Easy Money: Oil Promoters and Investors in the Jazz Age - Hardcover

Olien, Roger M.; Olien, Diana Davids

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080781928X ISBN 13: 9780807819289

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr, 1990

Synopsis

Chapel Hill. 1990 first edition. University of North Carolina. Hardcover octavo. Fine in Fine dj. no owner marks.(slight residue on end papers from price tag.)

About this title

Reviews

The Oliens' ( Life in the Oil Fields ) fourth book on American oil takes a lively and often astonishing look at oil investment promoters: their techniques, failures and clients. After World War I's "forced frugality," Americans were ready to spend and speculate, and a boom in the teens made oil a conspicuous and tempting option. But it was no place for the inexperienced: even a relatively honest, albeit mismanaged, venture like Lubbock-Bridgeport's could dump its investors' money down a dry hole. Bleaker still were the chances of those whose savings went to "General" Robert A. Lee, "the Miracle Man of Oildom," actually an aging dreamer and front man for two slick thieves, or to S.E.J. Cox, a brilliant entrepreneur whom the FTC called "the most seductive and unreliable promoter in America." Although the government finally clamped down on illegal promotion (Lee and Cox ended up in Leavenworth), it took the 1929 crash to undercut the boom in "suckers" and then, not entirely: only recently "fraud artist" Stephen L. Smith raised $125 million for his SH Oil Company "from 700 investors, including his grandmother." Photos not seen by PW .
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080781928X
• ISBN 13: 9780807819289
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216