Sandage, Scott A. Born Losers: A History of Failure in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.

== Summary ==
This
book charts mainly white businessmen and sometimes their wives, who, from the
panics of 1819 to 1893, fell into monetary trouble and thus “tells the story of
America’s unsung losers: men who failed in a nation that worships success.” He
tells the other side of the market revolution story. The “go-ahead” notion of
success that emerged during the 1830s and 1860s was shared by a culture of
losing' that likewise 'redefined American notions of selfhood. In the 19th
century, when capitalism came of age and entrepreneurship became the primary
model of American identity, the language of business was applied to the soul.
An emerging capitalist economy came to dominate nearly every aspect of daily
life, thereby transforming cultural values. Over the century the meaning of the
word "failure" broadened significantly, from an incident in
commercial life (a "breaking in business," as an early-nineteenth-century
dictionary defined the word) to an identity (a wasted or ruined existence).
This change shows the extent to which capitalism influenced and changed
people’s behaviors. People came to be defined in terms of their market function:
Human worth in the 19th century came to be measured by market worth.
Example: Mercantile Agencies and the Big Red Book changed
the language of failure, directed it toward the character of the individual. Credit
ledgers “reflected new vocabularies of success and failure. Loser was once a
neutral word for anybody who lost property, often by theft or natural disaster…
In credit reports, losers were men who had taken the brunt (and often the
blame) in a deal gone bad.” (p. 130-1)Each report rated the man along one
question: “What is this man good for? Ratings such as A1 were used to classify
superior ability. 
See also: Charles Sellers, Harry Watson, Stuart Blumin