At the end of my recent trip to
America's Credit Union Museum in Manchester, NH, museum director
Peggy Powell gave me a copy of the Michael Behrendt's recently
published book Comme D'Or: The First Fifty Years of Holy RosaryCredit Union. According to Ms. Powell, the book is representative of
a new trend in the historiography of credit unions. For the past few
decades, when written about at all, the primary focus of credit union
history has been at the level of the national and state-level
movement institutions. More recently, however, Ms. Powell has
encountered a number of folks working on detailed histories of
individual institutions, of which Comme D'Or
is an excellent example.
Self-published by Holy Rosary Credit
Union of Rochester, NH to commemorate its fiftieth anniversary, Comme
D'Or is accessibly written and
structured in a way that reveals it's author's solid understanding of
the nature of the credit union model. At a time when uncertainty
about the nature of the difference between banks and credit unions is
far too common, it would be quite easy for a writer coming from
outside the movement to write the history of a credit union as if it
were that of a bank, with the economic story taking center stage.
Fortunately,
Michael Behrendt doesn't fall into this trap. The city planner of
Rochester, NH by profession with a book about that city's
architectural history already under his belt, Behrendt brings an
enormous depth of knowledge about, and appreciation for, the social
and cultural history of Rochester to Comme D'Or. As a result,
while the economic aspects of Holy Rosary Credit Union's development
are not neglected, people and community are (very appropriately) at
the core of the narrative.
This is exemplified
by the subject of the book's second chapter. After the obligatory
back-story of the credit union movement as a whole, Behrendt doesn't
immediately proceed to a discussion of the establishment of Holy
Rosary. Instead, he takes readers on a thought-provoking detour
through the development of the Catholic French-Canadian immigrant
community that founded the credit union. By weaving together the
macro-level trends of the mass migration of rural French Canadians to
New England mill-towns in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with
thumbnail biographical sketches of key personalities in Rochester's
Franco-American community, Behrendt provides his readers with a solid
sense of the social, cultural, and economic environment of which Holy
Rosary was a product.
Such rich context
serves to appreciably deepen Behrendt's subsequent discussion of the
establishment and development of the credit union by it helping
readers to viscerally "get" how the early credit union
model humanized debt and credit. Due to the present financial and
political hegemony of the corporate banking system, our contemporary
culture tends to normalize the idea that debt, as a relationship
between an individual and an institution, is something inherently
impersonal. Whether or not one receives a loan is a statistical
decision based on income rate, debt load, and credit scores, and the
decision to declare bankruptcy or walk away from an"underwater"
mortgage is thus not perceived to be a moral one.
However, instead of
embodying this model of two rationally calculating actors acting in
their own narrow best interest, Behrendt effectively demonstrates how
the granting of credit at Holy Rosary was deeply embedded within the
fabric of its community. While objective financial measures were not
ignored, a theme that emerges again and again is how much influence
one's reputation had on the decision of the credit committee. Indeed,
this dynamic is reflected in the book's title; "Comme D'Or"
(which roughly translates to "good as gold") was what
long-time credit committee chairman Maurice Sanfacon would exclaim
when he encountered a loan application from someone he deemed
trustworthy.1
The flip side of
this dynamic was that, since personal honor was often all that stood
as collateral, members felt deep loyalty to the organization.
According to Behrendt, although "many struggled when the
shoe-shops [which were major local employers] closed, but paying back
the credit union was often a person's highest priority. Jim Brock,
says that members do not want to let the credit union down. They know
they can talk to someone if they are having a hard time."2
In fact, this implicit social contract that members would pay their
debts to the best of their ability while the credit union would do
its best to accommodate member facing hard times meant that it was
more than twenty years before the credit union attempted its first
repossession. Amusingly, the seizure of a delinquent member's wrecker
truck in the 1980s caused such a stink (since it was seen as a
violation of this understanding) that the credit union returned it
the very next day and didn't attempt a repossession for the remainder
of the collections officer's tenure.3
Inherently,
reputation and honor are characteristics of specific human
relationships. While it is possible to have generalizing discussions
of their functions using concepts like ["social capital,"]
such abstractions can, at best, be only orienting since, in the real
world, the full meaning of honor and reputation is always
embedded in the full complexity of relationships between actual human
beings. As such, to understand the development of an organization
rooted in the social life of its members, it is vital to cultivate an
understanding of those members' community life far beyond the
boundaries of the institution itself.
Happily, Behrendt
achieves just that, not only through his extensive introduction to
the credit union's socio-cultural background and micro-biographies of
key personalities, but also by drawing heavily on oral history
sources to tease out revealing moments that highlight the complexity
of the credit union's relationship to its larger community. Though
there are many anecdotes sprinkled throughout the book, one that
particularly caught my interest because of the way it underscores the
credit union's French Canadian heritage and the small but meaningful
ways it intervened positively in the lives of its members concerns an
elderly woman who "came in every year to borrow $20. Nobody
asked what the loan was for, but [Tom Bergeron] believes it was to
play Beano (the French-Canadian equivalent of Bingo) at the Rochester
Fair. Three cards cost a quarter; so, even after covering admission,
she could get in a lot of Beano. The woman came into the office
religiously every month to pay down her loan, until submitting
another application the following fall."4
By paying such careful heed to the specific, human moments in the
life of the credit union, Comme D'Or succeeds in distilling
the fundamental character of a fascinating institution's early years.
Given his
appreciation of the social character Holy Rosary's origins, Behrendt
concludes his book with a very insightful discussion of way in which
the credit union has attempted to navigate the challenge (which the
whole credit union movement has been wrestling with for decades) of
growing while maintaining a sense of community. Mixing quotes from
social capital theorist Robert Putnam with insights into the
present state of the credit union from contemporary volunteers and
staff, it the discussion is deep treatment of the issue that
contributes meaningfully to the ongoing conversation concerning
credit union identity.
Overall, in spite
of (or, perhaps, because of) its unorthodox structure and source
material, Comme D'Or is one of the best credit union histories
I've encountered. Its sympathetic and in-depth treatment of the
people involved in the organization make it a must-read for anyone
thinking about undertaking a similar project for their own credit
union. As for the more academically-minded, the pop-history tone can
sometimes come off as a bit too fluffy, but it is more than made up
for by (1) the sophisticated treatment of identity issues and (2) the
discussion of the Franco-American influence on the credit union.
Though French Canadians get a nod in the traditional credit union
narrative, their influence seems to suddenly end once Desjardins
transfers the credit union idea to Filene. Hopefully, this book will
be but the first installment in a larger project of describing the
influence of Quebec on the American credit unionism post-1910. In
sum, Comme D'Or absolutely deserves a place of pride on any
credit union history nerd's book-shelf!
Notes
1109.
2110.
3103.
487.
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