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.
