MoAF Newsletter - 4/17/2025

MoAF to Open in Boston in 2026

The Museum of American Finance announced it has signed a 10-year lease for exhibit space in Boston. Planning is now underway to develop and create the Museum’s exhibits at Commonwealth Pier, the waterfront destination in Boston’s Seaport being developed by Pembroke. The Museum will occupy approximately 5,400 sq ft, and exhibits are scheduled to open to the public on July 1, 2026. Entrance to all of the Museum’s exhibits and programs in Boston will be free of charge—reflecting its core mission of making financial education accessible to all.

For more information, visit www.moaf.org/Boston.

MoAF/Fordham Financial Issues Forum (Virtual)

Join us for a virtual event with Harvard-trained economist, prolific author and member of the Australian House of Representatives Andrew Leigh, as he discusses his latest book. In How Economics Explains the World, Leigh presents a new way to understand the human story. From the dawn of agriculture to AI, this is the story of how ingenuity, greed and desire for betterment have—to an astonishing degree—determined our past, present and future.

This program is free, but advance registration is required. Register today.

MoAF/Fordham Financial Issues Forum (Virtual)

Join us for a virtual event with Princeton University professor and author Arvind Narayanan. In AI Snake Oil, Narayanan and co-author Sayash Kapoor cut through the confusion surrounding AI to give you an essential understanding of how it works and why it often doesn’t, where it might be useful or harmful, and when you should suspect that companies are using AI hype to sell AI snake oil. While acknowledging the potential of some AI, such as ChatGPT, AI Snake Oil uncovers rampant misleading claims about the capabilities of AI and describes the serious harms AI is already causing in how it’s being built, marketed and used in areas such as education, medicine, hiring, banking, insurance and criminal justice.

This program is free, but advance registration is required. Register today.

Video Now Available

In the years immediately following the Civil War, tens of thousands of former slaves deposited millions of dollars into the Freedman’s Bank. African Americans envisioned this new bank as a launching pad for economic growth and self-determination. But only nine years after it opened, their trust was betrayed and the Freedman’s Bank collapsed. Fully informed by new archival findings, historian Justene Hill Edwards unearths a major turning point in American history in this comprehensive account of the Freedman’s Bank and its depositors.

Watch event video.

Video Now Available

The Museum honored the achievements of three financial leaders with important awards at its 2025 Gala. The Gala was held at the Ziegfeld Ballroom, with CNBC Senior Markets Correspondent Bob Pisani and “WealthTrack” Executive Producer and Managing Editor Consuelo Mack serving as masters of ceremony.

Richard A. Gephardt, former Democratic Leader, US House of Representatives, received the Whitehead Award for Distinguished Public Service and Financial Leadership. The Museum of American Finance Lifetime Achievement Award honored the achievements of Peter S. Lynch, Vice Chairman of Fidelity Management and Research Company. In addition, there was a Special Recognition Tribute to Arthur D. Cashin, Jr. (1941–2024), who served as the Director of Floor Operations for UBS at the New York Stock Exchange.

Watch event video.