Bankers in the Boudoir

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

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4.7 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2024

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Frodo becomes invisible when he puts the Ring on his finger. Well, at banks in the 1970s, this is basically what happened when a woman put a wedding ring on her finger. Her credit cards would no longer work, and the banks wouldn't count her income as part of the household income.

This led to a fight for women's financial independence that gave rise to the landmark Equal Credit Opportunity Act (or ECOA) and the creation of the first women's banks.

In honor of the 50th anniversary of ECOA becoming law, we’re looking back at a time when women had to have their husband or father cosign on a credit application. What did it take to pass this landmark legislation? And how did it improve women's lives in America?

Guests:

Rachel Seidman, curator at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum; curatorial consultant to the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum

Emily Card, PhD, author of Staying Solvent: A Comprehensive Guide to Equal Credit for Women

Elizabeth Babcock, director of the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum

Jeanne Hubbard, former CEO of The Adams National Bank

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX.
0:13.0	I'm Lizzy Peabody. There's nothing like a good treasure hunt. And that's exactly what Smithsonian curator Rachel
0:30.2	Sideman is up to, here in the reading room of the National Archives.
0:35.6	She pulls a heavy box onto the table.
0:38.6	This is the right box.
0:39.8	Yes.
0:41.8	Inside, Rachel is hoping to find Yes.
0:42.7	Inside, Rachel is hoping to find some treasure.
0:45.7	I'm opening this gray cardboard archival box.
0:50.8	Well, museum treasure. Rachel thumbs through the papers inside the box, pulls out a typewritten page
0:57.0	and begins to read it.
0:59.0	My name is Jory Luloff Friedman. this is what happened to me. I've supported myself for the past nine years.
1:08.0	First as a writer for the Associated Press and currently as a newscaster for NBC News in Chicago.
1:14.0	I've had charge accounts at most major Chicago stores for more than six years.
1:18.0	I've always paid my bills on time and I never had a credit problem until I got married.
1:25.0	Shortly after my marriage, I wrote all the stores where I had charge accounts
1:29.4	and requested new credit cards with my new name and address.
1:32.4	The response of the stores was Swift.
1:34.8	One store closed my account immediately. All of them sent me application forms to open a new
1:41.0	account. Forms that asked for my husband's name, my husband's bank, my husband's
1:46.5	employer.
1:48.8	There was no longer any interest in me, my job, my bank, or my ability to pay my own bills.
	...

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