On December 1, the Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society launched a new "gallery," "The Institution of Experience: Self-Regulatory Organizations in the Securities Industry, 1791-2010." As the curators explain in the introduction:
This gallery, the seventh posted by the Society, provides access to the virtual museum and archive’s collection of more than 4,300 documents, photographs, and papers related to the history of financial regulation. Kenneth Durr and Robert Colby of History Associates, Inc., served as the curators. Both the virtual museum and archive and the Society are independent of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.SROs [self-regulatory organizations] grew first as member-owned stock exchanges and out of necessity developed private mechanisms of direction and control. . . . In looking at three different SROs—the New York Stock Exchange; the National Association of Securities Dealers, along with the Nasdaq, its market mechanism, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, its successor organization; and the Chicago Board Options Exchange—we can document their development within the broader context of shifting markets, varying membership, and economic and political change.
Placing Orders, Early 1920s
