DOCSLIB.ORG

Matthew Josephson, Robber Barons

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Matthew Josephson, Robber Barons Matthew Josephson, Robber Barons Robber Barons THE Robber Barons Foreword 1962 Foreword THE GREAT AMERICAN CAPITALISTS ● National Scene 1861-1901 ● Young Man Dream by ● Empire Builders ● Winning West Matthew Josephson ● Captains Industry There are never wanting some persons ● Fight for Erie of violent and undertaking natures, ● Grandeurs who, so they may have power and Empire business, will take it at any cost. ● Rising from Ruins FRANCIS BACON ● Mephistopheles ● Caesar Borgia HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY ● Giants of NEW YORK, 1934 Northwest ● Certain Industrialists ● Morgan and Railways ● Robber Barons ● Again Robber Barons ● Great Trusts ● Empire of Morgan ● Battle of Giants http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/josephson/josephson_index.html5.4.2006 10:22:57 Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons FOREWORD THIS book attempts the history of a small class of men who arose at the time of our Civil War and suddenly swept into power. The members of this new ruling class were generally, and quite aptly, called “barons,” “kings,” “empire-builders,” or even “emperors.” They were aggressive men, as were the first feudal barons ; sometimes they were lawless ; in important crises, nearly all of them tended to act without those established moral principles which fixed more or less the conduct of the common people of the community. At the same time, it has been noted, many of them showed volcanic energy and qualities of courage which, under another economic clime, might have fitted them for immensely useful social constructions, and rendered them glorious rather than hateful to their people. These men were robber barons as were their medieval counterparts, the dominating figures of an aggressive economic age. In any case, “to draw the American scene as it unfolded between the Civil War and the end of the nineteenth century, without these dominant figures looming in the foreground, is to make a shadow picture,” as the Beards have written. “To put in the presidents and the leading senators . and leave out such prime actors in the drama is to show scant respect for the substance of life. Why, moreover, should anyone be interested in the beginnings of the House of a Howard or Burleigh and indifferent to the rise of a House of Morgan or Rockefeller ?” When the group of men who form the subject of this history arrived upon the scene, the United States was a mercantile-agrarian democracy. When they departed or retired from active life, it was something else : a unified industrial society, the effective economic, control of which was lodged in the hands of a hierarchy. In short, these men more or less knowingly played the leading rôles in an age of industrial revolution. Even their quarrels, intrigues and misadventures (too often treated as merely diverting or picturesque) are part of the mechanism of our history. Under their hands the renovation of our economic life proceeded relentlessly : large-scale production replaced the scattered, decentralized mode of production ; industrial enterprises became more concentrated, more “efficient” technically, and essentially “coöperative,” where they had been purely individualistic and lamentably wasteful. But all this revolutionizing effort is branded with the motive of private gain on the part of the new captains of industry. To organize and exploit the resources of a nation upon a gigantic scale, to regiment its farmers and workers into harmonious corps of producers, and to do this only in the name of an uncontrolled appetite for private profit—here surely is the great inherent contradiction whence so much disaster, outrage and misery has flowed. http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/josephson/fw.html (1 of 2)5.4.2006 10:23:00 Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons This paradox, the germ of many future plagues, illuminates the story of industrial concentration in the United States, which is here pursued through the study of the major financial events and personalities between 1861 and 1901. Our inquiry is also directed incidentally to establishing the manner in which the country’s natural resources and arteries of trade were preëmpted, its political institutions conquered, its social philosophy turned into a pecuniary one, by the new barons. Who were the men who seized supreme economic power and “built up the country” while enriching themselves ? How did they build, how did they use their power, and how did they have it sanctified by tribunes and magistrates, churches and schools ? How much did they further progress ? And how much catastrophe ? Their deeds, in the last analysis, were determined by economic forces, we must remember. Hence we have tried in so far as possible to write of them without anger, to paint them as no more “wicked” than they or their contemporaries actually were, though we are aware now of living in another moral climate and in the midst of a new generation which carries the vast and onerous social responsibilities bequeathed to it. M. J. http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/josephson/fw.html (2 of 2)5.4.2006 10:23:00 Matthew Josephson, Robber Barons F O R E W O R D : 1962 The Robber Barons was written during that Great Slump which, beginning in 1929, reached its lowest depths in 1929-1933. The New Era of Prosperity had ended ; the captains and the kings of industry were, some of them, departing ; and we were asking ourselves insistently how we, as a nation, had got into such a pass ? In the twenties I had worked for a few years in Wall Street and learned a few things about the “Men Who Rule America,” according to James W. Gerard. Some time later, after 1929, I did a number of biographical studies of them for a well-known satirical magazine. Yet, what I