A Brief Bibliographic Essay About Panic and Depression Scrip

Much has become known about Panic and Depression Scrip since it first circulated. These brief remarks introduce a variety of basic sources and published research about such scrip. It does not include numerous sources that appeared in newspapers, magazines, and journals at the time the scrip appeared. Likewise, it excludes a large number of articles that have been appeared in hobby and collector publications over the years, including the SPMC’s Paper Money (the Paper Money Articles Index can be found on the Depression Scrip home page).

Panic Scrip

Attempts by contemporary observers to document Panic Scrip issues began a short while after the events that generated them took place, beginning with John De Witt Warner’s (1895) detailed and copiously-illustrated account of the emissions of 1893.  A. Piatt Andrews (1908) and James G Cannon (1910) provided two early surveys of Panic Scrip from 1907. Carl Copping Plehn’s (1909) pamphlet focused specifically on San Francisco Clearing House issues.

Accounts of the Panic of 1907 can be found in a number of places, beginning with O.M.W. Sprague’s History of Crises (1910), one volume of the larger report issued by the National Monetary Commission. Cannon's Clearing Houses and Credit Instruments (1911), also a volume of the NMC report, contains further discussion of clearinghouse currency issues. Published on the centenary of the event, Robert F. Bruner’s and Sean D. Carr’s The Panic of 1907. Lessons Learned from the Market’s Perfect Storm (2007) provides a fast-paced and readable account of that crisis. Given that this book appeared on the cusp of the global financial crisis of 2007-8, one wonders exactly what those lessons learned were. As for clearing houses specifically, a good overview of the monetary role they played during financial panics remains Richard Timberlake (1984). A substantial literature on panics and clearing house associations exists which is outside of the scope of this bibliography, prominent among which are works by Elmus Wicker, Jon R. Moen and Ellis W. Tallman.

A proper catalog of Panic Scrip issues did not appear until 2013, with the publication of Neil Shafer’s and Tom Sheehan’s Panic Scrip of 1893, 1907, and 1914. An Illustrated Catalog of Emergency Monetary Issues (with Fred Reed as editor).

Depression Scrip

Depression Scrip of the 1930s has received somewhat greater attention, beginning in 1941 with Vernon Brown’s two-volume study (his MBA thesis at New York University) and a doctoral dissertation in 1948 by Joel Canady Harper at the University of Chicago.

Two general treatments of the monetary experimentation of the 1930s are by Margaret Myers (1940) and Joseph E. Reeve (1943). While neither author was sympathetic towards their subject, both works give useful background to those scrip schemes that were informed by some general critique of the existing economic system.

From a collector’s perspective, an early catalog and survey of the Depression Scrip of Michigan, by James J. Curto, appeared in 1949, reprinted from The Numismatist. While his categories were quirky, some of John A. Muscalus’s many currency pamphlets--notably on county scrip (1948) and school scrip (1971)—provide useful documentation of some varieties of Depression Scrip.

The first comprehensive catalog of Depression Scrip issues was published by Ralph A. Mitchell and Neil Shafer in 1984 (a preliminary, and partial catalog was published by Mitchell and Charles V. Kappen a quarter century earlier). Some forty years later the Mitchell-Shafer volume still remains the standard reference for collectors, although a number of previously-unknown scrip issues have come to light since that volume first appeared. Its prices, of course, are now out-of-date.  To the extent that the issues of this period are considered “obsolete” (i.e., have no legal value) many also appear as listings in the various obsolete-notes-and-scrip volumes that have been published, on a state by state basis, over the last few decades, including under the imprint of the SPMC.

Historical Case Studies

More recently, Depression Scrip has figured in a number of articles published in history journals, particularly those sponsored by state historical societies. George Tselos’s (1977) fine study of the Organized Unemployed, Inc. of Minneapolis explores how one self-help group made use of scrip. Likewise, scrip used to pay for unemployment relief is the focus of Richard Harms’ (1990) study of Grand Rapids, MI. The activities of barter and self-help groups during the 1930s, including their use of scrip, were routinely documented at the time by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; Wayne Weisharr and Wayne Parrish (1933) represent an early overview of the role scrip played in the self-help movement. A general survey of those groups’ activities can also be found in Leab (1965).

