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Working-Class Consumer Credit During the Belle Époque: Invention, Innovation, or Reconfiguration?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Anaïs Albert
Anaïs Albert*
Affiliation:
Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
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Abstract

During the Belle Époque, widespread access to credit for the working classes led to the establishment of an economy of mass consumption. This phenomenon, however, represented more than a simple shift in scale, completely transforming the social order of the credit system, from economic identification to the authorization process. This article examines various aspects of the credit relationship through two documented cases: the credit organization created by the Parisian department store Dufayel for the working classes and reforms introduced by the January 12, 1895 law regarding workers’ garnishment. The transformation of the credit system resulted in the joint emergence of new forms of mediation and distantiation in addition to new arenas in which debt figured—whether in commerce, court or the workplace.

Type
History of Credit in the Modern Era
Information
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales - English Edition , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , December 2012 , pp. 731 - 763
Copyright
Copyright © Les Éditions de l’EHESS 2012

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Christophe Charle, Anne-Marie Sohn, Claire Zalc, Claire Lemercier, and Mathilde Rossigneux-Méheust for their careful reading and advice.

References

1. This credit book was shown to me by Pascal Ferlicot, a collector of old documents related to the history of the Goutte d’Or neighborhood, where the Dufayel stores were located. Because the preservation of private working-class archives is particularly rare and random, this credit book is particularly unique, and its representativeness is thus impossible to determine. It does, however, suggest the discrepancy between department-store discourse and the actual practice of a debtor-creditor relationship. For an example of an unused Dufayel credit ledger, see Ferlicot’s website: http://www.lagouttedor.net .

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11. This arrondissement was chosen for two reasons. First, it was a predominantly working-class neighborhood. This can be explained by the presence of older industries (such as the Cail metal manufacturing factory) as well as the advent of technologically advanced industries (mechanics in the case of the Decauville plant and electricity in the case of the Mors factories) during the Belle Époque. Second, garnishment archives have been particularly well preserved in this magistrates’ court, which is not the case in many other Parisian arrondissements. This article draws on summons notices, hearings minutes, procedural documents, and several debtor files drawn up for garnishment procedures. Because of their extensive size, judgment minutes and appearance notices were surveyed every ten years (1893, 1903, and 1913).

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14. The same is true of Aristide Boucicaut, a former saleman born in the Orne department who created the Bon Marché in 1852, or Jules Jaluzot, who founded Printemps in 1865.

15. d’Avenel, Georges, “ Le mécanisme de la vie moderne, Le prêt populaire, Monts-de-Piété, Bons Crespins, Crédit Mutuel,” Revue des Deux Mondes, 71-5-1 (1901): 181 Google Scholar. This statement is confirmed by Jacques Crespin’s birth certificate: 5 MI 1593, Archives départementales de la Manche. “ Archives départementales” will hereafter be referred to as “ AD.”

16. Marriage certificate, V3E/M242, AD Seine.

17. D’Avenel, 182.

18. Inheritance declarations, DQ 7 11109/11280/12201/12482/12724, AD Seine.

19. See the Legion of Honor file, LH/831/24, Archives Nationales.

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23. In 1911, 0.1% of French people and 1.1% of Parisians had, according to inheritance declarations, fortunes exceeding a million francs. See Les fortunes françaises au XIXe siècle. Enquête sur la répartition et la composition des capitaux privés à Paris, Lyon, Lille, Bordeaux et Toulouse d’après l’enregistrement des déclarations de succession, ed. Daumard, Adeline (Paris: Mouton, 1973).Google Scholar

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27. “‘I am a man in the style of God,’ M. Dufayel said one day to the late Crespin, his associate. ‘I love to create, to create worlds, immense worlds ... What an amusing challenge: to buy a vacant lot and, in a few months, to set up there everything that defines modern life: a casino, ten bistros, three pharmacies, a pawn shop, fourteen hotels, and a dentist, not including a hundred houses.’” Article written under the pseudonym “ Bing” for the satirical magazine Fantasio, Collection Ferlicot, n.d. On the “ Nice Havrais,” see the photo album compiled between 1906 and 1913 by L. Poulain, digitized by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84363565 .

