A comprehensive study of bank failures during the Florida land boom of the mid-1920s. This dissertation is the first work to analyze state and national banking records to determine the causes of specific bank failures during the banking panic of 1926. Previously confidential government documents, which are now public records because of this study, were utilized to establish why 150 Florida and Georgia banks failed in that year. / In ten days of July 1926, after uncontrollable depositor runs, one hundred and seventeen banks closed in the two states. Uninsured depositors lost an estimated $30 million, and several suicides followed the financial havoc. / Florida suffered through a banking crisis during the years preceding the stock market crash of 1929. Bank assets in Florida fell more than $300 million in 1926 alone. Between 1926 and 1929, bank assets declined from \$943 million to $375 million. / Regulatory secrecy permitted the banking debacle to grow beyond control as regulators concealed the magnitude of the problem. After lawsuits disclosed bank fraud, the public panicked. The ensuing depositor runs caused the banking crash. / Heretofore, the banking debacle has been blamed on the collapse of the Florida land boom. It was believed that the precipitate drop in real estate values created a regional recession which caused the banks to fail. Bankers were not regarded as the problem. In fact, they were defended by bank regulators, who blamed the crisis on the public. / This work concludes that banks which were operated prudently survived the deceleration of the land boom. Many bankers, however, looted the financial institutions they pledged to protect. They tried to get rich by wildly speculating with depositors' money in the real estate frenzy. When their schemes failed, so did their banks. This study proves that despite official disclaimers and previous historical accounts, virtually every bank failure which occurred in Florida and Georgia during 1926 involved massive insider abuses, a conscious conspiracy to defraud, or both. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-04, Section: A, page: 1365. / Major Professor: Edward F. Keuchel. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_78238 |
| Contributors | Vickers, Raymond Bernard., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 350 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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