Centuries-old currency, no longer in circulation. Paul Revere’s bank book. One of the earliest counterfeit checks. The first lottery in North America, started in Massachusetts. Stock certificates from the Boston Celtics and the Boston Red Sox. These are among the hundreds of historical artifacts featured in the new Museum of American Finance, a Smithsonian affiliate opening in Boston’s Seaport.
The challenge is interpreting these artifacts for visitors and connecting them to the larger story of finance in America, said museum CEO and President David Cowen.
“We know finance is really intimidating and so we're going to couch that in the lessons of history,” said Cowen. “We try to really make it fun and engaging with the understanding of how difficult for many people finances is as topic.”
Take for example, a document crafted by Alexander Hamilton, fought over in the room where it happened, as described in the Broadway musical bearing his name, that laid out his vision for how the new nation should handle its debts from the Revolutionary War.
“Hamilton writes that saying it's a moral obligation that we should assume all this debt. And that is the creation of our national debt. There's a direct line from this to today's $39 trillion,” said Cowen. “Now, this is 16,316 words. We boil it down to six words: It was the price of liberty.”