Marriner Stoddard Eccles
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Marriner Stoddard Eccles (September 9, 1890 – December 18, 1977) was a U.S. banker, economist, and Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Born in Logan, Utah, he attended Brigham Young College and served a Latter-Day Saint mission to Scotland. After his mission, while working in a family enterprise in Blacksmith Fork Canyon, he learned of the untimely death of his father. With great skill and tenacity, he was able to reorganize and and consolidate the assets of the industrial conglomerate and banking network of his father, David Eccles. Eccles expanded the banking interests into a large western chain of banks called Eccles-Browning Affiliated Banks. He was a millionaire by age 22. The company withstood several bank runs during the Great Depression and, as a leading banker, became involved with the creation of the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
After a brief stint at the Treasury Department, he was appointed by President Roosevelt as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve between 1934 and 1948. He stayed on the Board of Governors until 1951, when he resigned over acrimony between the Fed and the Treasury Department prior to the 1951 Accord. He also participated in post-World War II Bretton Woods negotiations that created the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. He later retired back to Utah to run his companies and write his memoirs, titled Beckoning Frontiers.
Marriner Eccles is often seen as an early proponent of demand stimulus projects to fend of the ravages of the Great Depression. Later, he became known as a defender of Keynesian ideas, though his ideas predated Keynes' The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. In that respect, it is generally accepted that he considered monetary policy of secondary importance, and that as a result he allowed the Federal Reserve to be submitted to the interests of the Treasury. In this view, the Federal Reserve after 1935 acquired new instruments to command monetary policy, but it did not change its behavior significantly. Further, his defense of the Federal Reserve-Treasury accord in 1951 is sometimes seen as a reversal of his previous policy stances.
The Eccles Building that houses the headquarters of the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C. is named after him.
After his return to Utah in 1951 after government service, Eccles further consolidated industrial and family assets, finally organizing a series of foundations representing assets that he had managed for various family members. These foundations have served Utah and the Intermountain West in support of educational, artistic, humanitarian, and scientific activities. Marriner Eccles died in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1977 and was entombed in the Larkin Sunset Lawn Mausoleum. Mr. Eccles was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1999.
[edit] References
- Biography at the University of Utah
- Biography from the Minneapolis Fed's magazine
- Another biography
- Hyman, S. 1976. Marriner S. Eccles - Private Entrepreneur and Public Servant. Palo Alto, CA: Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by Eugene R. Black |
Chairman of the Federal Reserve 1934–1948 |
Succeeded by Thomas B. McCabe |
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