American Decades
Baruch, Bernard M. 1870-1965
FINANCIER, CHAIRMAN OF THE WAR INDUSTRIES BOARD
Elder Statesman.
Bernard M. Baruch began his career as a Wall Street gambler and evolved into one of the nation's most respected elder statesmen. His skill at predicting stock market fluctuations made him untold millions, but he transcended the financial world using his money and personality to gain political favor with a string of presidents. At the end of his career Baruch gained notoriety for setting up his "office" on a park bench in Lafayette Square across the street from the White House. Baruch's political reputation was solidified in the 1910s when President Woodrow Wilson named him chairman of the War Industries Board (WIB). The speculator's skill at organizing and coordinating the nation's businesses for the First World War won him national acclaim. He parlayed the early success into a cherished position among the country's political elite.
Background.
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1910's Business and the Economy
- Overview
-
Topics in the News
- Big Business: The Modern Corporation
- Creating the Federal Reserve System
- Economic Diplomacy in the 1910s
- The Five-Dollar Day
- Labor in the 1910s
- The New Freedom and the Trusts
- Organized Labor and the Wilson Administration
- Postwar Labor Distress
- The Retail Industry
- Seamstresses and Strikes: Women Organizers and the Garment Industry
- Taxation, Tariffs, and the National Economy
- The War Industries Board
- World War I and the Economy
- Headline Makers
- People in the News
- Deaths
- Publications
- Important Events in Business and the Economy, 1910–1919