William Roberds (1990) covers the types of scrip issued in Georgia, while Loren Gatch (2004) does the same for Oklahoma during the banking holiday of 1933.  Sarah Elvins (2005) and Gatch (2008) are two general surveys of Depression Scrip that discuss them by variety and type. Examining the ideas and rationales behind a variety of scrip issues, Elvins (2012) finds that Americans did not regard them as radical experiments, but understood them as supporting existing traditions of individualism and self-reliance. A later article by Gatch (2012) examines the use of tax anticipation scrip in those states where it was a prominent panacea for strained municipal finances. There too, public officials treated scrip as a regrettable and temporary departure from fiscal prudence that should be abandoned once fiscal conditions made it possible to do so.

Stamp scrip

Because of its dual connection with Silvio Gesell and Irving Fisher, the stamp scrip episode has received particular attention, both as an historical experience and as a precedent for contemporary followers of Gesell, who advocate for demurrage-style currency experiments (money designed to lose value at a predetermined rate).  Fisher himself, along his assistant Hans Cohrssen, published a how-to manual for issuing this form of scrip in 1933. Just a few years later, the economist V. F. Coe (1938) provided an early account of the large, and unsuccessful, stamp scrip experiment undertaken by Alberta’s Social Credit government.

A recent, general treatment of stamp scrip issued during the Depression years is by Jonathan Warner (2010). Another study by Warner (2008) examines the stamp scrip plan of Anaheim, California which, as the earliest stamp scrip experiment in the country, was notable for predating Fisher’s advocacy. Gatch (2006) has looked at the widespread adoption of stamp scrip in Oklahoma. The significance of Gesell’s monetary ideas during the Great Depression is the focus of Rosario Patalano (2017) while most recently a monograph by Claude Million (2019) thoroughly documents Fisher’s role in promoting scrip plans nationally.

Of all the experiments in stamp scrip, those in Iowa have been of interest because of the success of an activist and political entrepreneur, Charles Zylstra, who promoted these scrip issues and prevailed upon the Iowa legislature to set up a statewide system of stamp scrip. Two works by Elvins (2005) and Warner (2012) document the Iowa experience. A Master’s thesis by Bryan Bjorklund (2017) provides a very detailed case study of the stamp scrip experiment in Mason City, Iowa.

Given the extensive, digitized newspaper records of the period and the wide variety of primary and secondary sources that are now available, the subject of Panic and Depression Scrip offers rich opportunities for collectors with any nose for historical research, especially regarding the experience of scrip use in individual states and even cities. Much remains unknown about these fascinating and important episodes of American financial monetary and financial history.

Sources

The following list of sources corresponds to the citations found in the text above. Where they exist, full-text electronic files can be accessed by clicking on the "[Available here]" link found at the end of a source listing.

Full-text sources are available if:

• the sources are old enough to be in the public domain;
• the author or organization has designated the work to be open source (usually a college, university, or other research institution); or
• the author has otherwise granted permission to access their work by placing it online themselves.

The compilation below seeks to make as much material available that is already online without resorting to pirated or otherwise unauthorized copies.

Andrews, A Piatt. 1908. “Substitutes for Cash in the Panic of 1907” Quarterly Journal of Economics 22 (August): 497-516. [Available here via Jstor]

Bruner, Robert F. and Sean D. Carr. 2007. The Panic of 1907. Lessons Learned from the Market’s Perfect Storm. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Bjorklund, Bryan Carl. 2017. “Saving Local Communities Using Scrip Money to Fight the Great Depression in North Central Iowa” MA Thesis, University of Northern Iowa. [Available here via UNI]

Brown, Vernon L. 1941. “Scrip and Other Forms of Emergency Currency Issued in the United States During the Depression Years 1931-1934. MBA Thesis, New York University.

Cannon, James G. 1910. Clearing House Loan Certificates and Substitutes for Money Used During the Panic of 1907, With Suggestions for an Emergency Currency Based Upon Such Loan Certificates. NY: The Trow Press. [Available here via FRASER].

---. 1911. Clearing Houses and Credit Instruments. Washington, D.C.: National Monetary Commission. [Available here via FRASER]

Coe, V. F. 1938. “Dated Stamp Scrip in Alberta” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 4 (1): 60-91.

Curto, James. J. 1949. Michigan Depression Scrip of the 1930s. American Numismatic Association.

Elvins, Sarah. 2005. “Scrip Money and Slump Cures: Iowa’s Experiments with Alternative Currency during the Great Depression” The Annals of Iowa 64 (3): 221-245.