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29. See, in particular: Miller, Michael B., The Bon Marché: Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store, 1869-1920 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994 Google Scholar); Williams, Rosalind H., Dream Worlds; Crossick, Geoffrey and Jaumain, Serge, eds., Cathedrals of Consumption: The European Department Store, 1850-1939 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999).Google Scholar

30. On the use of the Dufayel department store as an entertainment hall, see Meusy, Jean-Jacques, Paris-Palaces ou le temps des cinémas, 1894-1918 (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 1995 Google Scholar). It was in this very place that Jean Renoir’s governess brought him to see his first movies.

31. La Nature 1184, February 8, 1896.

32. On the commercial and architectural innovations of department stores (not specifically Dufayel’s), see: Benson, Susan Porter, “ Palace of Consumption and Machine for Selling: The American Department Store, 1880-1940,” Radical History Review 21 (1979): 199–221 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Crossick, and Jaumain, , Cathedrals of Consumption; Andia, Béatrice de and François, Caroline, eds., Les cathédrales du commerce parisien, grands magasins et enseignes (Paris: Action artistique de la Ville de Paris, 2006 Google Scholar).

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40. Zola, Émile, The Belly of Paris, trans. Brian Nelson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 204.Google Scholar

41. Hélène Lemesle’s case study provides many specific examples of the various roles concierges played in their buildings, notably receiving rent and keeping account books. See Lemesle, Hélène, Vautours, singes et cloportes. Ledru-Rollin, ses locataires et ses concierges au XIXe siècle (Paris: Association pour le développement de l’histoire économique, 2003).Google Scholar

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45. D’Avenel, , “ Le mécanisme de la vie moderne”, 184.Google Scholar

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50. Though they were the largest company to do so, the Grands Magasins Dufayel were not alone in extending credit to the working class, since many other stores were in competition with them: including Aux Classes Laborieuses, Aux Enfants de La Chapelle, the Louvre stores, the Petit Saint-Thomas, Au Pèlerin Saint-Jean, among others. Thus, Louis Auger, a town-hall employee in the 7th arrondissement, had between 1,894 and 1,914 debts at no less than twenty-two novelty stores—including two at Dufayel—in 1897 and 1906. See D15U1/467, AD Seine.

51. Geertz, Clifford, Peddlers and Princes: Social Change and Economic Modernization in Two Indonesian Towns (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963).Google Scholar

52. Émile Martin credit book, Collection Ferlicot.

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59. Debt mediation hearings by the justice of the peace for Paris’s 15th arrondissement, 1893, D15U1/16/179, AD Seine.

60. Couture, , Des différentes combinaisons de ventes à crédit, 26–27.Google Scholar

61. These procedural documents have been archived somewhat haphazardly and remain incomplete. The months of January, February, and March 1913 were chosen in light of these constraints: see D15U1/215, AD Seine.

62. Couture, , Des différentes combinaisons de ventes à crédit, 72–73; Saint-Martin, , Les grands magasins, 90; and Maroussem, Pierre Du, La question ouvrière, vol. 2, Ébénistes du Faubourg Saint-Antoine (Paris: A. Rousseau, 1892), 149.Google Scholar

63. Émile Martin credit book, Collection Ferlicot.

64. Laferté, , “ Théoriser le crédit de face-à-face”, 58.Google Scholar

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66. Ibid.

67. However, the archives of a small business in Lens show that files were kept on some clients: in the 1960s, the shopkeeper recorded the state of their relationship in a notebook by keeping track of how many letters were sent to delinquent debtors to remind them to pay. The lack of similar archives for the Belle Époque render comparisons very difficult. See Avanza, Martina, Laferté, Gilles, and Penissat, Étienne, “ O crédito entre as classes populares francesas: o exemplo de uma loja em Lens,” Mana. Estudo de Antropologia Social 12-1 (2006): 7–38 Google Scholar. This article is also available in French; “ Le crédit des classes populaires en France de la Libération aux années 70. Le face-à-face au commerçant, l’exemple d’une boutique à Lens,” http://www2.dijon.inra.fr/esr/pagesperso/laferte/textemana4.pdf .

68. D’Avenel, , “ Le mécanisme de la vie moderne,” 185.Google Scholar

69. The same type of supervision exists with regard to interaction between employees extending credit and debtors in contemporary banks. With the advent of computer technology, which makes the criteria for granting credit much stricter, such monitoring has become even more extensive. See Lazarus, Jeanne, “ L’épreuve du crédit,” Sociétés contemporaines 76-4 (2009): 17–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

70. D’Avenel, , “ Le mécanisme de la vie moderne,” 185;Google Scholar Couture, Des différentes combinaisons de ventes à crédit, 74.

