Showing papers in "Business History Review in 1968"

Social Welfare and Business: The Krupp Welfare Program, 1860–1914

Abstract: Wolf Schneider has written that no other great industrialist of the nineteenth century “esteemed the personal freedom of his workers so little and their material well-being so highly” as did Alfred Krupp. Professor McCreary examines this counterpoint of humanitarianism and self-interest which produced some of Germany's “first steps toward industrial social responsibility.”

Walter Dill Scott: Pioneer Industrial Psychologist

Abstract: In the history of personnel management and salesmanship in the United States, the concepts and techniques developed by Professor Walter Dill Scott of Northwestern University have been pervasive. As an introduction to Scott's ideas and to his activities, Professor Lynch summarizes his contributions in the application of psychology to business problems.

American Merchants and the China Opium Trade, 1800–1840

Abstract: Although much has been written about the British opium trade, American traffic in the drug has received little attention. Professor Downs' article reveals that American merchants played a significant innovating role in developing new sources of supply and expanding the market. These activities forced the monopolistic British East India Company to protect its opium trade to China and led to the Opium War in 1839, when the Chinese government attempted to stop importation of the narcotic.

British Long-Term Investment in Latin America, 1865-1913

Abstract: Following a review of the early period of British investment in Latin America (1822–1865) and a discussion of previous estimates of British capital exports to South and Central America before World War I, Professor Stone presents new and revised data concerning the composition and distribution of British holdings by amount, industry, and region.

The Entrepreneur and His Firm: The Relationship between Type of Man and Type of Company . By Norman Raymond Smith. East Lansing, Bureau of Business and Economic Research, Michigan State University, 1967. Pp. vii + 109.

Abstract: Norman R. Smith, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Oregon, suggests in this study some tentative hypotheses regarding entrepreneurial types and the companies which they tend to establish. He accepts Cole s definition of entrepreneur as \"the individual who is primarily responsible for gathering together the necessary resources to initiate a business\" (p. 2). The sample consists of data obtained from fifty-two interviews with machine-tool manufacturers in six Michigan cities. All of the companies started after 1945 and have been in operation at least five years. Thus the sample deals with \"successful\" firms which survived the crucial formative period. Smith is more concerned with the last two stages of Cole's delineation of initiation, maintenance, and aggrandizement. The method employed is the one developed by sociologist John C. McKinney in the construction of \"ideal types.\" Smith formulates two polar types of entrepreneurs and firms and measures the deviations from each and then compares the man and the firm to analyze the correlation. Basically, one type of entrepreneur, which Smith calls the CraftsmanEntrepreneur, moves in a very limited cultural range and is narrow in outlook. His opposite, the Opportunist-Entrepreneur, responds to a broad range of culture and liberal views. These attitudes were conditioned by entrepreneurial experiences in education and work background, and his role-model. These polar types are also measured by social awareness, degree of flexibility in delegating responsibility, hiring policies, labor relations, capital sources, competitive strategy, sales procedures, and long-range planning. Smith concludes that the C-E is associated with firms classified as rigid while the O-E runs companies that are adaptive. The firms were measured as deviations from the two polar types on the basis of customer and product diversification, production methods, dispersed production faculties and markets, and concrete plans for change. Smith's final hypothesis is that the adaptive company with an O-E at the helm will sustain a higher growth rate than the rigid firm with a C-E. Using Jenks' distinction between \"owner-manager\" and \"entrepreneurial-executive,\" which corresponds roughly with the C-E and O-E, Smith concludes that only the latter type has a chance to lead the firm successfully through the phases of initiation, maintenance, and aggrandizement.

Business, Antitrust Policy, and the Industrial Board of the Department of Commerce, 1919

Abstract: A mass of rhetoric proclaimed the Industrial Board as a Progressive measure to forestall a post-World War I depression through governmental price manipulation. After a closer look at the personalities and policies involved, Professor Himmelberg argues that the Board was, actually, an effort by organized business groups to force antitrust revision upon the Wilson administration.

The Autobiography of William Stout of Lancaster, 1665–1752. Edited by J. D. Marshall for the William Stout Tercentenary Study Group. Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1967. New York, Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1967. Pp. viii + 311.