---.2005. “Panacea or Dud: Retailers React to Scrip in the Great Depression” Business and Economic History Online 3: 1-17.[Available here via BHC]

---. 2012. “Selling Scrip to America: Ideology, Self-Help and the Experiments of the Great Depression” International Journal of Community Currency Research 16: 14-21. [Available here via IJCCR]

Fisher, Irving and Hans Cohrssen. 1933. Stamp Scrip. New York: Adelphi Co.

Gatch, Loren. 2004. “’This Is Not United States Currency’: Oklahoma’s Emergency Scrip Issues during the Banking Crisis of 1933” Chronicles of Oklahoma 82: 168-199. [Available here via ScripLibrary]

---. 2006. “Money Matters: The Stamp Scrip Movement in Depression-Era Oklahoma” Chronicles of Oklahoma 84 (Fall): 260-287. [Available here via ScripLibrary]

---. 2008 “Local Money in the United States During the Great Depression” Essays in Economic and Business History 26: 47-61 [Available here via EBHS]

---. 2012. “Tax Anticipation Scrip as a Form of Local Currency in the USA During the 1930s” International Journal of Community Currency Research 16: 22-35. [Available here via IJCCR]

Harms, Richard H. 1991. “Paid in Scrip” Michigan History Magazine 75: 37-43.

Harper, William Joel Canady. 1948. “Scrip and Other Forms of Local Money” PhD Dissertation, University of Chicago.

Kappen, Charles V. and Ralph A. Mitchell 1961. Depression Scrip of the United States. Period of the 1930s. States A through I. San Jose, CA.

Leab, Daniel J. 1965. “Barter and Self-Help Groups, 1932-1933” Midcontinent American Studies Journal 7: 15-24.

Million, Claude. 2020. Stamp Your Scrip—Stamp out Depression. Irving Fisher’s Advocacy of Stamped Money, 1932-1934. Bern, Switzerland: Stämpfli Publishers.

Mitchell, Ralph A. and Neil Shafer. 1984. Standard Catalog of Depression Scrip of the United States: The 1930s Including Canada and Mexico. Iola, WI: Krause Publications.

Muscalus, John A. 1948. County Scrip Issued in the United States. Bridgeport, PA: Historical Paper Money Institute.

---. 1971. Kinds of Scrip Issued by School Districts in Financial Emergencies. Bridgeport, PA: Historical Paper Money Institute.

Myers, Margaret B. 1940. Monetary Proposals for Social Reform. New York: Columbia University.

Patalano, Rosario. 2017. “The Gesell Connection During the Great Depression” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 39 (3): 349-379.

Reeve, Joseph E. 1943. Monetary Reform Movements. Washington, D.C: American Council on Public Affairs.

Roberds, William. 1990. “Lenders of the Next-to-Last-Resort: Scrip Issues in Georgia during the Great Depression” Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Economic Review (Oct.-Nov.): 16-30. [Available here via FRASER]

Shafer, Neil and Tom Sheehan, with Fred Reed (ed.). 2013. Panic Scrip of 1893, 1907 and 1914. An Illustrated Catalog of Emergency Monetary Issues. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Publishers.

Sprague, O.M.W. 1910. A History of Crises Under the National Banking System. Washington, D.C.: National Monetary Commission. [Available here via FRASER]

Timberlake, Richard. 1984. “The Central Banking Role of Clearinghouse Associations” Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 16: 1-15.

Tselos, George. 1977. “Self-Help and Sauerkraut: The Organized Unemployed, Inc. of Minneapolis” Minnesota History 45: 307-320. [Available here via MNHS]

Warner, John De Witt. 1895. “The Currency Famine of 1893” Sound Currency Vol. II (February 15): 337-356.

Warner, Jonathan. 2008. “The Anaheim Scrip Plan” Southern California Quarterly 90 (3): 307-325.

---. 2010. “Stamp Scrip in the Great Depression: Lessons for Community Currency for Today?” International Journal of Community Currency Research 14: 29-45. [Available here via IJCCR]

---. 2012. “Iowa Stamp Scrip: Economic Experimentation in Iowa Communities During the Great Depression” The Annals of Iowa 71 (1): 1-38.

Weisharr, Wayne and Wayne Parrish. 1933. Men Without Money: The Challenge of Barter and Scrip New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.