Centuries-old currency, no longer in circulation. Paul Revere’s bank book. One of the earliest forged checks. The first lottery in North America began in Massachusetts. Boston Celtics and Boston Red Sox stock certificates. These are among the hundreds of historical artifacts on display at the new Museum of American Finance, a Smithsonian affiliate, opening in the Boston Seaport.
The challenge is interpreting these artifacts for visitors and connecting them to the larger financial history in America, said David Cowen, the museum’s CEO and president.
“We know that finance is really intimidating, and so we’re going to incorporate that into the lessons of history,” Cowen said. “We’re trying to make it really entertaining and engaging by understanding how difficult the topic of finance is for many people.”
Take, for example, a document created by Alexander Hamilton that is controversial in the room where it happenedas described in the Broadway musical named after him, in which he laid out his vision for how the new nation should deal with its Revolutionary War debts.
“Hamilton writes that it is a moral obligation that we should take on all this debt. And that is the creation of our national debt. There is a direct connection to today’s $39 trillion,” Cowen said. “That’s 16,316 words. Let’s reduce it to six words: It was the price of freedom.”
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Cowen is also a financial historian and co-author of “Alexander Hamilton on Finance, Credit, and Debt” and “Financial Founding Fathers: The Men Who Made America Rich.”
Visitors can also talk to the country’s first finance minister – or at least an AI-generated version of him. The interactive Alexander Hamilton exhibit can interview visitors and answer questions about finance in dozens of languages.
“We want people coming to the museum to have the opportunity to have that conversational experience where they are, in their own language and at their own financial literacy level, so they can learn more along the way,” said Erich Umar, director of technology strategy and planning at the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, which helped develop the exhibit.
The museum takes guests through three centuries of financial history in the United States.
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An exhibition with an interactive timeline was developed together with guest curator Mark Higgins, author of “Investing in US Financial History”.
“I’ve been writing this for three and a half years, and I’ve been making my way to the present for three and a half years, and you just keep seeing the same things over and over again. The technology changes, the situations change a little bit, but they’re the same human stories. And once you understand that, the present and the future become a lot less scary,” Higgins said.
From there, the museum explores the future of finance and explains cryptocurrencies, blockchain and more.
“More and more people are getting involved because they realize that it is faster, safer, cheaper and easier to work with money in cryptocurrencies than the traditional methods we have used for centuries,” said Ric Edelman, guest curator, personal finance author and executive director of the Personal Finance Institute. “But at the same time, there are risks. There are still crypto scams. And that’s largely because people have heard of crypto but really don’t know what it is. And if you don’t know what it is, it’s hard to tell the real from the fake.”
Finally, the Personal Finance Gallery offers visitors the opportunity to learn more about how to achieve their financial goals.
“Personal finance is more personal than finance. It’s about goals. What do you want to accomplish? It’s not just about making money in the stock market. It’s just about going to college, buying a house, financing a wedding, taking care of aging parents and leaving a legacy for your children. What are your goals? What do you want to accomplish? That’s the key to personal finance,” Edelman said.
The Museum of American Finance is free due to corporate and private sponsorships. It will open to the public on July 3rd.
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/new-museum-of-american-finance-teaches-visitors-about-money/3975277/
