Flexibility, specialization, and niche marketing are buzzwords
in the business literature these days, yet few realize that it was
these elements that helped the United States first emerge as a
global manufacturing leader between the Civil War and World War I.
The huge mass production-based businesses--steel, oil, and
autos--have long been given sole credit for this emergence. In
"Endless Novelty," Philip Scranton boldly recasts the history of
this vital episode in the development of American business, known
as the nation's second industrial revolution, by considering the
crucial impact of trades featuring specialty, not standardized,
production. Scranton takes us on a grand tour through American
specialty firms and districts, where, for example, we meet printers
and jewelry makers in New York and Providence, furniture builders
in Grand Rapids, and tool specialists in Cincinnati. Throughout he
highlights the benevolent as well as the strained relationships
between workers and proprietors, the lively interactions among
entrepreneurs and city leaders, and the personal achievements of
industrial engineers like Frederic W. Taylor.
Scranton shows that in sectors producing goods such as
furniture, jewelry, machine tools, and electrical equipment, firms
made goods to order or in batches, and industrial districts and
networks flourished, creating millions of jobs. These enterprises
relied on flexibility, skilled labor, close interactions with
clients, suppliers, and rivals, and opportunistic pricing to
generate profit streams. They built interfirm alliances to manage
markets and fashioned specialized institutions--trade schools,
industrial banks, labor bureaus, and sales consortia. In creating
regional synergies and economies of scope and diversity, the
approaches of these industrial firms represent the inverse of mass
production.
Challenging views of company organization that have come to
dominate the business world in the United States, "Endless Novelty"
will appeal to historians, business leaders, and to anyone curious
about the structure of American industry.
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