Marriner (Stoddard) Eccles

Businessman and government official, born in Logan, Utah, USA. A Morman, he invested family money into a Rocky Mountain real-estate and banking empire, Eccles Investment Co (1916–34). As governor, then chairman, of the Federal Reserve Board (1934–51), he used the Banking Act of 1935 to centralize federal control over banking and currency, returning to business later.

Marriner Stoddard Eccles (September 9, 1890 – December 18, 1977) was a U.S. banker, economist, and Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Eccles expanded the corporation into a large western chain of banks called Eccles-Browning Affiliated Banks. The company withstood several bank runs during the Great Depression and, as a leading banker, became involved with the creation of the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

After a brief stint at the Treasury, President Roosevelt appointed him as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve between 1934 and 1948. In that respect, it is generally accepted that he considered monetary policy of secondary importance, and that as a result he allowed the Federal Reserve to be submitted to the interests of the Treasury. In this view, the Federal Reserve after 1935 acquired new instruments to command monetary policy, but it did not change its behavior significantly. Further, his defense of the Federal Reserve-Treasury accord in 1951 is sometimes seen as a reversal of his previous policy stances.

The building that houses the headquarters of the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C.