Iowa Stamp Scrip strongEconomicstrong Experimentation in Iowa Communities.pdf

The Annals of Iowa Volume 71 | Number 1 (Winter 2012) pps. 1-38 Iowa Stamp Scrip: Economic Experimentation in Iowa Communities during the Great Depression J onathan Warner Quest University C anada ISSN 0003-4827 Copyright © 2012 State Historical Society of Iowa Recommended Citation Warner, Jonathan. Iowa Stamp Scrip: Economic Experimentation in Iowa Communities during the Great Depression. The Annals of Iowa 71 (2012), 1-38. Availa le at : /annals-of-iowa/vol71/iss1/2 Hosted y Iowa Research Online Iowa Stamp Scrip: Economic Experimentation in Iowa Communities during the Great Depression JONATHAN WARNER IN THE 1930s about 30 Iowa communities experimented with issuing scrip (a substitute for money) as a local means of com- bating the economic effects of the Great Depression. Sarah Elvins documented the use of scrip in Iowa from 1932 through 1934.1 Here I will give a broader historical account of Iowa’s experience with stamp scrip, with detailed accounts of some particular plans 1. Sarah Elvins, “Scrip Money and Slump Cures: Iowa’s Experiments with Alter- native Currency during the Great Depression,” Annals of Iowa 64 (2005), 221–45. I gratefully acknowledge a grant from the State Historical Society of Iowa that allowed this research to be completed. I am also grateful to Dordt College and the librarians there, particularly Dawn Van Den Hul, Interlibrary Loan Coor- dinator, who was somehow able to obtain the often obscure books and articles that I requested. Libraries, newspaper offices, and local history societies around Iowa were unfailingly helpful, providing access to archival material and ex- plaining how to use a wonderful diversity of microfilm readers. Val Haverhals of Hawarden provided photocopies of many sections of the Hawarden paper