Money Week is a good time to surprise Oscar Gelderblom with questions. He studies the finances of Dutch households. A television program about this will even appear at the end of March.
Need insurance or loan? In the Golden Age, the Dutch could go to the town hall for this. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, cities abolished these financial services. Since then, a lot has changed in the way the ordinary Dutchman handled his finances.
Accurate numbers
Historians have so far mainly looked at the history of the financial sector. We know a lot about these service providers, but what about the customers? This is what Oscar Gelderblom, professor of Financial History at Utrecht University, is investigating. Gelderblom:“The financial sector has long focused on the elite. We don't really know what happened to ordinary people and small shopkeepers. How did they save? Did they borrow money?”
The historian looks for the answers in cash books. Without a computer or bank statement, people had to keep track of their income and expenses by hand. “There are two types, cashbooks in which the shopping money was kept and cashbooks that contain all the income and expenses of the family or company.”
Gelderblom calls on the Dutch to share their old cash books with him for research. The cash books that he has already received are not yet a representative sample of the Dutch population. “Income and expenditure are especially neatly tracked by people you expect it from:schoolmasters, shopkeepers and other accurate numbers. But not everyone did it that way.”
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Until the 1950s, most people had wages so low that little was left after the rent and food had been paid. They did their shopping on credit:shopkeepers kept track of what you bought and when the weekly wages came in, you started paying off your debt. “On the credit may sound unwise now, but it wasn't. The shopkeeper was part of people's social network. There was much less anonymity than now.”
These people were always behind the times financially. When they unexpectedly had a large expense, how did they pay for it? “Banks only lent money to the elite and the common people managed most of their money affairs with people close to them. So friends and family, or with the shopkeeper around the corner. We hope to find out whether the employer also played a role in this, for example with an advance or an option to save with interest.”
Paste stamps
Only at the end of the nineteenth century did alternatives such as the Boerenleenbank, where you could borrow and save as a farmer. However, such a bank for small business owners was not a success. It turned out that these entrepreneurs preferred to arrange their money affairs among themselves rather than leaving it to a bank. In addition, both the government and savings banks have been advertising since the nineteenth century to get the average Dutch person to save.
Saving was not self-evident. If you had some money left over, you could also lend it to family or neighbors. People partly received something in kind in return, such as babysitting for the children when they had to work. “We know this happened, but not yet how important this system was. We found only one example of this in the cash books:a hairdresser who gave away free perms to family members.”
Something that is typically Dutch is to stick stamps. We still do it, saving stamps from the supermarket for a set of towels or knives. In times of less prosperity, however, the stamps were a widely used savings system:“People saved in the form of stamps with small amounts that they could spare for large future expenses. Think of a vacation. Saving together a small pension with stamps was also normal at a time when the old-age provision was not yet arranged through the government.”
Banks take over
The major changes set in after the Second World War, when prosperity increases. Gelderblom:“Now everyone thinks it is logical that you do your money affairs at the bank, but this only became the norm after the 1950s. Due to the enormous wage increases, people were left with money for the first time as standard. Banks threw themselves into the finances of small businesses and households.”
“In addition, the banks were going to take over the salary payment. This replaced the cash payment in the pay packet. Banks thus obtained much more data about households and their payment behaviour. Then they started to offer more appropriate services such as savings accounts, loans and mortgages and became more and more important in our lives.” A new law made it easier to take out credit from the 1970s. Banks seized this opportunity to promote borrowing as the new saving.
Woman's pants on
Because the cash books bring the researchers closer to households and their financial decisions, the division of roles is also striking. "Many cash books submitted show that the woman had the financial pants on. The question now is why. Were these women, for example, better with numbers than their men? Or is it because women were treated equally legally? (They only became commercially competent before the law in 1956, ed.) Although women have slowly emancipated themselves in the labor market, does that also apply to finances?
The man as breadwinner and decision maker about expenditure is in any case too black and white. In small companies and shops, for example, the woman fully cooperated. Gelderblom hopes to find out whether she also contributed proportionally to the finances. The investigation isn't over yet, so you can help him find answers. Do you still have old cash books from your family in the attic? Let us know!