The Debunked History of (women's) Credit Cards

Rarely is history so simple as one law changing more than half the populations daily experience. But, we do love to celebrate them as if that happened. The reality of the Credit Opportunity Act (and it's amendment) is that the situation was far from fixed. It had an impact on a small facet of daily life, certainly, but the problems it was supposedly fixing were far too deeply embedded to solve overnight. This is the story of how women, and anyone else who didn't have the opportunities of a white middle-class mans life, managed to find credit opportunities to build their lives prior to the 1970s. Simply, without any regulation there was no consistent story. Anyone for any reason could be denied the effective and safe credit options. So they turned to much more difficult, and sometimes deceitful, options that would accept them. Which means that decades and generations of debt and poor credit experience were embedded in our system. Regardless of what answers we started putting into the computer credit scores of the 1970s, the numbers were based on the old system of prejudice. We're still dealing with the baggage of our family debts even in todays credit scoring system. Was the Act necessary? Yes. Did it solve everything? Not even close. Sources "Gendered Transactions: Identity and Payment at Midcentury" by Lana Swartz "Innovations in US Banking Practices and the Credit Boom of the 1920s" by Tobias Rotheli "The Good Consumer" by Josh Lauer "The Everything Card and Consumer Credit in the United States in the 1960s" by Christine Zumello "When Your Word is Not Enough: Race, Collateral, and Household Credit" by Martha L. Olney "Debtor Nation" by Louis Hyman Images https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/ https://www.loc.gov/ Join this channel to get access to perks:    / @nicolerudolph   Socials Instagram:   / thenicolerudolph   Twitch:   / nicolerudolph   Tiktok:   / nicole_rudolph   Patreon:   / nicolerudolph   Contact for sponsorships: [email protected] Contact for non-sponsor enquiries: [email protected] Edited with DaVinci Resolve: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/prod... 🎶Music via Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com 00:00 1860s Merchant Credit 05:54 1890s Department Stores 09:10 1920s Installment Plans 14:01 1940s Revolving Credit 18:35 1960s Charge Cards 24:33 1970s Regulations 30:05 Credit Scores