In Hock: Pawning in America from Independence through the Great Depression. By Wendy A. Woloson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. xiii plus 233 pp. $35.00)

Abstract

In this fascinating study, Wendy Woloson has secured a commanding grasp of what many of us might consider the brass ring of social history. She's taken a ubiquitous institution, one hidden in plain sight, and fruitfully explored its centrality to one of the most significant long-term economic developments in modern history. For Woloson, the pawnshop was not a parasitic institution that preyed on the poor—a lender of last resort that gouged its customers while forcing them to part with treasured mementoes. That was a carefully crafted image that had little to do with the reality of pawning. Instead, pawning represented a rational survival strategy for many and was essential to the success of industrial capitalism in the United States. In what she describes as a synergistic relationship, industries churned out more and more consumer goods that could be pawned, while many of the workers who fashioned those goods earned wages so low that pawning became a regular means of making ends meet. While a thorough exploration of that economic role is central to Woloson's analysis, the unsavory image of pawnshops also permits various forays into topics as diverse as anti-Semitism in America, crime and law enforcement, and the legitimization of pawning by the turn of the century thanks to the rise of semiphilanthropic “loan societies” in major metropolitan areas.