A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States

Mihm vividly and entertainingly describes the muddled and often fraudulent economy of pre-greenback America: those freewheeling, pre–Civil War days when the federal government not only did not print paper money but likewise did not bother to regulate those regional banks that did. With more than 10,000 shades and varieties of cheaply printed currency on the “market” by the 1850s, counterfeiters had a field day. Mihm, an assistant professor of history at the University of Georgia, details the flimflam men and their ruses, and paints a stark picture of a world where counterfeit currency was at times issued in such volume that it threatened to spark significant inflation. Mihm’s villains include the notorious privateer, minister and alchemist Stephen Burroughs, along with numerous bankers, engravers and charlatans. Mihm’s title was a phrase used in 1818 by Hezekiah Niles, proprietor of what was the country’s leading financial journal, the Weekly Register . Niles wrote, “Counterfeiters and false bank notes are so common, that forgery seems to have lost its criminality in the minds of many.” As Mihm ably shows, the chaos did not end until Lincoln’s presidency, and even then it receded only grudgingly. 37 b&w illus. (Sept.)