Futures speculation was initially more exclusive than earlier land speculation

Evidence

Before the CBOT’s arrival, speculation in Chicago, much as it was in the rest of the country, had been staged around future land values and rent prices. Real estate had been an outlet for the over-accumulated gains made in the early years of frantic industrial growth, railway construction, and commercialized agriculture. Booms like the great Chicago real-estate bubble of 1836–37 raised the first serious public concerns around the vagaries of irrational speculation. … In the 1870s, public access to financial markets was extremely difficult, especially so in the formal futures exchanges. In Chicago, the CBOT’s architecture specifically aimed to convey the exclusive nature of futures trading. Its pit featured an octagonal design, so as to punctuate the distinction of the formal market order from the crowd dynamics of the city’s more chaotic urban life (Borch 2020; also see Cowing 2015). — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 117

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the origin point for speculation’s migration: first land-based, then formalized in exclusive futures pits — groundwork the reader needs for tracing speculation to dating and politics.