Cotton Broker's Board
notes: label: Description
content: This cotton broker’s board was used to display the prices of cotton in New York, Alexandria, and Liverpool. Before the advent of modern digital trading, broker’s boards were widely used to display the values of stocks or commodities; the entries on the board would be manually updated as prices changed. The three cities listed on the board show how globally connected the cotton industry was. "Alexandria" could refer either to Alexandria, Egypt or Alexandria, Virginia; both Egypt and the American South were leading producers of cotton. New York was relevant because Wall Street was—and remains—the center of finance. Finally, Liverpool provides a link across the Atlantic, as British textile mills were major importers of US cotton. Liverpool in particular was a hub for the cotton industry; the Liverpool Cotton Brokers’ Association (now the International Cotton Association) was founded in 1841 to regulate the sale of cotton.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Production and Manufacturing
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of American Textile History Museum
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2017.0233.01
label: catalog number
content: 2017.0233.01
label: accession number
content: 2017.0233
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Broker's Board