent for the Kinetograph movie camera.
1980		Douglas A. Fraser, president of the United Auto Workers, is named to the Chrysler Corporation Board of Directors, becoming the first union representative ever to sit on the board of a major U.S. corporation.
1998		After suffering through a dismal spate during the early 1990s, stalwart retailer Kmart announces that its first-quarter profits had skyrocketed by 236 percent to $47 million.

May 14

1884

The freshly formed Anti-Monopoly Party holds its first convention to nominate a candidate for the White House. The Anti-Monopoly Party tabbed as their presidential nominee General Benjamin Butler, a staunch unionist who had switched allegiances from the Northern Democrats to the Radical Republicans before joining the Anti-Monopolists. Though Butler failed to capture the Oval Office and the Anti-Monopoly Party ultimately foundered, the call for legislation aimed at reigning in the monopolistic corporations or "trusts" did not go unheeded: in 1890, the Federal Government enacted the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the landmark bill designed to tame the trusts.

May 15

1882

President Chester A. Arthur forms a high-level commission to tackle the tariff issue. Though the commission was putatively charged with weighing the relative merits of tariffs, both in terms of the impact on global trade and smaller domestic enterprises, the deck was stacked in favor of protectionist and industrial interests. The commission's nine members included John L. Hayes, the secretary of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, a likely proponent of protectionist measures. Unsurprisingly, the commission weighed in with a favorable report on tariffs as a means to preserve the integrity and interests of American-made goods.

May 16

1886		Congress votes to discontinue use of the small silver half-disme coin and to replace it with a five-cent piece, which was affectionately dubbed the "nickel," one of the enduring coins of the late 19th and 20th centuries. The initial version of the nickel, with a shield on the front and a "5" on the back, was plain-faced, but successive runs of the coin were more ornate. In 1913, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing issued the now-coveted "buffalo" nickel, with a buffalo and a bust of a Native American on its respective sides. The current, and even more ornate, incarnation of the coin pays homage to Thomas Jefferson--featuring the third U.S. president's likeness on one side and a rendering of his home, Monticello, on the other.
1968		In France, the May 1968 crisis escalates as a general strike spreads to factories and industries across the country, shutting down newspaper distribution, air transport, and two major railroads. By the end of the month, millions of workers were on strike, and France seemed to be on the brink of radical leftist revolution.

May 17

1792

A group of 24 traders gathered under a buttonwood tree at 68 Wall Street in lower Manhattan to mete out the conditions and regulations of the speculative market. The result was the Buttonwood Agreement, a modest, two-sentence contract that gave birth to the New York Stock Exchange, which would become the world's largest forum for trading stocks and securities. Where speculators had previously conducted their auctions twice a day in various locations, including street corners and coffeehouses, the Buttonwood Agreement established stricter rules and parameters to more effectively govern trading.

May 18

1908

Congress passes legislation that made the maxim "In God We Trust" an obligatory element of certain coins. The motto dates back to the early 1860s, when the Civil War stirred religious feelings throughout the nation. America's heightened piety manifested itself in many places, including the treasury department, which received countless letters requesting that the nation's coins pay some form of tribute to God. Concerned citizens and religious leaders found a fast friend in Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, who readily agreed that the "trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins." James Pollock, director of the U.S. Mint at Philadelphia, was charged with devising a suitable motto. After some key revisions from Chase, Pollock decided upon the now-familiar "In God We Trust."

May 19

1749		King George II of England grants the Ohio Company a charter of several hundred thousand acres of land around the forks of the Ohio River, thereby promoting westward settlement by American colonists from Virginia. The royal chartering of the Ohio Company, an organization founded primarily by Virginian planters in 1747, directly challenged the French claim to Ohio and was a direct cause of the outbreak of the French and Indian War in 1754.
1828		President John Quincy Adams gives the nod to the tariff of 1828. Not surprisingly, the tariff aroused howls of protest, most notably from Andrew Jackson's allies in the House, who had hoped to kill the bill as a means of humiliating Adams. Though Jackson's forces failed to block the passage of the tariff, they refused to give up, and in 1832, helped enact legislation that rolled back rates to their more modest 1824 levels. But the tariff of 1832 failed to diffuse the situation--a number of states, including South Carolina, refused compromise measures and instead pushed for the complete nullification of the 1828 legislation. With a nasty battle looming on the horizon, Henry Clay stepped in with a proposal for a "compromise tariff" of 1833. While Clay's bill appeased the competing interests of manufacturers and farmers, it couldn't remove the stigma of the 1828 tariff which, in the intervening years, came to be known as the "tariff of abominations."

