In the growing and dynamic economy of 19th 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

Democracy declined : the failed politics of consumer financial protection -- Full disclosure : building the U.S. political economy of credit -- "Storming mad" but staying home : depoliticizing the American borrower -- The "horseless headmen" : consumer groups and the challenge of political...

In the lead-up to the Great Depression, bank credit rapidly expanded and bank capital ratios declined. Banks, suffering from fallen commodity prices, failed at a high rate in the 1920s, and these failures rapidly accelerated in 1930. On January 22, 1932, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation...