In addition to traveler’s checks, people used to carry a lot more cash with them. When I was a kid in the early 80’s and ATMs and credit card acceptance wasn’t at all what it is today, before we took a trip my parents would go to the bank and get a big hunk of cash out. You can see it in old movies, too, like Planes, Trains, and Automobiles - it’s not unrealistic that the guy would be carrying all that cash and get it stolen. These days I’ll go a week with a dollar in my wallet and not think anything of it except to think twice about where I go for lunch.
I remember when I first went off to college in NYC (from Ohio) I took $2000 in travellers checks with me to pay bills, buy food etc. I was 17 and it was 1978. After that was gone about once a week or so mom would wire money to the bank across the street from my dorm.
American Express (which owns Thomas Cook now) claims they invented the travelers check in 1891. Thomas Cook’s corporate history just says they “pioneered an early version” of the travelers check.
AMEX gives a much more detailed accounting of how the travelers check was developed than Thomas Cook.
Are you sure about that? I know that the Thomas Cook Holiday group is owned by a German company. Did they sell off the travellers cheque division to American Express? All I can find on the web is the announcement of a partnership between the two companies just for marketing the cheques.
News story here
One of the sidelights of World War I, 1914 at the beginning was the number of travellers and tourists whose checks and similar instruments were no longer accepted, "Tourists driven out of continent… “Notes, Checks are Useless” “Ruse of travellers to get change nets them only free drinks.” ran the newspaper headlines. Financial stuff is much more integrated now and so it is possible to travel widely these days without a lot of cash per se.
That would have happened in WW2 as well, because of the restrictions on commerce between countries at war with each other. But since then countries have tended to go to war without actually declaring war. However, there are still problems with restrictions on commerce, e.g., you might have trouble using American credit cards or travellers’ cheques in Cuba or in North Korea – though you might get on fine using American bank notes.
Yeah, I think you’ve got it right. I misread the section of the book I was looking in.