September 3: Edward Filene

Edward Filene, the founder of Filene’s department stores and one of the more progressive capitalists in American history, was born on this date in Salem, Massachusetts in 1860. Filene’s innovations included profit-sharing, a 40-hour work week, and paid vacations, as well as a minimum wage for women. He was a major player in the credit union movement, which his philanthropy and leadership developed into a healthy alternative to loan-sharking and under-the-mattress saving for workers. In this endeavor, Filene anticipated community development banking, microlending, and other innovations by more than half a century. Filene was also a major advocate for Workmen’s Compensation (made law in 1911) and for collective bargaining by labor unions. He was an advocate for world peace; among the world leaders he corresponded with were Gandhi, Lenin, Wilson and Clemenceau. (To learn more about Edward Filene, see our September 2004 issue.)

“[Filene] had a great distaste for material things, lived very modestly, never owned an automobile and was scrupulously careful about small expenditures, all because he felt that he was a trustee for the money that he had earned and that trusteeship involved turning his accumulations into the greatest possible disinterested public service.” —Roy Bergengren, Credit Union North America, 1940