The Automobile Girls at Chicago

This 1912 girls' book has the four chums, Barbara, Mollie, Grace and Ruth, visiting Ruth's family's home in Chicago as well as that of their friends the Presbys, who live on a historic estate outside the city, where family legend says a treasure is buried. The girls visit the Chicago Board of Trade with its fabled Pit, and learn that both their hosts are in financial trouble because of failed speculation on the wheat market, which has been driven down by a bearish rival of Ruth's father. I don't know what young girls of today would make of it, but it's an interesting period piece. Somehow I doubt many contemporary kids' books are covering the futures market. I wonder whether this was influenced by Joseph Leiter's 1890s corner on wheat, which made its way into so much adult fiction of the period.