My grandmother Naomi came from a long line of bankers.
Her grandfather James Post Speer worked for the Importers & Traders
National Bank of New York for 49 years before he retired in 1916.
ITNBNY printed
money from 1865 until it was acquired in 1923 by the
bank that would become JP Morgan Chase. The
building at 246 Broadway was sold in 1928 and no doubt has passed hands many times since - it currently houses a TD Bank.
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| Caption from the back of the photo |
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| Great Great Grandpa James Post Speer & friend, Middletown NY 1935 |
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| 246 Broadway circa 2019 |
Naomi's father Arthur William Speer also worked in banking (
The Bergen County Bank of Rutherford - here's a write up about the
bank from 1919) until his untimely death at 39 in 1927.
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| Great Grandpa Arthur "A.W." - Sure looks like a banker to me! |
After their father's death, both my grandmother and her two younger siblings Joyce and Art would follow into the banking business. In the 1940 census, Naomi (age 25) is listed as a teller, Joyce (age 20) as a bookkeeper, and Art (age 18) as clerk - all in the banking industry, though there is no mention of which bank they were working.
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| Margaret Dotzert Speer with daughters Naomi & Joyce (l to r), 1945 |
I suspect that my grandmother was working in Manhattan in 1940, based on her letters from 1942-1946. She had mail addressed to her at the National Safety Bank & Trust Company. That bank was formed in
1928 and closed it's doors in
1951 when it merged with Chemical Bank (which ultimately was bought up by JP Morgan Chase - are we seeing a pattern here?). They also printed their own money until
1935.
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| National Safety Bank & Trust Company building circa 2017 |
NSBTC was considered on the
cutting edge of banking at the time. It's fun to imagine my grandmother working the newfangled "
Checkmaster" system by day and socializing with her girlfriends and beaus at night.
Want to learn more about the history of money in the US? Check out
this,
this,
this, and
this.
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