Hoarding and the Cult of Money Bryan James Gordon a Thesis in the Department of History Presented in Partial Fulfillment Of

Hoarding and the Cult of Money Bryan James Gordon A Thesis in The Department of History Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts (History) at Concordia University Montréal, Québec, Canada February 2019 ©Bryan James Gordon CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY School of Graduate Studies This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Bryan Gordon Entitled: Hoarding and the Cult of Money and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final examining committee: Chair Dr. Wilson Jacob Examiner Dr. Anya Zilberstein Examiner Dr. Gavin Taylor Thesis Supervisor(s) Dr. Steven High Approved by Dr. Anya Zilberstein Chair, Department of History Dr. André Roy Dean, Arts and Science Date January 13, 2020 Abstract Hoarding and the Cult of Money Bryan Gordon As a category of psychological diagnosis, Hoarding Disorder has spawned a conception of “the hoarder” marked by social exclusion, a habitual urge to possess objects, and an apparent difficulty in disposing them. Against this limited definition, which stems from a lack of long-term historical and social awareness among scholars of hoarding disorder, my work asks, How is hoarding logical? Can we read hoarding as non-pathological or adaptive? What kind of monuments and record have historical hoarders left behind? Proceeding from the longer etymology of the word, hoard, and coupled with oral history interviews drawn from my own life, this thesis recasts “hoarding” as more complex than the current paradigm implies, pertaining to the rise of capitalism, commodity fetishism, and broader forms of socio-economic reciprocity which preceded and responded to formal and informal empire. Supported by historical documents from major thinkers in political economy, classical Liberalism, Marxism, Social Anthropology, and Neoliberalism, alongside periodical documents from nineteenth and twentieth-century Britain and the United States, I argue that hoarding among the poor and socially vulnerable, such as those affected by post-colonialism, deindustrialization, austerity, statelessness, etc., may be reread as a mode of economic survival and social investment, if the economic idiosyncrasies of an individual hoarder’s subjective lifeworld and context are taken into consideration. In tandem with this line of reasoning, I argue that hoarding is a spectrum of behavior that also includes more ‘normative’ behaviors of the super-wealthy, including cash and land hoarding. This thesis uses oral history, with cultural, anthropological, and literary sources, to shift the language around hoarding and to present it as an underlying logic of capitalism, as a mediator of interpersonal and family relationships, and as a dangerous extension of twentieth-century empire, functioning through hegemonic, legal, but deeply unethical institutions and financial tools such as major accountancy firms, central banks, international tax havens, and international corporations. Using sentimental objects from personal collections, I situate myself as embedded within history, and at the cusp of different economic and cultural worlds, wherein objects are read as unique signifiers of memory and meaning. iii Acknowledgements This project was all mine in intimate and frustrating ways, but it was helped by many hands along the way. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. encouraged aspiring writers to aim for an audience of one, addressing a book to a single person, to avoid trying to please too many people. While writing this thesis about hoarding, my father, and my own life, it was not my dad whom I imagined myself writing for, but to my siblings, Rachel, Sarah, Dylan, and Danielle, whose lives are interwoven with mine. It was Danielle whose interview proved to be the major fulcrum around which this project evolved, from my original questions to my unforeseen conclusions. Without the contributions of other family members, including Carol Kent, Nancy Clark Dennet, John Dennet, Janet Clark Moulton, Laurie Moulton, and Carol Clark, I would not have gained access to artifacts, photographs, and family stories which were tucked away or on display in their homes. I would like to thank my interviewees for their time and their shared vulnerability. I was supported greatly by Dr. Steven High, and by the faculty, support staff, and my graduate student peers in the History Department at Concordia University, by the research librarians at the Concordia University Library and at the University of Maine Library in Orono, Maine, and by my friend, Eliot Perrin, for interviewing me. I’m grateful for support I received from the Department of History and from the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling at Concordia. I would like to thank Dr. Christine J. Walley for her inspiring book, Exit