Chicago Financial Group

one of the largest groups in the US financial oligarchy. It is a coalition of industrial and finance monopolies and the richest families in Chicago and the state of Illinois. A united group of influential families and the Crown-Hilton group are the most prominent members.

The group represented by the Stuart, Blair, Block, Percy, McCormick, and Swift families holds the leading position in the Chicago financial group. The assets of the corporations and credit and finance institutions it controls amounted to more than $50 billion in the mid-1970’s. As a result of changes in the industrial development in the US Midwest after World War II, the industrial base of the group expanded (previously it had been connected mainly with the development of the food-processing industry and of trade). The group seized control over the retail concern Montgomery Ward and several railroad companies and filled important positions in Standard Oil of Indiana, pushing out the Rockefellers. The group has a ramified network of credit and finance institutions with more than $20 billion in assets. The institutions are mainly banks that finance industry, transportation, and trade in Illinois and adjoining regions. In the mid-1970’s the city of Chicago became the third financial center of the country, after New York City and Boston.

The assets controlled by the Crown-Hilton group amounted to more than $2 billion in the mid-1970’s. Before World War II the nucleus of the group consisted of the Crown family and the First National Bank of Chicago. During the war the two merged their interests with the Hilton family, owners of hotels and other real estate. After the war the Crowns established control over the war-industry concern General Dynamics Corporation.

The Chicago financial group has vast financial and economic interests outside the USA, with numerous divisions and branches abroad.