Gage Lyman Judson

Lyman Judson Gage was born in Deraiter , New York, to the family of Eli Gage and Mary Judson. His ancestor, Thomas Gage, came to America in 1640. Lyman has been married three times. In 1864, in the Methodist tradition, he married Sarah Etheridge. In 1874, Gage was widowed. In 1887, he married the widow of his brother, Cornelia Washburn, and in 1907 married Francis Ada Ballu ^[1] .

Gage began his career in 1850, becoming a postman in a railway company in the city of Rome . Three years later, he received the post of junior clerk in the central bank of the city. In 1855, Gage moved to Chicago and got a job as an employee at a sawmill. In 1858 he was taken as an accountant in a credit company. In 1868, Gage got a job as a cashier at the First National Bank of Chicago , his career went uphill. In 1882, he, already an influential person in financial circles in the eastern United States, was elected the first president of the Banking Club of Chicago, and vice president (and a year later, president) of the American Bankers Association. Gage actively participated in public life: he was the chairman of the organizing committee of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, he served as director of the Chicago Art Institute , and for two years he headed the Chicago Civilian Federation ^[1] .

In 1892, Gage rose to the post of president of the First National Bank of Chicago. In the same year, US President Grover Cleveland invited him to head the Treasury Department , but Gage had big plans for bank management and refused. In January 1897, President William McKinley again proposed that Gage lead the Treasury Department, and this time the proposal was accepted. On March 6 of that year, Gage was approved by the Senate. He, following the course of his successors, began to increase the stability of the financial sector. The Ministry of Finance received the functions of a central bank. In 1900, the Gold Standard Act, initiated by Gage, was passed; it also laid the foundation for the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 ^[1] .

After the assassination of McKinley in 1901, his successor, Theodore Roosevelt , left Gage at the head of the Treasury Department to prevent panic in the financial markets, but already on January 31, 1902, dismissed him by appointing Leslie Mortimer Shaw as Minister. In the same year, Gage led the American Trust Company in New York , and in 1907 retired and moved to California . Lyman Gage died in San Diego on January 26, 1926. ^[1]