An interesting article on the Yellow Springs, Ohio TimeBank, including an historical perspective and decades of history in alternative currency and exchange.
While the Yellow Springs Exchange flourished in the cash-strapped Great Depression, modern-day TimeBanking was started in the U.S. during the recession of the early 1980s because of diminishing funds for social programs. Lawyer and social inventor Edgar Cahn, who had previously co-founded the Antioch College of Law in Washington, D.C., then a branch of Antioch University, designed the system “to validate and reward the work of the disenfranchised in rebuilding their communities and fighting for social justice,” according to the timebanks.org Web site. Since then TimeBanks have spread to more than 24 countries.
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