Book Description

From Library Journal :"Readers who enjoy biographies and the history of business will find food for thought in this very comprehensive history of the world's largest brokerage and investment firm, Merrill Lynch, and biography of founder Charles E. Merrill (1885-1956). Perkins, a history professor at the University of Southern California and a specialist in U.S. financial services, focuses on Merrill's business career rather than his personal life, although Perkins does delve into Merrill's upbringing near Jacksonville, FL, and his education at Amherst. Scholarly and detailed but readable, the book discusses Merrill's success with the Safeway food chain, the business climate during the 1920s and 1930s, his relationship with Edmund Lynch (who died in 1938), and the war and postwar years and his success in opening offices nationwide (100 by 1950) that attracted flocks of middle-class investors to the stock market. Perkins concludes with a look at the firm today."