Investing in Middle America: John Elliott Tappan and the Origins of American Express Financial Advisors

In 1892, John Elliott Tappan, a twenty-four year old Minneapolis lawyer, was worried how people saved their money. Out of these concerns, Investors Syndicate was born, one of the first of a new type of financial institution designed to meet the savings needs of the average person. Here is the story of this financial pioneer, whose innovation has today grown into one of the nation's largest financial services companies, American Express Financial Advisors. The book draws on Tappan's diaries, business correspondence, and various family oral histories. Tappan's life, work and ideas chronicle the changes in spending and savings, work and leisure, the culture of politics and money, that have given rise to our modern notions of consumer finance.

Author: K. Lipartito,C. Peters
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: 01/21/2002
Pages: 268
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.21lbs
Size: 9.55h x 6.51w x 0.99d
ISBN: 9780312233983

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 08/27/2001 pg. 72
Choice 04/01/2002 pg. 1469

About the Author
KENNETH LIPARTITO, Professor of History at Florida International University, Miami, is a specialist in business history.

CAROL HEHER PETERS is Communications Editor for the Princeton Environmental Institute at Princeton University. She is the great-granddaughter of John Elliott Tappan.