by Elizabeth Marquardt

Earlier this month, on January 17-23, 2011, Philadelphia became the first U.S. city since 1966 to celebrate National Thrift Week, which kicks off on Benjamin Franklin’s birthday. In that city, the mayor’s office, business leaders, community organizers, proponents of sustainability, and Republicans and Democrats alike embraced a community-wide, all-are-welcome campaign to celebrate the advantages of thrift.

Here’s a goal for Highland Park: Let’s start planning now to bring back National Thrift Week in Highland Park in 2012. It’s not only a good idea, but it’s one that has deep roots in our area.

Why thrift, you ask? Because thrift is an old idea whose time has come again. It isn’t just about saving or being frugal, although both practices are very important. Thrift is an ethical approach to our material world. It shares its root with “thrive.” Thrifty people and communities are thriving people and thriving communities.

One of America’s national thrift leaders at the turn of the last century, S.W. Straus, was a leading Chicagoan. The recently published "Thrift: A Cyclopedia" by David Blankenhorn devotes a chapter to the Indiana-born industrialist. Straus entered his father’s Chicago-based building business in 1884. By 1922, in Chicago alone S.W. Straus had financed more than four thousand buildings. Like today’s Warren Buffet, Straus was a man who earned a large personal fortune and who preached the gospel of thrift. In 1913, he founded the American Society for Thrift. For years, Blankenhorn writes, Straus “wrote, spoke, and organized tirelessly on behalf of thrift.” Nearly all of his employees were part of his company’s profit sharing and thrift society. In 1920, he published "History of the Thrift Movement in America."

You can still see a symbol of Straus’ passion for thrift on South Michigan Avenue. Look up and find the enormous beehive that sits atop the Straus Building, completed in 1924 and now known as the Metropolitan Tower. The beehive and the squirrel (the latter of which decorate the bronze trim of the ornate lobby) are two popular symbols of thrift.

What about thrift so excited Straus and his fellow members in the thrift movement? Straus wrote, “Thrift is not a mere forced rule: it is a virtue… it is not an affair of the pocket, but an affair of character.” Thrift, he said, is “creative economy.”

Today, this creative aspect of thrift is exciting a new generation of thrift leaders. Thrift embraces the green and conservation movements. Thrift is about service to your community. Thrift means nurturing relationships with prudence and care. It’s about making things and fixing things. Crafters and gardeners love thrift. Bankers love thrift. Community organizers, credit union lenders, and Boy Scouts embrace thrift. Business and government leaders who depend on a new generation of prudent and capable citizens, workers, taxpayers, and consumers with money to spend are wise to embrace thrift. As we Illinoisians know all too well right now, debt hobbles societies, leaving them unable to plan or take care of their own. Thrift is how we will pull through, together.

Let’s take on this challenge in Highland Park: Let’s call on our neighbors and work to bring back National Thrift Week in 2012. We’ll join citizens across the country working to achieve the same goal. We’ll get to know one another better. We’ll teach our children an approach to living that will help them manage future financial crises better than we have. And, we’ll have a lot of fun.

BIO: Elizabeth Marquardt lives in Highland Park and is a vice president at the Institute for American Values, which is encouraging thrift efforts through NewThrift.org. Email her at eliz1970@gmail.com.