Trading Organized

Production explodes with the Industrial Revolution, and once-isolated trading must now be orchestrated. Organizations like the Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago Produce Exchange and Butter and Cheese Exchange of New York develop to regulate trade and manage risk via public trading methods called “open outcry.” American commerce is still young, raw and largely undeveloped.

A group of 82 merchants, farmers, and businessmen form the original Chicago Board of Trade in the offices of W.L. Whiting at 101 South Water Street. Thomas Dyer is appointed the first president of CBOT, April 3, 1848

Grain trading in the Chicago Produce Exchange, which in 1898 spins off to become the Chicago Butter and Egg Board, 1875

New York Butter, Cheese and Egg Exchange, precursor to the 1882 formation of New York Mercantile Exchange, 1875