May 20

1862		President Abraham Lincoln signs into law the Homestead Act, a program designed to grant public land to small farmers at low cost. The act gave 160 acres of land to any applicant who was the head of a household and 21 years or older, provided that the person settled on the land for five years and then paid a small filing fee. If settlers wished to obtain title earlier, they could do so after six months by paying $1.25 an acre.
1996		The U.S. Supreme Court overturns a state court ruling that had called for auto giant BMW to pay $2 million to an Alabama doctor. In the original case, Dr. Ira Gore of Birmingham, Alabama sued the car company after learning that prior to purchasing his BMW, the car had been repainted. Charging that the car was, in fact, damaged, Gore sued. Though the car seemed to be in fine shape, an Alabama court handed Gore over $4 million in actual and punitive damages. Though Gore's award was later trimmed to $2 million by the Alabama Supreme Court, BMW wasn't mollified by the reduction and pushed their case to the Supreme Court. The Court's subsequent ruling, founded on the justices' belief that the initial damage payment was "grossly excessive" not only pleased BMW, but business leaders across the country who had long crusaded against lower courts' habit of handing out hefty damage awards in cases against corporate America.

May 21

1898

Globe-hopping entrepreneur-turned-oil magnate and art maven Armand Hammer is born in New York. He was a millionaire even before receiving his medical degree in 1921. Armed with what would prove to be the foundation of his fortune, Hammer headed to Russia to help administer aid to famine victims. In the midst of his journey, Hammer was approached by Vladimir Lenin, who urged the young American to use his business savvy to aid Russia. Hammer complied and within a few years became Russia's leading pencil magnate. By 1930, Hammer returned home to the United States with a hoard of valuable Russian art and artifacts. He promptly sold his Russian booty and parlayed his earnings into a thriving post-Prohibition whiskey business. Though the ensuing decades were kind to Hammer and his wallet, by 1956 he was ready to leave the business world. But, at the behest of a friend, Hammer forestalled his retirement in favor of lending his cash and managerial skills to the then-floundering Occidental Petroleum Corporation. Hammer's foray into the oil industry proved to be rather fortuitous: Occidental's previously parched wells suddenly struck oil. This small bit of good fortune, coupled with Hammer's business skills, helped transform Occidental into a major player in the oil industry. By 1970, Occidental was a $2 billion operation with related enterprises in Libya and various Russian trade contacts. Hammer used his ever-swelling fortune to build a first-rate art collection. Armand Hammer passed away in late 1990.

May 22

1824

The House passes the Tariff of 1824. With its protectionist measures and domestic trade initiatives, the tariff was designed to break America's putatively heavy reliance on foreign goods. But lawyer-turned-legislator Henry Clay's campaign for the passage of the tariff, which included a marathon two-day speech before the House of Representatives, was met with some fierce resistance, most notably from Daniel Webster, who hit the House floor in early April to deliver his own two-day take on the tariff, dismissing it as an affront to free trade.

May 23

1946

U.S. rail workers picket for fairer compensation. The strike, led by the Railroad Trainmen and Locomotive Brotherhoods, effectively stopped up the nation's still rail-heavy transportation network and enabled the workers to win better wages. The thrill of this victory was short-lived, however, as the rail unions, along with other labor organizations, failed in their quest to maintain price controls. Under heavy pressure from business leaders, who were more concerned with their respective bottom-lines than the ravages of inflation, President Harry Truman eventually acquiesced and rolled back price controls. As the unions had feared, the demise of price caps sparked a heady wave of inflation that washed away the rail workers' post-war wage gains.

