Making Ends Meet by Melanie Tebbutt - 9781041075882

Making Ends MeetPawnbroking and Working-Class Credit\nAuthor(s): Melanie Tebbutt\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd, United Kingdom\nImprint: Routledge\nISBN-13: 9781041075882, 978-1041075882\nSynopsis\nOriginally published in 1983, this book filled a gap in the existing literature, because the effect of credit upon a familys real income was frequently omitted in studies of living standards. The book highlights daily routines and relationships which would otherwise remain hidden, using interviews with pawnbrokers, credit personnel and their customers in the Manchester and Salford areas of the UK. These supplement unusual documentary sources such as pledge records from the inter-war years which suggest how sensitive a barometer the trade was of working-class poverty or prosperity.\n\nThe pawnshop epitomized the economic dependence of women, whose critical role in domestic management and credit organization is a key theme. Yet indebtedness became the fulfilment of a.