Banking history and archives in Latin America

Business History Review

Volumn 82, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 585-602

  Marichal, Carlos ^a  

^a EL COLEGIO DE MÉXICO   (Mexico)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 57849143960     PISSN: 00076805     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0007680500082660     Document Type: Review

References (44)

1. A rising number of references to Latin American banking history literature can be found in the Financial History Review, particularly in the annual bibliographical reviews prepared by Serge Noiret.
2. The first important study on Brazilian regional banks was that of Flavio Saes, Crédito e bancos no desenvolvimento da economía paulista, 1850-1930 (São Paulo, 1986).
3. A more recent major contribution is by Anne G. Hanley, Native Capital: Financial Institutions and Economic Development in São Paulo, Brazil, 1850-1920 (Stanford, 2005).
4. Leonor Ludlow, "El debate en torno a la banca de fomento: el proyecto del gobernador de Zacatecas Francisco García (1829-1832)," in Historia del pensamiento económico: Del mercantilismo al liberalismo, vol. 2, ed. María del Pilar Martínez López-Cano and Carmen Yuste (Mexico, forthcoming).
5. On this early bank, see the classic study by Robert A. Potash, The Banco de Avio de Mexico: A Study of Government Efforts to Develop Industry, 1821-1846 (Amherst, 1983).
6. See the discussion of early banks in Leonor Ludlow, ed., Temas a debate: Moneda y banca en Mexico (Mexico City, 2006).
7. The Web site of the Archive and Museum of the Banco de la Provincia de Buenos Aires is http://www.bapro.com.ar/museo/index2.hrm.
8. Gerardo Marcelo Martí, "El Archivo del Banco de la Provincia de Buenos Aires," Revista de Historia Económica de América Latina, no. 3 (Jan.-June 1995): 29-37.
9. Jeremy Adelman, Frontier Development: Land, Labour and Capital on the Wheatlands of Argentina and Canada, 1890-1914 (Oxford, 1994).
10. See Samuel Amaral, The Rise of Capitalism on the Pampas: The Estancias of Buenos Aires, 1785-1870 (New York, 1998).
11. The best guide to the important French immigrant merchant community and to foreign investments in the period in Argentina is the study by Andrés Regalsky, Mercaderes, inversores y élites: Las inversions francesas en Argentina, 1880-1914 (Buenos Aires, 2002).
12. I wish to thank Liliana Cove of the Prebisch library as well as Professor Andrés Regalsky, leading expert on the history of Argentine banking, for information on these archival sources. For on-line information of the Biblioteca Prebisch see http://www.bcra.gov.ar/index.asp.
13. See the detailed report that I prepared to save this library in the mid-1970s, "La Biblioteca Tornquist," published in the collection Guía Para Investigaciones Históricas en la Argentina, Serie II, Bibliotecas, No. 1 (Buenos Aires, 1974). Anyone interested in receiving a digital copy can write me at cmari@colmex.mx.
14. For an overview, see Carlos Marichal and Paolo Riguzzi, "Bancos y banqueros europeos en México, 1864-1933," in México y la economía atlántica (siglos XVIII-XX), ed. Sandra Kuntz Ficker and Horst Pietschmann (Mexico City, 2006), 207-37.
15. The Banamex is now owned by Citicorp, wMch was sufficiently impressed by the historical archive in Mexico that, in the year 2003, it carried out a worldwide survey of its other bank subsidiaries. The result revealed that there was no historical bank archive equivalent in quality to that of Banamex in any other country in wMch the banking group had offices.
16. Archivo Histórico Banamex, Isabel la Católica 40, Mezzanine, Centro Histórico, C.P. 06000, México, D.F. Tels: 1226-4019, 1226-4840,1226-4821,1226-5161; Fax: 1226-5342; E-mail: ahco@banamex.com.
17. An extensive review of the banking history literature in Mexico is found in Gustavo del Angel and Carlos Marichal, "Poder y crisis: Historiografía del crédito y la banca en México, siglos XIX-XX," Historia Mexicana 52, no. 3 (2003): 677-724.
18. Several articles that analyze both this repository and others useful for banking history can be found in the Boletín de Fuentes para la Historia Económica de México, no. 5 (Sept.Dec. 1991).
19. For some additional information, see Carlos Marichal, "El papel de la banca de desarrollo en México," Comercio Exterior: Revista de análisis económico 54 (2004): 812-15.
20. In 19951 was invited to take a brief tour of the warehouse of the Banco de Comercio Exterior (located on the Cerro de la Estrella, Iztapalapa) and was impressed by the huge amount of well-organized documents. Though I have requested information repeatedly since then, I have received no response from bank officials. I hope the archive survives.
