The Credit Union Movement in Vermont A Brief History, 1934-2012 by Matthew S. Cropp Copyright © 2012 by the Association of Vermont Credit Unions. All rights reserved Welcome to our fledgling effort to document the history of Vermont's credit union movement and the Association of Vermont Credit Unions (AVCU). In 2011, AVCU commissioned historian Matthew S. Cropp to research the history of the credit union movement in Vermont. Following is the first product of that effort, best viewed in Firefox or Chrome. Alternatively, you can read it in pdf format. This is an on-going project, with intent to add historical milestones as time passes, and to elaborate on what's already been written as historical information becomes available. Plans also include a brief history on each of Vermont's credit unions. Contributors are encouraged and welcomed. To get started, send your comments or requests to jgb@vcul.org

"It is the contention of the credit union...that political democracy can be most securely

buttressed by economic democracy. Logically, it should come to pass eventually that the

masses of the people...will control in credit unions an appreciable segment of the national

wealth. When they do, the great danger to our democracy that is contained in the trend to

the control of a greater and ever greater proportion of the national wealth in an everdecreasing

number of the people will be forever eliminated. There will result from this

new accumulation of democratically controlled wealth safeguards of the American

economic system that will be the soundest guarantee of the perfection and perpetuation of

political democracy."1



Quote by Roy F. Bergengren, 1952 1 Roy F. Bergengren, Crusade: The Fight for Economic Democracy in North America, 1921-1945 (1952; repr., New York: Exposition Press, 1973), 17.