author
Franklin Escher
1881–1952
A clear-eyed early 20th-century writer on banking and foreign exchange, he specialized in explaining complicated money matters in plain language for students, business readers, and bankers. His books offered practical guidance at a time when international finance was becoming part of modern life.
1 Audiobook
Elements of Foreign Exchange: A Foreign Exchange Primer
by Franklin Escher
About the author
Born in New York in 1881, Franklin Escher built his career around financial journalism, editing, and teaching. Available library and biographical records connect him with Harper’s Weekly as a finance editor and with Investment magazine, and they show that he also lectured on banking and foreign exchange.
Escher is best remembered for practical books on international finance, including Foreign Exchange Explained (1917), Elements of Foreign Exchange, and later Modern Foreign Exchange. His writing was aimed at readers who wanted a working understanding of the subject without getting lost in technical detail, which makes his work especially approachable for general audiences.
He died in 1952. While not a household name today, his books remain part of the historical literature of banking and currency, and they reflect an era when authors often served as translators between specialist financial knowledge and the wider reading public.