gathered from these experts and from readings in our financial history led me to consider the money men of the twenties as mere epigones compared with their mighty forebears, the economic dinosaurians who flourished during the latter part of the nineteenth century and gave a special character to their period, so aptly named by Mark Twain the Gilded Age. Thus the idea was conceived of writing a history of the earlier generation of capitalists who had put their stamp so deeply upon our business society. It was my purpose to give an account not only of their lives and their manners and morals, but also of how they got the money. At that season in 1933 when money itself was disappearing (all the banks having been closed for a while) it seemed as if this whole breed might disappear, or perhaps be reformed beyond recognition. Would such fearsome bulls and bears ever again range over the market place as anarchs of all they surveyed ? Then, the old barons had such great panache !—with their private “palace cars” on rails, their imitation-Renaissance castles, and their pleasure yachts, one of which J.P. Morgan defiantly christened The Corsair. Those “kings” of railways, those monopolists of iron or pork, moreover, founded dynastic families which Charles A. Beard once likened to the old ducal families of feudal England. The expanding America of the post-Civil War era was the paradise of freebooting capitalists, untrammeled and untaxed. They demanded always a free hand in the market, promising that in enriching themselves they would “build up the country” for the benefit of all the people. The Americans of those days had no time for the arts of civilization, as Henry Adams observed, but turned as with a single impulse to the huge tasks of developing their half-empty continent, spanning it with a railway net, and constructing the heavy industrial plant requisite for the new scale of power. All of this was achieved in a climactic quarter-century of our industrial revolution, with much haste, much public scandal, and without plan—under the leadership of a small class of parvenus. These were the aggressive and acquisitive types (much censured by our classic writers and historians) who believed they constituted “the survival of the fittest.” Theirs is the story of a well-nigh irresistible drive toward monopoly, which the plain citizens, Congresses, and Presidents opposed—seemingly in vain. The captains or barons http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/josephson/62_fw.html (1 of 3)5.4.2006 10:23:02 Matthew Josephson, Robber Barons of industry were, nevertheless, agents of progress—in the words of their contemporary Marx ; under their command our mainly agrarian-mercantile society was swiftly transformed in a mass-production economy. I have tried to give a candid description their most ruthless actions, their conspiracies and their plunderings ; for they accepted no ethics of business conduct ; but I have also spoken their constructive virtues, and sought to picture them as human beings living in their time. In the crisis years of the 1930s economic intervention by the Federal Government was employed on an unprecedented scale, not only in the interests of human welfare, but also to regulate and control the masters of capital who, by their excesses and bad leadership, had helped to bring about the debacle of 1929-1933. At that period a critical literature also arose (of which the present work may perhaps be taken as an example), providing background material to the men of the New Deal. Of late years, however, a group of academic historians have constituted themselves what may be called a revisionist school, which reacts against the critical spirit of the 1930s. They reject the idea that our nineteenth-century barons-of-the-bags may have been inspired by the same motives animating the ancient barons-of-the-crags—who, by force of arms, instead of corporate combinations, monopolized strategic valley roads or mountain passes through which commerce flowed. To the revisionists of our history our old-time moneylords “were not robber barons but architects of material progress,” and, in some wise, “saviors” of our country.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Economic & Business History
    This article was published online on April 26, 2019 Final version June 30, 2019 Essays in ECONOMIC & BUSINESS HISTORY The Journal of the Economic &Business History Society Editors Mark Billings, University of Exeter Daniel Giedeman, Grand Valley State University Copyright © 2019, The Economic and Business History Society. This is an open access journal. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ISSN 0896-226X LCC 79-91616 HC12.E2 Statistics and London Underground Railways STATISTICS: SPUR TO PRODUCTIVITY OR PUBLICITY STUNT? LONDON UNDERGROUND RAILWAYS 1913-32 James Fowler The York Management School University of York [email protected] A rapid deterioration in British railways’ financial results around 1900 sparked an intense debate about how productivity might be improved. As a comparison it was noted that US railways were much more productive and employed far more detailed statistical accounting methods, though the connection between the two was disputed and the distinction between the managerial and regulatory role of US statistical collection was unexplored. Nevertheless, The Railway Companies (Accounts and Returns) Act was passed in 1911 and from 1913 a continuous, detailed and standardized set of data was produced by all rail companies including the London underground. However, this did not prevent their eventual amalgamation into the London Passenger Transport Board in 1933 on grounds of efficiency. This article finds that despite the hopes of the protagonists, collecting more detailed statistics did not improve productivity and suggests that their primary use was in generating publicity to influence shareholders’, passengers’ and workers’ perceptions.
