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Jane Kamensky
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The Exchange Artist: A Tale of High-Flying Speculation and America's First Banking Collapse Hardcover – January 24, 2008

by Jane Kamensky (Author)
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 9 ratings
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Profiles Andrew Dexter, Jr., as a late-eighteenth-century financial pioneer-turned-confidence man, describing how he took advantage of period suspicions about paper money and banks to promote a skyscraper building scheme that subsequently cost his investors millions of dollars.
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  1. Print length
    464 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Viking Adult
  4. Publication date
    January 24, 2008
  5. Reading age
    18 years and up
  6. Dimensions
    6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0670018414
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0670018413
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Brandeis history professor Kamensky (The Colonial Mosaic) recounts the story of Andrew Dexter, a chronically overleveraged real estate developer who engineered profound shifts in the economy and skyline of turbulent early America. Dexter built the seven-story Boston Exchange Coffee House, an extraordinarily ambitious project, and helped create a regional exchange system that made banknotes from distant rural locations acceptable in Boston. Unfortunately for his reputation, he is more often remembered as the man responsible for the first bank failure in the United States in 1809. Although he spent the last 30 years of his life on the run from numerous creditors and died in debt, he never stopped juggling visionary projects. Kamensky devotes almost as much attention to the Exchange Coffee House and its impact on contemporary thought as she does to Dexter's biography. She also weaves in an account of Nathan Appleton, born, like Dexter, in 1779, but destined for a longer and much more prosperous and respectable life fighting against Dexter and his ilk. This is a charming popular account of an often-overlooked aspect of American history. B&w photos and illus. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker

Though all but unheard of today, the banker and real-estate speculator Andrew Dexter, Jr., was widely known—and reviled—in early-nineteenth-century America, especially in Boston, where he oversaw the construction of the Exchange Coffee House, a marketplace, hotel, and dining venue that was the city’s tallest building. Unfortunately, Dexter financed the project using worthless currency printed by regional banks that he himself controlled, and enormous loans that he had no means of repaying. The Exchange proved the financial ruin of nearly everyone involved, and Dexter was forced to flee the city. Kamensky’s lively account resists parallels with contemporary speculative debacles, as she recounts a life of "big gambles" and "fleeting gains." Dexter, never abandoning the "belief that the next hand would be a royal flush," went on to help found Montgomery, Alabama, and died in poverty
Copyright © 2007 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Viking Adult; First Edition, First Printing (January 24, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 464 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0670018414
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0670018413
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.45 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 9 ratings

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Jane Kamensky

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Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
9 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Neil J. Lehto
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!
Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2014
Verified Purchase
A great story focusing on an unbelieveable post-Revoluntionary War banking scam. Professor Kamensky writes with a style closer to Hunter Thompson than Doris Kearns Goodwin. Well-researched with plentiful notes.
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Michael Emmett Brady
5.0 out of 5 stars 4.5 stars-Speculation leads to widespread destruction
Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2008
Kamensky has done an excellent job in this book.The book is a detailed study of the events leading up to the first bank failure in American history.In March,1809,the Farmers Exchange Bank of Gloucester,Rhode Island,collapsed.The story starts in late 1807 as a real estate speculator named Andrew Dexter,Jr.,is able to convincingly persuade many investors to financially back his Exchange Coffee House,a gigantic seven story building which will supposedly allow financial and commercial interests to conduct their business affairs in comfort and style, with easy access to other members of the Boston financial community ,instead of haphazard meetings spread out over a number of different street corners.At this point in time the failure of Dexter's speculative " house of cards " would have had a relatively small impact.It is here that Dexter is able to use the completed but practically empty building as collateral to buy a controlling interest in a number of banks.He then used the banks currency creation power to further leverage his own speculations.Dexter's banks did not have anywhere near the necessary required reserves in gold and silver.Suspicious merchants finally started taking the notes in to redeem them for the claimed metallic backing.It was soon realized that there was no such backing.The collapse of Dexter's speculative endeavor now led to a panic and crash that severely impacted businesses that had accepted the now worthless bank notes as payment.

The most important part of the book is an implicit generalization that can be universally observed in all speculative bubbles.In order for the bubble to grow and cause great damage in the future when it deflates,bankers must extend credit to the speculators ,allowing them to leverage their own precarious debt position many times over.Without banker complicity(many times the bankers themselves begin to engage in speculative behavior,compounding the damages already done through their loan committments to speculators in the first place)the speculative bubble can't grow.

I have deducted one half of a star because the author is not aware of the extensive warnings made by Adam Smith ,in 1776 in his The Wealth of Nations,about the extreme dangers to economic growth and welfare if bankers are allowed to make loans to speculators.Smith's conclusion,that the savings will be wasted and destroyed,is as true today,as we witness the destruction being wrought by the banker financed and directed sub prime mortgage backed bonds fiasco.
13 people found this helpful
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W. Berry
4.0 out of 5 stars exchange artist
Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2008
Very interesting story and a nice piece of Boston and US history. The author has covered this event well. In some cases she uses an affected present tense when referring to historical events - can make reading a bit confusing until you get used to it. But the insights on the history of banking and the rise of paper money are fascinating.
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Rolf Dobelli
5.0 out of 5 stars Lively history of an original con man
Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2009
Andrew Dexter Jr. is the villain of historian Jane Kamensky's book on America's first bank failure, which occurred in the early 1800s. He used worthless banknotes to finance construction of Boston's Exchange Coffee House, at seven stories then America's tallest building. In the process, he financially ruined hundreds of laborers who worked on the project. By the time they learned that his banknotes were bogus, Dexter was long gone. Kamensky deftly tells his tale with fascinating detail and little-known facts. In brilliant writing she traces the rise of "speculative capitalism." She offers the bittersweet saga of a man with little conscience and big dreams he never fulfilled. getAbstract finds that her book compellingly depicts America's early financial history - and, perhaps, one facet of its emerging fiscal personality - through the tale of this colorful charlatan.
3 people found this helpful
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David Bridgeland
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb tale of a building, a bank failure, and the man behind both
Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2008
This book describes the making and unmaking of the largest building in Boston---at the time---all built on bank notes of questionable value. It is a superb tale. The building construction is fascinating, the shaky finance more so, and the man behind it even more.
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