Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit

Book Description

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.

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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.

Customer Reviews:

appealing, easy to grasp the credit revolution.......2005-04-01

Calder book is an appealing read. I must agree with other reviews that this is usually not a very interesting subject, finance and credit, but Calder presents it in an interesting matter that can be quite witty at times. The reader will see how Victorian money management ideas of the past were largely accepted passively by most but only actually followed by few. Credit has existed since before this countries foundation argues Calder and he details the progression of credit systems to present times.

One-stop Shopping.......2004-03-09

I used Calder's book in one of my History courses and found it to be thorough, even-handed and timely. Calder's prose style is remarkably engaging; students had no trouble navigating the text and discerning the major points. It's a gripping read, but also tremendously informative as well. If you have time to read only one book on the development of consumerism and consumer values, this is it. In fact, I have read few books that I consider a better "window" on the shaping of modern American culture.

The History of the Dream.......2001-09-29

Calder covers what can be a dry subject in an interesting manner. He follows the history of consumer credit from the early 19th century up to the period of the New Deal. The book discusses the evolving attitudes toward credit and debt and the products that eventually revolutionized the system of consumer credit. It is well documented and illustrated. A surprisingly good read for what can be a boring subject.

Financing the American Dream A Cultural History of Consumer Credit

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Financing the American Dream A Cultural History of Consumer Credit
L. Calder
Manufacturer: Princeton U.P.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Credit Ratings & Repair | Personal Finance | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000H28TF4

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Rampersad, one of our foremost African-American scholars, is an apt biographer for Hughes (1902-67), our greatest black poet. I, Too, Sing America (volume 1) covers the years during which Hughes produced his best work and was most politically active; I Dream a World (volume 2) chronicles his artistic decline due to overwork in= response to perpetual financial difficulties. Both volumes are psychologically astute, critically penetrating and masterful in their intermingling of Hughes' story with a chronicle of the enormous changes that took place in black America during his lifetime.

Book Description

February 1, 2002 marks the 100th birthday of Langston Hughes. To commemorate the centennial of his birth, Arnold Rampersad has contributed new Afterwords to both volumes of his highly-praised biography of this most extraordinary and prolific American writer. In young adulthood Hughes possessed a nomadic but dedicated spirit that led him from Mexico to Africa and the Soviet Union to Japan, and countless other stops around the globe. Associating with political activists, patrons, and fellow artists, and drawing inspiration from both Walt Whitman and the vibrant Afro-American culture, Hughes soon became the most original and revered of black poets. In the first volume's Afterword, Rampersad looks back at the significant early works Hughes produced, the genres he explored, and offers a new perspective on Hughes's lasting literary influence. Exhaustively researched in archival collections throughout the country, especially in the Langston Hughes papers at Yale University's Beinecke Library, and featuring fifty illustrations per volume, this anniversary edition will offer a new generation of readers entrance to the life and mind of one of the twentieth century's greatest artists.

Customer Reviews:

An Excellent Read.......2005-04-06

Long before the advent of the 1960's motto of black pride and black beauty, there was Langston Hughes who championed and celebrated black pride and black beauty, both African and black American, at the height racial inequality in the United States.

The two definitive biographies of Langston Hughes are written by Faith Berry, LANGSTON HUGHES: BEFORE AND BEYOND HARLEM, and, the two by Arnold Rampersad's, THE LIFE OF LANGSTON HUGHES VOLS. 1 AND 2. For those able to do it, I would recommend reading Berry's biography first and then DEFINITLY follow it by reading Rampersad two exquisite biographies of Hughes. Reading the two is the only real way to get a complete and accurate picture of Langston Hughes. Both books briefly address Hughes family background which isn't unique to him alone in the black American community as those non-persons of African decent on the outside repeatedly fail to understand. Both books address Hughes' humanity despite of the racism he faced as an extremely confident and proud African-American. Both acknowledge Hughes dislike of those blacks like Toomer ashamed of being black and their African heritage. Both reveal his living through all the moments in early 20th century American history like the Harlem Renaissance and meeting and befriending such figures as Dubois and facing McCarthy on charges of communism while punctuated moments of his life with wanderlust in world travels. Both books address the obstacles and triumphs he faced as being only the second black American to earn a living by writing , the first being Paul Lawrence Dunbar who was also Hughes idol and influence alongside Whitman and Sandburg. Both books take care to explain how Hughes relationships with his parents and grandmother may have shadowed his other relationships in terms of his race pride and the half hearted and insincere assignations with women he was linked to.

