Jekyll Island: Six Men Wrote a Central-Bank Blueprint in Secret

In November 1910, six men left New Jersey by train for Jekyll Island, a private island off Georgia. They avoided using their real names at the station, told the press nothing about the trip, and did not openly acknowledge the meeting for years. The group included Senator Nelson Aldrich, Treasury official A. Piatt Andrew, bankers Henry Davison and Frank Vanderlip, and Paul Warburg. They met in an elite club to write a plan for reforming the American monetary system.

This is not a rumour. Federal Reserve History, the official history site of the Federal Reserve System, confirms that the secret meeting ran from November 20 to 30, 1910. Participants concealed their identities because they expected public opposition if people learned that major bankers and politicians were designing a central bank together. The Jekyll Island plan did not become law unchanged, but it laid the foundation for the Federal Reserve System created in 1913.