Alphonse Desjardins (co-operator)

Gabriel - Alphonse Desjardins ( born November 5, 1854 in Lévis, Quebec, † April 19, 1920 ibid ) was co-founder of the Caisses Desjardins, the first North American credit union.

Life

After studying economics at the College of Lévis and the Military School of Quebec Desjardins 1869 occurred for two years in the military and participated thereafter at a military expedition until he returned in 1872 after Lévis to henceforth adopt a career as a journalist. The next few years he worked a journalist with the newspaper L' écho and Le Canadien, 1878 until he decided to dedicate his work to the laying of the speeches of the National Assembly of Quebec. In 1889, however, the means of publishing activities Dejardins were canceled by the government, which he suddenly lost his job.

35 -year-old he founded in 1891 in Lévis, the newspaper L'Union Canadienne, but had only a short time. However, his close ties with the Conservative party enabled him on 22 April 1892 as a French stenographer of the Canadian Parliament in the Canadian House of Commons to enter. This post he held until 1917, when he fell ill with an incurable uremia.

On October 31, 1920 Alphonse Desjardins died aged 65 at his suffering.

The beginnings of the Caisses populaires

1897 Desjardins became increasingly concerned about the practice of usury and began extensive research on the cooperative savings and credit movement, which had developed in the European colonial times. For this purpose he entered intensive correspondence with the pioneers of the cooperative movement, including the German cooperative pioneers Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen and Hermann Schulze- Delitzsch and the Italian economist Luigi Luzzatti.

On December 6, 1900, he finally founded with his wife Dorimène Roy - Desjardins, the first savings bank Caisse d' épargne Desjardins in Lévis.