Slideshow Trading Cards: The Accountants Set

Top 100 firm WithumSmith+Brown’s partner, Edward Mendlowitz, came up with the idea to highlight accountants on trading cards, just like the ones you swapped out and played with as a kid. They teamed up with The Topps Company, Inc. to create a series of accounting trading cards commemorating accountants from the past.

In 1494, Luca de Pacioli became the Father of Accounting when he wrote Summa de Arithmetica. You can now put a name and a face to the accountant who placed debits on the left and credits on the right.

Not only was he one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin also had his hand in accounting.

Charles Waldo Haskins was one of the co-founders of the NYSSCPA and he was a member of the Accounting Hall of Fame at Ohio State University.

Ithamar, the son of Aaron, was asked to conduct an audit when the Israelites built a tabernacle after fleeing from Egypt.

Geoffrey Chaucer was the controller of customs in London from 1374 to 1386 and later became a member of the British Parliament, in addition to writing The Canterbury Tales.

Known as the Richest Man in the World, John D. Rockefeller started out as an assistant bookkeeper before striking it rich in oil.

Robert Montgomery, founder of Lybrand, Ross Brothers & Montgomery, now PwC, became a CPA in 1899. He started to write articles about the profession in the first issue of the Journal of Accountancy in 1905.

In 1889, Christine Ross started her career as an accountant after earning high scores on her CPA exam, but there were some obstacles she had to break through before being recognized as a CPA.

In 1887, James Yalden became the first president and founder of the American Association of Public Accountants. The organization changed its name to the American Institute of Accountants in 1917 and then finally settled in 1957 on what we know today as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

As the last surviving member of George Washington’s cabinet, Oliver Wolcott Jr. was tapped as the 1st auditor of the U.S. Treasury.