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72. Pohier, Jacques, De la saisie-arrêt et de la loi du 12 janvier 1895 sur la saisie-arrêt des salaires et petits traitements (Paris: A. Rousseau, 1902), 1.Google Scholar

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75. Pohier, De la saisie-arrêt, 55.

76. Schwartz, , “ La notion de ‘classes populaires’” (Habilitation à diriger des recherches thesis, University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, 1998 Google Scholar); Alonzo, Philippe and Hugrée, Cédric, Sociologie des classes populaires. Domaines et approches (Paris: Armand Colin, 2010).Google Scholar

77. This is one of the theses advanced by Robert Castel in Les métamorphoses de la question sociale.

78. Pohier, De la saisie-arrêt, 6.

79. For a detailed presentation of the legislative process and various reform proposals, see Delassault, Paul-Louis, La réforme de la loi du 12 janvier 1895 sur la saisie-arrêt des salaires et petits traitements (Paris: L. Tenin, 1914).Google Scholar

80. The vote, however, was less problematic than in the case of the law on accidents at work (eighteen years between the first bill and its adoption in 1898) or the law on the retirement of workers and peasants, which had been in the planning stage for twenty years before it was finally approved in 1910.

81. Garnishment bill proposed by Thellier de Poncheville on December 5, 1889, and published in the Journal officiel, March 5, 1890, National Assembly documents, 143.

82. Ministère du Commerce, de l’Industrie, des Postes et des Télégraphes, Office du Travail, Saisie-arrêt sur les salaries (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1899), 121.

83. Ministère du Commerce, de l’Industrie, des Postes et des Télégraphes, Conseil Supérieur du Travail, neuvième session (juin 1900) (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1900), 419.

84. Pohier, De la saisie-arrêt, 45.

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88. Lauer, “ The Good Consumer.”

89. Ministère du Commerce, de l’Industrie, des Postes et des Télégraphes, Office du Travail, Saisie-arrêt sur les salaires, 19.

90. See Chatriot, “ Protéger le consommateur contre lui-même”; Effosse, Sabine, “ Pour ou contre le crédit à la consommation ? Développement et réglementation du crédit à la consommation en France dans les années 1950 et 1960,” Entreprises et histoire 59-2 (2010): 68–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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92. Between 1895 and 1914, at least twenty-nine law theses devoted exclusively to this were defended, forming a corpus that makes it possible to tell the precise history of various attempts at reform.

93. Ministère du Commerce, de l’Industrie, des Postes et des Télégraphes, Office du Travail, Saisie-arrêt sur les salaires, 128.

94. Ibid.

95. In 1910, Laurent Bonnevay again submitted this bill to the Assembly as an amendment.

96. Chatriot, , “ Protéger le consommateur contre lui-même.”CrossRefGoogle Scholar

97. Crédit, Chambre Syndicale de la Vente à, Rapport relatif au projet de loi tendant à l’insaisissabilité des salaires (Paris: A. Baudu, 1906), 4 and 17.Google Scholar

98. “ Un mécène,” Cri de Paris, September 24, 1905. The journal Fantasio mocked these social pretensions by poking fun at “ M. Dufayel, that admirable Socialist, [who] made ‘debt’ accessible to all pocketbooks.” Fantasio, Collection Ferlicot, n.d.

99. Ministère du Commerce, de l’Industrie, des Postes et des Télégraphes, Conseil Supérieur du Travail, neuvième session (juin 1900), 443-45.

100. Guernier, Charles, La saisie-arrêt des salaires et traitements. Compte rendu des discussions, (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1913), 46 Google Scholar, published with the support of the French National Association for the Legal Protection of Workers (Association Nationale Française pour la Protection Légale des Travailleurs). On this association and its role in the nebulous reformers’ network, see Gregarek, Rainer, “ Une législation protectrice. Les Congrès des assurances sociales, l’Association pour la protection légale des travailleurs et l’Association pour la lutte contre le chômage, 1889-1914,” in Laboratoires du nouveau siècle. La nébuleuse réformatrice et ses réseaux en France, 1880-1914, ed. Christian Topalov (Paris: Éd. de l’EHESS, 1999), 317–33.Google Scholar

