Book Review - "Minding Our Own Business: Community, Consumers, and Cooperation" by Jennifer E. Tammi

While doing some research on the roots of the contemporary banker campaign against the credit union tax exemption, I stumbled upon reference to an organization called the "National Tax Equity Association" (NTEA) in an old copy of the Credit Union Bridge from the 1950's. Curious for more information, I Googled the NTEA; the results were pretty slim pickings, with one exception: a link to a 50+ MB PDF file of a fascinating and engaging 2012 Columbia University PhD dissertation on the rise and decline of the organized consumer cooperative movement movement in the first half of the 20th century.

In Minding Our Own Business: Community, Consumers, and Cooperation, Dr. Jennifer E. Tammi starts off by examining the roots of the American co-op movement in the experiences of the labor and farmers' movements in the late 19th century, as well as in self-help efforts among marginalized populations such as African Americans and immigrants. She then goes on to discuss the establishment of the Cooperative League of the USA (CLUSA) in 1916 as a umbrella organization to advance the agenda of "Cooperative Democracy," which, according to founder Dr. James P. Warbasse, "is to be reached not by voting, not by sabotage, not by the general strike, nor through revolution or the class struggle, but by putting into operation co-operative democracy – first on a small scale, and then ever increasing and expanding." (pg. 90)

Tammi then proceeds to chronicle the fight between Warbasse's faction and the Communist Party (CPUSA) over the principle of political neutrality in the 1920's, as well as the rapid growth of the organization as the Great Depression drove people looking for alternatives to the existing economic order to form co-ops in unprecedented numbers. She then examines the rise to hegemony of a centralizing, bureaucratic, and increasingly conservative agenda among the leadership of the CLUSA that, she argues convincingly, eroded the local, particular social foundations of the constituent co-ops upon which the long-term viability of the cooperative movement rested. As a result, by the early 1960's the consumer co-op movement was in steep decline, and the CLUSA (which changed its name to the National Cooperative Business Association in the 1980's) was a shadow of its former self.

A Coming Attraction: Credit Union History Since 1970

Although Ian MacPherson's 1999 book on the development of the global credit union movement partially bridges the gap, one of the most gaping holes in contemporary credit union historiography has been the lack of a synthetic treatment of the American movement's recent history. While Moody & Fite's The Credit Union Movement remains an absolutely vital resource, an enormous amount has happened since the last edition was released in 1984 that has the potential to shine new interpretive light on the whole sweep of the movement's development.

One of the benefits of a synthetic work of history is that it organizes the jumble of changes that characterize its subject's development into a coherent, meaningful narrative structure. While people often enter into ferocious debates about the exact parameters of that structure, having some sort of understanding of the mechanisms by which the world came to exist in its current form is a powerful aid to decision-making. Without such a framework, it is impossible to learn from the past beyond the scope of simple personal experience. As George Santayana put it more than a century ago, "when experience is not retained ... infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

(Credit Union) Historic Boston

As this last week was my partner (and fellow history nerd) Allison's February break from teaching, we decided it'd be fun to take a short trip to Boston from our home in northern Vermont. Alli is a social studies teacher with a particular passion for photographing old New England cemeteries (some samples of her work in Vermont can be seen here), so our activities were primarily focused around the various sites on the Freedom Trail. The colonial-era buildings and burying grounds were quite interesting, but, fortunately for myself and the readers of this blog, she was kind enough to oblige me in taking some detours to locate a few sites of historical importance to the credit union movement.

My quest was initially inspired by the knowledge that a plaque honoring Edward Filene was located somewhere on the Boston Common. Since that park was on our itinerary anyway, I found a webpage that provided the plaque's location, and we set out in search of Ed.

Unfortunately, the directions on that page turned out to be a filthy lie; the plaque is nowhere near the intersection of Tremont and Temple Streets. After making a few loops, we stopped into the visitors center, but the woman behind the desk was clueless as to the existence of the memorial. Though it was beginning to feel like a wild goose chase, we decided to circle through the Common one last time.

Victory at Last!

This time, lady luck was on our side, and we stumbled upon the memorial near the intersection of Carver and Boyleston across the street from a piano store and adjacent to the Central Burying Ground. Erected by the Credit Union National Association in 1959 (25 years after the organization's founding at Estes Park, CO in 1934), the monument reads:

Edward A Filene

1860-1937
Author, Scholar, Outstanding Citizen of Boston and Public Benefactor
Acknowledged as the Founder of the Credit Union Movement in the United States
This Tablet Erected by the Credit Union National Association
May 1959

Credit Union Songs from the Founding of CUNA

After braving the icy roads back to Burlington, VT from my trip to America's Credit Union Museum in Manchester, NH, I have so many things to write about! A full recap of the trip will be forthcoming [*Update: Read it here*], but, in the meantime, I figured I'd treat Credit Union History readers to a fun find: a collection of credit union songs found in Edward Filene's diary from the Credit Union National Association's 1934 founding convention in Estes Park, CO! Included are such toe-tapping numbers as:

