David Weiman is Alena Wels Hirschorn Professor of Economics at Barnard College and Member of the History Graduate Faculty, Columbia University. He is also Senior Research Associate of the Community College Research Center, Teachers College. With co-author John James (Virginia), he is working on From the Second Bank to the Federal Reserve, which analyzes the transformation of the U.S. payments system in the absence of a central bank and explains the origins of the Fed from the perspective of the payments system. He is also researching the systemic limits to financial development in U.S. south after the Civil War.