Massachusetts became America’s leading center of financial innovation in the colonial and early national eras, and Boston—with its wealth-management innovations—continues to be a major US financial center. Massachusetts had the first British colonial mint and coins, the first fiat paper money (a form of money used everywhere today) and the first government bonds.
After US independence, Massachusetts led the nation in forming banking corporations, and a Boston bank developed a plan that gave New England the best monetary system in America. Boston’s 19th-century stock market facilitated New England’s development from an economy focused on international trade to one based on modern industrial technologies—first in cotton textiles and railroads, and later in high-tech industries.
