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  1. Home
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  3. The Genesis of Industrial America, 1870–1920
  • Cited by 15
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2012
Print publication year:
2007
Online ISBN:
9780511817946
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511817946
Subjects:
Regional and World History: General Interest, History, Twentieth Century American History, Early Republic and Antebellum History
Series:
Cambridge Essential Histories
Information

Book description

This book, first published in 2007, offers a bold new interpretation of American business history during the formative years 1870–1920, which mark the dawn of modern big business. It focuses on four major revolutions that ushered in this new era: those in power, transportation, communication, and organization. Using the metaphor of America as an economic hothouse uniquely suited to rapid economic growth during these years, it analyzes the interplay of key factors such as entrepreneurial talent, technology, land, natural resources, law, mass markets, and the rise of cities. It also delineates the process that laid the foundation for the modern era, in which virtually every human activity became a business, and, in most cases, a big business. The book also profiles numerous major entrepreneurs whose careers and activities illustrate broader trends and themes. It utilizes a wide variety of sources, including novels from the period, to produce a lively narrative.

Reviews

"This perceptive study by the accomplished historian Maury Klein vividly reveals how business shaped the United States following the Civil War. Impressively conceived, amazingly comprehensive and delightfully written, The Genesis of Industrial America is must reading for an understanding of the origins of modern America." -H. Roger Grant, Clemson University

"Genesis of Industrial America is a thoughtful and engaging survey of American economic development during the heyday of industrialism by one of America's most prolific and accomplished business historians." -Richard John, University of Illinois at Chicago

"The Genesis of Industrial America is well-grounded, consistently insightful, and superbly written. Klein boils down the extensive literature of business and economic history, places major events and actors in proper contexts, and relates them effectively to the larger contexts of Americansocial and political life." -Roger Olien, University of Texas -- Permian Basin

"Klein has delivered a book that succeeds in summarizing and organizing in coherent fashion the often bewildering array of business developments and ensuing organizational consequences that occurred in this integral period of American history."--Canadian Journal of History

"The prose is brisk, lively, and readable..." -Robert MacDougall, Technology and Culture

