Volume 60

Spring 1986

In this article Professor Hyde examines in detail the use of industrial spies at a large Michigan copper mine in the early twentieth century. While many historians have argued that labor spies were powerful weapons effectively used by employers in their struggles with workers, Hyde finds in his case study of the Quincy Mining Company that spies were seldom useful in providing important labor intelligence. Instead, they inadvertently provided top management with valuable information about underground working conditions and the performance of foremen and petty bosses. (Pages 1-27)

In this case study, Dr. French examines the responses to overcapacity in a mass production industry and traces the development of oligopolistic competition. Previous studies have emphasized technology and the growth of "big business," but here the author argues that the structure of the U.S. tire industry must be understood in terms of large, medium, and small firms. He finds, moreover, that the extent of competition and cooperation was significantly influenced by the nature of the tire market. Dr. French provides new evidence on the relationships between structural factors and the dynamics of business policy, and points to the need for a more comprehensive account of the evolution and nature of oligopolistic competition. (Pages 28-54)

In this article Professor Shmanske examines the history of the wire service industry with special attention to two economic peculiarities: the "public good" nature of news dissemination and the different ownership structures of the competing firms. By focusing on the interplay of the nonprofit, cooperative organizational structure of the Associated Press and the public good characteristics of news, the author provides a new and economically sound explanation for the AP's relative success. In addition, he demonstrates that the many unusual institutions in the news-providing industry, particularly pricing structures, can be understood by analyzing the economic and marketing problems associated with private-sector production of a public good. (Pages 55-80)

Extremely successful both as an investment and as a commercial banker, Charles E. Mitchell was identified by contemporaries as the epitome of the unscrupulous "money changers" whose speculative dealings they felt played a major role in the Crash of 1929 and the ensuing economic collapse. This portrayal has been echoed and elaborated by historians commentators down to the present day. In this article Dr. Huertas and Dr. Silverman demonstrate that Mitchell's activities, while sometimes ill-advised, were motivated by the economic "good sense" of the day and were not attributable to either rampant immorality or ungoverned greed. At the same time, they direct the attention of economic historians to the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve system of the 1920s and 1930s--in which Mitchell also played a role--and suggest that a more potent source of the Great Depression lies therein. (Pages 81-103)

From its beginnings in the private library of Pierre S. du Pont, the Hagley Museum and Library has grown into a leading resource for business historians, particularly for those interested in the development of the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. In this thorough description of the Hagley's collection, Dr. Nash demonstrates the breadth and depth of its holdings, from the papers of the eighteenth-century Physiocrats to those of New Deal and post-World War II companies and business leaders. (Pages 104-120)

Summer 1986

The economics of the American aircraft manufacturing industry have been determined in large measure by government aviation policies and the market for military airplanes. This was most apparent in the 1920s, when the industry suffered from sharply reduced military orders and an almost nonexistent demand for civilian aircraft. Struggling for survival, manufacturers singled out the Naval Aircraft Factory, a large navy-owned and run facility in Philadelphia, as the least partially responsible for the dislocation of their industry; they insisted that it and other forms of "government competition" be eliminated. Professor Trimble explores in this article how the ensuing controversy caused naval and civilian officials in the 1920s to develop policies that integrated the factory into naval aircraft procurement and helped to ameliorate the problems of private aircraft contractors. (Pages 175-198)

The current scholarly interest in contemporary Japanese businesses has somewhat obscured their equally fascinating early historical development. In this article, Professor Wilkins emphasizes both the extent and the variety of Japanese multinational enterprises before the first World War, and offers a basis for comparing its differences and similarities with the conventional American model. (Pages 199-231)

Welfare capitalism has been perceived by many historians as succumbing to the stresses of the Depression. The work of recent scholars has contributed to an understanding of welfarism's continued existence through the 1930s and beyond, but little attention has been given to the process by which employers revitalized welfare work after the 1920s. In this article, Ms. Fones-Wolf explores the key role the Second World War played in helping to expand and legitimize corporate-sponsored welfarism, particularly in the area of recreational activity. With union resistance to welfare plans diminished, employers were able to extend their experimentation with this managerial device, thereby helping to defuse a postwar resurgence of militant unionism. (Pages 232-257)

The centrality of transportation improvements and financial institutions to the economic development of Upper Canada in the first half of the nineteenth century is well known. In this article, Professor George and Mr. Sworden argue that the evolving legal system and legal institutions also played an important role as part of the infrastructure contributing to increased economic efficiency. In support of their thesis, they draw on court decisions on contract and property law, primarily from the judicial career of Sir John Beverly Robinson, chief justice of the Court of Queen's Bench for Upper Canada from 1829 to 1862. (Pages 258-280)

As the Kress Library of Business and Economics approaches its fiftieth anniversary in 1988, it seems an appropriate time to reflect upon the library's origins. In this essay, Ruth Rogers explains how the foundation of the collection came to the Harvard Business School, what it encompasses, and how it has evolved over the years. Some major changes are evident at the close of the Kress Library's first half-century, but its perspective will always be rooted in the past. (Pages 281-288)

