The FED was created 100 years ago today.

On 12/23/1913 President Woodrow Wilson signed the Owen-Glass Federal Reserve Act which established the Federal Reserve System.Senator Owen was know to a populist,anti-bank Congressman Carter Glass from Virginia(Lynchberg) who later would become Sec. of Treasury and Senator and indeed was one most influential member of Congress dealing with banking,curiously he wasn't a banker,or an economist but rather a newspaper-man by trade.
The Act which created the Federal Reserve System(the FED) was egg on by the panic of 1907.The man of day,who saved the system was J.P Morgan,who prvented the closing of the New York Stock Echange and the failure of the trust Company of America with a $25,000,000 personal loan.However the nation was shocked that a man can have so much power,hence,powerfull man meet in island off Georgian coast and come up with Aldrich plan(name from Senator Nelson Aldrich-grandfather to Nelson Rockefeller) the plan went nowhere because it was seem to friendly to banks.
So instead the FED was created and it was pretty much like Aldrich plan and at first Wilson was oppose but his biggest donor Berhard Baruch was very much in favor and big donors usually get there way.