In today's consumer-driven society, extolling the virtues of thrift might seem like a quaint relic of a bygone era. Americans have embraced the ideas of easy credit, instant gratification, and spending as a tool to combat everything from recessions to the effects of natural disasters and terrorist attacks. In David Blankenhorn's new compendium, Thrift: A Cyclopedia, he reminds readers of a time when thrift was one of America's most cherished cultural values.
Gathering hundreds of quotes, sayings, proverbs, and photographs of Blankenhorn's vast personal collection of thrift memorabilia, this handsome book is a treasure trove of wisdom from around the world and throughout the ages. Readers will find insights from such varied sources as the Bible, the Qur'an, William Shakespeare, Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, J. C. Penney, and Warren Buffett. Entries are serious, inspiring, occasionally humorous, and they will go a great way toward expanding the narrow perception of thrift as simple penny pinching; replacing that myopic view with one of a broader thrift—one that, as William H. Kniffen puts it, "earns largely and spends wisely" and leads to a life of independence and comfort well into old age. Educators and parents will find ample wisdom to pass on to the next generation about the value of hard work, saving for the future, and generosity. Historians will delight in the glimpses into the U.S. thrift movement of the 1920s. Those seeking encouragement and inspiration will find much material here for reflection on the ideals of good stewardship, diligence, and sound financial planning. As our society ails from wastefulness, growing economic inequality, indebtedness, and runaway consumerism, there could be no stronger cure than this powerful little word, "thrift", which finds its root meaning in the word "thrive."
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In 1910, the U.S. National Bankers Association, at its annual meeting in Los Angeles, invited as a guest lecturer the noted humorist, journalist, and minister Robert J. Burdette. Burdette’s lecture to the bankers was entitled “Thrift.” His opening query, and the core question that Burdette sought to answer that evening, was “What is thrift?” He confessed that his task was not an easy one.
He began the lecture by reporting, by way of the dictionary, that thrift is “the condition of one who thrives,” but admitted with a smile that such a definition was “not quite good enough.” Then he offered another: “Luck, fortune, success.” Still not quite right. And then another: “Frugality, economical management.” Yes, maybe, but not really. And then one more try: “Good husbandry.” Finally, Burdette simply gave up. He confessed to the bankers: “Now, after all, what is thrift? Just thrift.” The bankers laughed, and Burdette went on his merry way, delivering charming descriptions and anecdotes of thrift, and ending up by suggesting that the highest form of thrift is generosity, since in heaven, according to Burdette at least, they measure a man’s thriftiness by “what he gave away.”1
What (if anything!) can we learn today from these long-forgotten quips delivered to long-deceased bankers after a dinner in Los Angeles nearly a century ago? Well, for starters, let’s realize that, in 1910, it was not at all surprising for a well-known person to deliver a public lecture on “Thrift.” Quite the contrary. I am focusing here on one such talk by Robert Burdette, but there are many others from this era that I could just as easily have chosen. That fact alone should tell us something. People in the United States used to spend quite a bit of time asking themselves, “What is thrift?” Today, we don’t.
Second, earlier generations assumed that the answer to the question, while important, was not easy or straightforward. The topic was complex, not simple. They assumed, therefore, that the question called for some study and reflection, or at least some genuine mental effort. Today, we don’t. Quite the contrary. To the degree that people speak of thrift today, they are probably quite certain that thrift means scrimping and saving, usually up to and including being unpleasantly cheap and stingy. So, after all, what is thrift? What to earlier generations of Americans had seemed a difficult, important question has largely become for our generation an easy, unimportant question. That’s quite a shift! Burdette, for example, concludes that thrift can mean generosity. So have many other thoughtful people, from Lao Tzu writing in China in about 600 BCE, to the great British statesman William Gladstone in the 1890s, to Dr. John M. Templeton Jr., one of today’s very few pro-thrift voices, in his 2004 book, Thrift and Generosity. But is this proposition well known in the United States today? Are very many of us even thinking about it?
James Edward Smith, English Botany, vol. 4, 1795
So just for the fun of it, and for any thrift (that is, good fortune) that it might provide us, let’s try to look with fresh eyes, with innocence even, and ask our ourselves anew, “What is thrift?” When all is properly considered, we will end up with a definition of thrift that is fairly coherent and thrifty (that is, economical), but to get there honestly, we must first work through some complexity. The complexity is necessary for four reasons.
