Gaming the System: The Not-So-Poor and Savings Banks in Antebellum New York

Savings banks owe their origin to an early nineteenth century campaign to teach the poor thrift and thereby avoid poverty in old age. As an institution they grew and thrived in the following decades, but whether they achieved their objective remains moot. Most account-holders did not accumulate nest eggs in the prescribed manner, and many were not even poor. This paper exploits the rich archives of one New York savings bank to illustrate these points.