Ramsey County History – Fall 1990: “No Cash, No Credit, No Jobs—St. Paul and the Panic of 1857”

No Cash, No Credit, No Jobs—St. Paul and the Panic of 1857

Author: Ronald M. Hubbs

The nationwide Panic of 1857 shattered the booming – and enthusiastically speculating – St. Paul. This piece follows the crisis mostly through the pens of newspapermen, chiefly those of the Daily Minnesotian and St. Paul Advertiser. The editors watched and commented as a crash was rumored, then struck Wall Street, then made its way inexorably west. Banks closed, money dried up, businesses went under, great men were ruined, the wharfs went quiet. It took the Civil War to bring full recovery. This article teaches us not only about the Panic, but also about a style of newspaper writing now gone.

PDF of Hubbs article