21. Gustavo del Angel has recently finished an official history of BBVA/Bancomer, the second-largest commercial bank in Mexico, and he reports that there are considerable Mstorical records for this institution not open to researchers.
22. The persons in charge of the Archives of the Banco de Mexico are Subgerente Lie. Víctor Manuel Espinosa Mejía and Jefe del Archivo Histórico, Eduardo Cristiani Sierra. The address is Banco de México, Piso 1, Subgerencia de Coordinación de ArcMvos, Avenida 5 de Mayo, no 20, Col. Centro, México, DF 06059. Tel: 5237-2665.
23. For more details, see Gail Triner, Banking and Economic Development: Brazil, 18891930 (New York, 2000).
24. See the eleven volumes of Historia económica & história de empresas (1998-2008) and the Web-site http://www.abphe.org.br/index.html.
25. The BNDES Web site is: http://www.bndes.gov.br/conhecimento/publicacoes/ catalogo/ livro50anos.asp.
26. The Web site of the Casa de Moneda de Potosí is excellent: http://www.casanacional demoneda.org.bo/contacto.html. For information on the history of Bolivian banking, a good starting point is the book by Antomo Mitre, Los patriarcas de la plata: Estructura socioeconómica de la minería bolivian en el siglo XIX (lima, 1981).
27. See Alfonso W. Quiroz, Banqueros en conflicto: Estructura financiera y economía peruana, 1884-1930 (Lima, 1989),
28. and Domestic and Foreign Finance in Peru, 1850-1950: Financing Visions of Development (Pittsburgh, 1993).
29. Speech given at the session entitled "Archivos de Empresa en America Latina" at the First Latin American Economic History Congress, Montevideo, 6 Dec. 2007 [originally in Spamsh; my translation].
30. For detailed information on the history of Colombian monetary and banking history, see Adolfo Meisel's essays in El Banco de la República, Antecedenes, Evolución, Estructura, 2 vols. (Bogotá, 1990).
31. The program is being overseen by Carlos Zapata, director of the Banco de la Republican historical arcMve at Bogotá, with the aid of a large staff and considerable investment.
32. Joseph Chatelain, La Banque Nationale, son histoire, ses problèmes (Port au Prince, ist ed. 1954, 2nd ed. 2005).
33. John Orbell and Alison Turton, British Banking: A Guide to Historical Records (Aldershot, 2001).
34. See the excellent Web site: http://www.rothschildarcMve.org/ta/.
35. The Barings archive holds several hundred thousand letters of banking and commercial correspondence, according to D. C. M. Piatt, Foreign Finance in Continental Europe and the USA, 1815-1870 (London, 1984), vii-viii.
36. See the Web site catalogue: http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cats/13/1605.htm.
37. David Joslin, A Century of Banking in Latin America (London, 1966).
38. Albert Broder and Carlos Marichal, eds., La banque française en Amérique latine dans la première globalisation, 1870-1930 (Paris, forthcoming).
39. See the European Association of Banking and Financial History Web site: http://www. eabhinfo/.
40. Manfred Pohl, Deutsche Bank Buenos Aires, 1887-1987 (Mainz, 1987).
41. The historical holdings of the Deutsche Bank ArcMve are summarized in http://www. deutsche-bank.de/en/content/company/archives.htm. Unfortunately, the papers of the Disconto-Gesellschaft, the most important German bank prior to 1890 (wMch was involved in various Latin American loans and in some local banking firms in Argentina) were destroyed during the Great Depression after its merger with Deutsche Bank. Some other German banks have historical archives, although not on the same scale as Deutsche Bank. The Commerzbank has a major historical archive that may have some information on Latin America, although I do not know of any research that has been conducted there. Since it was part owner of the Hamburg South America Steamship Company from 1871, it is MgMy likely that some researchers have made use of its collection. For the Web site see: https://www. commerzbank.de/en/hauptnavigation/konzern/gescMchte/gescMchte. html.
42. LMs Anaya, "Del Banco Alemán Transatlántico al Banco Mexicano de Comercio e Industria, 1902-1927," in México y la Economía Atlántica, Siglos XVIII-XX, ed. Sandra Kuntz and Horst Pietschmann (Mexico City, 2006), 239-68.
43. Inés Roldan, La banca de emisión en Cuba, 1856-1898 (Madrid, 2004).
44. Paul W. Drake, The Money Doctor in the Andes: The Kemmerer Missions, 1923-1933 (Durham, N.C., 1989).