History of Wall Street

Wall Street got its name from the wooden wall Dutch colonists built in lower Manhattan in 1653 to defend themselves from the British and Native Americans. The wall was taken down in 1699, but the name stuck.

Given its proximity to New York's ports, the Wall Street area became a bustling center of trade in the 1700s. But its origins as a financial center until 1792, when 24 of the most prominent brokers and merchants in the U.S. signed the Buttonwood Agreement (they reportedly gathered on Wall Street, under a buttonwood tree, to do business). The agreement outlined the common commission-based form of trading securities—in effect, an effort to establish a members-only stock exchange. Some of the first securities traded were war bonds, as well as banking stocks for such institutions as the First Bank of the United States, Bank of New York, and Bank of North America.

Out of this acorn of an agreement, the oak that became the NYSE grew. In 1817, the Buttonwood brokers renamed themselves The New York Stock and Exchange Board. The organization rented out spaces for trading in several locations until 1865, when it settled on a location of its own, at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets.

As the US grew, several other major exchanges established headquarters in the Wall Street area, including the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, the New York Futures Exchange (NYFE), and the American Stock Exchange, now known as the NYSE MKT /NYSE Amex Options. To support the exchanges—to be where the action was—banks, brokerage firms, and financiers had offices clustered around Wall Street. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the House of Morgan, officially J.P. Morgan & Co.—the forerunner to JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley—was right opposite the NYSE, at 23 Wall Street.

After World War I, New York City surpassed London to become the world's largest and most significant financial center—and the financial center of NYC was Wall Street.

Occupy Wall Street was a 2011 protest movement against social and economic inequality that was centered in Zuccotti Park, located in Manhattan's Financial District. It began on Sept. 17, as hundreds of protesters camped out in the park. The police forcibly removed and arrested them two months later, on Nov. 15. During the days, there were marches and speeches, calling for more balanced income distribution, better-paying jobs, bank reform, and less corporate influence in politics. "We are the 99%," was the Occupy protestors' slogan.

Black Wall Street was a nickname given to the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, one of the largest and most prosperous African-American business communities in the United States in the early 20th century. In May-June, 1921, its 35 blocks were destroyed during the Tulsa Race Riot, though it was quickly rebuilt, with over 80 businesses re-opening by 1922.56

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