American Business History
UNC-Charlotte, HIST 2101-B01 / AMST 2050-B01
Spring 2006, 12:30-1:50 PM. Colvard 3066
Dr. Mark Wilson Office: Garinger 102
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:00-3:00 PM, and by appointment
Office phone: 704-687-3869 E-Mail: mrwilson@uncc.edu
This course surveys the history of business enterprise in the United States, from the colonial era to the present day. While one of the purposes of the course is to chart the rise and development of the modern industrial corporation, it also emphasizes the enduring importance of small-scale firms. Because the course emphasizes the broader contexts in which business firms operate, considerable attention is paid to subjects such as technology, gender, labor, and the environment. This course is especially suitable for undergraduates pursuing degrees in business or history.
Attendance and Participation
Regular attendance is required. Turn off cell phones and beepers, be on time for class, and be respectful when others are speaking. Each student should plan on contributing to class discussions on several occasions during the semester. All exams will assume that students have attended each class meeting and have carefully followed each lecture, handout, discussion, and student presentation. Most students will benefit from taking notes during class. If an emergency causes you to miss a class meeting, you should contact the instructor or a fellow student to ask about the content of that meeting. Over the course of the semester, there will be five unannounced, short in-class writing assignments.
Presentation and Book Review
Each student will contribute to the course by providing a 10-12 minute, in-class presentation on a business history monograph. Students will follow up this presentation by submitting a written book review of 1,000-1,200 words. Students must submit at least one draft of this review and respond to the instructor
’s comments and criticisms in the final version. More information about the presentations and book reviews will be provided in class during the first weeks of the semester.In the university community, representing the words or ideas of other people as your own is not acceptable. Plagiarism on the book review assignment will result in an F for the course and further disciplinary action.
Exams
Exams, which will be given in class, will consist of short answer and essay questions. All exams are cumulative: that is, they may demand that you draw on any previous segment of the course. Make-up exams will be given only to students who have a valid and documented medical or activities-related excuse.
Weight of course requirements for grading purposes:
Participation 9; 5%
Short in-class writing assignments (5 x 2%) 10%
First in-class exam 20%
In-class presentation 10%
Draft book review, due April 4 9; 5%
Book review of 800-1200 words, due May 2 15%
Final exam, scheduled for May 11: 35%
Required book, available for purchase at the University Bookstore and Gray’s:
Regina Lee Blaszczyk and Philip B. Scranton, eds., Major Problems in American Business History (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006).
Students should also purchase three blank examination books ("blue books").
Course calendar and schedule of required readings:
Part I: From the Colonial Era to the Civil War
January 10 Introductions
January 12 Introduction to Business History
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, xv-35.
January 17 Capitalism in Early America
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 36-67.
January 19 British North America in the Atlantic Economy
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 71-76, 82-93.
January 24 The American Revolution and Its Economic Legacies
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 77-81, 93-105.
January 26 Early Corporations and Antebellum Political Economy
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 107-135.
January 31 Business and Slavery in the Old South
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 137-171.
February 2 The Industrial Revolution in the Antebellum North
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 172-187, 202-207.
February 7 Review
February 9 Midterm Exam. Bring a blue book.
Part II: From the Rise of Big Business to the Digital Age
February 14 The Second Industrial Revolution and the Rise of Big Business
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 187-202.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Harold C. Livesay, Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business, 2nd Ed. (2000).
Daniel Nelson, Managers and Workers: Origins of the Twentieth-Century Factory System in the United States, 1880-1920, 2nd Ed. (1995)
Jimmy M. Skaggs, Prime Cut: Livestock Raising and Meatpacking in the United States, 1607-1983 (1986).
February 16 Explaining the Rise of Big Business
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 258-263.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Naomi R. Lamoreaux, The Great Merger Movement in American Business, 1895-1904 (1995).
Glenn Porter, The Rise of Big Business, 1860-1920 (1973/1992).
William G. Roy, Socializing Capital: The Rise of the Large Industrial Corporation in America (1997).
February 21 Business, Labor, and Government, 1877-1929
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 240-254.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Stanley Buder, Pullman: An Experiment in Industrial Order and Community Planning, 1880-1950 (1967).
William R. Childs, Trucking and the Public Interest: The Emergence of Federal Regulation, 1914-1940 (1985).
Arwen Mohun, Steam Laundries: Gender, Technology, and Work in the United States and Great Britain, 1880-1940 (1999).
February 23 Managing Innovation and Technological Change
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 208-212, 220-222, 226-239.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:W. Bernard Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, 1870-1900 (1991).
Louis Galambos with Jane Eliot Sewell, Networks of Innovation: Vaccine Development at Merck, Sharp & Dohme, and Mulford, 1895-1995 (1995).
Andre Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation (1990).
February 28 Making the Modern Office
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 213-219, 223-226.
Books for student presentations and reviews:
James W. Cortada, Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and Remington Rand and the Industry They Created, 1865-1956 (1993).
Clark Davis, Company Men: White-Collar Life and Corporate Cultures in Los Angeles, 1892-1941 (2000).
Angel Kwolek-Folland, Engendering Business: Men and Women in the Corporate Office, 1870-1930 (1994).
March 2 Welfare Capitalism
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 254-258, 264-271.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Nikki Mandell, The Corporation as Family: The Gendering of Corporate Welfare, 1890-1930 (2002).
Andrea Tone, The Business of Benevolence: Industrial Paternalism in Progressive America (1997)
Gerald Zahavi, Workers, Managers, and Welfare Capitalism: The Shoeworkers and Tanners of Endicott Johnson, 1890-1950 (1988).
