America's first central banker was a reluctant revolutionary

Late Night Live - Separate stories podcast · Jan 28, 2026 · 26m

Thomas Willing was a merchant trader, America’s first bank president, and its first central banker. Willing bankrolled – and in the process helped save – the American Revolution and then fundamentally shaped the financial architecture of the young Republic. Yet at a decisive moment in Willing's life he voted against independence, as a clash between Pennsylvania's moneyed elite and the emergent lower and middle classes embroiled the politics of 1776 in bitter class conflict. Guest: Richard Vague, author of “The Banker Who Made America: Thomas Willing and the Rise of the American Financial…