First, thrift is inherently a complex idea. It is a multifaceted philosophical concept for which there is no single precise synonym in the English language. Second, because of this multidimensionality, thrift can mean, and virtually from the beginning has meant, different things to different people. Some tend to emphasize one dimension of the idea, and some another, with still others trying to synthesize. Third, the dominant meaning of the word has steadily evolved over time. “Thrift” in the fourteenth century typically meant something quite different from “thrift” in 1800, which in turn is quite different from the most common meanings of “thrift” in 1950, not to mention the dominant meaning of “thrift” today. To all of these turns and evolutions, due attention must be paid. And finally, unfortunately “thrift” is a word that, especially today, is often defined publicly by people who don’t like it. (I learned this fact the hard way when I helped to convene that group of prominent scholars to opine on thrift.) The result is like asking a gun-control advocate to define “firearm,” or a die-hard Republican to tell you what Democrats truly believe—you are likely to get some nuggets of valid information, but you are unlikely to get the whole story, and often enough you will see streaks of bias infiltrating both the working definitions and the underlying assumptions.
Published 1921
So, to tell our tale thriftily—that is, well, properly, suitably—let’s begin by considering four fairly distinct ways of understanding what thrift is.
1. Thrift as Growing
Planting of trees is England’s old thrift.
ENGLISH PROVERB
….
On sandy wastes, ere yet the frugal root
Of tender grass can feed the springing shoot
Fringing each sterile bank and rocky rift
Green grows the tufted cushions of the Thrift …
Ah! well named flower, for of a thrift we sing,
Skilled like thyself, a fertile growth to bring
In barren wastes with Hope’s sweet verdure rife
The pledge and potency of statelier life.
WALSHAM HOWE, THE FIRST BISHOP OF WAKEFIELD, “THRIFT—THE PLANT”
Rollin Kirby, 1920
….
As we can see, one primary meaning of thrift is growing, blooming, or spreading with vigor, health, and efficiency, either as a part of nature, or as a metaphor stemming from the idea of natural, effective growth.
And if it be asshe, elme, or oke, cut of all the bowes cleane, and save the toppe hole. For if thou make hym ryche of bowes, thou makest hyme poore of thryfe …
“HOW TO REMOVE TREES,” FITZHERBERT’S THE BOOK OF HUSBANDRY, 1534
….
An Olde Thrift Newly Revived. Wherein is declared the manner of Planting, Preserving, and Husbanding Young Trees.
TITLE OF A BOOK BY RICHARD MOORE, ABOUT 1612
No grace has more abundant promises made unto it than this of of mercy, a sowing, a reaping, a thrifty grace.
REV. EDWARD REYNOLDS, A SERMON, MID-SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
….
… I would select a wood of young and thrifty trees.
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, THE PIONEERS, 1823
….
This cow had a cough and looked unthrifty all last winter and spring.
REPORT FROM DR. E. E. SALMON, U.S. BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY, NOVEMBER 16, 18685
… a thrifty growth of the sugar-cane …
HERMAN MELVILLE, OMOO, 1847
….
… in the rear of the row of buildings, the track of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grass …
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, THE SCARLET LETTER, 1850
….
… whose old roots furnish still the wild stocks of many a thrifty village tree.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WALDEN, 1854
O love and summer, you are in the dreams and in me, Autumn and winter are in the dreams, the farmer goes with his thrift, The droves and crops increase, the barns are well-fill’d.
WALT WHITMAN, “THE SLEEPERS,” 1855
….
Farmington seems to us to be suitably named, being a vast conglomeration of farms and farm houses. We could not but notice the thrifty look which bespoke the careful husbandman.
Frequently the thrift ideal is compared to cultivation of the soil and to natural growth.
There is a use of the word “thrift” that may help us to realize its best meaning. Gardeners call a plant of vigorous growth a “thrifty” plant. Let us bear this in mind in our charitable work, and remember that anything that hinders vigorous growth is essentially unthrifty. Thrift means something more than the hoarding of small savings. In fact, saving at the expense of health, or training, or some other necessary preparation for successful living, is always unthrifty.
MARY E. RICHMOND, FRIENDLY VISITING AMONG THE POOR: A HANDBOOK FOR CHARITY WORKERS, 1903
Shall we apologize for making two blades of grass grow where one grew before? Shall we look askance at the man who is diligent in business, and whose thrift and energy give him control of productive capital, the use of which ameliorates the condition of an entire neighborhood?
Poster, 1929
… We live in an economic age, and we must not be ...
