THE BACKGROUND Few periods could have been more auspicious for the starting of a stock exchange than the years between 1830 and 1837. This was the period which saw the bith of the American railroads. It was the period, too, which witnessed the extinguishment of the government debt and the return to the various states, by the United States treasury, of more than thirty millions of surplus tevenues. It was also the period of settlement for a number of foreign difficulties, particularly between England and France, and a corresponding growth in the available investment and speculative capital of those two countries. Due to the high state of American credit, by reason of the liquidation of the national debt, large amounts of this English and French money sought an outlet in the United States. True, in 1834, a crisis was precipitated by the withdrawal of government funds from the United States Bank and a constriction of credit followed, but by the end of the year, when the local Exchange was launched, this adverse factor had been well discounted, and the country was preparing for the years 1835 and 1836, long known as the “golden age of borrowing.” The availability of capital was a great stimulant to the pio- neering spirit of all the Atlantic seaboard cities, and particularly of Boston. At the start, the available securities, as stated, were very limited, consisting largely of the stocks of banks and insur- ance companies, of the local mill and canal projects, of small mining enterprises, and of the various types of public debts; but, with the growing exploitation of national resources and industrial upbuilding, the supply was an expanding one. [11]