Norton, Seymour; Cowdrey, Robert. The Men of Money Island; or, The Primer of Finance . Chicago: F.J. Schulte & Company, 1891. [format: book], [genre: advice literature; guidebook; narrative]. Permission: Public domain
Persistent link to this document: http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/file.php?file=norton.html

Note from page 64: 1. Whoever will read the history of banking will find that the system originated in the manner above described. Private bankers issued notes, not only for the convenience of their patrons, but as a protection against robbery (the notes being payable to the person named in the note), and also as a means of increasing the value of coins on account of the fluctuations of coin through the constant changing of size, amount of alloy used, etc. — so that in that way the origin of paper money arose in part through a necessity of something by which to measure the value of coin.