The Banker Who Made America

Richard Vague’s “The Banker Who Made America” arrives as a timely addition to the canon of revolutionary history on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Where so many accounts of this period focus on the familiar cast of founding fathers: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, etc., Vague focuses on a figure I had never heard of before but had played a key role in the establishment of the American republic and its financial system: Thomas Willing.

Vague is an impressive and engaging storyteller, painting an encompassing picture of the full revolutionary period. Crucially, Willing is never lost within the broader sweep of events. Vague ensures the reader knows where and how Willing is both impacting and being impacted by the events around him. Reading this in 2026, it is a useful reminder of how fragile the situation, the American Revolution, was and how little was truly premeditated, with events overtaking people rather than the reverse. Vague paints a vivid picture of colonial Philadelphia, a city of wharfs, merchants, transatlantic relations, and fundamental social hierarchy, and captures the broader texture of the thirteen colonies in their state of internal and external disunity before the slow coalescence that would change history. This book is not for those who want to explore the wider military and political drama of the period. For that, I recommend Rick Atkinson’s still in-development trilogy.

Willing was a fascinating man, and it is clear why Vague has chosen to focus on him. His life encompassed the quasi-aristocratic nature of the upper social classes of colonial America and relations with England, to the establishment of an ‘American’ identity, to the political battles of the day, and to the firm planting of the United States and the development of its finances which have had a greater impact on the US than is sometimes appreciated. The Broadway musical “Hamilton” shares some of this in potentially a more fun way, but according to Vague, without Willing, a lot of what Hamilton did, including the establishment of the US Treasury, may not have been the same.

Vague also keeps touching upon a crucial theme in Willing’s life that appears during that period and continues to this day: the relationship between high finance and politics. Willing’s story makes clear just how interwoven the links are between high finance and politics, and how frequently individuals within one come across individuals in the other. This is not to say it is always nefarious; it just goes to highlight a simple truth. Power and politics require money. The American Revolution could not have occurred without the financing provided by these individuals without any sort of guarantee the debt would be repaid. However, once it was clear that the debt could be repaid, institutions and structures were set up very quickly so as to enable that. This economic architecture remains more or less in place in the US today even if just as an echo.

There is also a more pointed political thread running through the narrative: who exactly is shaping society and for whose interests? The answer seems to be the financial and social elites. If the political system is built by and populated with those of wealth and standing, how does it ultimately serve those without? This was a question and issue in colonial and early independent America, and it remains one today. Vague does not share an answer, but provokes the question, nonetheless. The “Banker Who Made America” is an engrossing read. It broadens the frame of the founding era and makes a compelling case for a figure long overdue his place in the story. I recommend it to those interested in economic history, biographies of little-known figures and, also, those who are looking to understand colonial and early independent America.