May 24

1827		Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo, who also happened to be President Woodrow Wilson's son-in-law, promotes open international trade, as well as the United States' pivotal role in such a system, by convening the Pan-American Conference in Washington DC. McAdoo used the Conference to unveil measures designed to boost foreign "trade and investment," most notably with Latin America. To that end, McAdoo proposed the formation of a commission that would help standardize the key elements of international trade, including the gold standard and customs duties.
1844		In a demonstration witnessed by members of Congress, American inventor Samuel F.B. Morse inaugurates the world's first commercial telegraph line with a message from the U.S. Capitol to Alfred Vail at a railroad station in Baltimore, Maryland. The message--"What Hath God Wrought?"--was telegraphed back to the Capitol a moment later by Vail. The question, taken from the Bible (Numbers 23:23), had been suggested to Morse by Annie Ellworth, the daughter of the commissioner of patents. Morse, an accomplished painter, learned of a French inventor's idea of an electric telegraph in 1832 and then spent the next 12 years attempting to perfect a working telegraph instrument. During this period, he composed the Morse code, a set of signals that could represent language in telegraph messages, and convinced Congress to finance a Washington-to-Baltimore telegraph line.

May 25

1805

Members of the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers (the first and oldest trade union in the U.S.) are part of an ignoble event that presaged labor's troubles with management over the next two centuries. In the midst of a strike aimed at winning better wages, the shoemakers were confronted by local police. Acting under orders from a local judge, the officers not only stopped the strike, but also arrested a number of the Cordwainers on charges of criminal conspiracy. In particular, the strikers were accused of violating an English common law that barred schemes aimed at forcing wage increases. As it turned out, these charges, and the subsequent arrests, had stemmed from the Cordwainers' employers, who had appealed to the court to intervene in the strike. The event marked the first, though hardly the last time, that employers would turn to the judicial system to help smash a strike.

May 26

1781

Philadelphia merchant Robert Morris, who guided, and even helped finance, the Revolutionary War effort, and was tabbed as the chief of finance, scores another coup as Congress approves his proposal for a national bank. After months of wrangling and debate, during which "radical egalitarians" lobbed attacks at Morris' putatively privileged institution, the newly christened Bank of North America received the United States' very first bank charter on December 31, 1781. Modeled after the Bank of England, Morris' Philadelphia-based bank proved to be a fast success and inspired Alexander Hamilton to found the Bank of New York in 1791. However, the Bank's good fortunes failed to rub off on Morris, who, after serving in various political offices, made an ill-fated foray into land speculation. Morris wound up bankrupt and was forced to spend 1798 to 1801 in debtors' prison.

May 27

1794

Rail baron and arch-capitalist Cornelius Vanderbilt is born to a poor family in Staten Island. Vanderbilt left school at age eleven and headed to New York's waterfront to begin what proved to be a long and fruitful career. In 1810, Vanderbilt began his first entrepreneurial venture with the launch of a small ferry business. Though Vanderbilt's ferry enterprise soon began to thrive, he sold his schooners in 1818, opting instead to learn the shipping business under the tutelage of captain Thomas Gibbons. Though still young, Vanderbilt was a savvy and fiercely competitive entrepreneur, and by 1829 he had purchased his first steamer. Thanks in large part to his aggressive fares and lavishly decorated steamers, Vanderbilt eventually came to rule the shipping industry. By 1862, the nation's burgeoning rail network beckoned and, utilizing his handsome capital resources, Vanderbilt built an empire that included the New York and Harlem Railroad, as well as the New York Central Railroad. Towards the end of his life, Vanderbilt tempered his competitive zeal with altruism--he donated $1 million to Central University (later renamed Vanderbilt University) and masterminded the construction of New York's Grand Central Terminal. Cornelius Vanderbilt passed away in New York City during in early 1877.