    [Show full text]
  • DISENCHANTING the AMERICAN DREAM the Interplay of Spatial and Social Mobility Through Narrative Dynamic in Fitzgerald, Steinbeck and Wolfe
    DISENCHANTING THE AMERICAN DREAM The Interplay of Spatial and Social Mobility through Narrative Dynamic in Fitzgerald, Steinbeck and Wolfe Cleo Beth Theron Thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University Supervisor: Dr. Dawid de Villiers March 2013 Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za ii DECLARATION By submitting this thesis/dissertation electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification. March 2013 Copyright © Stellenbosch University All rights reserved Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za iii ABSTRACT This thesis focuses on the long-established interrelation between spatial and social mobility in the American context, the result of the westward movement across the frontier that was seen as being attended by the promise of improving one’s social standing – the essence of the American Dream. The focal texts are F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925), John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again (1940), journey narratives that all present geographical relocation as necessary for social progression. In discussing the novels’ depictions of the itinerant characters’ attempts at attaining the American Dream, my study draws on Peter Brooks’s theory of narrative dynamic, a theory which contends that the plotting operation is a dynamic one that propels the narrative forward toward resolution, eliciting meanings through temporal progression.
    [Show full text]
  • The Origins of Political Electricity: Market Failure Or Political Opportunism?
    THE ORIGINS OF POLITICAL ELECTRICITY: MARKET FAILURE OR POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM? Robert L. Bradley, Jr. * The current debate over restructuring the electric industry, which includes such issues as displacing the regulatory covenant, repealing the Public Utility Holding Company Act, and privatizing municipal power sys- tems, the Rural Utilities Service (formerly Rural Electrification Adminis- tration), and federally owned power systems, makes a look back at the origins of political electricity relevant. The thesis of this essay, that govern- ment intervention into electric markets was not the result of market fail- ures but, rather, represented business and political opportunism, suggests that the intellectual and empirical case for market-oriented reform is even stronger than would otherwise be the case. A major theme of applied political economy is the dynamics of gov- ernment intervention in the marketplace. Because interventions are often related, an analytical distinction can be made between basis point and cumulative intervention.' Basis point regulation, taxation, or subsidization is the opening government intervention into a market setting; cumulative intervention is further regulation, taxation, or subsidization that is attribu- table to the effects of prior (basis point or cumulative) intervention. The origins and maturation of political electricity, as will be seen, are interpret- able through this theoretical framework. The commercialization of electric lighting in the United States, suc- cessfully competing against gas lamps, kerosene lamps, and wax candles, required affordable generation, long distance transmission capabilities, and satisfactory illumination equipment. All three converged beginning in the 1870s, the most remembered being Thomas Edison's invention of the incandescent electric light bulb in 1878. - * Robert L.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bourgeois(Ie) As Concept and Reality
