Press Releases

Professor Richard Sylla Elected Chairman of the Museum of American Finance

Richard Sylla, Henry Kaufman Professor of the History of Financial Institutions and Markets and Professor of Economics, was unanimously elected chairman of the board of the Museum of American Finance. The Museum, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, is the nation’s only public museum dedicated to finance, entrepreneurship and the open market system.

“Finance touches the lives of everyone, yet to many it seems mysterious,” Sylla said. “The Museum of American Finance, in the heart of Wall Street, can help to de-mystify it. The financial crisis that began in 2007 makes this more important now than it has been for several decades—a period that lulled us into taking financial stability for granted. We forgot what history teaches, and therefore we repeated it.”

Professor Sylla will work closely with the Museum’s president and other constituents to garner support for the institution, enabling it to continue to as a leader in financial education.

Professor Sylla has been with NYU Stern since 1990. His primary areas of research include historical studies of money, banking, and finance. He is the author of several books, including The American Capital Market and A History of Interest Rates. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, and he is also on the editorial board of many journals that include the Financial History Review, Enterprise and Society, and Economic and Financial History Abstracts. Professor Sylla has been the recipient of several awards and grants including National Science Foundation grants, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant and the Citibank Award for Excellence in Teaching at the Stern School. He teaches courses in financial history, economic and business history of the United States, and comparative enterprise systems.

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