Where the two books differ is in discussing Hughes being gay. Berry appears unbridled by prejudice in acknowledging use as gay. Rampersad, a conservative black scholar and now part executor of the Hughes estate, is too eagerly fulsome in his attempts to deny Hughes being gay along with the coded references Hughes used to describe his affections for black men in poems which are similar to those used by Whitman in describing his same sex interest. This dangerously borders the homophobic line. (** READ the recent appendix in Rampersad biography where he rightfully takes issue with being called homophobic by his critics.**) This has been the chief criticism by many of Rampersad two biographies of Hughes. The great irony is that Rampersad actually confirms Hughes being gay by indicating the price Hughes would have paid if he was openly identified as gay at the wrong time in history (even in some circles of the black community today for that matter). Plus, in volume 2 of the LIFE OF HUGHES, Rampersad is less virulent in denying Hughes being gay and pretty much comes close to acknowledging him being gay but holds back for reasons of
his own.

Moreover, Berry discusses Hughes in a straight foreword manner. Rampersad biography is almost lyrical in its historical documentation of Hughes life like a number of biographies being written these days by certain scholars. Rampersad goes into great psychological analysis of Hughes and barring certain before mentioned instances gets it right.

Passionate, cruel, Honey-lipped, syphilitic.......2004-10-22

"'The Africans looked at me and would not believe I was a Negro': ...
`You - white man'," they said. Repudiating the idea that he was not one of them,
Hughes asserted "the unity of blacks everywhere." Hughes' choice to embrace
his African-American heritage is a major theme of Rampersad's biography.
Hughes rejected his father's path and the chance to pass, to escape prejudice
and win easy acceptance as a member of Mexican society. Poetic inspiration
came from Harlem, from Jazz, and from anger at prejudice. Despite, or because of
its format, with chapters divided by years, this book made riveting summer reading.
Along the way it introduced me to wonderful poetry in the context of the life:
-----
Mercedes is a jungle-lily in a death house.
Mercedes is a doomed star.
Mercedes is a charnel rose. ... ----
AND:
Passionate, cruel,
Honey-lipped, syphilitic -
That is the South.
And I, who am black, would love her
But she spits in my face . . .

Rampersad at his best!!.......2004-09-28

This is the most complete writing on Hughes' life. Beautifully written yet very thorough. Arnold Rampersad is probably the most talented biographer alive.

A WONDERFUL BOOK!.......2000-04-27

I thought this was a very interesting book. It is VERY well written, I recomend it!

The Life of Langston Hughes. Volume 1: 1902 - 1941. I, Too, Sing America

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The Life of Langston Hughes. Volume 1: 1902 - 1941. I, Too, Sing America

Manufacturer: Oxford University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HJN524

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Get the most up-to-date and comprehensive guide to watershed analysis and management.

In Watersheds: Processes, Assessment, and Management, author Paul DeBarry covers aspects of watershed physical processes such as assessing, classifying, and evaluating a watershed; using GIS models for watershed assessment; and effectively planning for future use and demands. He covers precipitation, ecology, geology, soils, geomorphology, hydrogeology, hydrology, water quality, hydraulics, GIS, data collection, planning, and management. And he takes you beyond theory so you learn to apply planning, management, GIS, and hydrologic engineering principles in real-world watershed management.

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Agrochemicals and agricultural practices have a tremendous impact on environmental quality, particularly their role in water quality degradation. Soil Processes and Water Quality examines principles and practices that minimize the risks of water pollution while enhancing agricultural intensification and productivity. It focuses on how agricultural practices-such as tillage methods, use of fertilizers and manures, cropping systems, and the use of agrochemicals and pest control measures-impact soil processes and affect water quality. Extensive coverage of such topics as water contamination by runoff, leaching, macropore flow, and sediments is also included. Rapid increases in the use of agrochemicals make Soil Processes and Water Quality an indispensable reference for soil scientists, water quality professionals, researchers, environmental chemists, agrochemicals professionals, government agency employees, academic instructors, agronomists, and students.

