Marriner S. Eccles (1890–1977) businessman and banker

Born in Logan, Utah, Eccles was the oldest of nine children. After attending Brigham Young College, he became familiar with investments and established an investment company that acquired many of his father’s successful business enterprises. In 1924, he and his brother joined with a prominent banking family in Utah to form the Eccles-Browning Affiliated Banks, which rapidly began to expand by acquiring banks in Utah and Wyoming. In 1928, he and several partners organized the First Security Corporation, a HOLDING COMPANY that managed the acquired banks. The company was one of the first multibank holding companies in the United States.

Eccles’s banks survived the Great Depression without serious disruption, and he became the most prominent banker in the West during the 1930s. A Republican until the early 1930s, he shared many of the Roosevelt administration’s goals and became an avid supporter of the Democrats. He helped the administration draft the Emergency Banking Act of 1933, the Federal Housing Act of 1934, and the BANKING ACT OF 1933 (Glass-Steagall Act). As a result of his public service, Eccles was named chairman of the Federal Reserve System in 1934 and assumed the position in 1935 after being confirmed.

He was also the principal force behind the Banking Act of 1935, which reorganized the Federal Reserve System. Since its inception, the central bank had been criticized in many quarters as being elitist, but it lacked power in many crucial areas that would allow it to maintain control of the creation of money and credit. The central bank was restructured by the 1935 act and given specific powers that were lacking during the 1920s and were widely blamed for contributing to the 1929 crash. The Fed was now allowed to perform system repurchase agreements. Prior to the law, the branches could perform open market operations, undoing board policy as the New York Federal Reserve Bank had done in 1929. The Fed’s membership also was redesigned so that members of the board would be full-time employees.

After World War II, Eccles helped work on the agreements drawn up at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, that created the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. In 1948, President Truman did not reappoint him chairman of the Fed, but he remained as vice chairman until 1951, when he resigned. He died in Salt Lake City in 1977.

Eccles is widely remembered as a successful banker with wide practical experience, which eventually contributed to the most significant reforms of the FEDERAL RESERVE since it was founded. The Federal Reserve building in Washington, D.C., is named in his honor.

Further reading

• Eccles, Marriner S. Beckoning Frontiers: Public and Personal Recollections. New York: Knopf, 1951. 
• Hyman, Sidney. Marriner S. Eccles: Private Entrepreneur and Public Servant. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University School of Business, 1976.