This first complete history of the American thrift industry traces its development from its origins in the mid-nineteenth century through the resolution of the savings and loan crisis in the 1990s. Because S&Ls offer affordable forms of consumer finance, these institutions have helped millions of people achieve the "American Dream" of home ownership. Although the thrift crisis of the 1980s and early 1990s dealt a severe blow to the financial health and reputation of the industry, this book reveals the ways government resolved it, and how the industry was reinvented in its aftermath.