During the final third of the nineteenth century, German-speaking central Europe emerged as one of the leading creditors of US governments and corporations. London, Amsterdam, and New York played a key part in channeling German capital to North America, but so did—rather improbably—the small mercantile city of Frankfurt am Main. This article revisits Frankfurt’s rise as a major financial center in the Atlantic World. It explores why and how a city of such modest size, and with little prior experience in Atlantic World finance, became one of the central players in the international market for American debt after 1860. To do so, the article looks beyond transatlantic kinship ties to Wall Street, often cited as key to Frankfurt’s success, to zoom in on the city itself, opening up the black box that is the Frankfurt securities market. This close-up examination reveals, first, how Frankfurters institutionalized anticompetitive market practices and nontransparency in unique ways during the early nineteenth century. Second, it demonstrates how, more by happenstance than by design, these institutions subsequently came to play an integral role in European investors’ struggles with budding American capitalists over financial hegemony in North America. Retold in this way, the story of Frankfurt’s nineteenth-century financial markets reveals how Europe’s Old Regime capitalism was, to use Charles Maier’s term, “recast” and made operable for the modern age.

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新世界中的旧制度：19 世纪法兰克福的金融市场

在 19 世纪的最后三十年，讲德语的中欧成为美国政府和公司的主要债权人之一。伦敦、阿姆斯特丹和纽约在将德国资本引向北美的过程中发挥了关键作用，但美因河畔的小商业城市法兰克福也发挥了重要作用。本文回顾了法兰克福作为大西洋世界主要金融中心的崛起。它探讨了为什么以及如何将这样一个规模如此适中、之前在大西洋世界金融方面几乎没有经验的城市，在 1860 年之后成为美国债务国际市场的核心参与者之一。为此，本文着眼于跨大西洋亲属关系之外的经常被认为是法兰克福成功关键的华尔街放大了这座城市本身，打开了法兰克福证券市场的黑匣子。这一近距离研究首先揭示了法兰克福人如何在 19 世纪早期以独特的方式将反竞争市场实践和不透明制度化。其次，它展示了这些机构后来如何在欧洲投资者与萌芽的美国资本家争夺北美金融霸权的斗争中，更多地是偶然而不是有意地发挥了不可或缺的作用。以这种方式重述，法兰克福 19 世纪金融市场的故事揭示了欧洲的旧制度资本主义是如何用查尔斯·迈尔的术语“重新塑造”并在现代变得可操作的。这些机构随后在欧洲投资者与新兴美国资本家争夺北美金融霸权的斗争中发挥了不可或缺的作用。以这种方式重述，法兰克福 19 世纪金融市场的故事揭示了欧洲的旧制度资本主义是如何用查尔斯·迈尔的术语“重新塑造”并使其适用于现代的。这些机构随后在欧洲投资者与新兴美国资本家争夺北美金融霸权的斗争中发挥了不可或缺的作用。以这种方式重述，法兰克福 19 世纪金融市场的故事揭示了欧洲的旧制度资本主义是如何用查尔斯·迈尔的术语“重新塑造”并在现代变得可操作的。