Imagine, if you would, a world without either money or banks. How could anyone conduct business? How could anyone procure goods and services? How could you have a diversified economy? How could a person plan for the future? 

This was the world of early America, prior the Revolution. One of the many changes brought about by that event was the creation of both money and banks. But neither of them worked in the ways that we now expect. 

With us to explore this strange yet oddly resonant world of money and finance is Sharon Ann Murphy. She is Professor of History at Providence College, and author most recently of Other People’s Money: How Banking Worked in the Early American Republic, published by Johns Hopkins University Press as part of their series “How Things Worked.”