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25-742: The building was named after Marriner S. Eccles (1890–1977), Chairman of the Federal Reserve under President Roosevelt, by an Act of Congress on October 15, 1982. Previously it had been known as the Federal Reserve Building. From 1913 to 1937, the Federal Reserve Board met in the United States Treasury building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., while employees were scattered across three locations throughout

50-481: A giant suction pump had by 1929–1930 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. ... The other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped. Born in Logan, Utah to David and Ellen (Stoddard) Eccles, a Mormon polygamist family, on September 9, 1890. He was the eldest of the nine children by Ellen Stoddard, David Eccles' second wife. His family

75-491: A happy marriage, caused partly by Eccles' lack of attention towards her, and although they were legally married 35 years until their divorce in 1948, they separated soon after the marriage and lived largely separate lives. His grand-niece, Hope Eccles, is married to former Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve Randal Quarles . Eccles was and is seen as an early proponent of demand stimulus projects to fend off

100-593: A series of foundations representing assets that he had managed for various family members. These foundations have served Utah and the Intermountain West in support of educational, artistic, humanitarian, and scientific activities. He died in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1977 and was entombed in the Larkin Sunset Lawn Mausoleum. In 1913, he married the former May Campbell Young. The couple did not have

125-520: Is considered by some to have seen monetary policy having secondary importance and that as a result he allowed the Federal Reserve to be sublimated to the interests of the Treasury. In this view, the Federal Reserve after 1935 acquired new instruments to command monetary policy, but it did not change its behavior significantly. Further, his defense of the Federal Reserve-Treasury accord in 1951

150-409: Is in the shape of the letter H , with the space on either side of the building's center forming east and west courtyards. The interior has a two-story atrium with dual staircases and a skylight etched with the outline of an eagle. The atrium floor is of marble and its walls are of travertine marble. The largest meeting space is the two-story Board Room. Construction of the building began in 1935 and

175-433: Is not, however, intended to suggest that its monumental character should be emphasized. It is thought desirable that its aesthetic appeal should be through dignity of conception, proportion, scale and purity of line rather than through stressing of purely decorative or monumental features. For this reason it is suggested that the use of columns, pediments and other such forms may be altogether omitted and should be restricted to

200-694: Is sometimes seen as a reversal of his previous policy stances. Marriner Eccles received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement , alongside his brother George S. Eccles , at the 1972 Achievement Summit in Salt Lake City. The Eccles Building that houses the headquarters of the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C. was named after Eccles in 1982. The naming was a component of

225-591: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation . After a brief stint at the Treasury Department and with the support of treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. , Eccles was appointed by President Roosevelt as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve . Eccles was reappointed chairman in 1936, 1940, and 1944 and served until 1948. In February 1944, Roosevelt appointed Eccles for another 14-year term on

250-580: The Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act lead-sponsored by Senator Jake Garn (R, UT ) and Congressman Fernand St. Germain ( D , RI ). Sidney Waugh Sidney Waugh (January 17, 1904 – June 30, 1963) was an American sculptor known for his monuments, medals, etched and moulded glass, and architectural sculpture . Waugh was born in Amherst , Massachusetts. His father, Frank Waugh,

275-543: The United States Commission of Fine Arts , and Adolph C. Miller, a member of the Board since 1914. Miller drafted a statement to help the competing architects understand the concerns of Board, explaining that the traditional style of public architecture – with columns, pediments, and generous use of symbolic ornamentation – would not be of the utmost concern. In describing the character of the building as governmental, it

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300-738: The Board Room, and sculptor Herbert Adams created memorials to President Woodrow Wilson and Senator Carter Glass to occupy niches in the main lobby. The furniture was produced by W. & J. Sloane , New York, with the architects having the final responsibility. The building is undergoing both interior and exterior renovations as of September 2022, with plans approved by the National Capital Planning Commission in September 2021. Marriner S. Eccles Marriner Stoddard Eccles (September 9, 1890 – December 18, 1977)

325-524: The assets of his father's industrial conglomerate and banking network. Eccles expanded the banking interests into a large western chain of banks called Eccles-Browning Affiliated Banks. He was a millionaire by age 22. The company withstood several bank runs during the Great Depression and, as a leading banker, Eccles became involved with the creation of the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 and