Observations of a seasonally shifting thermal optimum in peatland carbon-cycling processes; implications for the global carbon cycle and soil enzyme methodologies ... article from: Soil Biology and Biochemistry]

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Observations of a seasonally shifting thermal optimum in peatland carbon-cycling processes; implications for the global carbon cycle and soil enzyme methodologies ... article from: Soil Biology and Biochemistry]
N. Fenner , C. Freeman , and B. Reynolds
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000RR6TJC

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This digital document is a journal article from Soil Biology and Biochemistry, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Thermal gradient apparatus has been used to study enzyme activity and carbon cycling in peat collected seasonally from a Northern upland peatland. A thermal optimum was observed in the peat where maximum carbon-cycling enzyme activities (phenol oxidase and @b-glucosidase), phenolic compound concentrations, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations and microbial respiration (CO"2 efflux) were all found in a given season. The thermal optimum for these carbon-cycling processes coincided with the highest ambient soil temperature recorded at the time of peat collection, suggesting microbial acclimation to the external conditions. Under the waterlogged conditions of this experiment, phenol oxidase activites correlated positively with phenolic compounds (winter 0.96, P <0.01; spring 0.92, P <0.001; summer 0.94, P <0.001; autumn 0.88, P <0.001) and @b-glucosidase activities with DOC (winter 0.91, P <0.01; spring 0.85, P <0.01; summer 0.92, P <0.001; autumn 0.72, P <0.05). We propose, therefore, that the relative activities of these enzymes is crucial in mobilising DOC from the peat matrix, with implications for carbon exports to the receiving waters (magnitude and molecular weight distribution) and CO"2 efflux to the atmosphere. The pronounced seasonality in carbon processing found here, must be taken into account when modelling carbon flux in and from these systems, if responses to climate change are to be predicted satisfactorily. Furthermore, because the optimum activity of these carbon-cycling enzymes shifted with seasonal changes in temperature, it is essential to perform enzyme assays in soil ecological investigations at field temperatures (rather than standardised temperatures), when information on natural process rates is required.

Soil and water management for salinity control (WRRI report)

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Soil and water management for salinity control (WRRI report)
P. J Wierenga
Manufacturer: New Mexico State University, New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Soil Science | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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SOIL PROCESSES & WATER QUALITY
R. Lal
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N665UU

Soil processes impacting groundwater quality in the North Carolina piedmont: Contamination by organic agrochemicals (Report / Water Resources Research Institute of the University of North Carolina)

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Soil processes impacting groundwater quality in the North Carolina piedmont: Contamination by organic agrochemicals (Report / Water Resources Research Institute of the University of North Carolina)
Dhami Vasudevan
Manufacturer: Water Resources Research Institute of the University of North Carolina
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Soil Science | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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he did better with Gradiva....

Sublimation, Eros and Vultures

If you're interested in Fine art and psychoanalysis? READ it

Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood (Freud, Sigmund, Works.)
Sigmund Freud , and James Strachey
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment, and Design

Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud)

Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious

Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis

Autobiographical Study

ASIN: 0393001490

Customer Reviews:

he did better with Gradiva...........2002-01-09

In this small book Freud takes a mistranslated childhood memory of Leonardo's--one in which a kite (Freud thought it a vulture) opens the baby's mouth with its tail feathers--and makes a case for a genius born out of wedlock left alone too much with his mother, and therefore prone to homosexuality. Lame.

As always, though, Freud at least arrives in the ballpark, even if he doesn't understand the game. Initial memories are often strangely prophetic, even when constructed out of fantasy; and so perhaps the fantastic kite--known for its interesting flight configurations--suckled the young Leonardo's latent inventive urges, or even symbolized their later expression.

Note: in this study first appears Freud's use of the term Eros, which he later makes such a fundamental part of his theory.

