Summary of 'America's Sixty Families' (1937)

In the first two chapters, Ferdinand Lundberg develops his thesis and names the 60 richest American families, based on the tax reports for the years 1924/25. His thesis is simple: the USA is a dollar democracy, ruled by a modern industrial and financial oligarchy (3). The 60 families intermarry (9-22), and together use certain banks and bank alliances to control a large part of the industrial corporations of the U. S. The five most powerful banks or banking alliances are: the four banks of J. P. Morgan, the National City Bank (NCB), the Rockefeller Chase Manhattan Bank, the Mellon banks in Pittsburgh, and the Warburg and Schiff bank of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. Among the ten most powerful groups are also Lehmann Brothers, Dillon Read & Co., and Goldman, Sachs & Co.. These banks control large parts of U.S. industry through trust organization, through voting shares of the 60 families who deposit their shares and entrust their votes in these banks. The major banks and their agents also control U.S. politicians, especially U. S. presidents. In chapters 3. to 6. Lundberg outlines the presidential Administrations from McKinley to Hoover to show how they are controlled by the leading banking alliances. His method, again, is simple: he looks a the early career of each president, identifying his backers; next he analyzes the nomination process and the donors for the campaign. Next, he studies the composition of the cabinet, and the institutional background of the Secretaries.