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Contents

Contents
References
Sources and Suggested Readings
General histories
Chandler, Alfred D. Jr.The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass., 1977).
Cochran, Thomas C.Business in American Life: A History (New York, 1972).
Klein, Maury. The Flowering of the Third America (Chicago, 1993).
Porter, Glenn. The Rise of Big Business, 1860–1910 (New York, 1973).
Prologue
Bruchey, Stuart, Cotton and the Growth of the American Economy: 1890–1860 (New York, 1967).
Bruchey, Stuart. The Roots of American Economic Growth, 1607–1861 (New York, 1965).
Green, Constance. Eli Whitney and the Birth of American Technology (Boston, 1956).
Hounshell, David A.From the American System to Mass Production, 1800–1932 (Baltimore, 1984).
Hurst, J. Willard. Law and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth Century United States (Madison, Wis., 1956).
Kennedy, Roger G.Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase (New York, 2003).
Kukla, Jon. A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America (New York, 2003).
Malone, Dumas. Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801–1805 (Boston, 1970).
Potter, David M.People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character (Chicago, 1954).
Sheldon, Garrett Ward. The Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson (Baltimore, 1991).
Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America (New York, 1945), 2 vols.
Woodman, Harold D.Slavery and the Southern Economy (New York, 1966).
Chapter 1
Byrn, Edward W.The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1900).
Cowan, Ruth Schwarz. A Social History of American Technology (New York, 1997).
Drucker, Peter F.Innovation and Entrepreneurship (New York, 1985).
Haber, Samuel. Efficiency and Uplift (Chicago, 1964).
Hindle, Brook. Emulation and Invention (New York, 1982).
Hughes, Jonathan R. T.The Vital Few: The Entrepreneur & American Economic Progress (New York, 1986).
Hughes, Thomas P.American Genesis (New York, 1989).
Klein, Maury. The Change Makers (New York, 2003).
Klein, Maury. The Life and Legend of Jay Gould (Baltimore, 1986).
Livesay, Harold C.American Made: The Men Who Shaped the American Economy (Boston, 1979).
Noble, David F.America by Design (New York, 1977).
Rosenberg, Nathan. Technology and American Economic Growth (New York, 1972).
Schumpeter, Joseph A.Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York, 1950).
Schumpeter, Joseph A.The Theory of Economic Development (New York, 1969).
Tedlow, Richard S.Giants of Enterprise: Seven Business Innovators and the Empires They Built (New York, 2001).
Chapter 2
Billington, Ray Allen. The Far Western Frontier (New York, 1974).
Clark, John G.The Grain Trade in the Old Northwest (Urbana, Ill., 1966).
Danbom, David B.Born in the Country: A History of Rural America (Baltimore, 1995).
Gates, Paul W.The Farmer's Age: Agriculture, 1815–1860 (New York, 1960).
Klein, Maury, and Harvey, A. Kantor. Prisoners of Progress: American Industrial Cities, 1850–1920 (New York, 1976).
Schlebecker, John T.Whereby We Thrive: A History of American Farming, 1607–1972 (Ames, Ia., 1975).
Shannon, Fred A.The Farmer's Last Frontier: Agriculture, 1860–1897 (New York, 1945).
Chapter 3
Bernstein, Peter L.Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation (New York, 2005).
Hunter, Louis C.Steamboats on the Western Rivers (New York, 1969).
Paul, Israel. Edison: A Life of Invention (New York, 1998).
Klein, Maury. The Great Richmond Terminal: A Study in Businessmen and Business Strategy (Charlottesville, Va., 1970).
Klein, Maury. The Life and Legend of E. H. Harriman (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2000).
Klein, Maury. Unfinished Business: Railroads and American Life (Hanover, N.H., 2004).
Lane, Wheaton J.Commodore Vanderbilt: An Epic of the Steam Age (New York, 1942).
Larson, John Lauritz. Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the Early United States (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2001).
Silverman, Kenneth. Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse (New York, 2003).
Stover, John F.American Railroads (Chicago, 1961).
Taylor, George Rogers. The Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860 (New York, 1951).
Thompson, Robert L.Wiring the Continent (Princeton, 1947).
Chapter 4
Bathe, Greville and , Dorothy. Oliver Evans: A Chronicle of Early American Engineering (Philadelphia, 1935).
Bordeau, Sanford P.Volts to Hertz: The Rise of Electricity (Minneapolis, 1982).
Carlson, W. Bernard. Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric (New York, 1991).
Childs, Marquis. The Farmer Takes a Hand: The Electric Power Revolution in Rural America (New York, 1952).
Friedel, Robert D., and Israel, Paul. Edison's Electric Light: Biography of an Invention (New Brunswick, N.J., 1995).
Hills, Richard L.Power from Steam: A History of the Stationary Steam Engine (Cambridge, 1989).
Hughes, Thomas P.Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880–1930 (Baltimore, 1983).
Jonnes, Jill. Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse and the Race to Electrify the World (New York, 2003).
McDonald, Forrest. Insull (Chicago, 1962).
Nye, David E.Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1992).
Passer, Harold C.The Electrical Manufacturers, 1875–1900 (Cambridge, Mass., 1953).
