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Barnett: The Story of "Florida's Bank." By David Ginzl. Tampa: University of Tampa Press, 2001. xix + 441 PP. Index, notes, illustrations, photos, tables. Cloth, $35.00. ISBN 1-879-8522-1.
Reviewed by Lynne Pierson Doti
When Barnett Bank was integrated into NationsBank in 1997, the employees of Barnett established a foundation to honor the traditions of the 121 year old institution. David Ginzl, a longtime employee with a Ph.D. in history, took on the job of preserving the past of this Florida landmark. The result is an excellent history of a prominent player in U.S. banking history.
Ginzl's sources are mostly the company's records, memos, board minutes, and interviews with the Barnett family and employees. He refers appropriately to local history, local newspapers, and the newspaper American Banker, but because he makes little use of broad histories of banking, the story he tells represents a microscopic view. The lack of historical context is understandable, given his sources, but too often background filler replaces real information about the subject of banking. Ginzl has compiled more than 400 pages of material about the Barnett Bank. Although it is difficult to equate the lifetime of any bank with the reign of Camelot, as the author does in his preface, the chronology of each era should relate to broader concurrent trends in banking history.
The bank was founded in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1877 by William Boyd Barnett, with the help of his son, Bion. Bion lived to be 101 years old and was almost continuously involved in managing Barnett Bank from its inception until his death in 1958. Obviously, such a long life contained many interesting diversions. In 1911, he departed for Europe accompanied by the wife of a neighbor, returning home occasionally to deal with...