Baker Library
Harvard Business School
Design: Proun Design, LLC
Fabrication: WB Inc.
Media: Northern Light Productions, Inc.
Budget: $50k
Over a century and a half ago, a pair of entrepreneurial brothers emigrated from Germany and set up shop in Montgomery, Alabama. They quickly grew from a general store, to commodities brokers, to the forth-largest investment bank in the country.
“The firm survived through the Civil War, financial panics, two world wars, the Great Depression, mergers, spin-offs, and 9/11—making the transition from a family-run private partnership lasting more than one hundred years to a public company.”
However, over investing in credit derivatives and subprime mortgages led to their bankruptcy and collapse in 2008. This bold new exhibit at the Harvard Business School’s Baker Library examines the family and public history of one of the countries oldest and most successful financial institutions.