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Once there was a golden age of American thrift, when citizens lived sensibly within their means and worked hard to stay out of debt. The growing availability of credit in this century, however, has brought those days to an end--undermining traditional moral virtues such as prudence, diligence, and the delay of gratification while encouraging reckless consumerism. Or so we commonly believe. In this engaging and thought-provoking book, Lendol Calder shows that this conception of the past is in fact a myth.
Calder presents the first book-length social and cultural history of the rise of consumer credit in America. He focuses on the years between 1890 and 1940, when the legal, institutional, and moral bases of today's consumer credit were established, and in an epilogue takes the story up to the present. He draws on a wide variety of sources--including personal diaries and letters, government and business records, newspapers, advertisements, movies, and the words of such figures as Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, and P. T. Barnum--to show that debt has always been with us. He vigorously challenges the idea that consumer credit has eroded traditional values. Instead, he argues, monthly payments have imposed strict, externally reinforced disciplines on consumers, making the culture of consumption less a playground for hedonists than an extension of what Max Weber called the "iron cage" of disciplined rationality and hard work.
Throughout, Calder keeps in clear view the human face of credit relations. He re-creates the Dickensian world of nineteenth-century pawnbrokers, takes us into the dingy backstairs offices of loan sharks, into small-town shops and New York department stores, and explains who resorted to which types of credit and why. He also traces the evolving moral status of consumer credit, showing how it changed from a widespread but morally dubious practice into an almost universal and generally accepted practice by World War II. Combining clear, rigorous arguments with a colorful, narrative style, Financing the American Dream will attract a wide range of academic and general readers and change how we understand one of the most important and overlooked aspects of American social and economic life.
- Sales Rank: #802510 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Princeton University Press
- Published on: 2001-02-11
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .99" w x 6.10" l, 1.26 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 400 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
From Publishers Weekly
Debunking what he calls the "myth of lost economic virtue"Athe notion that Americans lived debt-free until the advent of consumer credit gave rise to a kind of collective hedonism corrosive to traditional moral valuesACalder traces the uses of credit and historical attitudes toward debt back to the mid-19th century. These attitudes have always been contradictory, according to Calder, who teaches history at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill. Money-ethic literature of the Victorian era, for instance, distinguished "productive credit," used to finance labor or business (a popular epigram of the period asserted that "one never becomes rich until he is in debt"), from "consumptive credit," exemplified by "shivering youths who pawned overcoats to pay gambling debts [and] sallow New York dandies with showy chains on their vest." The watershed in the history of consumer credit, according to Calder, was the 1920s, when a new method of credit, the installment plan, was popularized and legitimized by the vibrant automobile industry. Calder is at his best in these two historical periods, drawing extensively on anecdotal and literary evidence to create a lively narrative. But as Calder notes throughout his book, debt has always remained a private affair, and the hard numbers behind these trends were never collected. The absence of statistical support makes his contention that the consumer credit culture has promoted thrift and discipline less persuasive. The title is also misleading, as Calder has little to say about the history of credit in the post-World War II years and beyond. Illustrations.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This fascinating but scholarly examination of America's love affair with consumerism and consumer debt shows readers when and how the American Dream turned into what Max Weber called the "iron cage." Focusing on the years between 1890 and 1940, Calder (history, Augustana Coll.) shows how the legal, institutional, and moral bases of today's consumer credit model were established. In an epilog, Calder brings the story up to the present. Using a variety of primary sources for his research (notes are included for each chapter), he keeps a human face on his tale of credit relations. A colorful narrative style and clear, strong arguments will help readers understand this aspect of American social and economic life.ASusan C. Awe, Univ. of New Mexico Lib., Albuquerque
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From The New Yorker
"There was never a golden age when everybody paid cash. . . . Moreover, Calder's research convinced him that, far from creating a nation of hedonistic wastrels, consumer credit's rigorous system of monthly payments imposes a puritanical discipline of hard work and thrift."
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
great history of personal finance in the U.S.
By C. B. Younce
wonderfully written and researched history of personal finance/consumer credit in the U.S. Author does not appear to have any particular political axe to grind.
It is amazing to see the history recorded in this book being repeated today. Would highly recommend this book to anyone attempting to make sense of the progressive movement's regulation
of consumer financial products.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Five Stars
By Kit
Good!
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A brilliant analysis about America on the installment plan!
By John
Something there is that does not like a consumer loan. Indeed, for a long time the idea of such credit created a sensation of discomfort, insecurity and even shame. Americans harbored a natural hostility to such practices since they tend to ensnare the buyer into schemes that are onerous. Being in debt had the stigma of indicating a lack of self-restraint and character.
This attitude toward debt long dominated. But, beginning in the early twentieth century, popular resistance to consumer credit gradually diminished. Lendol Calder's Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit is a fascinating chronicle of how this hostility was overcome. His analysis covering the late-nineteenth century to the Great Depression provides insight into a consumer culture that has led us to the present plight of an economy built upon and sustained by debt.
It is a story that is not only about loans but about money, social attitudes and relationships. With the Industrial Revolution, the concept of money itself evolved. The world moved from a more personal relationship-based economy to today's impersonal money economy. Banking shifted from a conservative commercial institution catering to industry to a more consumer-oriented business dedicated to financing the American Dream. Government's role increased as it became involved in expanding and guaranteeing money supply and offering its own credit schemes.
While the scenario was complex, there was one simple catalyst that brought about this transformation. This was the development of the installment method of financing. Calder claims that "The installment plan was to consumer credit what the moving assembly line was to the automobile industry. Without it, today's trillion dollar [now $13 trillion] consumer credit industry would be inconceivable."
Starting with sewing machines, farm machinery and automobiles, the practice soon embraced almost every line of purchase including clothing. It created the tension of providing instant gratification while imposing severe discipline upon the worker now saddled with regular monthly payments. In this way, consumer debt became a permanent fixture if not an entitlement in American society.
If installment buying was the instrument, credit marketing was the process which changed the mentality of thrifty Americans and secured the acceptance of consumer credit. Much more important than engineering a financial infrastructure, it became necessary to "sanitize" the concept of debt itself as a positive value for progress and society.
Amply documented in Calder's narrative, credit marketers soon found ways of reassuring the public that consumer debt was positive. The small-loan lenders were no longer "loan sharks" but found new identities as "financial advisors," "financial doctors," or "consumer counselors." Even the installment plan itself underwent a facelift as they came to be called "budget plans," "club plans," `thrift accounts," or "preferred buyer plans." These and other subterfuges gradually turned the tide that paved the way for the credit wave of the future that continues to the present.
Lendol Calder's clear and compelling arguments do much to explain how consumer credit became part of American culture. By extrapolating upon his findings, readers can also gain insight as to the present crisis and the future. The present explosive expansion of credit merely intensifies the earlier processes of gratification and obligation. Calder says it can be best "summed up in a single word: more."
Today's credit-card economy runs on "more." There are more consumer goods, more credit devices, more profits, easier and longer terms--and more undisciplined consumers. On the surface, the quest for more happiness in consumer paradise seems to be intact although maxed out and overextended.
But under the surface, this is anxiety. From the frenetic intemperance by which consumer credit has expanded, there comes a different kind of "more." There is more instability, more stress, more future debt burden--and perhaps more unhappiness. Such sobering perspectives invite reflection on the future of the American dream bought on an installment plan.
John Horvat II
Author of Return to Order: From a Frenzied Economy to an Organic Christian Society--Where We’ve Been, How We Got Here, and Where We Need to Go
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