I learned this today. Why is Wall Street called “Wall Street” and why has it become a financial center?
There are two theories as to why Wall Street is called Wall Street. Nobody knows which one is true.
The first theory is that it was a street for a people called Walloon. At that time, New York was called New Amsterdam and it was owned by the Dutch. New York was called New Amsterdam before it became New York. French-speaking people from the area around Belgium were called Walloons and, in New Amsterdam, population 300 in 1630, most were Walloon farmers. They lived around Fort Amsterdam, about where Battery Park is now. The Dutch word for Walloon is Waal. So, “De Waal Straat” could be the street of the Walloons.
The second theory is that Wall Street was probably given the name because it was a street next to a wall. I know that doesn’t sound very imaginative, but that’s the way most things are named. In the 1640s, the Dutch West India Company built a wall along the edge of the city. It was 4m high. It ran from Pearl Street, at the shore of the river, across Broadway, and went to the fort. The wall was built to protect against Native American invasions and the English. It cost 5000 guilders to build and had cannons. The wall was strengthened in the 1690s to protect against the French. The road that ran along the wall was called “Wall Street”. I feel that this theory is more likely, but there is no way of proving it.
In the late 17th century, people would meet near the wall to buy and sell shares and bonds. Over time, these people divided themselves into the auctioneering class and the dealing class. There was also a marketplace here where owners could hire out their slaves.
On December 3rd, 1711, Wall Street became New York City’s first official slave market. There was a slave market here until 1762. The City of New York imposed taxes on the sale of every slave.
On May 17, 1792, the New York Stock Exchange was founded on Wall Street and it began its journey to becoming one of the major financial centers in the world.
From the late 18th century, the leading merchants had taken to meeting under a buttonwood tree on the end of Wall Street. Merchants, traders, and speculators would meet under this tree to trade securities. They wanted to make the transactions safer and have more rules, so they all signed the Buttonwood Agreement. This basically became the New York Stock Exchange. They couldn’t fit under the tree, so they started to meet in Tontine Coffee House, which no longer exists, unfortunately. It could have been a Mecca for capitalism.
From 1800 on, businesses started to push out housing from Wall Street. After the Civil War, 1861 to 1865, the economy in the north skyrocketed. The discovery of oil also caused a lot of people to get very rich. Wall Street had become the center of share trading, so it made sense for people to trade there. People didn’t choose to make Wall Street the center of trading. It was the center of trading, so it slowly grew.
In 1884, Charles Dow started to track the stocks that were being sold on Wall Street. He started with just 11 stocks but soon expanded. His numbers were an easy way to view the whole stock market and to say if the economy was going up or down. He partnered with Edward Jones and the Dow Jones is still used to analyze the market. They also founded the Wall Street Journal.
Since then, Wall Street has continued to grow and in 2014, it became the world’s leading financial center, overtaking London.
So, why is Wall Street called Wall Street? Well, most likely because it was a street that was next to a wall built to stop people from invading New Amsterdam. Although, there is a thought that it could be because people the Dutch called Waals lived in this area. It became a financial center because it was a convenient place for traders to meet and once it had started, money attracts money. And that is what I learned today.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street
https://www.history.com/topics/us-states/wall-street-timeline
https://www.thebalance.com/wall-street-how-it-works-history-and-crashes-3306252
https://www.thestreet.com/lifestyle/history-of-wall-street
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/where-does-the-name-wall-street-come-from/