they will say these people were the vanguard of the progressive movement. i started reading about them. i didn't know the others and i didn't know mcclure. he came into my life. >> roosevelt, taft and the muck rakers sunday night with doris kearns goodwin at 8:00 on c-span's q and a. next on american history tv sherri caplan, author of pet coats and pinstripes. she talks about how women played an important role if the world of finance. she argues that world war one was the water shed moment for women who entered the financial world. this 30-minute event took place at the museum of american finance in new york city.

good afternoon. welcome. hi. i'm president of the museum of american finance, the only finance museum in the nation. our core mission is to teaching financial history and we're a smithsonian affiliate. welcome back, friends of the museum and our friends from c-span who are taping today. today we have sheri caplan, author of petticoats and pinstripes. portraits of women in wall street history. while this is her first book, she is no stranger to writing. she contributes to forbes, to bloomberg law, as well as other media outlets. during her research, she used some of the resources here including a finding in our collection for the image on the cover. she was a vice president and assistant general counselled a goldman sachs, also on the

securities arbitration roster of finra, financial industry regulatory authority. her undergraduate work was at yale, her jd at the university of virginia. and if you go to sheri caplan.com, you'll see that inspiration for her writing often comes from a nice cup of tea that is by her side or a piece of chocolate. so to provide inspiration today, we present her from the new he assume shop a hershey's bar and we look forward to your teach. welcome, sheri. [ applause ] >> thank you all for coming on this beautiful day and thank you to the museum for hosting this event. i put together a power point on the topic and we're going to start with that and then afterwards, i'd be happy to take any questions.

so here we go. in a word, wall street is not the place for a lady to find fortune or character. that's what noted american banker henry kluz had to say in 1908 about the idea of women on wall street. any thoughts about that? well, what are we talking about when we talk about the subject of women and wall street? and why does it matter? i wrote this book because i wanted to read it. and it did not exist. when i first wanted to know more about this topic several years ago, i looked for a book about it on the library shelves. i found books on wall street history that i had already read. they were excellent histories, but they contained very few references to the women's experience. i found a book on the african

american experience, but i could not find anything on the top he can of the evolution of women's roles in american finance. so after being unable to find someone else's account, i went searching for the answers myself and i found myself asking these questions. what is wall street? where are the women? and why do we care? so let's backtrack a bit and get a quick review of wall street's development. 1792 marks the formal beginnings of what would later become the new york stock exchange. in 1792, 24 men stood beneath a tree in lower manhattan and they signed an agreement that established a new market for a

more orderly system of selling and buying securities. later, the invention of the telegraph in 1844, the rise of industrialization, and civil war spending lavished riches on wall street. and gave way to the gilded age. the term wall street had thousand become symbolic of the nation's securities market. by 1918, world war 1 had catapulted wall street into the epicenter of global finance. in the 20th century then witnessed great market runs and bubbles. both financial, innovation and regulation took hold. investor base expanded as did the array of new products. wall street does not connote just an address in lower manhattan, but the vast world enter connected through technology and geographic bounds no longer matter.

so where were the women? they were not beneath the buttonwood tree. most people here tend to think that muriel seibert was the first to take up the path on wall street when she purchased a seat on the new york stock exchange in 1967. but she was hardly the first to make her mark in american finance. two other names that most frequently surface are those of victoria woodhall and heddy green. woodall and her sister had made the acquaintance of vanderbilt. they wanted to get rich and opened the first female owned brokerage in 1870. the firm lasted only a few years, and they were largely dismissed as a joke.

to be sure, they were more keen on courting publicity than on analyzing earnings. but they were certainly savvy marketers and they courted publicity so well that one can liken them to many of their modern day cohorts in the brokerage industry. heddy green is usually dismissed as a miserly eccentric and certainly her fashion choice did nothing to help her shed that image. she vastly increased her fortune through shrewd investments. her unfortunate nickname overlooks her keen financial mind and her participation in key events of the times. from a broader perspective, the business dealings of these women help not only draw the attention of other women to finance, but to raise the public scrutiny of whether a woman belonged on wall street at all. another woman of that same era goes for the most part little noticed. does anyone recognize this

person? that is maggie walker of richmond, virginia. she recognized the importance of financial literacy and empowerment particularly for black women and she founded the st. luke penny savings bank in 1903. her legacy endured. the entity that she founded lasted into the 21st century as the country's longest continually owned and operated african-american bank. there are also women who ventured into the financial matters even before the gilded age leaders. some of these women were well-known. abigail adams and sarah livingston jay come to mind. they both actively invested in government securities and bank shares.