Abstract: The reviewer has for years pointed to the importance of businessmen's autobiographies for research in social and economic, including business, history. Under these circumstances, he finds himself in sympathy with this new, historically unimpeachable, painstakingly introduced and annotated edition of the self-testimony of William Stout (1665-1752), a Quaker retail and wholesale merchant of Lancaster, England. Previously, we had only a modernized version edited by John Harland, a Lancashire journalist and antiquarian, published in 1851. The editor and his fellow contributors to this new annotated edition have rightly recognized that for scholarly purposes the crucial question is: To what extent was Stout typical of both provincial small-scale wholesaling and retailing and of what the editor calls \"second-generation\" Quakerism? The introduction shows convincingly, from extant records of the Society of Friends, that Stout played a considerable role among his coreligionists, and that he was, within limits, typical of them. On the other hand, Stout's idiosyncrasies are pointed out. It seems that his business behavior was also what contemporary Friends demanded from a Quaker trader. It is, of course, a different problem to decide if and to what extent this behavior was in line with or deviated from that of other contemporary provincial men of affairs in the grocery business and the iron trades. This kind of inquiry would require the existence of comparable material, which is probably lacking, and pertinent research, which is not undertaken anywhere in the book. Yet the autobiography per se answers another historically relevant question, namely, what did a local Quaker merchant, living around 1700, consider worthy of note? The editor rightly points to the advantages which Stout enjoyed in his business dealings by being a member of a closely knit and very reliable ingroup. Nevertheless, he did not become a business leader of rank. Almost all of his shipping ventures were abysmal failures, and there is certainly no comparison between him and the great contemporaneous Quaker ironmasters for some of whom Stout sold pig iron. Preparing the original manuscript for publication, which was possible only with the help of a magnifying glass, checking its reliability, and contributing all kinds of pertinent information from various archival and secondary sources was a formidable job and a labor of love on the part of the editor and a whole group of local and regional historians. The reviewer wonders, however, if Stout was really as important as these scholars seem to think. To the contrary, he believes that the value of this item lies in the fact that it throws light on an extremely unimportant man, unimportant by economic and business yardsticks. He also doubts that the item is really \"already fairly well known to economic and social

Secretary Hoover and the Bituminous Coal Problem, 1921-1928

Abstract: For seven years, the economic philosophy and political values of Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover challenged the structure, attitudes, and positions of a major, but poorly functioning, industry. This clash of wills and purposes, although colorful in itself, had broader significance in the evolution of government-business relationships in the United States. Professor Hawley argues that it was an important milestone in the conceptual development of “cooperative individualism and competitive co-operation.”

Quantity vs. Quality: The Impact of Changing Demand on the British Aircraft Industry, 1900–1960

Abstract: This study reveals distinct cycles directly related to the major military conflicts of the twentieth century which had an important impact on the quantity and quality of British aircraft production. The author also suggests that these cycles may have relevance for other countries and other industries.

New England Textiles in the Nineteenth Century: Profits and Investment . By Paul F. McGouldrick. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1968. Pp. ix + 307. $6.50.

Abstract: Cotton textile production is generally regarded as the first modern industry in the United States. After the first innovational breakthrough in 1814, this industry was among the largest throughout the nineteenth century. It was clearly a key factor in the development of the region in which it was localized, and study of this industry should provide a great deal of information about the process of American industrialization. Fortunately, for economic and business historians, several firms have preserved their records and left them on deposit at the Baker Library of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. These records have been used by Lance Davis in several articles concerned with financial matters and by Davis and Stettler in reconstructing an output series for the antebellum period. In this Wells Prize study by Paul F. McGouldrick these firm records are thoroughly and exhaustively used to generate profit and capital stock series and to test hypotheses about dividend policy and investment patterns of cotton textile firms. The period covered runs from the mid-1830's to the late 1880's. Omitted is the period of initial rapid expansion and technological diffusion which is covered in the traditional history by Caroline Ware (McGouldrick and Ware form a complementary set in both time period studied and approach to problems). The justification for concluding in the 1880's is that the shift to the South gave rise to a structural change in New England's behavior. It would be interesting to see a statistical test of this hypothesis, but the author had his time and length limitations and the half-century studied provides ample material for analysis. The basic data used by McGouldrick were derived from a sample of between seven and eleven firms whose records covered at least twenty years and whose production was almost exclusively cotton cloth. All were formed before the Civil War, had large groups of stockholders, and, being of the Waltham-Lowell type, were of above average size for the industry. This is a possible source of bias since within the sample there is an apparent positive correlation between profit rates and size. To test for the presence of bias, the results of this sample are compared with data from larger samples, such as Martin's stock market reports and state and federal censuses. The author is satisfied that no distortions occur, claiming the results \"representative of earnings of middle-sized to large New England cotton textile firms\" (one source of confusion in much of the book is that the author presents tables of sample totals which vary as firms enter and exit, and it is necessary to be careful to distinguish this type of change from those which occur within a constant sample). It is never made clear what per cent of the industry is included in the sample. Calculations in the Davis and Stettler article suggest that in the antebellum period these firms account for under one-third of Massachusetts and New Hampshire output and less than fifteen per cent of total New England output.

