Pre-FDIC Bank Failures Were Common

Calculated Risk has a nice chart comparing bank failure rates pre-FDIC and post-FDIC. Research I did in connection with my conference paper this past Spring shows that the high rates of bank failure, pre-FDIC go at least as far back as the American Revolution, at the dawn of the industrial revolution, which is almost as old as banks in the modern sense (as lending institutions rather than physical depositories) go themselves.