I've been dealing a lot with primary sources lately in my online and face-to-face classes and I thought it might be kinda cool to have my students analyze a letter I've transcribed from the Nicholas Biddle Papers. What you'll see below is not contained in any edited volume and with the exception, perhaps, of a handful of folks on the East Coast, no one has transcribed this letter. A lot of letters from this era contain handwriting that is very difficult to read, but like many bankers in this era, this guy had excellent penmanship. I've even written an italicized introduction in the style of what you'll find in primary source readers.
As I argued in my article in American Nineteenth Century History, a letter like this, which among scholars of Jacksonian era politics seems to have passed below the radar--understandable for a manuscript collection stored on 51 reels of microfilm--is valuable because it underscores Biddle's ability to use the peculiar institutional makeup of the Bank's system of branches to engage in interregional networking; to communicate with financiers about appropriate monetary policy; to gauge public opinion on the Bank before proceeding with the recharter effort. All of this made for a very early attempt, perhaps one of the earliest attempts, at constructing a nationwide public relations campaign.
As I argued in my article in American Nineteenth Century History, a letter like this, which among scholars of Jacksonian era politics seems to have passed below the radar--understandable for a manuscript collection stored on 51 reels of microfilm--is valuable because it underscores Biddle's ability to use the peculiar institutional makeup of the Bank's system of branches to engage in interregional networking; to communicate with financiers about appropriate monetary policy; to gauge public opinion on the Bank before proceeding with the recharter effort. All of this made for a very early attempt, perhaps one of the earliest attempts, at constructing a nationwide public relations campaign.
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