    Immanuel Wallerstein The Bourgeois(ie) as Concept and Reality Définir le bourgeois? Nous ne serions pas d’accord. Ernest Labrousse (1955) In the mythology of the modern world, the quintessential protagonist is the bourgeois.* Hero for some, villain for others, the inspiration or lure for most, he has been the shaper of the present and the destroyer of the past. In English, we tend to avoid the term ‘bourgeois’, preferring in general the locution ‘middle class’ (or classes). It is a small irony that despite the vaunted individualism of Anglo-Saxon thought, there is no convenient singular form for ‘middle class(es)’. We are told by the linguists that the term appeared for the first time in Latin form, burgensis, in 1007 and is recorded in French as burgeis as of 1100. It originally designated the inhabitant of a bourg, an urban area, but an inhabitant who was ‘free’.1 Free, however, from what? Free from the obligations that were the social cement and the economic nexus of a feudal system. The bourgeois was not a peasant or serf, but he was also not a noble. 91 Thus, from the start there was both an anomaly and an ambiguity. The anomaly was that there was no logical place for the bourgeois in the hierarchical structure and value-system of feudalism with its classical three orders, themselves only becoming crystallized at the very moment that the concept of ‘bourgeois’ was being born.2 And the ambiguity was that bourgeois was then (as it remains today) both a term of honour and a term of scorn, a compliment and a reproach.
    [Show full text]
  • An Arendtian Reading of Prison Resistance by Lana Allen Thesis
    An Arendtian Reading of Prison Resistance By Lana Allen Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in Philosophy December, 2014 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Kelly Oliver, Ph.D. Lisa Guenther, Ph.D. Introduction In recent years, the federal prison population has soared—according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Bureau of Prison’s (BOP) rates of incarceration increased by 400 percent from 1980 to 2012, and by about 50 percent alone since the year 2000 (GAO, 2012; 1). These numbers are even more disturbing when one considers that men and women of color systematically receive harsher and longer sentences for crimes than do their white counterparts and are three times more likely to be profiled by police; although blacks and Hispanics constitute only 30 percent of the American population, they account for 60% of the American prison population (Kerby, 2013). For Angela Y. Davis (2003), these gross disparities should be understood as a form of racialized exile—a place to lock away “ ‘criminals’ and ‘evildoers’…fantasized as people of color” (Davis 16). By way of the prison, an “ideologicial” mechanism of control, the privileged are rid of social “undesirables”—“relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real issues afflicting those communities from which prisoners are drawn in such disproportionate numbers” (Davis Ibid.) Ideological public attitudes, in addition to other factors such as harsh and unrealistic sentencing (especially drug sentencing) and private entities that profit from prisons, contribute to recidivism rates and keep prison populations high.
    [Show full text]
  • Social-Class-Hidden-Rules-Quiz.Pdf
    Action 2 Hidden Rules Could You Survive in Poverty? Put a check by each item you know how to do. ___ 1. I know which churches and sections of town have the best rummage sales. ___ 2. I know when Walmart, drug stores, and convenience stores throw away over-the-counter medicine with expired dates. ___ 3. I know which pawn shops sell DVDs for $1. ___ 4. In my town in criminal courts, I know which judges are lenient, which ones are crooked, and which ones are fair. ___ 5. I know how to physically fi ght and defend myself physically. ___ 6. I know how to get a gun, even if I have a police record. ___ 7. I know how to keep my clothes from being stolen at the Laundromat. ___ 8. I know what problems to look for in a used car. ___ 9. I/my family use a payday lender. ___ 10. I know how to live without electricity and a phone. ___ 11. I know how to use a knife as scissors. ___ 12. I can entertain a group of friends with my personality and my stories. ___ 13. I know which churches will provide assistance with food or shelter. Students Educate 10 Actions to ___ 14. I know how to move in half a day. ___ 15. I know how to get and use food stamps or an electronic card for benefi ts. ___ 16. I know where the free medical clinics are. ___ 17. I am very good at trading and bartering.
