Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-pkt8n Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-25T03:28:06.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Thomas J. Watson and the Business-Government Relationship, 1933–1956

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2015

David L. Stebenne
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The precise nature of the relationship between the American business community and the New Deal has been a lively topic of debate in recent years. This article looks at an important figure and firm in that relationship (Thomas J. Watson of IBM) to increase our understanding of it. This article focuses chronologically on the period from the early 1930s through the mid-1950s, when New-Deal-era public policy innovations were most influential. The overall picture that emerges from this study of the U.S. business-government relationship during those years is one of business accommodation of major changes in social conditions and public policies rather than a view of business as the primary leader of change.

Type
Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 2005 , pp. 45 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2005. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Books

Ambrose, Stephen. Eisenhower: Soldier, Genera! of the Army, President-Elect, 1890-1952. New York, 1983.Google Scholar
Belden, Thomas Graham, and Belden, Marva Robins. The Lengthening Shadow: The Life of Thomas J. Watson. Boston, 1962.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Irving. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933. Boston, 1960.Google Scholar
Blum, John Morton, ed. The Price of Vision: The Diary of Henry A. Wallace: 1942-1946. Boston, 1973.Google Scholar
Brinkley, Alan. The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War. New York, 1995.Google Scholar
Brody, David. Workers in Industria! America: Essays on the Twentieth-Century Struggle. New York, 1980.Google Scholar
Collins, Robert M. The Business Response to Keynes, 1929-1964. New York, 1981.Google Scholar
Cortada, James W. Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and Remington Rand and the Industry They Created, 1865-1956. Princeton, N.J., 1993.Google Scholar
Davis, Mike. Prisoners of the American Dream. London, 1986.Google Scholar
Dawley, Alan. Struggles for Justice: Socia! Responsibility and the Libera! State. Cambridge, Mass., 1992.Google Scholar
Dionne, E. J. Why Americans Hate Politics. New York, 1991.Google Scholar
Drew, Elizabeth. Politics and Money: The New Road to Corruption. New York, 1983.Google Scholar
Gordon, Colin. New Deals: Business, Labor, and Politics in America, 1920-1935. New York, 1994.Google Scholar
Harris, Howell. The Right to Manage: Industrial Relations Policies of American Business in the 1940s. Madison, Wis., 1982.Google Scholar
Heald, Morrell. The Social Responsibilities of Business: Company and Community, 1900-1960. Cleveland, Ohio, 1970.Google Scholar
Ickes, Harold L. The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes. New York, 1954.Google Scholar
Jezer, Marty. The Dark Ages: Life in the United States, 1945-1960. Boston, 1982.Google Scholar
Krooss, Herman E. Executive Opinion: What Business Leaders Said and Thought on Economic Issues, 1920s-1960s. Garden City, N.Y., 1970.Google Scholar
Leffler, Melvyn P. The Specter of Communism: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1917-1953. New York, 1994.Google Scholar
Lekachman, Robert. The Age of Keynes. New York, 1966.Google Scholar
Leuchtenburg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940. New York, 1963.Google Scholar
Lichtenstein, Nelson. Labor’s War at Home: The CIO in World War II. Cambridge Mass., 1982.Google Scholar
Lichtenstein, Nelson. The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor. New York, 1995.Google Scholar
Maier, Charles S. In Search of Stability: Explorations in Historical Political Economy. Cambridge, Mass., 1987.Google Scholar
Maier, Charles S. Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in France, Germany, and Italy in the Decade after World War I. Princeton, N.J., 1975.Google Scholar
Mason, Alpheus T. The Supreme Court from Taft to Burger. Baton Rouge, La., 1979.Google Scholar
Ridgeway, George L. Merchants of Peace: The History of the International Chamber of Commerce. Boston, 1959.Google Scholar
Rodgers, Daniel. Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age. Cambridge Mass., 1998.Google Scholar
Rodgers, William. Think: A Biography of the Watsons and IBM. New York, 1969.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. The Coming of the New Deal. Boston, 1958.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933. Boston, 1957.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. The Politics of Upheaval. Boston, 1960.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. Robert Kennedy and His Times. Boston, 1978.Google Scholar
Stebenne, David L. Arthur J. Goldberg: New Deal Liberal. New York, 1996.Google Scholar
Stueck, William. The Road to Confrontation: American Policy toward China and Korea, 1947-1950. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1981.Google Scholar
Swenson, Peter A. Capitalists against Markets: The Making of Labor Markets and Welfare States in the United States and Sweden. Oxford, U.K., 2002.Google Scholar
Tiffany, Paul A. The Decline of American Steel: How Management, Labor, and Government Went Wrong. New York, 1988.Google Scholar
Vogel, David. Kindred Strangers: The Uneasy Relationship between Politics and Business in America. Princeton, N.J., 1996.Google Scholar
Watson, Thomas J. Jr., and Petre, Peter. Father, Son & Co.: My Life at IBM and Beyond. New York, 1990.Google Scholar
Wiebe, Robert. Businessmen and Reform. Cambridge, Mass., 1962.Google Scholar