"The Old Loan Shark" (to the tune of "The Old Gray Mare")
"Credit Union Fellowship Song" ("Sidewalks of New York")
"Edward A. Filene" ("Yankee Doodle")
"Credit Union, Parley-Voo" ("Hinkey-Dinkey, Parley-Voo")
"Theme Song for Estes Park Credit Union Conference" ("The Man on the Flying Trapeze")
"Song of the Credit Union Widow to her Husband" ("Till We Meet Again")
"Song of the Credit Union Spinsters" ("Silver Threads Among the Gold")

I have to say, I'm looking forward to The Disclosures putting out a grind-core cover of one of these classics. Until that happens, though, I'll leave you with a recent video from those modern toubadours that continues the proud tradition of credit union people writing goofy songs about our movement...

Book Review: CUNA Emerges by Roy F. Bergengren

Written shortly after the formation of the Credit Union National Association, CUNA Emerges, by Roy F. Bergengren, is a truly essential text for students of the early credit union movement. Intended as an introduction to the theory and practice of credit unionism, Bergengren's book offers a comprehensive window into the ideas and general practices that characterized the movement in the mid-1930s. Along the way, he offers numerous insights into the nature of the philosophy that underpinned credit unionism, as well as observations on issues that the movement has continued to wrestle with to this day.

First and foremost, this book is of truly incomparable value to anyone doing primary research on early American credit unions (i.e., pre-1970s); in fact, for anyone considering such a project, I would strongly recommend consulting it before digging into the archives. Without the benefit of this book, my earliest archival work had a steep learning curve, as I only gradually, and in a piecemeal fashion, came to understand the full significance of the musty documents that had been excavated from a credit union's supply cabinet.

Oral History: Roy Bergengren, Jr.

While recently mucking about on-line, I stumbled upon the transcript of an oral history interview of Roy Bergengren's son, Roy Bergengren, Jr., which had been conducted in 1975. At the time, the younger Bergengren was the recently retired president of a junior college in Florida, and the bulk of the interview focuses on that experience. However, the biographical background information that he lays out in the first few pages provides some intriguing tidbits for credit union historians by offering a quick glimpse at what it was like to be Bergengren's child and outlining his own brief involvement in the organized credit union movement. I've excerpted the passage in which he discusses the latter; if you want to check out the full interview, you can read it on the University of Florida's website.

P: What did you do after [graduating from Dartmouth in 1936].

B: After that, I went to work for my father, who was at that time, head of the Credit Union National Association in Madison Wisconsin. And the National Organization of Credit Unions was just starting, and they had a very small staff, and they needed somebody to edit their little monthly magazine [ed. note: the Credit Union Bridge]. So I started editing a monthly magazine for $15 a week. I kept that for about three years, and I decided that it wasn't the best thing in the world to work for your father, despite my respect and love for him, so I went to work on a newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin... (Page 2)

Book Review: The Credit Union Lady by Paul Thompson

For those seeking an introduction to the origins of the credit union movement, the general dearth of contemporary literature on the topic can be quite frustrating. Given the available resources, it is often necessary to either settle for the overly-simplistic thumbnail sketches that can be found in CUNA publications such as People, Not Profit, or commit to the dense and slightly out-of-date academic histories of Ian MacPherson or Moody & Fite. Fortunately, retired CUNA speech-writer Paul Thompson's recently published book, The Credit Union Lady, offers a new medium through which prospective students of credit union history might become acquainted with the field: historical fiction.

Thompson's novel traces, from 1927 to 1956, the experiences of three generations of a German-American family in the fictional industrial town of Brighton Falls, Wisconsin, whose lives are intimately bound up with the development of the credit union movement. Over the course of these decades (and in less than three hundred pages), Thompson weaves a truly impressive depth of historical information into his narrative. Not only does he get the "big stuff" such as the emotional and populist atmosphere of one of Roy Bergengren's rallies in the 1930s, but The Credit Union Lady also teases out some subtle dynamics (such as the importance of payroll deduction for early credit unions) that only became apparent to me as significant after many hours spent poring over credit union board of directors meeting minutes from the 1940s and 1950s.

Book Review: I Speak for Joe Doakes by Roy F. Bergengren

When one first picks up Roy Bergengren's I Speak for Joe Doakes, it is immediately apparent that the book stands apart from the bulk of his oeuvre. To start with, having been written in 1944 and published a year later, the realities and implications of the Second World War loom large and extend even to the book's physical form. Immediately below the copyright information, the reader is informed that the text is "manufactured in strict conformity with Government regulations for saving paper," and it is dedicated to "SERIAL NUMBER 0-560627 and SERIAL NUMBER 0-1289910 [presumably his enlisted sons] With All My Love." Unlike the rest of his books, which focus primarily on the credit union movement that he founded and led, I Speak for Joe Doakes has a much grander purpose: namely, to argue for a post-war international and economic order rooted in co-operation.

