Better than a Bank for a Poor Man?

Abstract

In 1900, in Chicago and many other American cities, working-class immigrants owned homes at higher rates than native-born people. How did immigrants pay for these homes, and why? By examining real estate advertisements, records of Chicago’s Building & Loan Associations, the immigrant press, and observations of Chicago’s social workers, this article considers the meanings of home consumption. After borrowing from friends and building associations, immigrants kept boarders, grew market gardens, and even opened home-based commercial laundries, eroding home-work distinctions while sending out women and children to work to repay loans. They transgressed middle-class norms to achieve a hoped-for middle-class status. Many social workers questioned this, yet realtors asserted that houses were “better than a bank for a poor man.” With hindsight, and considering uninsured banks’ precariousness, this appears to have been true. Chicago’s workers made immense sacrifices for home ownership, contributing to Chicago’s sprawling suburban geography and to modern myths about the American dream.