Wall Street to Main Street

Wall Street to Main Street, first published in 1999, focuses on the spectacularly successful career of financier Charles Merrill (1885–1956), the founder of Merrill Lynch & Co., the world’s largest brokerage and investment firm. Merrill was the most innovative entrepreneur in the United States financial services sector in the twentieth century and the most important figure in promoting common stocks as a prudent long-term investment vehicle for members of the American middle class. With more than 100 branch offices across the nation, his firm solicited millions of middle-class households and became famous for bringing Wall Street to Main Street in the post-World War II era. Today, American investors hold, either directly or indirectly through mutual funds, a greater percentage of common stocks in their financial portfolios than do the citizens of any other country. Based on archival sources, this book is the first biography published about the career of this major Wall Street figure.