The New Deal Around DC: The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building

"The government must be looked upon as a compensatory agency in this economy to do just the opposite of what private business and individuals do. The latter are necessarily motivated by the desire for profit. The former must be motivated by social obligation."

--Marriner Eccles, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, 1936 (Chris Rigby Arrington, "Legacy: Marriner Eccles, Economic Innovator After The Great Depression," Huntsman Alumni Magazine, Utah State University, Fall 2012)

Above: The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building, constructed in 1936-1937, and named after Eccles in 1982. It does not appear that New Deal funds (i.e., PWA or WPA) were used in its construction, however, Elizabeth Grossman of the Rhode Island School of Design writes about the influences behind the creation of the building and concludes: "The result of these multiple influences yielded a building in the style known familiarly as 'WPA Modern' and the history of the design suggests the complexity of political and aesthetic issues that shaped the development of this New Deal style" ("Paul Cret and The Federal Reserve Board Building: A Case Study in Architectural Politics During the New Deal," in Revue Française D’études Américaines, 2004, 4, No. 102, pp. 6-19). Photo by Brent McKee, September 2018.

Above: Marriner Eccles (1890-1977) was a successful banker from Utah, and was chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1934-1948. Professor Grossman notes that Eccles "was one of those who believed that the Depression had been caused by the capturing of the Federal Reserve System by private interests. He accepted the [chairmanship] position he claimed on the condition that 'fundamental changes were made in the Federal Reserve System'" (see reference in previous caption). Eccles also believed that the Great Depression had been caused by extreme economic inequality that had sapped lower income groups of purchasing power: "As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth... to provide men with buying power... Instead of achieving that kind of distribution, a giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth... The other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped" (Wikipedia, citing Eccles, Marriner S. Hyman, Sydney, ed. Beckoning Frontiers: Public and Personal Recollections, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951, p. 76). Photo by Brent McKee, September 2018.

Above: President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the new Federal Reserve Building on October 20, 1937. Professor Grossman writes that FDR gave the dedication from the "great stair hall" (above), and that he declared that the Federal Reserve's "purpose is to gain for all of our people the greatest attainable measure of economic well-being, the largest degree of economic security and stability" (see reference in first photo caption above, and also see FDR's full dedication speech on the website of the University of California Santa Barbara's American Presidency Project here). Photo above courtesy of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: An eagle statue on the Eccles Building. Professor Grossman (see above captions) notes that "Jonathan Harris has argued more broadly that New Deal art and architecture 'attempted to recruit people to the discourses of patriotism and nationalism that Roosevelt and the New Deal Democrats had mobilized...'" (citing Harris, Jonathan. Federal Art and National Culture: The Politics of Identity in New Deal America. New York: Cambridge UP, 1995). The Federal Reserve has a web page about the history of the Eccles Building here. Photo by Brent McKee, September 2018.

Above: Marriner Eccles (right), in a conversation with U.S. Senator Pat Harrison (D-MS), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, January 7, 1937. In 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, Eccles had told Congress: "It is a national disgrace that such suffering should be permitted in this, the wealthiest country in the world. The present condition is not the fault of the unemployed, but that of our business, financial, and political leadership. It is incomprehensible that the people of this country should very much longer stupidly continue to suffer the wastes, the breadlines, the suicides, and the despair, and be forced to die, steal, or accept a miserable pittance in the form of charity which they resent, and properly resent." Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.