Better than a bank for a poor man? Home financing strategies in early Chicago

The methods by which working-class immigrants and repaid their home loans in Chicago in 1900 are discussed by examining real estate advertisements and records of Chicago's Building & Loan Associations. Immigrants with home loans allowed boarders into their homes, grew market gardens, opened home-based commercial laundries and sent women and children to work to repay loans since they felt investing in houses was a more secure option than banks.