    [Show full text]
  • The Northern Clergy and the Pilgrimage of Grace Keith Altazin Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected]
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2011 The northern clergy and the Pilgrimage of Grace Keith Altazin Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Altazin, Keith, "The northern clergy and the Pilgrimage of Grace" (2011). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 543. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/543 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE NORTHERN CLERGY AND THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Keith Altazin B.S., Louisiana State University, 1978 M.A., Southeastern Louisiana University, 2003 August 2011 Acknowledgments The completion of this dissertation would have not been possible without the support, assistance, and encouragement of a number of people. First, I would like to thank the members of my doctoral committee who offered me great encouragement and support throughout the six years I spent in the graduate program. I would especially like thank Dr. Victor Stater for his support throughout my journey in the PhD program at LSU. From the moment I approached him with my ideas on the Pilgrimage of Grace, he has offered extremely helpful advice and constructive criticism.
    [Show full text]
  • The Education and Training of Gentry Sons in Early Modern England
    Working Papers No. 128/09 The Education and Training of Gentry Sons in Early-Modern England . Patrick Wallis & Cliff Webb © Patrick Wallis, LSE Cliff Webb, Independent Scholar November 2009 Department of Economic History London School of Economics Houghton Street London, WC2A 2AE Tel: +44 (0) 20 7955 7860 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7955 7730 The Education and Training of Gentry Sons in Early-Modern England* Patrick Wallis and Cliff Webb Abstract: This paper explores the education and training received by the sons of the English gentry in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Using information from the herald’s visitations of four counties, it offers quantitative evidence of the proportion of gentry children who entered university, spent time at one of the inns of court or became apprentices in London. We show that over the period there was little change in the educational destinations of gentry sons: university and apprenticeship absorbed roughly equal proportions; the inns of court slightly less. We also show that a son’s position in the birth order had a very strong influence on the kind of education he received. Eldest sons were much more likely to go to university or one of the inns of court. Younger sons were much more likely to become apprentices in London – as we show, trade clearly was an acceptable career for the gentry. There is little sign of a change in the status of different educational choices in this period. Our findings confirm some traditional assumptions about the importance of birth order and normative expectations in determining the life-courses of gentry children in the seventeenth century: historians should not over-state the autonomy of elite children in deciding their futures.
    [Show full text]
  • Lillie Enclave” Fulham
    Draft London Plan Consultation: ref. Chapter 7 Heritage - Neglect & Destruction February 2018 The “Lillie Enclave” Fulham Within a quarter mile radius of Lillie Bridge, by West Brompton station is A microcosm of the Industrial Revolution - A part of London’s forgotten heritage The enclave runs from Lillie Bridge along Lillie Road to North End Road and includes Empress (formerly Richmond) Place to the north and Seagrave Road, SW6 to the south. The roads were named by the Fulham Board of Works in 1867 Between the Grade 1 Listed Brompton Cemetery in RBKC and its Conservation area in Earl’s Court and the Grade 2 Listed Hermitage Cottages in H&F lies an astonishing industrial and vernacular area of heritage that English Heritage deems ripe for obliteration. See for example, COIL: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1439963. (Former HQ of Piccadilly Line) The area has significantly contributed to: o Rail and motor Transport o Building crafts o Engineering o Rail, automotive and aero industries o Brewing and distilling o Art o Sport, Trade exhibitions and mass entertainment o Health services o Green corridor © Lillie Road Residents Association, February1 2018 Draft London Plan Consultation: ref. Chapter 7 Heritage - Neglect & Destruction February 2018 Stanford’s 1864 Library map: The Lillie Enclave is south and west of point “47” © Lillie Road Residents Association, February2 2018 Draft London Plan Consultation: ref. Chapter 7 Heritage - Neglect & Destruction February 2018 Movers and Shakers Here are some of the people and companies who left their mark on just three streets laid out by Sir John Lillie in the old County of Middlesex on the border of Fulham and Kensington parishes Samuel Foote (1722-1777), Cornishman dramatist, actor, theatre manager lived in ‘The Hermitage’.
    [Show full text]
  • Who Rules Cincinnati?
