“The process of land conversion was also speeded by the pre-Civil War introduction of building and loan associations. Even before 1860, realtors claimed ‘Long Credit and Low Terms’...Building and loan associations smoothed the lending process...they enabled an individual of modest means to invest his savings in shares of an association and ultimately to borrow against the value of those shares at low interest...Everywhere, they fostered the view that proper households could and should purchase their own dwelling and that people of moderate means could benefit from the institution of private property.” (130)

(Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Print.)