The E-Sylum:  Volume 6, Number 40, October 5, 2003, Article 6

CRISWELL'S PUBLISHING

  Dave Ginsburg writes: "I recently finished reading "A
  Banking History of Louisiana" by Stephen A. Caldwell
  (Louisiana State University Press, 1935), which is a very
  informative, 138-page survey of banking activity in
  Louisiana from the early 18th century to the early 1930s.
  What I learned, besides the fact that banking and politics
  were thoroughly intertwined ('twas ever thus!), were the
  answers to two basic questions:

  1) What made New Orleans rich?
  A: steamboat traffic on the Mississippi!

  2) Why didn't New Orleans stay rich?
  A: The region failed to develop railroads to its major
  trading partners in the "Northwest" (i.e., the Great Lakes
  area); as a result, easterners put railroads through to the
  Mississippi river, which began the process of stealing traffic
  from New Orleans, a process that was completed by the
  shut-down of river traffic by the Civil War.  (Mark Twain
  comments on this in "Life on the Mississippi".)

  Prof. Caldwell also points out that the aftereffects of the
  Panic of 1837, which lingered in Louisiana until the early
  1840s, would have prevented the Louisiana banks from
  financing any railroads, even had New Orleans' commercial
  leaders been far-sighted enough to seek such financing.

  [By the way, I'm sure that anyone interested in the
  development of railroads at this time has already read
  Stephen Ambrose's "Nothing Like it in the World", which
  describes the building of the first transcontinental railroad,
  which was first agitated for in the early 1850s.  Mr. Ambrose
  describes the in-fighting between northern politicians, who
  refused to support construction in slave-state territory, and
  southern politicians, who refused to support construction
  anywhere else!]

  What made Prof. Caldwell's book particularly interesting
  to me, is that the copy I have was reprinted in 1977 by
  Grover Criswell.  I am familiar with Mr. Criswell's own
  books, of course, but I never knew that he reprinted
  out-of-print books of interest to numismatists.  Does
  anyone know if he reprinted other books?"

  [I know Criswell founded the weekly hobby newspaper
  Bank Note Reporter in the 1970s.  Today it is published
  by Krause Publications.   Can anyone fill us in on the
  books (other than his own) that Criswell published over
  the years (he died in March 1999). -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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