The Chase: September, 1932
A snapshot of banking and The Chase National Bank
Steve Frank of Woodbridge, NJ, someone with no connection to Chase, contacted us recently with a real find and generous offer: Would we be interested in a copy of The Chase, a monthly magazine of The Chase National Bank, from September 1932, if he scanned it for us?
Would we ever, we replied.
We learned quickly that he was talkative and fun, with the psyche of a collector.
"This was probably something that my godfather had," he told us. "He and my godmother were both CPAs and spent a lot of time in New York.
"I’m Italian, Irish and German (last name was shortened from Gianfrancesco) and can say the Germans NEVER got rid of anything. I have a box with 10 belt buckles…and seven of them are brass with only three of them silver or silverplate, so I guess it was the mindset of those who survived difficult times to never throw anything out that was still functional and might be needed again one day."
Contents
The Chase National Bank merged with the Bank of the Manhattan Company in 1955 to form the Chase Manhattan Bank.
The Volume XV, No. 6 issue of the magazine includes long-form articles about banking to educate employees about such matters as the Note-Tellers Office or Chase's London Branch, as well as the kinds of personnel tidbits one might find in a monthly newsletter: engagements, marriages, work anniversaries, club news and the bowling team standings.
Page 6 of the magazine shows Winthrop W. Aldrich as Vice Chairman. His sister Abby married John D. Rockefeller Jr.; Winthrop was therefore David's and his siblings' uncle. The same page indicates that the bank, at that time, owned the American Express Company.
The September, 1932 issue also included puzzles and the solution to a mathematical stumper posed in a prior issue; an assistant comptroller figured out "what really happened to the cow who grazed at the end of the 100-foot rope".
There's also a humor page:
"The work that went into this, from design and print quality, to the writing and top notch editing would rival what top newspapers and magazines had before all the budget cuts to print media," Frank said.
Our thanks to Steve Frank, and enjoy!
Click below to access
Only dues-paying CAA members can access the content. Due to the size of the file, it is posted in two parts:
Please send comments to news@chasealum.org.