Julia Cathleen Ott

Julia Cathleen Ott, assistant professor in the history of capitalism at Eugene Lang College and the Graduate Faculty of the New School University, will write a book on the origins of the concept of “democratic investing” in America from 1890-1932. Ott will examine financial institutions’ promotion of bond and stock ownership as an instrument of economic justice—with specific attention to the political economy of investments before World War I, the molding of national identity through the sale of war bonds, universal stock ownership, and the growth of employee and customer stock option plans.