The museum has a new home in the Seaport district of Boston.
As of July 3, the Museum of American Finance (MOAF) has a new home in Boston, which is the first time it will have a permanent exhibit headquarters since it moved out of its 48 Wall Street location in 2018, officials say.
MOAF had to relocate because a water main burst flooded the Wall Street building in January 2018.
Grygo is the chief content officer for FTF & FTF News.
“Although all three floors of the museum sustained significant water damage, none of the objects on display or in the archives were damaged in any way,” according to MOAF officials. “The Museum’s world-class collection of financial documents and artifacts, many dating from the 18th century, was immediately relocated to a climate-controlled art storage facility.”
It took a while, but museum officials announced last year that they had signed a 10-year lease for exhibit space at Commonwealth Pier in Boston’s Seaport district, a waterfront destination being developed by Pembroke, an international real estate advisor. The affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution opened its new Boston exhibit headquarters earlier this month.
MOAF in Boston
The museum doesn’t charge admission to the 5,400-square-foot facility, which officials say reflects the “core mission of making financial education accessible to all.”
The museum will feature seven exhibits:
- “America in Circulation,” described as “an interactive currency exhibit featuring hundreds of the most beautiful and interesting examples of American money, on loan from the collection of Mark R. Shenkman;”
- The “Alexander Hamilton Experience,” which is not from the Broadway musical but features a version of Hamilton created via artificial intelligence technologies who is also multilingual. The A.I. version of Hamilton was developed in partnership with the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology (FCAT);
- The exhibit about the founding of the U.S. financial system, dubbed “A Financial Revolution,” focuses on bringing this turning point to life, which also marks the 250th anniversary of Independence Day;
- “Investing in US Financial History” is a six-station interactive timeline that helps visitors “take a deeper dive into the history of the US financial markets, from the 18th century through today:”
- Massachusetts takes center stage via the “Hub of Innovation” exhibit as it reminds visitors of the Bay State plays in the nation’s financial development. MassMutual sponsored the exhibit; and
- A key exhibit, “The Future of Finance,” takes on the worlds of blockchain/distributed ledgers and cryptocurrencies. Tokenization, and the evolution of financial technology; Bitwise sponsored this exhibit; and
- The “Personal Finance” exhibit offers “a hands-on exploration of the tools needed to achieve and maintain a healthy financial life.” The exhibit is presented by the Personal Finance Institute
“The exhibits were guest curated by some of the nation’s leading experts in finance, economics and numismatic history, including Rahul Arora, Ric Edelman, Mark Higgins and Richard Sylla,” according to the MOAF announcement. “The lead sponsors are Fidelity Investments, Bitwise, MassMutual, and Rosalind E. and Mark R. Shenkman, as well as founders John E. Herzog and the Rodney S. Klein Stock Market Museum & Library.”
Founded in 1989, the museum’s archive “spans the entirety of American finance and houses one of the nation’s most important collections of 18th-century US financial documents, including multiple letters and documents from Alexander Hamilton that established the basis for the US financial system,” officials say.
The museum also offers events and educational initiatives “for free in both virtual and in-person formats” seen by more than 10,000 students and adults annually, officials add. “The museum will add Boston-based programs via partnerships with Boston area community organizations and educational institutions to supplement its existing programming.”
The Silver Dollar
The museum was originally conceived by John Herzog “after the Crash of 1987, when the stock market plunged a staggering 508 points — 22.6 percent in one day. As a partner in a major Nasdaq market-making firm, Herzog Heine Geduld, he witnessed the reactions in real time, and he saw how the markets impacted not only traders and investors, but all Americans,” according to MOAF. “Herzog recognized that the average American did not understand how the capital markets worked. He endeavored to educate and raise awareness of financial literacy through his personal collection of documents pertaining to the economic founding of America.”
Herzog is the founder and chairman emeritus of MOAF and chairman emeritus of Spink/Smythe, an auction house specializing in antique stocks and bonds, bank notes, coins, autographs and photographs, officials say. He was also chairman and CEO of Herzog Heine Geduld, Inc., a market maker in Nasdaq and over-the-counter (OTC) securities that Merrill Lynch acquired in 2000.
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