An analysis of the aircraft industry's public relations campaign suggests that individuals' thoughts and feelings about airplanes and atomic weapons, domestic politics, and international events had greater influence on public opinion and political action than the PR program. However, the industry's public relations program did bring together many groups interested in air power. By linking these groups and capitalizing on the domestic and international situation, the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton of New York helped to create a climate in which air power was an acceptable solution to national defense and budgetary problems.

In recent years, business historians have expressed increasing interest in the development and evolution of corporate cultures. This study carries forward this body of scholarship by exploring a fundamental point of tension in the construction of corporate cultures—the meaning and demands of salaried employment. In a period in which the workings of corporations were uncertain and rapidly evolving, leaders sought to define the meaning and duties of corporate employment in varied but always expansive terms. Corporations wanted employees to act like limited partners, or stakeholders. Whatever the specific tasks of their jobs, the ideal employee was expected to be salesperson, ambassador to the community, and political activist on die firm's behalf. This article probes the ways in which leaders of emerging corporations in Los Angeles struggled to persuade salaried employees to act with such a sense of ownership in the firm.

The modern corporation arose out of the trusts, mergers and holding companies of the late 19th century, an evolution that generated volatile political reactions. Though economists and business historians have analyzed the rise of the corporate form, they have neglected a second, related problem: Did attacks on the modern corporation depress business activity, as critics of Theodore Roosevelt and Howard Taft claimed? This paper has three aims. First, it covers the relevant analytical issues, including the effects of policy uncertainty on business investment. Second, it reviews the history of shifting governmental policy in the light of its possible economic effects. Finally, it examines die statistical link between antitrust enforcement and business activity for the years 1891–1914. Antitrust case filings against large firms coincided with business downturns, while filings against small firms did not. These findings provide supporting evidence though not decisive proof for the charge that trust-busting hurt business activity.