Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757 – July 12, 1804) was an American politician, statesman, journalist, lawyer, and soldier. One of the United States' most prominent and brilliant early constitutional lawyers, he was an influential delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention and the principal author of the Federalist Papers, which successfully defended the U.S. Constitution to skeptical New Yorkers. He also put the new United States of America onto a sound economic footing as its first and most influential Secretary of the Treasury, establishing the First Bank of the United States, public credit and the foundations for American capitalism and stock and commodity exchanges.

Hamilton as an industrialist

Hamilton was among the first to recognize the larger transformations of industry and capitalism of his era—in particular the trend toward larger-scale manufacturing financed through credit. In 1778 he visited the Great Falls of the Passaic River in northern New Jersey and saw that the falls could one day be harnessed to provide power for a manufacturing center on the site. As Secretary of the Treasury, he put this plan into motion, helping to found the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures, a private corporation that would use the power of the falls to operate mills. Although the company did not succeed in its original purpose, it leased the land around the falls to other mill ventures and continued to operate for over a century and a half. The city which grew on the spot of Hamilton's vision, Paterson, New Jersey, became one of the most important manufacturing centers for cotton, steel and silk, until its decline after World War II.

Related Topics:
1778 - Great Falls of the Passaic River - New Jersey - Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures - Paterson, New Jersey - Cotton - Steel - Silk - World War II

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