John Hill (28)

History of Financial Advice Collection. John Hill, a director of the Chicago Board of Trade, was tasked with combatting bucket shops as part of the CBoT’s legal struggle to outlaw the spread of the popular betting parlours that mimicked stock brokerages. Gold Bricks of Speculation was the result of his investigations of the panoply of “get-rich-quick swindles.” He estimated that $100 million was invested in fraudulent stock promotions, while another $100 million annually was lost by show more the public in other speculative schemes that were promoted through mass advertising. In his lengthy catalogue of scams, Hill is concerned to make a clear distinction between the unethical or illegal practices he uncovered, and legitimate stock market investment carried out by professionals. Exposés like Hill’s and Anthony Comstock’s Frauds Exposed (1880) aimed to inoculate the public against fraud enabled by the anonymity and vast scale of the stock market, but other more dubious tomes served as inspiration and blueprint for fraudsters on the make. show less