In Hock: Pawning in America from Independence Through the Great Depression [SIGNED FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING]

Woloson, Wendy A.

Published by The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, 2010

About this Item

Fine condition brown cloth boards with gold spine lettering contained in a fine condition color illustrated dust jacket. Includes Author Dedication; Acknowledgments; Notes and Index. Three dog-eared pages at the beginning of the volume and a tiny 1/16 inch mark at the margin of the Index at page 230. All other pages are in as new condition and the spine/binding is exceedingly tight and square (see photographs). "Pawning in America from Independence through the Great Depression. Puncturing the myth of the seamy storefront stocked with stolen watches and overseen by a shifty proprietor, In Hock reveals that pawnshops have long played an intergral role in Americans' economic lives. The definitive history of pawnbroking in the United States from the nation's founding through the Great Depression, this volume demonstrates that the practice was inextricably intertwined with the rise of capitalism. The working poor whose labor fueled the economy's expansion could only make ends meet, Wendy A. Woloson argues, by regularly visiting pawnshops to supplement their inadequate wages. Nonetheless, businessmen, reformers, and cultural critics characterized the shops as places of illicit activity and used anti-Semitic stereotypes to cast their proprietors as greedy and coldhearted. Parsing and subverting these caricatures, Woloson shows that pawnbrokers were in fact shrewd businessmen, often from humble origins, who acquired sophisticated knowledge of a wide range of goods and their values in different markets. In the process, she paints a resonant portrait of the generations of Americans whose struggle for economic survival often depended on an institution that has remained, until now, woefully misunderstood." - from the inner front jacket flap. "Few occupations are as misunderstood as pawnbroking. Wendy Woloson challenges the many myths associated with pawnbrokers: criminal accomplices, traffickers in stolen goods, immoral usurers, and predatory Shylocks. This original and insightful analysis of the informal and marginal economy explains how poor, working-class, and sometimes wealthy Americans adapted to economic hardship and temporary setback. In Hock reveals the forgotten evolution and hidden contradictions of the emerging consumer economy in modern times." -- Timothy J. Gilfoyle, Loyola University. "In Hock is a remarkable and remarkably original book. With her keen ear for the stories and anecdotes that make the milieus of the working poor come alive, Wendy Woloson captures the vivid and untold history of pawnbroking from the late eighteenth century through the Great Depression, and writes with panache on the many changes this period heralded. By combining economic, social, and cultural history in order to work in the new and mysterious terrain of the buyers, sellers, and lenders thriving at the edge of our 'legitimate' society, In Hock fulfills its promise to do what no other book has done." -- Ann Fabian, Rutgers University. "Wendy Woloson incisively probes the boundaries of American capitalism - how to distinguish 'marginal' markets from pivotal ones; what separates legitimate and illicit economic activities, both in the eyes of the law and according to the norms of ordinary citizens; which groups of Americans embraced consumer culture and its vision of alienable property rights, right down to the rings on one's fingers and the bells on one's toes' and which groups lambasted pawnbroking as an affront to Victorian sentimentalism and evangelical morality. In Woloson's artfully interwoven account, the culture of pawning becomes not just an assessment of the ready cash value that many nineteenth-century urbanites attached to their possessions, but a site of creative commerce; at least sometimes, a terrain of neighborly exchange; and always, a social and political battleground." -- Edward Balleisen, Duke University. Seller Inventory # 007250

Bibliographic Details

Title: In Hock: Pawning in America from ...

Publisher: The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois

Publication Date: 2010

Binding: Hardcover

Illustrator: Wright, Maia (book and jacket design)

Condition: Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

Signed: Signed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition