"People
Helping People," is a well-used credit union slogan, and also,
it turns out, a common title for books about state movements. Edward
M. Walters used the phrase for his 2009 history of credit unionism in Texas, but it's first appearance seems to be on John W. Zerillo
and Ted Desveaux's 2004 book People Helping People: A History of the Maine Credit Union Movement.
Though
commissioned and published by the Maine Credit Union League, Zerillo
and Desveaux's work is especially interesting because, unlike many
other trade-association supported histories (including the
aforementioned work by Walters and Moody and Fite's CUNA-sponsored national history), it doesn't treat the development of its
sponsoring organization as a proxy for the history of the movement as
a whole. While the Maine Credit Union League is the focus of one
quite readable and interesting chapter, the most fascinating parts of
the book come when the authors tell stories of early credit unionism
that highlight the culture of the early credit union movement.
