A Culture of Credit: embedding trust and transparency in American businessIn the growing and dynamic economy of nineteenth-century America, businesses sold vast quantities of goods to one another, mostly on credit. This book explains how business people solved the problem of whom to trust--how they determined who was deserving of credit, and for how much. Rowena Olegario traces the way resistance, mutual suspicion, skepticism, and legal challenges were overcome in the relentless quest to make information on business borrowers more accurate and available. |
Contents
| 1 | |
1 Mercantile Credit in Britain and America 17001860 | 13 |
The Origins of the CreditReporting Firm | 36 |
How to Be Creditworthy | 80 |
4 Jewish Merchants and the Struggle over Transparency | 119 |
Credit Reporting in the Late Nineteenth Century | 139 |
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Common terms and phrases
accounts agency's American Jews Annual Convention antebellum Arthur Tappan Association of Credit Atherton attorneys bank bankruptcy became bills borrowers Bradstreet Co Bradstreet Collection British Bulletin bureaus buyers Cambridge capital cash character Chicago circular City Company competition continued correspondents court credit-reporting agencies credit-reporting firms creditors Credits and Collections creditworthiness culture customers Daniel Defoe DeBow's Review debtors debts Defoe Development Douglass Dun and Bradstreet Dun's economic established financial statements folder marked Forms Hunt's Merchants Illinois individuals industry Jewish Jewish merchants Jews jobbers John Bradstreet Journal June laws Lewis Tappan Magazine manuals ment Mercantile Agency mercantile credit NACM Archives NACM's National Association ness networks nineteenth century Norris payment percent practices published R. G. Dun reference books reports retailers risk scrapbook ledger Sinews of American subscribers suppliers tion towns trade protection societies United University Press Wahlstad wholesalers women York