Date of Award
2026
Abstract
This dissertation examines the history of the Bank of North America, the first charteredbank in the United States, as a foundational experiment in American public finance during the critical decade between the American Revolution and the founding of the Bank of the United States in 1791. Historians have often interpreted the Bank either as an extension of Robert Morris's career or as a precursor to Alexander Hamilton’s federal financial system. By shifting the focus from individual actors to institutional practice, this project demonstrates how the Bank of North America functioned as a proto-national financial institution in a political environment where national fiscal authority remained uncertain. I argue that the Bank circulated currency, managed government revenues, and mediated credit across state jurisdictions despite lacking a stable constitutional foundation. Its authority emerged from a hybrid institutional structure that combined public fiscal responsibilities with private investment and corporate governance. This ambiguous position between public and private financial space allowed the Bank to operate as a national financial intermediary even while its legitimacy and jurisdiction remained subject to political dispute. By tracing how different populations engaged with the Bank, sometimes willingly and sometimes out of necessity, this dissertation shows that early American financial institutions were shaped as much by their users as their users were shaped by them. Recovering the Bank of North America as a central actor in the development of American public finance reframes the Confederation era not as a period of institutional weakness but as one defined by experimentation with hybrid financial institutions that sustained governance in the absence of a formalized national state.
Document Type
Dissertation
First Advisor
Eliga Gould
Second Advisor
Jessica Lepler
Third Advisor
Andrew Seal
Department or Program
History
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Recommended Citation
Martinez Arellano, Arya Georgina, "THE BANK OF NORTH AMERICA AND THE MAKING OF AMERICAN PUBLIC FINANCE IN THE CONFEDERATION ERA" (2026). Doctoral Dissertations. 2993.
https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/2993