I’m watching a movie that takes place in New Orleans at a non-specific time meant to evoke the 1920’s-1930’s. The protagonist, a single black woman of about 19 or 20, is shown saving her nickels and dimes in a bunch of coffee jars in her chest of drawers. I told Mrs. Homie that the woman should have put her money in an interest-bearing savings account - then I wondered if that would have even been possible at the time.
I know that banks have oft engaged in discriminatory lending practices against blacks, but as far as the simple matter of even having an account, did blacks and whites do their banking together in the Jim Crow-era South?
There wasn’t much use for checking accounts in small, rural towns, unless you were one of the few businesses that dealt with regional suppliers or customers.
This article doesn’t specifically say that white-owned banks didn’t allow black account-holders, but it gives a pretty good history of the black-owned banking industry in the South.
I’m not actually answering your question, but don’t forget the time period you are talking about is (probably) before the FDIC (created 1933). When the bank failed, people lost their money. And since the time period isn’t specific, it could be after the Great Depression starts, and there were thousands of bank suspensions/failures from 1930-1933. Not a good time to have your savings in one, really. And a woman in her circumstance may well be risk-averse.
It wouldn’t have just been a problem for a black woman. Most banks wouldn’t haven’t allowed a white woman to open her own bank account in that era. And that was still a problem as late as the sixties. It wasn’t until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was enacted in 1974 that banks were required to offer equal services to women.
It’s hard to believe that was the case so recently. I mean, I was a college graduate and married woman in 1974. Back then, the newspaper classified ads still said HELP WANTED MALE and HELP WANTED FEMALE. Guess where the good jobs were listed?
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My impression is that New Orleans was somewhat more racially tolerant than, say, rural Alabama. Besides money has only one color, you would think someone would want to tap the market.
Unless you can give me a cite, I dispute your assertion that women couldn’t open their own accounts in the 1920s and 30s and that it was still a problem as late as the 1960s.
The Equal Credit Opportunity Act did not purport to regulate deposit accounts. 15 U.S. Code § 1691(a) specifically provides, “It shall be unlawful for any creditor to discriminate against any applicant, with respect to any aspect of a credit transaction…” (emphasis added)
In 1919, the First Women’s Bank of Tennessee opened, with female tellers and targeted at female account holders. (The bank’s owners were male).
Different states had different laws, but in checking Texas, California, and Tennessee I find all three permitted women to open deposit bank accounts on their own before 1920.
Yes, it could be difficult for a woman to get a loan, particularly an unsecured loan. But opening a bank account is not exactly the same as getting a loan.
Of course, it’s an open question if anyone in that period who wasn’t trying to get a loan would have any interest in opening a bank account.
The problem may be convenience.back then I suspect banks were not for people saving nickels and dimes, they were for businessmen and rich people. Not sure about the USA but Canadian banks only opened 10-3 (6 on Fridays) so most people wouldn’t have an opportunity to use them, and most day to day transactions probably did not use cheques. In the 30s many paydays were actually an envelope of money handed out on Friday.
I saw a similar situation in a discussion with our Egyptian guide; the vast majority there don’t have bank accounts and consumer banking except for the upper class is unknown. People don’t do consumer loans or credit cards.
md2000, IME things were very similar in the US. In 1979 I was working in San Francisco for a couple of months. I didn’t open a bank account there because it was temporary. The company I was working for paid, by check, twice a month on Fridays, from an account with the Bank of America. There was a branch of Bank of America in my building, but they were only open 10-3, as you said. However, a block or two away, there was another branch of BoA which was open later (maybe as late as 6). No banks were open then on Saturdays and no other bank would cash a check from a BoA account unless you had an account there.
I do believe that ATMs were beginning to appear then, but without check deposit features. It was an interesting time to live in. My current bank now has full service branches in grocery stores and are open 7 days a week. Competition is wonderful.
Bob
I’ll add that grocery stores had similar short hours. Closing at 6 on weekdays (maybe longer on Friday) and closed all day on Sunday.
I know of one case in early 20th century san Francisco where an Asian lady went to jail for ripping off immigrants
What it was is she had a lover in the bank and was supposed to be the go between between the bank and the Chinese because they couldn’t even go inside of the bank so shed run the money for deposits in their name and supposedly did so for a while then got the idea that she could just keep it and give them a fake deposit slip because they couldn’t read it the thing she expanded her operation by going to more than one bank
Well there were rumors of her ripping off because after a while she couldn’t give people the money out of the bank when they needed it and started to claim the banks were ripping them off One person( who was related to a victim) worked at a social club talked to one of the more prominent bankers in town about it and the banks called in a pinkerton in and she was caught and got 15 years for it and a few of the banks repaid some of the workers but most didn’t …
p.s. My parents and other people of their generation have told me that as recently as the 1950s, some companies issued paychecks to married women in their husbands’ names.
About 5 years ago, I saw a newspaper ad for RNs, men only. He would be working at the intake clinic of a men’s prison in the area.
I posted this story on another board (and have done so here too) and there was one woman who kept asking me, “But why not hire women too and have extra security?” that I finally told her that I should send her contact info for that prison and she could ask them. :smack:
It sounds like the movie referenced in the OP is Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog.”
Just for the sake of completeness, despite whatever anachronisms, less-than-stringent research, or artistic liberties might be taken with the setting (not an uncommon obstacle, in any setting), there is technically a concrete date established in the film, seen on an onscreen newspaper—Friday, April 25, 1926.
Which, amusingly, also contains an error, as it seems that date was actually a Sunday. Whoops.