May 28

1986		The U.S. Court of Appeals upholds the conviction of writer R. Foster Winans for securities fraud. Winans, author of the "Heard on the Street" column for the Wall Street Journal, entered into a scheme with two brokers at Kidder Peabody to give them advance information about his column. The brokers, Kenneth Felis and Peter Brant, made $700,000 by trading stocks that Winans touted in the newspaper; Winans and his lover, David Carpenter, received only $31,000 in kickbacks.
1998		Merger mania sweeps through the financial services industry. The wheeling and dealing kicked off just minutes after noon, as Republic Security Financial Corp. inked an agreement to acquire First Palm Beach Bancorp Inc. with a $279.3 million stock swap to position the West Palm Beach-based Republic Corp. as the prime independent banking player in Florida. Later in the afternoon, the action picked up again as First Hawaiian Inc. and BancWest Corp. joined forces to create a $14 billion banking behemoth based in the western United States. The merger, which cost around $1 billion, gave First Hawaiian's stockholders a small majority stake in the new institution.

May 29

1932		At the height of the Great Depression, the "Bonus Expeditionary Force," a group of 1,000 World War I veterans seeking cash payments for their veterans' bonus certificates, arrive in Washington, DC. One month later, other veteran groups spontaneously made their way to the nation's capital, swelling the Bonus Marchers to nearly 20,000 strong, most of them unemployed veterans in desperate financial straits. Camping in vacant government buildings and in open fields made available by District of Columbia Police Chief Pelham D. Glassford, they demanded passage of the veterans' payment bill introduced by Representative Wright Patman.
1975		President Gerald Ford vetoes the $5.3 billion jobs-creation bill. In place of the jobs program, Ford moved to pass a bill that extended the ceiling on unemployment benefits to 65 weeks.

May 30

1908

The Aldrich-Vreeland Currency Act, one of financier and conservative senator Nelson Aldrich's pet projects, is passed by Congress. One of Aldrich's typically business-friendly bills, the Currency Act was designed as a boon to struggling banks. As such, the legislation granted banks the authority to issue currency that was pegged to commercial notes and government bonds. The day held yet another victory for Aldrich, as President Theodore Roosevelt tabbed the Rhode Island Republican to chair the National Monetary Commission. In doing so, Roosevelt had effectively granted the arch-conservative the right to monitor and mold the nation's finances.

May 31

1929		The Ford Motor Company signs a "Technical Assistance" contract to produce cars in the Soviet Union. Ford supplied many of the production parts for car manufacturers in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. Soviet factories also used Ford plants as their construction models. The agreement between Ford and the Soviet government also meant that Ford workers were sent to the Soviet Union to train the labor force in the use of its parts. Many laborers, including Walter Reuther, the UAW's president for many years, returned from the Soviet Union with a different view of the duties and privileges of the industrial laborer. Reuther claimed to have been galvanized by the spirit of the Soviet workforce. It was over a decade, however, before labor unions won major victories in the U.S. Although the labor activists were for the most part not Communist, nor even Communist sympathizers, Ford officials nevertheless used this threat to keep them at bay for years. During McCarthyism, many of the labor officials who had been in the Soviet Union were cited as perpetrators of "un-American activities."
1996		Daytime television queen Kathie Lee Gifford teams with Labor Secretary Robert Reich at a press conference designed to shed a spotlight on the proliferation of low pay and foul conditions in numerous garment shops. While Gifford's sudden transformation from chatty talk show host to activist--inspired by the discovery that her line of Wal-Mart-based clothing was partially produced in "sweatshops"--may have inspired some snickering, Reich attempted to keep the focus on the facts. The Labor Secretary deemed the sweatshops a "national shame" and noted that roughly half of the garment factories in the U.S. not only paid workers sub-minimum wage salaries, but failed to pay for overtime work. In the wake of the press conference, cynics wondered if either Reich's statistics of Gifford's star power would bring about change. Indeed, some labor officials noted that, despite the recent publicity, it would prove difficult for the nation's relatively small fleet of inspectors to thoroughly monitor workplace conditions.