As its title suggests, the book is framed as Bergengren's advocacy for the interests of "Joe Doakes," his "symbol of the common man, the worker, the great mass of people." In general, Joe Doakes is not a man of expensive tastes or voracious appetites. Rather,

He is most vitally concerned with any circumstance which affects his opportunity to work at a fair wage ... it is essential to him that there be a lasting peace. He has no wish that this war shall end in futility as did the war which his father fought. He is interested in co-operation as a possible contributing factor in the creation of the great new world which might evolve from this war if his rights and hopes and aspirations are adequately recognized in the peace.¹

The validity of these insights, Bergengren argues, is rooted in his decades od criss-crossing the United States for the purpose of helping thousands of "Joe Doakes" from all walks of life to organize credit unions. That experience, he believes, provides him with a unique vantage point into the interests and desires of the inarticulate "common man," who he declares to be his "client." Thus, according to Bergengren, what "Joe Doakes" desires above all else is to avoid a full replay of the great traumatic episodes of Bergengren's generation: the First World War and the Great Depression, or, to put it more abstractly, to secure lasting peace and economic prosperity.

The Significance of Roy F. Bergengren

In the thumbnail-sketch histories of the credit union movement that can be found in introductory texts and on the websites of many institutions, there are a few individuals who are consistently framed as the movement's "founding fathers." The origins of the movement, according to these narratives, are traced back to the innovative co-operative banks founded by Raiffeisen in 19th century Germany, whose successful system inspired Alphonse Desjardin to establish North America's first credit union in 1900 in Levis, Quebec. A few years later, Desjardin's caisse populaires attracted the interest of the wealthy Boston philanthropist Edward Filene, who bankrolled the initial explosive growth of the movement in the United States until his death in 1937.

It is in the context of Filene's campaign to spread credit unions throughout the USA that Roy F. Bergengren enters the scene. Hired by Filene to direct the Credit Union National Extension Bureau in the early 1920s, Bergengren remained the credit union movement's leading figure until 1945, and remained a passionate advocate for their cause until his death a decade later. In the conventional histories mentioned above, Bergengren's contribution to the movement is portrayed as primarily that of a lobbyist and logistician; by shepherding credit union enabling legislation through state legislatures and the U.S. Congress and by organizing the Credit Union National Association, he laid the groundwork for the independent and self-sustaining credit union movement of the present day. As the third edition of Introduction to Credit Unions puts it, "with the establishment of CUNA, a historic period was drawing to a close ... Bergengren, though still influential, no longer constituted the main driving force of credit unionism in the United States."(22) With the infrastructure for modern credit unionism in place, he exits the historical stage as the narrative focus turns elsewhere.

Indeed, Bergengren's intensive and passionate campaign to, as he put it, "get the laws," and organize CUNA is of profound historical importance to the credit union movement. However, as I have dug progressively deeper into the history of credit unionism, it has also become apparent that he made another contribution that is of equal or greater importance. In his thirty-plus years as one of North America's leading advocates for co-operative banking, Bergengren criss-crossed the continent, making the acquaintance of countless people from all walks of life in the course of helping to organize thousands of credit unions. A sharp, articulate observer, the experiences and relationships that emerged from this path profoundly informed his understanding of the movement whose standard he bore. Those perspectives found their expression both in the pages of the movement's newsletter, "The Credit Union Bridge," in addition to the more than half a dozen books he wrote over the course of his career.

Thus, in addition to being a skilled lobbyist and organizer, Roy F. Bergengren might appropriately be recognized as the most important philosopher of the American credit union movement. An eminently practical and modest man, Bergengren would likely have discounted such a label but, nonetheless, his body of work comprises perhaps the single greatest contribution to the development of the "credit union idea" in the twentieth century. Furthermore, since credit unions are values-driven organizations, the nature of those contributions is not simply a question for academic historians to debate in the rarefied atmospheres of the ivory tower. Rather, what Bergengren had to say more than sixty years ago might have profound and interesting implications for contemporary credit unionism, and, as such, his ideas deserve to be unearthed and debated by those of us whose current movement is so profoundly indebted to his life's work.

To begin this important process, I plan to read every book that Bergengren wrote, and, as time permits, will post reviews of them on Credit Union History. As they are completed, I will provide links to them from this article, or you can find them on the main site.

Welcome!

After having successfully defended my Masters thesis on the establishment and development of the VSECU yesterday, I decided to start this blog to provide a continuing outlet for my interest in the history of credit unions. It is my hope that it will become something of a clearing-house for discussion of the history of the movement, and, as such, I encourage anyone who shares my enthusiasm to submit relevant original pieces, which I'd be happy to publish.

To kick this project off, I will be posting a series of reviews over the next few months of books by credit union pioneer and co-founder of the Credit Union National Association Roy F. Bergengren. I'm currently cruising through I Speak For Joe Doakes - Voicing the Common Man's Plea for More Co-operation at Home and Among Nations (1945), so keep an eye out for that review in the next few days!