What: Founding of three telephone credit unions
When: Nov. 8, 1922
Where: Massachusetts
- More than a decade after the Massachusetts legislature passed a law allowing credit unions to form, three groups of telephone workers in Northern, Central and Southern Massachusetts established their own credit unions on Nov. 8, 1922.
- All three credit unions would later switch their focus from the telephone industry and adopt community-based charters, eventually becoming Lowell-based Align Credit Union, Worcester-based AllComm Credit Union and Fairhaven-based Alltrust Credit Union.
- A few months earlier, the Western Massachusetts Telephone Workers Credit Union, now known as Freedom Credit Union, had launched in Springfield on July 20, 1922. The state’s first group of telephone workers to form a credit union were in the Greater Boston area, establishing the Telephone Workers Credit Union in 1917 – today known as Liberty Bay Credit Union and based in Quincy.
“Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds. I may be given credit for having blazed the trail, but when I look at the subsequent developments I feel the credit is due to others rather than to myself.”
— Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone and made the first successful telephone call in Boston on March 10, 1876
To celebrate its 150th anniversary, Banker & Tradesman is highlighting significant moments in the history of Massachusetts’ real estate and banking industries. To suggest a topic, email editorial@thewarrengroup.com.
