Labor Banking and Finance Since 1920

Report Outline
Origin and Purposes of Labor Banking
Labor Investment Companies
Trade Union Insurance

The Mount Vernon Savings Bank, first labor bank in the United States, was opened at Washington, May 1920, by the International Association of Machinists. At the close of business, Saturday, May 14, 1927, when the bank was seven years old, it had deposits of $3,899,689, credited to more than 17,000 depositors, and was the second largest savings bank in the District of Columbia.

Labor's second and largest banking enterprise, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Cooperative National Bank, was opened at Cleveland November 1, 1920. During its first two years the bank's deposits increased at a steady rate of nearly $1, 000,000 a month. In subsequent years, when the Brotherhood was extending its banking operations in other parts of the country, the Cleveland bank's deposits remained substantially at the level reached in 1923. At the end of its first six years the Brotherhood bank at Cleveland had deposits of $23,172,822.

During the last four years the largest growth recorded by any labor bank has been that of the Federation Bank and Trust Company of New York City, founded May 19, 1923, by the New York Federation of Labor, the Central Trades and Labor Council of Greater New York and the New York Building Trades Council. On May 19, 1927, when the bank was four years old. it had total deposits of $17,345,671.