Financing the American dream

D.W. Steeples

Far from corrupting old ideals of provident personal financial habits, these methods of credit imposed a new, more rigorous discipline through scheduled installment payments. This finely written volume is a major contribution, despite thinness on the shift from barter to a cash economy , disregard of the depression of the 1890's, and shallowness on the rise of retail banking.
— Choice Magazine

Cynthia Crossen

You've been bad boys and girls, and I mean all of you . For several decades, you've been borrowing to buy second homes, fourth cars, and first-class tickets to Maui. How decadent can you get? Using money you don't have to buy a Bose subwoofer? Isn't this the very spiral of borrowing and spending that has destroyed so many civilizations?
—Wall Street Journal

Charles Stein

Lendol Calder has taken on quite a challenge: to find nice things to say about consumer credit. From the New Testament (Owe no man anything) to Shakespeare (Neither a borrower nor a lender be), debt has acquired a rotten reputation. Borrowing money has been blamed for causing economic misery, for forcing people to live beyond their means, and for destroying the long-held American virtues of thrift and frugality.
—Boston Globe

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.--Susan C. Awe, Univ. of New Mexico Lib., Albuquerque

The Wall Street Journal - Cynthia Crossen

Americans feel ashamed about so-called consumption debt, writes Mr. Calder in prose that's as clear as a bell, because they're psychologically frozen in a 100-year-old mindset. . . . Mr. Calder's argument is so deliciously seditious that you have to wonder: What's wrong with this picture? . . . Mr. Calder's sections on pawnbrokers, door-to-door peddlers and small lenders are worth the price of admission alone.

The Boston Globe - Charles Stein

In a surprisingly lively book about a potentially dreary subject, Calder argues that debt is as American as apple pie and that consumer borrowing has been an important engine of economic growth.

The Historian - Jonathan Silva

Calder's work greatly increases our understanding of the rise of consumer culture in America.

Enterprise & Society - Stephanie Dyer

[An] informative and accessible volume. Utilizing a wide range of sources . . . Calder examines the cultural matrix of consumer credit in the United States from the Gilded Age to the New Deal.

Journal of Social History - David A. Horowitz

In the best tradition of cultural history, Lendol Calder explores the fusion of materialistic and idealistic impulses within the much-heralded American Dream. . . . Financing the American Dream is an institutional history of the consumer credit industry, a social history of consumers, and a cultural history of debt. It not only suggests how Americans learned to pay for goods in creative ways but explains the process by which consumer credit came to receive widespread moral sanction. . . . Calder has given us an important contribution to American social and cultural history that places consumerism in the rich context it deserves.

Reason

Contrary to those who piously and ahistorically rail against consumer debt as a modern fall from grace, Calder takes a much more nuanced and interesting view. [He] is to be commended for showing us the other side.

Choice

A broadly researched book on the history of US consumer credit that breaks new ground and revises prevailing views. . . . This finely written volume is a major contribution. . . .

Booklist

Those who complain that the debt represents an abandonment of thrift and a growing lack of willingness to defer gratification are wrong, claims Calder. . . . [He] makes the case that today's 'culture of consumption' arose as much from the availability of credit as from the efforts of advertisers and marketers.

Enterprise & Society

[An] informative and accessible volume. Utilizing a wide range of sources . . . Calder examines the cultural matrix of consumer credit in the United States from the Gilded Age to the New Deal.
— Stephanie Dyer

Journal of Social History

In the best tradition of cultural history, Lendol Calder explores the fusion of materialistic and idealistic impulses within the much-heralded American Dream. . . . Financing the American Dream is an institutional history of the consumer credit industry, a social history of consumers, and a cultural history of debt. It not only suggests how Americans learned to pay for goods in creative ways but explains the process by which consumer credit came to receive widespread moral sanction. . . . Calder has given us an important contribution to American social and cultural history that places consumerism in the rich context it deserves.
— David A. Horowitz

The Wall Street Journal

Americans feel ashamed about so-called consumption debt, writes Mr. Calder in prose that's as clear as a bell, because they're psychologically frozen in a 100-year-old mindset. . . . Mr. Calder's argument is so deliciously seditious that you have to wonder: What's wrong with this picture? . . . Mr. Calder's sections on pawnbrokers, door-to-door peddlers and small lenders are worth the price of admission alone.
— Cynthia Crossen

The Boston Globe

In a surprisingly lively book about a potentially dreary subject, Calder argues that debt is as American as apple pie and that consumer borrowing has been an important engine of economic growth.
— Charles Stein

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.

The Historian

Calder's work greatly increases our understanding of the rise of consumer culture in America.
— Jonathan Silva