The Public Image of Big Business in America, 1880-1940 A Quantitative Study in Social Change / Louis Galambos with the assistance of Barbara Barrow Spence.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Galambos, Louis, author.

Spence, Barbara Barrow, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social history.

Industries--Social aspects.

Industries.

Big business.

Industrie--Aspect social--États-Unis--Histoire.

Industrie.

Grandes entreprises--États-Unis--Histoire.

Grandes entreprises.

Industries--Social aspects--United States--History.

Big business--United States--History.

United States.

United States--Conditions sociales.

United States--Social conditions--1933-1945.

United States--Social conditions--1918-1932.

United States--Social conditions--1865-1918.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 online resource (xii, 324 pages :) illustrations)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Johns Hopkins University Press

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Otiginally published in 1975. At the time that Louis Galambos published The Public Image of Big Business in America in 1975, America had matured into a bureaucratic state. The expression of the military-industrial complex and big business grew so pervasive that the postwar United States was defined in large part by its citizens' participation in large-scale organizational structures. Noticing this development, Galambos maintains that the "single most significant phenomenon in modern American history is the emergence of giant, complex organizations." Today, bureaucratic organizations influence the day-to-day lives of most Americans—they gather taxes, regulate businesses, provide services, administer welfare, provide education, and on and on. These organizations are defined by their hierarchical structure in which the power of decision-making is allotted according to abstract rules that create impersonal scenarios. Bureaucracies have developed as a result of technological changes in the second half of the nineteenth century. Based on the premise that these structures had a stronger influence on modern America than any other single phenomenon, this book explores the public's response to the growth of the power and influence of bureaucracy from the years 1880 through 1930. What results is an examination of the social perception of bureaucracy and the development of bureaucratic culture.

Contents:

Pt. 1. Context and method. The large-scale organization in modern America

Research technique : content analysis described and debated

Pt. 2. First generation : a study in the sources of conflict. An uneasy equilibrium, 1879-1892

Crisis, 1893-1901

Pt. 3. Second generation : a study in the process of accommodation. The Progressive cycle, 1902-1914

War and the corporate culture, 1915-1919

Pt. 4. Third generation : a study in the anatomy of equilibrium. Continuity and change, 1920-1929

Toward a stable equilibrium, 1930-1940

Pt. 5. Conclusions, speculations, and afterword. The middle cultures and the organizational revolution

Notes:

Originally published in 1975

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-8018-1635-1

1-4214-3587-X

OCLC:

1122718870