The Rise of the American Business Corporation. By Richard S. Tedlow · New York: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1991. x + 71 pp. Tables, exhibits, notes, and index. $15.00, ISBN 3-7186-5088-6.

1993 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-155
Author(s):  
Tony Freyer
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
American Business ◽  
Business Corporation

scholarly journals Of Bodies Politic and Pecuniary: A Brief History of Corporate Purpose

2020 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
David Guenther
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
American Business ◽  
Business Corporation ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Early American ◽  
Bright Line ◽  
History Of

American corporate law has long drawn a bright line between for-profit and non-profit corporations. In recent years, hybrid or social enterprises have increasingly put this bright-line distinction to the test. This Article asks what we can learn about the purpose of the American business corporation by examining its history and development in the United States in its formative period from roughly 1780-1860. This brief history of corporate purpose suggests that the duty to maximize profits in the for-profit corporation is a relatively recent development. Historically, the American business corporation grew out of an earlier form of corporation that was neither for-profit nor nonprofit in today’s parlance but rather, served a multitude of municipal, religious, charitable, educational, and eventually business purposes in early nineteenth-century New England. The purposes of early American business corporations—rather than maximization of profit to private shareholders— were often overtly public, involving development of local transportation, finance, and other much-needed economic infrastructure. With the rise of factory-based manufacturing, railroads, and other capital-intensive industries in the middle decades of the nineteenth century and the advent of general incorporation statutes, the purpose of the American business corporation shifted fundamentally from public to private. By 1860, the stage was set for the modern firm. This Article concludes that the corporation has no intrinsic purpose. The corporation’s defining features are separate legal personality and the ability to aggregate capital toward any otherwise lawful end, whether for-profit or nonprofit. Social enterprises today more closely resemble the early American business corporation than the profit-maximizing modern firm. Social enterprise should be seen less as a legally uncertain novelty than a return to the business corporation’s nineteenth-century American roots. Finally, this Article suggests potential limitations for social enterprise.

The Influence of Depression Upon American Opinion, 1857–1859

1942 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Rezneck
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Life Insurance ◽  
York City ◽  
American Business ◽  
Sharp Decline ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Financial Difficulties ◽  
Trust Company

On August 26, 1857, just two days after the New York branchthe Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company suspended payment, of, the New York Herald predicted that the financial difficulties then beginning were certain to acquire the proportions of a great crisis. It boasted, moreover, that it had foreseen and warned of this impending calamity for the preceding twelve months, but its warnings had been spurned. The Herald's vaunted prescience perhaps stemmed chiefly from the long-standing prejudice of its publisher, James Gordon Bennett, against the operations of speculators in Wall Street. As early as 1854, when the speculative boom in railroad stocks was halted by a sharp decline of prices, the Herald had predicted the imminent approach of a crisis, one that would mark the end of the current “Fitful Spasmodic System” of American business. During the winter of 1854–1855 business stagnated, unemployment increased greatly, and there was considerable distress and popular unrest, especially in New York City. Here was an advance view, as it were, of the pattern of depression which was to develop in 1857.

The Society Presents a Casebook in Business History

1939 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 93-94
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Business Education ◽  
Business History ◽  
American Business ◽  
Historical Society ◽  
Generous Friend

In January the members of the Business Historical Society will receive the Casebook in American Business History, written by N. S. B. Gras and Henrietta M. Larson and published by F. S. Crofts & Company, of New York. This book is presented to the members of the Society by a generous friend of business education.

Organizing America: Wealth, Power, and the Origins of Corporate Capitalism. By Charles Perrow. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. Pp. ix, 259. $34.95.

2003 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 283-285
Author(s):  
Michael H. Best
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Business ◽  
Working Population ◽  
Book Value ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Distribution Of Wealth ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
Corporate Capitalism

Charles Perrow is interested in big organizations and how they shape communities, the distribution of wealth, power and income, and working lives. Today, organizations with over 500 employees employ more than half the working population in the United States. There were no such organizations in 1800. Referring to William Roy (Socializing Capital: The Rise of Large Industrial Corporations in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997) and Naomi Lamoreaux (The Great Merger Movement in American Business, 1895–1904. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985) Perrow argues that corporate capitalism was entrenched in five short years (1898–1903) during which more than half the book value of all manufacturing capital was incorporated. The firms were made giant by consolidating the assets of several firms in the same industry.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document