ABSTRACT
The long string of Wall Street scandals was a major factor in the shaping of US economic development in the late nineteenth century. And in the Wall Street drama of the last decades of the century, the main actors shifted from the bear raiders and former circus workers to bankers and presidents. The politicians of the Gilded Age, perhaps mirroring the mood of the public, turned away from troubling intractables like freedom, democracy, equality, and attended instead to order, stability, and prosperity". Probably the apex of the Gilded Age was when Ward McAllister, described as New York's self-appointed social arbiter and devoted to more than one glass of Madeira, decided to reveal who was on the list of Mrs. Astor's Four Hundred. The bankers also paved the legal path, underwrote the securities, appointed the managers, and framed the policies. As the Gilded Age came to an end, Wall Street became a more settled institution in the American economy.