    Who Rules Cincinnati? A Study of Cincinnati’s Economic Power Structure And its Impact on Communities and People By Dan La Botz Cincinnati Studies www.CincinnatiStudies.org Published by Cincinnati Studies www.CincinnatiStudies.org Copyright ©2008 by Dan La Botz Table of Contents Summary......................................................................................................... 1 Preface.............................................................................................................4 Introduction.................................................................................................... 7 Part I - Corporate Power in Cincinnati.........................................................15 Part II - Corporate Power in the Media and Politics.....................................44 Part III - Corporate Power, Social Classes, and Communities......................55 Part IV - Cincinnati: One Hundred Years of Corporate Power.....................69 Discussion..................................................................................................... 85 Bibliography.................................................................................................. 91 Acknowledgments.........................................................................................96 About the Author...........................................................................................97 Summary This investigation into Cincinnati’s power structure finds that a handful of national and multinational corporations dominate
    [Show full text]
  • Consumerism and High Society Values in Edith Wharton's The
    Consumerism and High Society Values in Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country Vilma Lauhakangas Master’s Thesis Master’s Programme in English Studies Faculty of Arts University of Helsinki April 2020 Tiedekunta — Fakultet — Faculty Koulutusohjelma — Utbildningsprogram — Degree Programme Humanistinen tiedekunta Englannin kielen ja kirjallisuuden maisteriohjelma Opintosuunta — Studieinriktning — Study Track englantilainen filologia Tekijä — Författare — Author Vilma Lauhakangas Työn nimi — Arbetets titel — Title Consumerism and High Society Values in Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country Työn laji — Arbetets art — Aika — Datum — Month and Sivumäärä— Sidoantal — Number of pages Level year pro gradu -tutkielma huhtikuu 2020 63 Tiivistelmä — Referat — Abstract Käsittelen tutkielmassani Edith Whartonin teosta The Custom of the Country vuodelta 1913. Wayne C. Boothin (1961) teoriaa mukaillen pohdin oletetun kirjailijan eli ’implied authorin’ henkilöllisyyttä ja mahdollisen omaelämänkerrallisuuden vaikutusta tekstin tulkintaan. Lähden näkemyksestä, että oletettu kirjailija on Wharton, ja arvioin tätä näkökulmaa analyysin eri vaiheissa. Varsinainen tutkimuskysymykseni koskee sitä, millainen viesti teoksesta välittyy 1900-luvun alun muuttuvasta maailmasta. Esitän Whartonin käyttäneen retorisia keinoja ja erilaisia kerronnan muotoja tuodakseen teoksessaan esiin kiihtyvän kulutusmyönteisyyden, jopa ahneuden, kasvun. Tutkin sitä, miten kasvavan keskiluokan uusrikkaat ja heidän kantamansa arvot kirjan mukaan horjuttavat sekä newyorkilaisen että
    [Show full text]
  • Melissa S. Fisher WALL STREET WOMEN
    Wall Street Women Melissa S. Fisher WALL STREET WOMEN Melissa S. Fisher Duke University Press Durham and London 2012 ∫ 2012 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper $ Designed by C. H. Westmoreland Typeset in Arno Pro by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. For my Bubbe, Rebecca Saidikoff Oshiver, and in the memory of my grandmother Esther Oshiver Fisher and my grandfather Mitchell Salem Fisher CONTENTS acknowledgments ix introduction Wall Street Women 1 1. Beginnings 27 2. Careers, Networks, and Mentors 66 3. Gendered Discourses of Finance 95 4. Women’s Politics and State-Market Feminism 120 5. Life after Wall Street 136 6. Market Feminism, Feminizing Markets, and the Financial Crisis 155 notes 175 bibliography 201 index 217 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A commitment to gender equality first brought about this book’s journey. My interest in understanding the transformations in women’s experiences in male-dominated professions began when I was a child in the seventies, listening to my grandmother tell me stories about her own experiences as one of the only women at the University of Penn- sylvania Law School in the twenties. I also remember hearing my mother, as I grew up, speaking about women’s rights, as well as visiting my father and grandfather at their law office in midtown Manhattan: there, while still in elementary school, I spoke to the sole female lawyer in the firm about her career. My interests in women and gender studies only grew during my time as an undergraduate at Barnard College.
    [Show full text]