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The Bretton Woods system was the result of the brainstorming of two of the most influential economists of the twentieth century, Englishman John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) and American Harry Dexter White (1882-1948). Keynes was the better known of the two and the most academically accomplished. He worked for the British government off and on throughout his life as well as lecturing at universities. A well published scholar, Keynes is best known for his 1936 book, <i>The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money</i>. Simply put, Keynes believed that governments had a responsibility to occasionally play an active role in the economy of a country by enacting programs to increase consumption and to reduce unemployment. <ref> Best, Jacqueline. “Hollowing out Keynesian Norms: How the Search for a Technical Fix Undermined the Bretton Woods Regime.” <i>Review of International Studies</i> 30 (2004) p. 388</ref> The idea that the government should intercede to keep unemployment low in a capitalist country was derided by some as communism, but many world leaders and economists liked the idea and in later years began referring to the theory generally as “Keynesian.”
Harry White was less well-known than Keynes generally speaking, but still highly regarded among economists in the West. He was a short and assuming man, but with plenty of energy and ideas about how the post-World War II economy should function. Interestingly, it was later determined that White worked with the Soviet Union, although how deeply he was involved has never been determined. <ref> Conway, Ed. <i>The Summit: Bretton Woods, 1944: J.M. Keynes and the Reshaping of the Global Economy.</i> (London: Pegasus Books, 2014), pgs. 152-64</ref>
After several months of negotiating, which was hampered by the still undecided wars in Europe and the Pacific, the leaders of the Allied nations agreed to send representatives to a sleepy, unincorporated community known as Bretton Woods in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The conference was held from July 1 to 22, 1944 in the historic Mount Washington Hotel. Although American elites such as the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers visited the hotel in its heyday, by the 1940s it was a shadow of its once great past. The organizers, though, chose the hotel due to its large size and its location: it was easy to control all access points in order to protect the important guests and its high elevation and northern latitude mitigated the effects of an especially hot and humid summer. Officially, the Bretton Woods Conference was known as the “United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference,” but despite its importance only partial transcripts of the proceedings exist. <ref> Conway, pgs. 5-10</ref>