Philip, Cynthia Owen. Robert Fulton: A Biography (New York, 1985).
Seifer, Marc J.Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla (Secaucus, N.J., 1996).
Sharlin, Harold I.The Making of the Electrical Age (New York, 1963).
Chapter 5
Appel, Joseph H.The Business Biography of John Wanamaker: Founder and Builder (New York, 1930).
Chandler, Alfred D. Jr.Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, Mass., 1962).
Chernow, Ron. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (New York, 1998).
Dewing, Arthur S.The Financial Policy of Corporations (New York, 1953), 2 vols.
Durden, Robert F.The Dukes of Durham, 1865–1929 (Durham, N.C., 1975).
Emmet, Boris, and John, E. Jeuck. Catalogues and Counters: A History of Sears, Roebuck and Company (Chicago, 1950).
Gibbons, Herbert A.John Wanamaker (New York, 1926), 2 vols.
Lamoreaux, Naomi R.The Great Merger Movement in American Business, 1895–1904 (New York, 1985).
Livesay, Harold C.Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business (Boston, 1975).
Nelson, Ralph L.Merger Movements in American Industry, 1895–1956 (Princeton, 1959).
Paine, Albert Bigelow. Theodore M. Vail: A Biography (New York, 1929).
Penney, James Cash. Fifty Years with the Golden Rule (New York, 1950).
Strouse, Jean. Morgan: American Financier (New York, 1999).
Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie (New York, 1970).
Winkler, John K.Five and Ten: The Fabulous Life of F. W. Woolworth (Freeport, N.Y., 1970).
Chapter 6
Bledstein, Burton J.The Culture of Professionalism (New York, 1976).
Blumin, Stuart M.The Emergence of the Middle Class (New York, 1989).
Daniels, Roger. Coming to America (New York, 1990).
Dubofsky, Melvin. Industrialism and the American Worker, 1865–1920 (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1985).
Gutman, Herbert G.Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America (New York, 1976).
Higham, John. Strangers in the Land (New Brunswick, N.J., 1955).
Hoogenboom, Ari, and Hoogenboom, Olive. A History of the ICC: From Panacea to Palliative (New York, 1976).
Keller, Morton. Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America (Cambridge, Mass., 1977).
Klein, Maury, and Harvey, A. Kantor. Prisoners of Progress: American Industrial Cities, 1850–1920 (New York, 1976).
Mills, C. Wright. White Collar (New York, 1951).
Montgomery, David. The Fall of the House of Labor (New York, 1987).
Rayback, Joseph. A History of American Labor (New York, 1966).
Taylor, Philip. The Distant Magnet (New York, 1971).
Weinstein, James. The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State, 1900–1916 (Boston, 1968).
Wittke, Carl. We Who Built America (New York, 1939).
Zeff, Stephen A. (ed.). The U. S. Accounting Profession in the 1890s and Early 1900s (New York, 1988).
Zunz, Olivier. Making America Corporate (Chicago, 1990).
Chapter 7
Bryce, James. The American Commonwealth (New York, 1888), 2 vols.
Callow, Alexander B.The City Boss in America: An Interpretive Reader (New York, 1976).
Howe, Frederic C.The Confessions of a Reformer (New York, 1925).
Klein, Maury, and Harvey, A. Kantor. Prisoners of Progress: American Industrial Cities, 1850–1920 (New York, 1976).
McKelvey, Blake. The Urbanization of America, 1860–1915 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1963).
Riordan, William L.Plunkitt of Tammany Hall (New York, 1995).
Steffens, Lincoln. The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (New York, 1931).
Steffens, Lincoln. Shame of the Cities (New York, 1957).
Warner, Sam Bass Jr.The Urban Wilderness (New York, 1972).
Wiebe, Robert. Businessmen and Reform (Chicago, 1968).
Wiebe, Robert. The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (New York, 1967).
Zink, Harold. City Bosses in the United States: A Study of Twenty Municipal Bosses (Durham, N.C., 1930).
Chapter 8
Bronner, Simon J. (ed.) Consuming Visions: Accumulation and Display of Goods in America, 1880–1920 (New York, 1989).
Horowitz, Daniel. The Morality of Spending: Attitudes toward the Consumer Society in America, 1875–1940 (Baltimore, 1985).
Lacey, Robert. Ford: The Men and the Machine (Boston, 1986).
Leach, William. Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York, 1993).
Lears, Jackson. Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America (New York, 1994).
Lewis, David L.The Public Image of Henry Ford (Detroit, 1976).
Strasser, Susan. Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York, 1989).
Sward, Keith. The Legend of Henry Ford (New York, 1972).
Tedlow, Richard. New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America (New York, 1990).
Young, James Harvey. Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (Princeton, 1989).
Young, James Harvey. The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines before Federal Regulation (Princeton, 1961).
Epilogue
Barber, Benjamin R.Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World (New York, 1995).
Hunter, James Davison. Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York, 1991).
Marchand, Roland. Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940 (Berkeley, Calif., 1985).
Marchand, Roland. Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (Berkeley, Calif., 1998).
Twitchell, James B.AdCult USA: The Triumph of Advertising in American Culture (New York, 1996).

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