Creating the corporate soul : the rise of public relations and corporate imagery in American big business / Roland Marchand. [electronic resource]

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Marchand, Roland.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Corporate image--United States--History.

Corporate image.

Corporations--United States--Public relations--History.

Corporations.

Big business--United States--History.

Big business.

Advertising--United States--History.

Advertising.

Corporations--Public relations--United States--History.

Corporate image--History--United States.

Corporations--Public relations--History--United States.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 461 p. ) ill. (some col.) ;

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c1998.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"Over the course of the twentieth century the popular perception of America's giant corporations has undergone an astonishing change. Condemned as dangerous leviathans in the century's first decades, by 1945 major corporations had become respected, even revered, institutions. Roland Marchand's book tells how large companies such as AT & T and U.S. Steel created their own "souls" in order to reassure consumers and politicians that their size and influence posed no threat to democracy or American values." "Marchand traces this important transformation in the culture of capitalism by offering a series of fascinating case studies of such corporate giants as General Motors, General Electric, Metropolitan Life Insurance, Du Pont Chemicals, and Ford Motors."--Jacket.

Contents:

Confessions and rebuttals : the plight of the soulless corporation

AT&T : the vision of a loved monopoly

Corporate morale in war and peace : advocacy, industrial statesmanship, and humanization

A "corporation consciousness" : General Motors, General Electric, and the Bruce Barton formula

To be an institution : the service ideal and the institutional style

The 1930s : save the system

The corporations come to the fair : the visit to the factory transformed

Little towns and big corporations : the wartime imagery of a nation united.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 369-440) and index.

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

ISBN:

0-520-92623-4

0-585-30120-4