I recently received an interesting book as part of my amazon Prime first reads. It was Give Her Credit by Grace L. Williams, a book that tells the true story of a group of women that came together with the brilliant idea to open a bank aimed to serve the minority populations that were typically ignored by traditional banks. The main group the bank was aimed for was women but it also targeted many other minorities such as blacks. Many of the women in the group had no financial background but a few had a business or economics background that proved helpful. Despite being faced by numerous obstacles, from outside sources and from internal discord in the group, they persevered and were able to successfully open a women’s bank in Denver.
I read the book Give Her Credit by Grace L. Williams and I was immediately intrigued because the title is a magnificent play on words as it has several different meanings. The book is about the opening of a women’s bank in Denver in the 1970’s, hence the name Give Her Credit referring to giving women access to a credit institution. At the same time it also refers to the women who undertook the task of opening a financial institute for women in a time period when that was heavily frowned upon and subject to a lot of risks. Because of this it also means to literally give her credit as in giving them credit for having done so. To me it also means to give the author credit for having written a book about a subject that is not usually the focus of a book. Something that the author definitely deserves for having written such an enlightening book about such an obscure topic. When I first opened the book I was not sure what to expect. I thought it would be a straightforward narrative about how the bank was opened and in many ways it was just that, a story about the founding of the women’s bank of Denver. It was also more than that though. Interspersed throughout the book were brief sections where it provided a background or a bio of many of the women who played a more important role in the founding of the bank, such as the woman who ended up being the first bank manager or the woman who came up with the idea and started the group that opened the bank. I feel like I gained more insight into what happened due to these as it provided more insight into the women involved. That being said there were times when these felt slightly out of place as the woman being covered in an earlier section didn’t appear in the main narrative until later. Despite that the book was well written and incredibly well researched and something that I thoroughly enjoyed reading and learning more about. I know that not everyone likes reading true stories but I always have. It definitely earns its four out of five stars.
This is a good one and one that I would recommend you try if books about history happen to be something you enjoy. For this particular book I think that it would be suitable for adults as it is aimed at adults but it would also be suitable for teens and young adults as well. There is not much in the way of violence or other more mature topics present in the text. It does deal with the topics of gender and racial equality, especially in the worlds of finance and business, which may be difficult topics but I still think the book as a whole would be suitable for older teens to read. It provides an interesting viewpoint of what life was like for women in terms of financial institutions as late as the 1970’s. This is a topic that most people don’t really think about but is still fascinating, at least to me. I don’t know if others will like it but I know I did. If you happen to have read it feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, as always. I would also be open to suggestions for similar works to discuss in the future if anyone has any ideas.