and there are scores of others who often invested and who remain unnamed and unknown for the most part. for instance, between 1759 and 1760, 61% of the investigators in the pennsylvania indian commission loan were women. and between 1792 and 1799, 11% of stockholders of the insurance company of north america were female. so women may not have stood beneath the buttonwood tree, but some were participating in the formation of the capital structure of the emerging country.

and they had been taking part in the colonial economy before then. many women singled and widowed participated in commerce. personal necessity and patriotic duty gave rise to women taking a more active role. women helped raise funds for the continental army and took care of the family farms and businesses while their husbands were fighting in the war. it raised confidence, broadened their abilities and gave them a sense of empowerment. even if short lived. for the woman's place was still seen as being at home. world war i provided the watershed moment by which more women were introduced to finance. again personal necessity and patriotic duty coincided to make this happen. in this case, it was the women who powered the liberty bond sales during world war i who deserved the credit. they galvanized public attention

on the skills and prowess of women and they broadened the financial vocabulary of the volunteers and public at large. soon many of the women who had once powered the bond drives were among the first to enter the expanding commercial banking workforce. and we tend to think of networking as a modern day development. but in fact the first professional organizations for women in finance originated in 1921 with the beginnings of the association of bank women and the formation of the women's bond club. according to rumor, a woman even sought membership on the new york stock exchange in 1927, 40 years before it actually became reality. women made inroads particularly in commercial banking during the inter-war years. isabel benam became the first female railroad analyst in 1934 and embarked on a successful

career that spanned six decades. mary robling became the first woman president of trenton trust in 1937. when world war ii came, again a familiar story. women answered the country's call to duty and even filled empty posts on wall street. but they were booted out when peace time prevailed and the men came home. but you in the coming decade, both a booming economy and broadening acceptance of women's roles helped power further progress. from the 1950s through the 1970s, both wall street and american women staked their positions amid a changing landscape. a few intrepid leaders broke new

ground at the crossroads. of particular note, mary robling became the first woman governor of the american stock exchange in 1956. and in 1965, julia montgomery walsh and phyllis peterson became the first women members there. the field of securities analysis grew. and so, for a, did mutual fund assets. the individual investor was attaining greater significant. the investor base became increasingly democratized. and by the late 1960s, the walsh preserve of wall street itself began to fade. many firsts were achieved by women in finance during these years. they pursued their careers against a backdrop of the women's liberation movement and other calls for societal change. by the 1980s, women had come a long way in finance. but obstacles remained. they were not going to go further on wall street if the

financial sector could not cure its own ills. wall street was plagued by problems caused by playing technological catchup in the late 1970s and emerging from stagflation. not helping was a bit of anti-feminist backlash and a sense of complacency as the equal rights amendment was defeated in 1982 and the wage gap also increased. once the economy boomed again, wall street gained a pop culture fascination. and for the first time, women numbered among its stars. elaine garsarelli who predicted the 1987 market crash and abby joseph cohen became household names.

other women, however, faced inhospitable workplaces. beginning in 1996, the first gender based class action lawsuits were brought against major wall street firms. at present, we see more and more women successfully forging strong identities within high profile careers. but women remain among the first to go both at general and higher levels. today overtly hostile workplaces no longer survive. both men and women are speaking out about the need to create a flourishing pipeline of women coming into and succeeding in finance. calls for greater workplace flexibility and financial education are also important for both genders.

