Book Review

Canada and the United States

This book attempts to establish several disparate points about the evolution of consumer credit. On the one hand, Lendol Calder wants to show that the use of debt to finance "the American Dream" has deep roots: contrary to myths about a more economically virtuous past, "a river of red ink runs through American history" (p. 26). Even Victorian strictures on thrift were far more elastic than is commonly assumed. On the other hand, Calder demonstrates that the 1920s saw a qualitative expansion of debt and major changes in money management mores. But he rebukes pundits who equate contemporary consumerism with hedonism. Drawing on the work of Philip Rieff and T. J. Jackson Lears, Calder stresses the ways that individuals who buy on credit are forced into the discipline of regular monthly payments and intense work commitments. The result is a book that does not always link all its points into a step-by-step argument, but whose separate sections are very informative.

1

Part one describes how credit operated in the late nineteenth century. By the end of the century, home mortgages, usually financed by building and loan associations, were the largest source of household debt. There was as yet, however, no central way of financing other personal consumption needs. Pawnbrokers were the bankers of the poor, and despite their usurious rates, they filled a widespread need in American cities. Moderate-income workers tended to patronize loan sharks rather than pawnbrokers, often because they had fallen behind on the installment plan purchases that had multiplied in the 1800s and 1890s. Middle-class families were more able to call on friends or family for loans when they overextended themselves.

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