Autumn 1986

In reconstructing the early business history of black America, Professor Walker emphasizes the diversity and complexity of antebellum black entrepreneurship, both slave and free. With few exceptions, prevailing historical assessments have confined their analyses of pre-Civil War black business participation to marginal enterprises, concentrated primarily in craft and service industries. In America's preindustrial mercantile business community, however, blacks established a wide variety of enterprises, some of them remarkably successful. The business activities of antebellum blacks not only offer insights into the multiplicity of responses to the constraints of racism and slavery, but also highlight relatively unexplored areas in the historical development of the free enterprise system in the United States. (Pages 343-382)

China has produced wine from grapes since the second century, B.C., but interest in Western wines did not begin until the late nineteenth century. Professor Godley describes the origins of the modern industry, which he traces back to an overseas Chinese entrepreneur from Southeast Asia who, despite the obvious advantages held by foreign competitors, began the construction of the country's first modern winery in 1892. One of the more unusual capitalist ventures in the late Qing and early Republican periods, the company ran into financial difficulties, but not before it had established a precedent for what is now a rapidly expanding business. Although the vicissitudes of the grape wine industry illustrate some important points about modern Chinese economic development, the author offers this case study in business history as something of an allegory: wine as a symbol for the meeting of East and West, yesterday and today. (Pages 383-409)

As one of the leaders among American toy manufacturers, Selchow & Righter Company, makers of crossword and trivia games, represents one pattern of development in the toy industry. In this essay, Professor Petrik describes Selchow & Righter's progress from jobber to manufacturer, showing how the families of the company's name built the business on the strength of products developed outside the company, on the assiduous protection of trademarks, and on conservative management aimed at preserving the company for the "corporate family." Selchow & Righter's chronicle reflects themes present in the toy industry and, especially, epitomizes those associated with companies that elected to retain family control. (Pages 410-437)

In this article Professor Miranti contrasts the differing reactions of leaders in the public accounting profession to the structure of national economic regulation that emerged in America during the first decades of the twentieth century. Specifically, he focuses on the actions taken by two national professional organizations, the American Association of Public Accountants and its successor, the American Institute of Accountants, at two important junctures in the history of financial reform: the establishment of the Federal Reserve Board and the Exchange Commission. In assessing these experiences, his article concentrates on identifying the changing circumstances and political contexts that gave rise first to an associationalist response and then to a statist response to the problem of ordering the nation's financial markets. (Pages 438-468)

The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History offers rich opportunities for business historians. In this essay, Mr. Fleckner and Mr. Crew describe the holdings and facilities of the recently established Archives Center and examine in detail the museum's extensive and extremely valuable holdings in advertising history. (Pages 474-486)

Winter 1986

In this article Professor Walton examines the influence of bourgeois women on industrial production in nineteenth-century Paris. She argues that women, as arbiters of taste and consumers for the family, sought art and originality in manufactured goods, and that their demands in turn fostered handicraft and less skilled hand methods of manufacturing as the best means of providing such goods. By establishing the connections between women's roles and bourgeois demand, and between bourgeois demand and hand manufacturing, this study offers a new perspective on the persistence of hand production in France. (Pages 541-563)

In the following article, Professors Brown and Philips examine two questions concerning wage payment systems. First, has the prevalence of incentive systems been affected by the rise of the modern corporate enterprise? Second, what has been the effect of institutionalized unionism on the prevalence of incentive systems? Brown and Philips explore these issues through a historical case study of the decline of the piece-rate system in the California canning industry, from which they conclude that in the context of Chandlerian industrial development piece-rate systems tend to give way to more complex incentive and hourly wage-rate systems. They explore this hypothesis further through an examination of historical data on wage payment systems for American manufacturing as a whole. (Pages 564-601)

Despite recent interest in the history of the American worker, relatively little has been paid to the evolution of corporate employment and labor relations practices, particularly in the nonunion sector. In this article, Professor Jacoby examines the employee attitude testing program at Sears, Roebuck and Company and places it in a larger historical context as well as in the narrower framework of developments in personnel relations. During the 1940s and 1950s the Sears program was one of the most innovative and sophisticated applications of behavioral science to workplace problems, and it served as a model for many other companies. Although the testing program was developed as part of an ongoing effort to forestall unionization, it also had a research component that made important contributions to a number of academic disciplines, particularly organizational theory and industrial sociology. (Pages 602-640)

Originally founded to house the papers and artifacts of the Stevens family, operators of several woolen mills in the Merrimack Valley, the Museum of American Textile History has grown to become a valuable resource for historians and others interested in the rise and fall of the New England textile industry. In the following essay, Dorothy Truman describes the depth and breadth of the museum's collections and highlights their importance to the study of business history. (Pages 641-650)