Canada’s first bank, the Bank of Montreal, is celebrating its 200th anniversary with a book about its history.
A Vision Greater than Themselves: The Making of the Bank of Montreal, 1817-2017 tells the story of the bank from its origins to the present.
Through images of objects, the bank’s leaders, key documents, and forgotten advertisements, author Laurence B. Mussio, a business historian at York University, explores the bank’s past and how it emerged over time.
Almost 200 years ago, on June 23, 1817, John Richardson and eight merchants signed the Articles of Association to establish the Bank of Montreal in a rented house in Montreal. The bank officially began conducting business on November 3, 1817.
You can peek at the some of the inside pages of A Vision Greater than Themselves on Amazon.ca.
Since the book’s publication by McGill-Queen’s University Press was supported by the bank, it should come as no surprise that its history is written from a 21st-century corporate branding perspective. The opening paragraph of the chapter, The Founders in Time, illustrates this slant.
The Bank of Montreal is a complex organization that has evolved through two centuries. That complexity extends to its foundation. Its deepest origins are reflected in its name. That name also camouflages the different cultures and distinct organizations that integrated and assimilated into the Bank but yet continue to leave their mark on its nature. … But the twenty-first century Bank can trace its foundations – its founders and founding cultures – to several places and organizations in time, across Canada and the United States….
The French version, Un destin plus grand que soi: L’histoire de la Banque de Montréal de 1817 à 2017, is also available from Amazon.
The beautiful, old Bank of Montreal building still stands on rue Saint-Jacques across from the Notre-Dame Basilica. Built between 1845 and 1847 and designed by architect John Wells, it remains an iconic part of Old Montreal.
Bank of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, 1887.
I learned about this book on Christopher Moore’s History News.