The Morgan-Belmont Syndicate of 1895 and Intervention in the Foreign-Exchange Market

Abstract: In response to crisis conditions, and for eight months during 1895, the American government subcontracted its responsibility for the maintenance of monetary stability to a private syndicate of businessmen. This action and its results challenged both political and economic orthodoxy and represent one of the most important episodes in government-business relations during the nineteenth century. While previous studies of the Morgan-Belmont syndicate have emphasized its political and social costs, Professor Simon's concerns are to clarify and weigh the economic benefits of this remarkable arrangement.

The Bonanza King Myth: Western Mine Owners and the Remonetization of Silver

Abstract: Were congressional demands for the remonetization of silver in the 1870's triggered and supported by large-scale mining interests seeking a guaranteed market for their product? Contemporaries and historians have generally answered “yes.” Professor Weinstein revises this traditional interpretation by analyzing the actual interrelationships between American silver producers and government coinage policies.

China, the United States Navy, and the Bethlehem Steel Company, 1909–1929

Abstract: The tangled purposes of national economic policy in the early decades of the twentieth century are highlighted in Professor Braisted's analysis of an episode which pledged officers and secrets of the U.S. Navy to the advancement of American business in the Far East.

King Cotton and his Retainers: Financing and Marketing the Cotton Crop of the South, 1800–1925. By Harold D. Woodman. Lexington, University of Kentucky Press, 1967. Pp. xiv + 386. $9.75.

Abstract: and the market strategy of a firm or its economic results. The \"social history\" of enterprises is as interesting and revealing as their \"business history.\" But the reviewer would argue that in doing so, one can and should apply the instruments of modern social science in their many varieties, not merely stale Marxism. With respect to methodological issues the book under review is not only one-sided but clearly outdated.

Southern Railroad Leaders, 1865-1893: Identities and Ideologies

Abstract: As the American South recovered from the Civil War, railroads and the businessmen who managed them were important ingredients in the process of economic change. But who were the railroad leaders of the first generation of the “New South” and what were their personal and corporate goals? What were the effects of their actions on the course of southern restoration? Sharply at odds with the usual “carpetbagger” demonology, Professor Klein suggests an alternative explanation and analysis.

Ralph Carr: A Newcastle Merchant and the American Colonial Trade

Abstract: What were the ingredients for success for British merchants in the eighteenth-century trans-Atlantic trade? In the failure of Ralph Carr of Newcastle to market European goods in America during the 1750's, Professor Roberts personalizes an answer.

Dahomey and the Slave Trade: an Analysis of an Archaic Economy . By Karl Polanyi, in collaboration with Abraham Rotstein. Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1966. Pp. xxvi + 204. $6.50.

Abstract: tests\" (p. 138). These were eliminated, he tells us. Most of the time we have to take his figures on trust; but on the rare occasions when we can test them, some worrying mistakes can be detected. To take only pp. 104-106, something has gone badly wrong with the entry for the Africa Company in Table 11. The percentages as printed add up to 115.5 instead of 100: if the sum had been done correctly this figure should be 126.3 per cent. I suspect that the total for \"merchant knights\" should be 1, not 11; and that the percentage should be 2.63, not 18.4. On pp. 105-106 neither the figures for the Bermuda Company nor those for privateering add up to what is printed in the table on p. 104. As historians enter upon this exciting new field that Mr. Rabb has pioneered it is important that they (and their readers) should remember his warnings about the fallible human element which still enters in. His salutory caution against the temptation to conceal behind elegant model-building the inevitable inadequacy of the evidence should be taken especially to heart by those who use computers for sixteenthand seventeenthcentury history. A good servant, as they used to say in the seventeenth century, can make a bad master.

