Storytellers

A mild-mannered professional man, Ferdinand Ward was trusted by late 19th century bankers and businessmen, small and large investors, and even an ex-President, Ulyssess S. Grant. Called "the Young Napoleon of Wall Street," Ward ran a successful brokerage firm, which returned handsome dividends to its investors (who included Grant and railroad financier William Henry Vanderbilt). Charming and trustworthy, Ward's unfailing politesse and social skills-- as well as his confidence in his firm's investments-- helped build his firm, to the point where he owned estates, townhouses and other signifiers of wealth.
What no one knew-- until it was too late-- was that Ward kept two sets of books: the one he showed irate or curious investors (who wondered what had happened to the thousands of dollars they'd entrusted), full of promising figures and large projected profits (supposedly near $15 million, in 19th century terms); and the other one, the real one, which revealed that Ward's investment firm was actually $14 million in debt. No investments were ever made, except in Ward's extravagent lifestyle. Years before the term was coined, Ward had invented a Ponzi scheme, one that would ruin Grant, Mark Twain, and many other, lesser-known investors. It was the great financial scandal of the day, and Ward would be tried and imprisoned at Sing Sing, but that was only the start of his strange adventures.
Imagine being an historian, working on this tale that weaves poltiics, finance, urbanity, and skullduggery. Now, imagine if Ferdinand Ward was your great-grandfather.
That was the story Geoffrey S. Ward presented in his talk this evening at the Oberlin Science Center, entitled, "A Swindler in the Family: Trying to Understand a Nefarious Ancestor."

Geoffrey Ward was also kind enough to speak with my Intro to Cinema class this morning, where he was funny, insightful and extremely gracious. It was fascinating to hear about his collaborations with Ken Burns, and the differences between writing books and writing screenplays, and he also surprised me with some of his responses to questions (he's a big fan of Grizzly Man, for instance). The Burns/Ward projects always return to the questions and contradictions of America, the difficulty of forming communities, but also the necessity of that effort (whether it's in war, sports or music). It is not surprising, then-- but very gratifying-- to discover that Ward himself embodies those same values, and so graciously passes them on.
Comments