In Hock: Pawning in America from Independence Through the Great Depression

by Wendy A. Woloson

Book Overview

The definitive history of pawnbroking in the United States from the nation's founding through the Great Depression, In Hock demonstrates that the pawnshop was essential to the rise of capitalism. The class of working poor created by this economic tide could make ends meet only, Wendy Woloson argues, by regularly pawning household objects to supplement inadequate wages. Nonetheless, businessmen, reformers, and cultural critics claimed that pawnshops...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226905675
• ISBN13: 9780226905679
• Release Date: April 2010
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.1"