March 7 NO CLASS. Spring Break.
March 9 NO CLASS. Spring Break.
March 14 Race, Ethnicity, and American Business
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 272-280, 283-289.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:A’Leila Bundles, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker (2001).
Ivan Light and Edna Bonacich, Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Koreans in Los Angeles, 1965-1982 (1988).
Walter Weare, Black Business in the New South: A Social History of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company (1973).
March 16 Women in Business
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 281-283, 289-295.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Wendy Gamber, The Female Economy: The Millinery and Dressmaking Trades, 1860-1930 (1997)
Maureen Carroll Gilligan, Female Corporate Culture and the New South: Women in Business between the World Wars (1999).
Jane R. Plitt, Martha Matilda Harper and the American Dream: How One Woman Changed the Face of Modern Business (2000).
March 21 Modern Marketing, I: Salesmanship and Advertising
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 300-308, 314-327.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Walter A. Friedman, Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America (2004).
Pamela Walker Laird, Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (1998).
Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (1985).
March 23 Modern Marketing, II: Retailing and Consumer Credit
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 296-299, 311-314, 327-332.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Lendol Glen Calder, Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit (1999).
Sarah Elvins, Sales and Celebrations: Retailing and Regional Identity in Western New York State, 1920-1940 (2004).
Cecil C. Hoge, The First Hundred Years are the Toughest: What We Can Learn from the Century of Competition between Sears and Wards (1988).
March 28 The Great Depression and the New Deal
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 334-351, 356-365.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:James A. Hodges, New Deal Labor Policy and the Southern Cotton Textile Industry, 1933-1941 (1986).
Butler Shaffer, In Restraint of Trade: The Business Campaign Against Competition, 1918-1938 (1997).
George Wolfskill, The Revolt of the Conservatives: A History of the American Liberty League, 1934-1940 (1974).
March 30 The Second World War
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 351-356, 366-371.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Stephen B. Adams, Mr. Kaiser Goes to Washington: The Rise of a Government Entrepreneur (1997).
Louis R. Eltscher, Curtiss-Wright: Greatness and Decline (1998).
George David Smith, From Monopoly to Competition: The Transformations of Alcoa, 1888-1986 (1988).
April 4 The Affluent Society
Drafts of book reviews due today
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 372-388, 392-399.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Alison J. Clarke, Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950s America (1999).
Susannah Handley, Nylon: The Story of a Fashion Revolution (1999).
M. Jeffrey Hardwick, Mall Maker: Victor Gruen, Architect of an American Dream (2004).
April 6 The Cold War
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 388-392, 399-407.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Elizabeth A. Fones-Wolf, Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945-1960 (1994).
Jacob Goodwin, Brotherhood of Arms: General Dynamics and the Business of Defending America (1985).
Karen S. Miller, The Voice of Business: Hill & Knowlton and Postwar Public Relations (1999).
April 11 Business and the Environment
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 408-445.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Hugh S. Gorman, Redefining Efficiency: Pollution Concerns, Regulatory Mechanisms, and Technological Change in the U.S. Petroleum Industry (2001).
Arthur F. McEvoy, The Fisherman’s Problem: Ecology and Law in the California Fisheries, 1850-1980 (1986).
Christian Warren, Brush With Death: A Social History of Lead Poisoning (2000).
April 13 Twentieth-Century Banking, Finance, and Investment
*No new common readings for today. Work on revising your book review.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Felice A. Bonadio, A. P. Giannini: Banker of America (1994).
David L. Mason, From Buildings and Loans to Bail-Outs: A History of the American Savings and Loan Industry, 1831-1995 (2004).
Edwin J. Perkins, Wall Street to Main Street: Charles Merrill and Middle Class Investors (1999).
April 18 The Growth of Services in a "Postindustrial" Economy
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 447-458, 460-471, 478-483.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Thomas S. Dicke, Franchising in America: The Development of a Business Method, 1840-1980 (1992).
Paul A. Tiffany, The Decline of American Steel: How Management, Labor, and Government Went Wrong (1988).
Sandra S. Vance and Roy V. Scott, Wal-Mart: A History of Sam Walton’s Retail Phenomenon (1994).
April 20 Government-Business Relations since World War II
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 458-460, 471-478.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Louis Galambos and Joseph Pratt, The Rise of the Corporate Commonwealth: U.S. Business and Public Policy in the Twentieth Century (1988).
Kim McQuaid, Uneasy Partners: Big Business in American Politics, 1945-1990 (1995).
Richard H. K. Vietor, Contrived Competition: Regulation and Deregulation in America (1994).
April 25 Multinationals and Globalization
*Read Blaszczyk and Scranton, 484-521.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Jefferson R. Cowie, Capital Moves: RCA’s Seventy-Year Quest for Cheap Labor (1999).
Julio Moreno, Yankee, Don’t Go Home! Mexican Nationalism, American Business Culture, and the Shaping of Modern Mexico, 1920-1950 (2003).
Karl Schoenberger, Levi’s Children: Coming to Terms with Human Rights in the Global Marketplace (2000).
April 27 The Digital Age
*No new common readings for today. Work on finishing your book review.
Books for student presentations and reviews
:Janet Abbate, Inventing the Internet (1999)
Martin Campbell-Kelly, From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog: A History of the Software Industry (2003).
Charles C. Kenny, Riding the Runaway Horse: The Rise and Decline of Wang Laboratories (1992).
May 2 Review
Final versions of book reviews due today.
May 11 FINAL EXAM, scheduled for 12:00-3:00 PM.
Bring blue books.