Zero, and for the autoethnography workshop and talks she generously offered in February 2019’s History in the Making Conference, in Montreal. My supervisor, Dr. High recommended Dr. Walley’s work to me, and combined with his own work in oral history and deindustrialization studies, I felt newly equipped with skills and research tools, and simultaneously validated in building scholarship out of my own life story, which is an endless headache and an ongoing work in progress. I’d like to thank my wife, my mother, my stepfather, my grandparents, and my friends for supporting me and encouraging me on every step of this path, and finally for my father, without whose presence, this would have been impossible. Thanks, all. iv Table of Contents Table of Illustrations vi Introduction: Shifting the Language, Rethinking the Scale 1 Chapter One: Hoarding Historiography 46 Chapter Two: Tool, Toy, Treasure 123 Epilogue: Unpacking 225 Bibliography 247 v Table of Illustrations 1. Inspire, p. 45 2. Gold, skeletonclaw.com, 2018, p. 71 3. Internet meme, reddit.com, 2018, p. 101 4. Internet meme, reddit.com, 2019, p. 108 5. Internet meme, reddit.com, 2019, p. 110 6. Keys, 2018, p. 136 7. Pocket knife from Dad, 149 8. My brother. Superman, Grandpa’s House, April 2017, p. 152 9. Chairs, 2017, p. 155 10. The Organ, Carol’s House, 2018, p. 157 11. Woodshop, Grandpa’s basement, April 2017, p. 159 12. Screwdrivers, April 2017, p. 161 13. Woodworking, Grandpa’s Basement, 2017, p. 163 14. Grandpa’s shed, 2017, p. 168 15. Frank S. Clark, time card, Georgia-Pacific, 2019, 171 16. Frank and Doris Clark, date unknown, p. 173 17. Frank Samuel Clark’s watch, Nancy Clark’s shoes, 2019, p. 175 18. Grandpa’s obituary, 2018, p. 178 19. Kryptonite Rock!!, Montreal, 2019, p. 180 20. The Funny-nose Man, 2019, p. 181 21. The Death of Superman, 2019, p. 192 22. Broken Frames, 2018, p. 215 23. Treasure Chest, Montréal, 2019, p. 219 24. My abandoned toys, before the foreclosure, 2015, p. 220 25. Self-help tapes, before the foreclosure, 2015, p. 221 26. Mirror, before the foreclosure, 2015, p. 222 27. Beads, before the foreclosure, 2015, p. 223 28. Jeff, The Origin, by spiderclaw.com, November, 2019, p. 238 29. Pure Gold, Grandpa’s shed, 2017, p. 244 vi Introduction: Shifting the Language, Rethinking the Scale Carol: I would describe it, not as hoarding, but as acquisition. Bryan: Why do you make that distinction? Carol: Because it was very important to acquire things, to have things, to not feel need… I guess. You might need this at some point, so I gotta have it now. It’s on sale. Making a deal…getting a good buy on something overshadowed any kind of use the thing might have. -Carol Kent, oral history interview, August 2018 The hoarding drive is boundless in its nature. Qualitatively or formally considered, money is independent of all limits, that is it is the universal representative of material wealth because it is directly convertible into any other commodity. But at the same time every actual sum of money is limited in amount, and therefore has only a limited efficacy as a means of purchase. This contradiction between the quantitative limitation and the qualitative lack of limitation of money keeps driving the hoarder back to his Sisyphean task: accumulation. He is in the same situation as the world conqueror, who discovers a new boundary with each country he annexes. -Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1 1 How to Make Friends and Influence People In July 2010, I almost fell down the stairs of my father’s three-bedroom house in Bangor, Maine. The stairwell looms over the front door and a narrow hallway, even more precipitous due to a large gun safe abutting the banister at the base of the stairs, themselves covered by old shoes and scattered piles of stuff—paperback mysteries, tools, boxes of nails and screws, old toys. The emotional climate in the house at the time was bad: my dad and his wife of twenty-five years, Carol, my stepmother, were getting a divorce. Carol’s mother, Toby, the family matriarch, had died the previous November of aggressive cancer. Toby had been the glue holding the family together, keeping each person bolstered and supported, and when she was gone, everything changed for those around her. Carol was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia, a rare disorder in which the trigeminal nerve becomes inflamed. It runs from the neck through the lower jaw, the upper jaw, and the side of the face to the temple in three long branches. The disease has the nickname, ‘the suicide disease’, because it has no cure and the pain is so bad that chronic sufferers sometimes choose to kill themselves rather than live with it. The family dog had also died of cancer. Dad and Carol separated. At the time, I was twenty-five years old, my sister Rachel was seventeen, Danielle was fifteen, and Dylan was twelve.

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