Underground Social Capital

Abstract: In the manner of the Creole tradesmen of Louisiana, whose lagniappe to their patrons is legendary, the Editor offers a similar bonus to readers of the Review. Instead of trifling presents added to a purchase, however, our lagniappe will be notes and documents illustrative of the evolution of business enterprise.

The State, the Investor, and the Railroad: The Boston & Albany, 1825–1867. By Stephen Salsbury. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1967. Pp. xx + 404. $10.00.

Abstract: willingness to cooperate with the President. The antagonists could have agreed to alterations in the new charter and Jackson could have indicated at what date Biddle should introduce the bill. Had Biddle followed this course, a reasonable facsimile of the national bank would have been preserved. The conclusion is somewhat stronger than the evidence supports. The period in the Bank's history from December 1831 through July 1832, so crucial to this theory, is considerably more complicated than is suggested. Biddle realized he needed a two-third's majority to override a probable veto. Therefore, before requesting recharter, he had McLane, Cadwalader, and Ingersoll poll over and over again the members of Congress as to how they would vote on the Bank issue. In addition, there is evidence that Jackson and Biddle were making an effort to compromise in February 1832, after the request for recharter had been made. Biddle was even willing to accept Jackson's terms for a new charter. Despite the author's tendency toward oversimplication, he has reminded us of a most important point. Total war seldom results in a real victory for anyone. Jackson, Biddle, and the nation might have been better served by compromise. Andrew C. McLaughlin in A Constitutional History of the United States interpreted Jackson's veto of the bill to recharter the Bank as an exhibition of the scope of the presidential office. "He was doing much to make the presidency what we know it to be today . . . relying on popular support, he was prepared to exercise his power; and, by using his veto, he made plain that the president occupied a position of authority as well as influence in the field of legislation." Once again, in Andrew Jackson and the Bank War this theme is central. It is a significant aspect of the Bank War and well worth restatement. Professor Remini argues that Jackson strengthened the executive branch of government by making "the veto power an important presidential instrument in controlling legislation" and by using, for the first time, the support of the American voters to justify presidential action. Despite its forceful impact on American history, the war against the Second Bank is usually treated by historians as one topic among many in works of broader scope. We are in Professor Remini's debt for isolating the Bank War and focusing attention on it alone.

The Introduction of Diesel Power in the United States, 1897–1912

Abstract: The international migration of the diesel engine provides a valuable case study in the interrelationships of entrepreneurship and innovation. As Mr. Lytle demonstrates, however, the introduction of the engine into the United States was far from efficiently managed and the process of technological diffusion was much slower and strained than it might have been.

Capitalism and Nationalism in Prewar Japan: The Ideology of the Business Elite, 1868–1914 . By Byron K. Marshall. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1967. Pp. 163.

Abstract: Explicitly "not . . . concerned with the ultimate motives of the [Japanese] entrepreneurs" (p. 18), this book examines "the use to which they were able to put patriotic slogans in furthering the development of private business" since "industrialization and its concomitant social changes took place under the sanction of what remained in essence the traditional value system" (p. 2). There is virtually nothing new in what the author finds in terms of the "patriotic slogans" or in his appraisal of the value system of the entrepreneurs: "they claimed to be fulfilling the traditional role of feudal patriarchs while at the same time leading the nation's economic troops in the commercial wars with the West. Thus the identification with the samurai was taken one step further, and the new image that business spokesmen were attempting to establish was reinforced" (p. 76). These are restatements of shikon shosai (spirit of samurai, acumen of businessmen) and a variant of fukoku kyohei (rich nation, strong army). Though Marshall calls the latter "reactive nationalism," what he describes has already been analyzed by Ranis, Hirschmeir, and numerous Japanese scholars. His sources are, for the most part, also familiar to students of Japanese economy, and the dramatis personae of Marshall's narratives are by now well-known figures (Shibusawa, Fukuzawa, et al). This reviewer finds him guilty of mistranslations and inaccurate quotations on several occasions. In his anxiety to make his point, for example, his quote from Goro Suzuki's book on his father, the famous pioneer in the sugar industry is both inaccurate and inadequate (p. 36). This is not to say that the book has no merits. Though using the same kitchen and ingredients as many before him have done, Marshall proves himself a competent cook. He writes lucidly and the readers can find in the 119 pages of content a well-written essay which captures the essence of much of the past writings on the subject. But a more significant contribution is that Marshall for the first time explicitly differentiates "patriotic slogans" from real motives. Many writers before him have imputed real motives in these slogans in order to explain the rapid growth of postRestoration Japan. Marshall is having none of this and clearly advances a thesis that "slogans" should be seen merely as "slogans" needed to justify the entrepreneurial functions in an environment which was hostile to the Anglo-American version of individualism and private profit-making. By taking this stance, Marshall succeeds in gaining insights which have often been missed. For example, in his chapter on "Early Industrialists and the Controversy over Labor Legislation," he can describe the dilemma of those entrepreneurs who were using "slogans" which could and did backfire: "Japanese businessmen tended naturally to stress the incompatibility of foreign concepts of individual rights and contractual relations with the collectivistic values of Japanese tradition. Ultimately . . . this collectivistic orientation made the justification of private profit more difficult and thus rendered the business elite highly vulnerable to the type