101. Ministère du Commerce, de l’Industrie, des Postes et des Télégraphes, Office du Travail, Saisie-arrêt sur les salaires. On this organization, see Lespinet-Moret, Isabelle, L’Office du travail, 1891-1914. La République et la réforme sociale (Rennes: PUR 2007).Google Scholar

102. Of the 817 questionnaires collected, 681 came from industrialists, forty from merchants, twenty-one from unspecified professions, nine from chambers of commerce and arts and manufacturers advisory councils, twenty from employers’ associations, thirty-five from workers’ organizations, and eleven from miscellaneous organizations, all according to the Ministère du Commerce, de l’Industrie, des Postes et des Télégraphes, Office du Travail, Saisie-arrêt sur les salaires, XV.

103. Pohier, , De la saisie-arrêt, 32.Google Scholar

104. The worker’s logbook (livret ouvrier), created in 1803 and abolished in 1890, could be used to record debts workers owed their bosses, but these concerned salary advances, meaning debts contracted within the labor relationship. Furthermore, this practice was highly contested, and, in 1854, annotations were forbidden. See: Crom, Jean-Pierre Le, “ Le livret ouvrier au XIXe siècle, entre assujettissement et reconnaissance de soi,” in Du droit du travail aux droits de l’humanité. Études offertes à Philippe-Jean Hesse, eds. Gaurier, Dominique, Legal, Pierre-Annick, and Gall, Yvon Le (Rennes: PUR, 2003), 91–100 Google Scholar; Cottereau, Alain, “ Sens du juste et usages du droit du travail. Une évolution contrastée entre la France et la Grande-Bretagne au XIXe siècle,” Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle 33 (2006): 101–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

105. Ministère du Commerce, de l’Industrie, des Postes et des Télégraphes, Office du Travail, Saisie-arrêt sur les salaries, 26-27.

106. Ibid., 38.

107. Ibid., 25.

108. Ibid., 27.

109. Ministère du Commerce, de l’Industrie, des Postes et des Télégraphes, Conseil Supérieur du Travail, neuvième session (juin 1900), 430-31.

110. This practice does not appear to have been a marginal one, since the 1899 study examined fifty-three companies that claimed to systematically dismiss garnished workers.

111. Ministère du Commerce, de l’Industrie, des Postes et des Télégraphes, Conseil Supérieur du Travail, neuvième session (juin 1900), 45.

112. Ibid., 48.

113. Ibid., 21.

114. The sociologist Richard Hoggart was the first to highlight the closed nature of the working-class world in his pioneering study, The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-Class Life (London: Chatto and Windus, 1957).

115. D15U1/16 and D15U1/179, AD Seine.

116. Guernier, , La saisie-arrêt des salaires et traitements, 39–40.Google Scholar

117. Ministère du Commerce, de l’Industrie, des Postes et des Télégraphes, Office du Travail, Saisie-arrêt sur les salaires, 125.

118. The bailiff community of the Rouen arrondissement, feeling threatened by Laurent Bonnevay’s bill, published a defensive text explaining its role in the legal process: Saisie-arrêt des salaires et petits traitements. Loi du 12 janvier 1895. Critique.

119. Boireau, Abel, Saisie-arrêt et cession des petits salaires (loi du 27 juillet 1921) (Bordeaux: D. Gomez et Cie, 1923), 14.Google Scholar

120. Théophile, , “ À propos de la saisie-arrêt,” Le Jaune, September 18, 1904 Google Scholar. This was also published as a pamphlet entitled Les Cahiers de l’ouvrier, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb32735417h/date .

121. Finn, Margot C., The Character of Credit: Personal Debt in English Culture, 1740-1914, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).Google Scholar

122. D15U1/215, AD Seine.

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124. D15U1/215, AD Seine.

125. Ibid.

126. This procedure echoes the appeals of the early modern period, studied notably by Edward P. Thompson and Simona Cerutti. These historians, however, were mainly concerned with collective action. After the French Revolution and the creation of a system of local justice, the debtor directly contacted the judge on an individual basis. See: Thompson, Edward P., “ The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century,” Past and Present 50-1 (1971): 76–136; Cerutti, Simona, “ Travail, mobilité et légitimité. Suppliques au roi dans une société d’Ancien Régime (Turin, XVIIIe siècle),” Annales HSS 65-3 (2010): 571–611.CrossRefGoogle Scholar