If you’re like many Americans, the answer very well might be no. The unfortunate truth is that it seems that some Americans can’t even remember the concept of thrift itself!
Up until 1966, National Thrift Week was a coast-to-coast celebration of American ideals like diligence, hard work, responsible consumerism, and smart saving.
In 1916, with the First World War looming imminently on the horizon, the leaders of America’s major civic organizations launched an ambitious education campaign designed to ready the American public for a wartime economy. Dubbed “National Thrift Week” and sponsored primarily by the Young Men’s Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.), the campaign became a recurring celebration, beginning each year on January 17, in honor of the birthday of Benjamin Franklin, the “American apostle of thrift.”
Even after the war had ended, the relatively prosperous decade of the 1920s witnessed the peak celebrations of National Thrift Week. By that time, the Y.M.C.A. had lined up a broad array of cosponsors, ranging from the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts to the American Red Cross and the U.S. Postal Service, totaling some fifty partnering organizations. Thrift Week celebrations were held in cities and towns across the nation.
So what happened to National Thrift Week? National Thrift Week fizzled out in 1966, after being passed from one sponsor to another. Around that same time, thrift as a national virtue seems to have faded from the collective public consciousness as well. As the ensuing decades passed, our nation entered more wars, endured periods of economic downturn, and watched complacently as both personal and national debt ballooned exponentially, seemingly without ever feeling any urgency to revive thrift as a cherished value.
To read more about the history of National Thrift Week, click here.
Posted by Templeton Editor 
