[2] Strong had hopes of attending Princeton University after an older brother, but his family experienced temporary financial difficulties when he graduated from Montclair High School.
Strong opted to go to work and became a clerk at a Wall Street investment and financial management firm associated with his father's employer.
In 1900, Strong joined a trust company to work as an assistant to a corporate officer and eventually succeeded his boss.
Trusts can be set up for many reasons, such as for historic and natural site preservation or for legal heirs too young to manage their own finances.
During the Panic of 1907, Bankers Trust, including Strong, worked closely with J.P. Morgan to help avoid a general financial collapse by lending money to sound banks.
In 1908, Congress established the National Monetary Commission to evaluate viable alternatives for a long-term solution to the cycles of financial boom and bust.
Strong was one of those selected to attend a secret ten-day conference at the luxurious Jekyll Island Hunt Club retreat in November 1910.
Thus, members of Congress from these states would find it hard to support a plan drawn up by New York City bankers.
Thus, the general outline of the Aldrich Plan eventually served as the model upon which the Federal Reserve System was based, but there were significant changes.
Also, the role of professional bankers was, to some extent, limited by confining their overt control to the operation of the Federal Reserve banks of the various regions.
Strong had concerns about the Federal Reserve Act and campaigned for changes because of the alterations made from the original Aldrich Plan.
Strong gradually recognized the importance of open market operation, or the purchases and sales of government securities, as a means of managing the quantity of money in the US economy and thus affecting interest rates.
When we watch... [central bankers of today] describe how they are seeking to strike the right balance between economic growth and price stability, it is the ghost of Benjamin Strong who hovers above him.
However, with virtually no inflation, interest rates were low and the US economy and corporate profits surged, fueling the stock market increases of the late 1920s.
That worried him, but he also felt he had no choice because the low interest rates were helping the Europeans (particularly the British) in their effort to return to the gold standard.
On October 6, 1928, at the New York Hospital, he underwent surgery for an abscess for diverticulitis and spent a week recovering when he suffered a relapse, resulting in his untimely death at only 55.