Era of Instability and Change: 1913–1944

Abstract

As demonstrated in Chapters 3 and 4, the national banking era was an extension of the antebellum banking era in terms of the increasing instability in banking and the growth in federal regulation. This era marks another extension of the historical trend in commercial banking to become both more regulated and more unstable. As this chapter demonstrates, between 1913 and 1944, commercial banking in the United States witnessed an increase in the severity of bank crises, a tremendous number of bank failures and, in response, a significant increase in the federal regulation of commercial banks.