350-525: The board and Eccles stayed on the board until 1951, when he resigned a few months after the 1951 Accord . Eccles had also participated in post- World War II Bretton Woods negotiations that created the World Bank and International Monetary Fund . Eccles retired to Utah in 1951 to run his companies and write his memoirs, titled Beckoning Frontiers: Public and Personal Recollections . He further consolidated industrial and family assets, finally organizing

375-521: The character of the building as above described. Proposals were received from architects such as John Russell Pope and James Gamble Rogers . Ultimately, the winner of the competition was the simplified classical design by Paul Philippe Cret . Cret was a naturalized U.S. citizen who had trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyons and Paris . He was invited to the United States in 1903 to establish

400-528: The city. In response to the Banking Act of 1935 , which centralized control of the Federal Reserve System and placed it in the hands of the Board, the Board decided to consolidate its growing staff in a new building, to be sited on Constitution Avenue and designed by an architect selected through an invited competition. The principal officials overseeing the competition were Charles Moore, chairman of

425-729: The department of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania , and established his own practice in 1907. His first major commission was the Pan American Union Building , in Washington, D.C. (1908). Designed with Albert Kelsey , it was a building in quintessential Beaux-Arts style, with a classical façade , rich ornamentation, and allegorical references to the goals of the organization. This led to many other commissions for war memorials, civic buildings, court houses, and museums in cities such as Detroit , Hartford , Philadelphia , Indianapolis , and Washington, D.C. By 1935, under

450-749: The influence of Modernism, Cret's style had evolved toward the Stripped Classicism of buildings such as the Folger Shakespeare Library (1929–32). But true to the Beaux-Arts tradition, he oversaw every aspect of the building project, including technical and aesthetic details. His firm made more than 300 freehand sketches, measured plans, site plans, elevational studies, and perspective drawings, each of which could contain front, side, and top views, and sectional details when necessary. The four-story building, with an exterior of Milford pink granite ,

475-516: The ravages of the Great Depression . Eccles was famously rebuked by Congresswoman Jessie Sumner ( R , IL ) during a House of Representatives hearing on the increasingly liberal policies of the Roosevelt administration and the Federal Reserve, when she said, " you just love socialism." He became known as a defender of Keynesian ideas, though his ideas predated Keynes' The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). In that respect, he

500-407: The theories of John Maynard Keynes relative to "inadequate aggregate spending" in the economy which appeared during his tenure. As Eccles wrote in his memoir Beckoning Frontiers (1951): As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption, mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth ... to provide men with buying power. ... Instead of achieving that kind of distribution,

525-524: Was a landscape architect and professor of horticulture and landscape gardening at Massachusetts State College . Waugh entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the age of 16 and attended for three years. This was followed by several years study in Rome and Paris where he studied with Antoine Bourdelle and worked as an assistant to Henri Bouchard . He was then appointed sculptor for

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550-547: Was an American economist and banker who served as the 7th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1934 to 1948. After his term as chairman, Eccles continued to serve as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors until 1951. Eccles was known during his lifetime chiefly as having been the Chairman of the Federal Reserve under President Franklin D. Roosevelt . He has been remembered for having anticipated and supporting

575-521: Was carved by the Piccirilli Brothers , while John Gregory carved bas-reliefs for the exterior of the C ;Street entrance. Samuel Yellin , a noted wrought-iron craftsman from Philadelphia, designed and executed numerous railings, gates, and fixtures throughout the building. Milford pink granite was used as a building material. Mural artist Ezra Winter painted a large map of the United States for

600-408: Was completed in 1937. Its pragmatic classicism captured the spirit of Depression-era and wartime Washington, a city determined to remain grand but with nothing to spare on the non-essential. Cret employed nationally recognized artists to complete the ornamentation and furnishing of the building. Sidney Waugh designed the eagle on the front facade, the building's only three-dimensional sculpture which

625-474: Was extended by another twelve siblings from his father's first wife. Eccles was educated at the public schools of Baker, Oregon and attended Brigham Young College and served a Latter-day Saint mission to Scotland . After his mission, while working in a family enterprise in Blacksmith Fork Canyon, he learned of the untimely death of his father. He was subsequently able to reorganize and consolidate

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