In 1919, General Motors created the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) to offer car loans and payment plans, revolutionizing America's relationship with debt by offering one of the very first buy now, pay later programs.

See a timeline of the US government's investments and restructuring efforts of General Motors following the Great Recession.

Although he didn't create General Motors, Alfred Sloan is widely credited with GM's massive success and is often considered one of the best American businessmen of all time.

Listen to the story of how General Motors beat out the Ford Motor Company to become the largest car manufacturer by 1931.

Read what professors at Harvard Business School think led to General Motors' 2009 bankruptcy.

After delisting and going private for nearly two years in the midst of the Great Recession, General Motors went public for the second time in 2010 in what was then the largest IPO in history.

Owning a large catalog of brands with distinct purposes and customer bases helped General Motors overtake Ford Motor Company as America's leading car manufacturer, something that still sets the company apart today.

Listen to a recap of Alfred Sloan's autobiography, titled 'My Years with General Motors.'

See a timeline of important moments in General Motors' history, including its early automatic innovations in creating electrical systems in cars and the birth of the American muscle car in 1964.

Longtime General Motors CEO Alfred Sloan used the motto 'a car for every purse and purpose' to represent the value of having multiple car brands with different target audiences under one company.

To avoid a total collapse of the housing market, the US government took control of the two leading mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

After being the country's largest automaker by sales volume for nearly 100 years, Toyota surpassed General Motors as the top automobile manufacturer in the US—representing a shift in the American economy that once heavily depended on domestic manufacturing.

Listen to a reflection on General Motors' role in American life.

After investing more than $10B in less than 10 years, General Motors abandoned its controversial robotaxi development efforts in 2024.

Before the Great Recession, lax requirements to get a mortgage resulted in mass defaults that left nearly 19 million homes vacant.

Historically, borrowing money from other people to purchase property was common until private financing companies—primarily building and loan associations—stepped in to offer mortgages to buyers.

Learn about how General Motors dismantled America's streetcars

One of Henry Ford's early failed business ventures later became Cadillac

Despite founding General Motors, one of the most successful car companies in the world, William Durant lost his multimillion-dollar fortune before he died.

Charles Kettering, the person who invented the electric starter on cars, helped develop the diesel locomotive engine while working as head researcher at General Motors.

Watch Margot Robbie explain subprime mortgages—risky loans given to homebuyers with low credit scores or no income verification.

Mary Barra became the first female CEO of General Motors in 2014, making her the first woman to hold the office in the largely male-dominated automobile industry overall.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are federal housing enterprises originally established to offer affordable housing loans to buyers

In 1965, consumer advocate Ralph Nader released 'Unsafe At Any Speed,' a scandalous exposé on the risks of cars, prompting backlash from leading automakers including General Motors, which gave way to some of the earliest automobile regulations.

Commonly referred to as the 'bank bailout,' the Troubled Asset Relief Program disbursed $443B in an attempt to keep the financial system solvent.

How Cadillac joined F1 as the first new team in a decade

Credit reporting started as a service for businesses rather than consumers

To continue selling mortgages, agencies that determine how risky a loan is gave high ratings to homebuyers regardless of their actual risk portfolio.

Modern payday lending came about in the late 1990s

In February 2014, General Motors recalled more than 2.6 million cars—part of a record 30 million vehicles it recalled that year—over faulty ignition switches that had caused multiple deaths, ultimately costing the company more than $4B in repair costs, victim compensation, and other expenses.

Read the founding story of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, named after longtime General Motors CEO Alfred P. Sloan and research director Charles Kettering.

See the growth of US consumer debt

Subprime lending practices, which fueled the housing bubble, surged after 2000.

American International Group, one of the largest insurance companies in the world, received $182B from the federal government—the largest of any bailout in the wake of the Great Recession.

Buy now, pay later loans from 'BNPL' companies—which allow online shoppers to buy something immediately and pay for it in installments—are becoming more popular, with nearly half of millennials and Gen Zers using them.

Wealthy Americans are keeping car dealerships afloat

The story of Apple Pay Later, a short-lived BNPL service

General Motors President Charles Wilson is often quoted as saying, 'What's good for General Motors is good for America,' in 1953—but a closer examination of the records reveals a different message.

Watch someone drive a Model T Ford, which feels like driving 'a tractor with the soul of a sewing machine'—and learn how to operate one.

Henry Ford pioneered the first moving assembly line, building on earlier iterations of the manufacturing method

Abandoned Detroit: the decline of America's car mecca

Affirm's COO recently said that the company believes the credit card is 'going the way of the VHS tape'

Banks have increased small loan programs since 2018, upping competition for payday lenders

The Bank of America began as the Bank of Italy—one of the first US banks for the middle class—and loaned money to individuals to help rebuild after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

During one large strike, 9,000 General Motors workers walked out for 54 days in 1998 over management's decision to hire outside contractors for equipment removal and fears of widespread job losses.

The buy now, pay later industry allows consumers to buy something immediately and pay in installments without the need for lengthy application and approval processes or high credit scores.

Track how much the US government has spent on bailouts.

Before Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in 2008 with more than $600B in debt, the Federal Reserve tried to orchestrate a private deal to save the then-fourth-largest investment bank in the US.

Credit reporting's earliest origins in the 1700s resemble a game of telephone, with rural merchants asking their most esteemed neighbors to vouch for them to sleuthing urban lenders.

Visualize the 5,000-year history of consumer credit in one infographic

Henry Ford built a plastic car from soybeans in 1941