Jonquilyn Hill

So I would say in the African-American communities, particularly those in antebellum society, we have examples of mutual aid.

In the North, there were free Black societies that participated in mutual aid around schools for free people or the formerly enslaved.

So there were free African societies that were founded as early as the 1700s in places like Philadelphia and in New York.

In the late 19th century, we see immigrant groups such as the Chinese and Jewish communities.

And in all of these groups, we see this idea of providing health and examples of like life insurance for each other, particularly workers' comp when workers' comp was not a thing.

And so if you got sick on the job and you couldn't go to work, they provided a portion of your wages to you.

For many people who come as immigrants, they come usually by themselves and are single.

And so they provided family and connection for immigrants who are in a new city, in a new country, oftentimes by themselves.

And so they provided this network.

Another really important function of these mutual aids and that we see across many of the groups, particularly in the U.S.,

In the Chinese, Caribbean and Jewish groups are collective fund in which members paid into.

And so in the Caribbean communities, they were called susus.

And what they were were rotating credit practices.

And so everyone put in a certain amount of money and then you had a chance to take out that money to use for small loans for people.

household expenses and mortgages or their rent or just to survive.

And so these associations were really important for these kinds of like financial as well as moral support for immigrant groups.

Yeah, when we look to history, do we see a rise in mutual aid?

And if we do, do we also see it kind of fall back?

Yeah, I think we see a rise, particularly in the period that I study.

I look at the early 20th century.