the book delves into these themes and a broad array of three centuries of social and financial history like a survey and is meant to be easily readable for both those familiar with wall street and those less so. the book celebrates overlooked legacies of female accomplishments in finance and sets them in the context of their times. two appendices provide a handy reference of women and milestone s. so back to the question of whether the presence of women on wall street matters. remember this guy? wonder what he would think about what christine lagarde, the first female head of the international monetary fund, would have to say on the topic of women and wall street, approximately 100 years later. in a 2012 interview, she

in a 2012 interview, she quipped that the degree of tragedy stemming from the 2008 financial crisis might not have happened had lehman brothers bit a bit more lehman sisters and brothers. what do you think? that ends my formal presentation. and i'd now like to throw the floor up to any questions and a microphone can be passed around or if anyone has broader topics on this topic of women this wall street and how they fit in and can survive. [ inaudible ] >> -- and her involvement in the panic of 1907? >> yes. heddy green is a fascinating character. and i would love to have lunch with her, but if that happened,

she probably wouldn't have offered me any food of her own, although she was so wealthy. in 1907, the financial world was in crisis mode. and jpmorgan gathered a group of leading businessmen into the office late at night and although she didn't acknowledge it formally, green was thought to have been spotted and an article describes her appearance coming down the steps from that meeting that night. so it's basically agreed that she was involved in this meeting that helped stave off the 1907 financial panic. they were trying to think of ways to keep the liquidity going while they sorted things out and more banks did not fail. heddy green was very engaged in the corporate matters of the day that involved railroad mergers and transactions and she did not quiver and shake and try to hide the fact that she was actively investing. she was a woman. she was doing it and giving out her opinions while doing so.

[ inaudible ] >> -- shift in women as traitors -- traders since open outcry auctions have faded and electronic trading has replaced it. >> i think that's a great question. and i would think, yes, because certainly in the physical arena, trading of females diminutive stature in general is not going to serve her well in an open pit, open outcry kind of system. so i do think that the rise of electronic trading and platforms levels the platform more for women to participate more fully. but that's not the only obstacle. you have to make sure women want to get into that kind of role

and that once there, they do have people who support their careers, as well. reforms going through now? and what difference might they have made in 2008? >> i will say that this goes outside of the scope of my book. that more talks about the history of women on wall street leading up to 2000, but i do note in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, many of the leading regulators, federal regulators, were female. they were very proactive and

very involved in federal regulation of the markets. something to note, that i don't think was spread in the general press was part of the dodd wall street reform act. there is a provision that calls for more recognition of diversity in wall street and the financial sector and how government contractors engage with the financial marketplace and there's offices and regulations that were provided for in the regulation to talk about and try to raise the level of diversity on wall street, including for women. as far as i know we've yet to see how they are put in to practice and what will come of that. >> quickly. who's the woman on the cover of your book? >> i think the museum of american finance can answer that better than i could. it's actually an old tobacco advertising card. i don't know her name.

to me she is anonymous. that's why i loved her on the cover because she represents just a woman opposed to a woman who you might know. and here she is, loving to read the stock ticker and looking pretty happy about it. i don't know her exact name. i don't know if you have more of the back story on that, but i love that. as i said, there were women who were participating in finance all along during all of the eras of our financial history. there's one. >> one more question. on the lady, was she related to the an didn't robling lady who built the brooklyn sglij she married in to the robling family and her story is interest ing. she didn't embark on career in finance in the 1950s. her husband was of that family and they had created the trenton trust and her husband died

prematurely. all of a sudden, she was thrust in to the leadership. she could have backed away and said no, thank you. i want to just do the country club scene but her relatives and everyone said you have common sense. you can do the this. and she did it. her legacy is remarkable because she did it in a 1950s context while break ing new ground. she was known for always looking very lady like and she loved the social aspects that went along with being a leading community in the new york area but she was the first female head of a bank and new york stock exchange. i found her character as a paradigm of the air rachlt 1950s, like the brooklyn "bridget jones"ing different spans if you will. a 1950s context of a woman belong at home versus coming changes and getting more involved in the corporate world.

>> okay. if that is it, i thank everybody and i will be available if anyone else has anything they would like to bring up. thank you. [ applause ] this november 22nd marks the 50th anniversary of president kennedy's assassination in dallas. join american history tv on november 23rd and 24th for eyewitness accounts of the events surrounding that fall day in 1963. we will air footage of the kennedy funeral and president johnson's address to congress. watch ceremonies from dealy plaza in dallas and the jfk library in boston and we'll take your phone calls. remembering jfk, 50 years after dallas here on american history tv on c-span 3. >> jel