Sublimation, Eros and Vultures.......2001-02-12

Freud's attempt to apply the concepts and generalisations of psychoanalysis to the Universal Man, Leonardo da Vinci. The formulations reached in the book have now become "pop-Freudian" cliches: the subject was doted on by his mother, neglected by his father and therefore developed a homosexual streak. What occured exactly, according to Freud, was an inordinate Oedipal development in which the subject took his father's domination of the mother as a "de facto" domination (hence prohibition on the father's part) of *all* women and hence it triggered a shift from heterosexual to homosexual tendencies. Freud applies his doctrine of infantile sexuality to address other topics such as Leonardo's prodigious genius, his scientific pursuits and the fact that he left so many works unfinished. The study is speculative and tendentious and, which is more, it is marred by an egregious error in the translation of one of Leonardo's notebooks. Its major shortcoming is its rather reckless and overconfident attempt to reconstruct the psycholgy of a man dead for centuries. For zealous partisans of psychoanalysis only, or for those who have an academic interest in the subject.

If you're interested in Fine art and psychoanalysis? READ it.......2000-06-19

I'm a graduate student majoring art history. i'd read this essey at April at seminar on Freud i made. i wanna know the interpretation of art not by classical art historian but by psycho-analysis doctor. it's so curious and fantastic to meet this strange world. In that, Freud would explain on genius of Leonardo Da Vinci. 'Passion on completeness made him (Leonardo) left his works unfinished. So to speak, if he is unsatisfied with his, he left them unfinished. And He thought the reason of Leonardo disposition toward homosexual was on his infant period accident. He was fed by Only his mother without Father! to be Absent of Father. And his Oedipus Complex not happen like normal case. He depened on his mother without obstacle-his father. He identified himself with his mom. And when he grew up, he loved boys like him. He took the role of his mom which feed him! His Libido made his investigation on everythins stronger than normal ! So to speak, His primal desire(il primo motore)is changed not as hetero sexual desire but as investigation desire. Frequently, you'd think you meet dogmatic explanation on Leonardo. It's no bad because there are not 'ONLY' truth! ^^ And why dont you check your condition out according to Freudian way?

Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood

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Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood

Manufacturer: Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000E1BCWU

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Leonardo Da Vinci (and a Memory of His Childhood)

Manufacturer: Barnes and Noble
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0760749922

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FROM THE PUBLISHER Sigmund Freud once described his essay on Leonardo da Vinci as the most beautiful thing he ever wrote. In Leonardo da Vinci, of course, he had as his subject not just an ordinary Italian painter, but the prototype of the universal genius, the "Renaissance man," the creator of some of the most beautiful, familiar, yet mysterious paintings of all time. Today, almost a century after its publication in 1910, Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood remains a masterpiece of what Freud called "pathography" - the effort to understand the life and works of a celebrated cultural figure through the investigation of his or her crucial psychological conflicts. A master of German prose style, Freud was awarded the Goethe Prize by the City of Frankfurt in 1930 for the literary quality of his voluminous writings on the workings of the human mind. About the Author: Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 in Freiburg, a small city in Moravia, the eastern part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and moved with his parents to Vienna when he was three and a half years old. There he lived, obtained his classical Gymnasium education, graduated from medical school, raised his family, and after a period of laboratory research, undertook the study and treatment of patients with neurological and emotional disorders. It was in that setting that, in the waning years of the nineteenth century, he began to develop the theory and technique of psychoanalysis, publishing, among other things, such major works as The Interpretation of Dreams and Three Essays in the Theory of Sexuality. After the German absorption of Austria in 1938, Freud was helped by some of his students and followers to move to London to escape the Nazi's anti-Semitic persecution. The next year, after completing his final book, Moses and Monotheism, he died, widely celebrated as the founder of what had by then become the international psychoanalytic movement.

Leonardo Da Vinci a Memory of His Childhood

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Leonardo Da Vinci a Memory of His Childhood
Sigmund Freud
Manufacturer: Amereon Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0891906886

[Introduction to Sigmund Freud's Leonardo da Vinci and a memory of his childhood

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[Introduction to Sigmund Freud's Leonardo da Vinci and a memory of his childhood
Brian Farrell
Manufacturer: Penguin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007J55PY

Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood (Pelican Books, A519)

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Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood (Pelican Books, A519)
Sigmund Freud
Manufacturer: Penguin Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NRRQL6

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