The Development of British Industry and Foreign Competition, 1875–1914 . Edited by Derek H. Aldcroft. London, George Allen a Unwin, 1968. Pp. 384. 60s.

Abstract: visitations by trained inspectors from the homeland to field offices and agents. Most institutional historians should be pleased with Jackson's book and have only minor criticisms. The study would benefit from the use of the Francis Smith and Jason Easton papers in Laramie, Wyoming, and St. Paul, Minnesota, several British theses and dissertations, and published studies by Gressley, Kerr, Pierce, Rothstein, and Schlebecker. More discussion is needed — within a comparative framework — of the business practices and innovations of Scottish, English, and especially, American firms which sent funds into the West. Investment trends should be summarized in tables. Many business and economic historians will be disappointed that Jackson failed to use recent accounting principles and any analytical or theoretical framework; they will want to relate Jackson's data to studies by Segal and Simon, Davis, Fogel, Johnson and Supple, Easterlin, Kuznets, North, Perloff, and Ottoson. Nevertheless, Jackson's fine book takes a significant stride toward producing a history of British investment in America and in the Western United States.

The Lobdell Car Wheel Co., 1830-1867

Abstract: While the growth of American railroads and textile mills from their beginnings through the Civil War has been extensively studied, much less attention has been given to smaller manufacturing firms which grew at the same time from job-shops to major units in the industrial structure. This paper studies one such firm, whose growth was a function of the skills of its proprietors, the benefits of its location, and the demand for manufactured items created by the growth of agricultural and transport sectors of the economy.

The Senior John Samuel Swire, 1825–1898: Management in Far Eastern Shipping Trades . By Sheila Marriner and Francis E. Hyde. Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 1967. Pp. xvi + 224. 42s.

Abstract: John Samuel Swire was a commanding figure in British commercial relations with the Far East and Australasia during the last third of the nineteenth century. The son of a Liverpool merchant, he became the dominant personality in the firm of John Swire & Sons as well as of a great series of related management, manufacturing, and shipping organizations. Among the most important of these were the Ocean Steamship Company (Blue Funnel Line) of Alfred Holt & Company, Butterfield & Swire in Hong Kong, the China Navigation Company, and the Taikoo Sugar Refinery Company. Swire was a vigorous, aggressive manager yet he abhorred the waste and risk involved in unbridled competition. Therefore, it is not surprising that he was a leader in the establishment of orderly division of business among the shipping lines on the coast and rivers of China, and that he was in large measure the architect of shipping conferences between Europe and the Far East.

"On Liberal Terms:” The Boston Hide-Merchants in California

Abstract: From Dana's Two Years before the Mast, a vast literary audience has read of the activities of Boston hide-traders in California during the 1840's. But Dana's understanding of the business of which he was a small part was far less accurate than his knowledge of ships and the sea. This gap is now filled by Dr. Fritzsche's analysis of the mechanics and profitability of the trade

Isaac Tyson, Jr.: Pioneer Industrialist

Abstract: In an era when American specialists in mining, metallurgy, and industrial chemistry were few, Isaac Tyson, Jr. (1792–1861) was an exceptional practitioner. His blending of science and business was a valuable asset during the pioneer stage of natural resource development in the United States.