In the twenty-first century, issues of financial identity and debt loom large. The news is filled with articles on the growing student debt crisis, announcements by major corporations of data breaches that expose sensitive consumer financial information, editorials on how Facebook and other websites gather information on their users which they then sell for profit, political debates over the regulation of payday loans or the purpose and conduct of consumer protection agencies, all complemented by advertisements for companies promising to protect consumers from identity theft, clean up bad credit reports, and consolidate debts. Lingering memories of the financial misbehavior leading up to the 2008 financial crisis further color these issues. Was the collapse of the subprime mortgage industry the fault of creditors who took advantage of prospective homeowners or of the debtors who borrowed more than they could afford to pay back? Should the government intervene to protect individuals from predatory financial products? Or is that a paternalistic violation of basic freedoms? As the crisis and its aftermath revealed, one’s fate in life is often defined by one’s credit score. This deceptively simple number has the power to determine where one lives, what one can buy, and the quality and quantity of one’s educational opportunities. The roots of each of these issues reach far back into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, yet while the scholarship on consumption is rich and deep, historians have only recently begun examining household credit and debt. How did Americans pay for all this consumption, and how does an understanding of credit and debt fit into larger narratives of economic, political, and social history? Martha Olney’s groundbreaking book, Buy Now, Pay Later: Advertising, Credit, and Consumer Durables in the 1920s (1991), made consumer

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与美国债务人亲密接触

在 21 世纪，金融身份和债务问题显得尤为突出。新闻中充斥着关于日益严重的学生债务危机的文章、大公司宣布的数据泄露事件暴露敏感的消费者财务信息、关于 Facebook 和其他网站如何收集其用户信息然后将其出售以获取利润的社论、关于该问题的政治辩论。 .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .发薪日贷款的监管或消费者保护机构的目的和行为，所有这些都辅以承诺保护消费者免遭身份盗用、清理不良信用报告和合并债务的公司的广告。对导致 2008 年金融危机的金融不当行为的挥之不去的记忆进一步为这些问题增添了色彩。次级抵押贷款行业的崩溃是债权人的错，是他们利用了潜在的房主，还是债务人的错，他们借的钱超出了他们的偿还能力？政府是否应该干预以保护个人免受掠夺性金融产品的侵害？或者这是对基本自由的家长式侵犯？正如危机及其后果所揭示的那样，一个人的生活命运通常由一个人的信用评分来定义。这个看似简单的数字有能力决定一个人住在哪里，可以买什么，以及一个人的教育机会的质量和数量。这些问题的根源都可以追溯到 19 世纪和 20 世纪，尽管对消费的研究丰富而深入，但历史学家直到最近才开始研究家庭信用和债务。美国人如何为所有这些消费买单，对信贷和债务的理解如何融入更大的经济、政治和社会历史叙事？玛莎·奥尔尼 (Martha Olney) 的开创性著作《先买后付：1920 年代的广告、信用和耐用消费品》(1991) 使消费者