Not Going Back

Fifty years ago, in August of 1974, my then girlfriend (and now wife), Cathy moved to DC. Although 18 and holding a job with the FBI, she couldn’t qualify for a $500 loan on her own. Her father had to co-sign with her. Discrimination for loans, based on sex or marital status, wasn’t made illegal until two months later, on October 28th, 1974, with the passage of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. 

It’s true. She applied for the loan to help with deposits, initial rent, and electric and phone hook ups for her new apartment in Alexandria, VA. The bank rejected her for a $500 (!) loan unless her father co-signed with her. Of course he did, but can you imagine all of that for just $500?

Two months later, on October 28, 1974, President Gerald Ford signed the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) into law. The ECOA prohibits creditors from discrimination on the basis of sex, marital status, age, race, color, religion, or national origin.

Before the enactment of the law, lenders frequently and explicitly discriminated against female loan applicants and held female applicants to different standards than male applicants. 

Passage of the law itself was even sexist in nature. In the initial version of the ECOA, there was no mention of sex or marital status. Without informing the other members of the House Banking Committee ahead of time, Congresswoman Lindy Boggs (D-Louisiana)* marked up the bill and inserted her own additional language adding sex and marital status to the bill. She then photocopied her updated version of the bill and sent it back out to the committee members saying –

“Knowing the members composing this committee as well as I do, I’m sure it was just an oversight that we didn’t have ‘sex’ or ‘marital status’ included. I’ve taken care of that, and I trust it meets with the committee’s approval.”

The committee unanimously approved the bill. Originally introduced into the House of Representatives in October of ‘73, the House passed the ECOA with a vote of 282-94 in February of 1974. The Senate passed an amended version on June 13, 1974, with a vote of 89-0. The House then approved the amended version on October 9, 1974, with a vote of 355-1 and the President signed the act into law on October 28, 1974.

Think the law didn’t change anything? Seven months later in May of ‘75, Cathy bought her first car – a brand new, banana yellow Dodge Dart. She applied for a loan of several thousand dollars. The bank approved the loan with no co-signer.

Somewhere in that period, she also received her first credit card. We married in ‘78, and over the years obtained other credit cards, joint bank accounts, joint stock market accounts, joint loans for furniture, cars, a house, a cabin, and all the other things you do jointly. 

For decades, she kept that first credit card, so she had her own individual credit history. She wasn’t going to let the banking and credit industry, or the government control her again. In Cathy’s words, “I wasn’t going back.”

***Feel free to share this blog***

Addendum:

• Congresswoman Lindy Boggs was the first woman elected to Congress from the State of Louisiana. From Wikipedia: Lindy Boggs was first elected to Congress in 1973, in a special election after her husband, Congressman Hale Boggs, died. Lindy Boggs was elected to a full term in 1974 with 82 percent of the vote and re-elected seven times thereafter until she vacated her office in January 1991.
• Thanks to Cathy for her help in writing this blog.