# Federal Reserve Act of 1913 >[!Ref] Lexicon > ># Federal Reserve Act of 1913 > The law creating the Federal Reserve System with its 12 Federal Reserve Banks, which act as the American "Central bank" (q.v.). The Act has been amended many times. The underlying idea was to provide an "elastic currency through the creation of an American central bank, without arousing the then existing unpopularity of every centralization in the United States and the traditional hostility to the central bank idea due to the experience with two preceding Banks of the United States. See also "Credit expansion," "Depression" and "monetary theory of the trade cycle." > For helpful critiques of the role of the Federal Reserve System in American economic development, see Benjamin M. Anderson's _Economics and the Public Welfare_ (N.Y.: Van Nostrand, 1949), [Murray N. Rothbard's](https://www.freemarketcenter.com/lexicon/index.html#Murray%20N.%20Rothbard) _America's Great Depression_ (Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand, l963; Los Angeles: Nash, 1972) and PLG, 187-293. --- # References