Articles and Essays

Bernstein, Barton J. “Election of 1952.” In History of American Presidential Elections, ed. Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. and Israel, Fred L.. 4 vols. New York, 1971, vol. 4, pp. 3224-32.Google Scholar
Brinkley, Alan. “The New Deal and the Idea of the State.” In The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980, ed. Fraser, Steve and Gerstle, Gary. Princeton, N.J., 1988, pp. 85–121.Google Scholar
Dawley, Alan. “Colin Gordon, New Deals: Business, Labor, and Politics in America, 1920-1935.” International Labor and Working-Class History 50 (Fall 1996): 219-21.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Thomas. “Industrial Conflict and the Coming of the New Deal: The Triumph of Multinational Liberalism in America.” In The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980, ed. Fraser, Steve and Gerstle, Gary. Princeton, N.J., 1988, pp. 3–31.Google Scholar
Fraser, Steve. “The Labor Question.” In The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980, ed. Fraser, Steve and Gerstle, Gary. Princeton, N.J., 1988, pp. 55–84.Google Scholar
Gordon, Colin. “Why No Corporatism in the United States? Business Disorganization and Its Consequences.” Business and Economic History 27 (Fall 1998): 29–46.Google Scholar
Griffith, Robert W. “Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Corporate Commonwealth.” American Historical Review 87 (Feb. 1982): 87–122.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Meg. “Pocketbook Politics: Democracy and the Market in Twentieth-Century America.” In The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political History, ed. Jacobs, Meg, Novak, William J., and Zelizer, Julian E.. Princeton, N.J., 2003, pp. 250-75.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Travis Beal. “Eisenhower Comes to Columbia.” Columbia Library Columns (Autumn 1997), 24–31.Google Scholar
Jacoby, Sanford M. “American Exceptionalism Revisited: The Importance of Management.” In Masters to Managers: Historical and Comparative Perspectives on American Employers, ed. Jacoby, Sanford M.. New York, 1991, pp. 173–200.Google Scholar
Manza, Jeff. “Political Sociological Models of the U.S. New Deal.” Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000): 297–322.Google Scholar
Reagan, Patrick. “From Depression to Depression: Hooverian National Planning, 1921-1933.” Mid-America 70 (Jan. 1988): 35–60.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. “Political Response to Capitalist Crisis: Neo-Marxist Theories of the State and the Case of the New Deal.” Politics and Society 10 (Spring 1980): 157–201.Google Scholar

Magazines

New York Times Magazine. 14 Nov. 1993.Google Scholar

Unpublished Works

Engelbourg, Saul. “International Business Machines: A Business History.” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1954.Google Scholar
Hill, William S. Jr. “The Business Community and National Defense, 1943-50.” Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1979.Google Scholar
Wagnon, William O. “The Politics of Economic Growth: The Truman Administration and the 1949 Recession.” Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri, 1970.Google Scholar

Archival Sources

Winthrop Aldrich Papers, Baker Library, Harvard Business School, Boston, Mass.Google Scholar
Bingham, Robert W. Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Memoir, James Birkenstock, Oral History Collection, Charles Babbage Institute, Minneapolis, Minn.Google Scholar
Memoir, Spruille Braden, Oral History Collection, Columbia University, New York, N.Y. Google Scholar
Clayton, William L. Papers, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Mo.Google Scholar
Eisenhower, Dwight D. Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kans.Google Scholar
Memoir, Eli Ginzberg, Oral History Collection, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kans.Google Scholar
W. Averell Harriman Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Cuthbert Hurd Memoirs, Oral History Collection, Charles Babbage Institute, Minneapolis, Minn.Google Scholar
National Industrial Conference Board Papers, Hagley Library, Wilmington, Del.Google Scholar
Memoir, Frances Perkins, Oral History Collection, Columbia University, New York, N.Y. Google Scholar
Roosevelt, Franklin D. Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y. Google Scholar
Alfred Schindler Papers, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Mo.Google Scholar
Schulz, Robert L. Memoir, Oral History Collection, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kans.Google Scholar
U. S. Commerce Department Papers, National Archives-II, College Park, Md.Google Scholar
Wernher von Braun Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Watson, Thomas J. Jr. Memoir, IBM Oral Histories, Hagley Library, Wilmington, Del.Google Scholar
Watson, Thomas J. Jr. Memoir, Oral History Collection, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Mass.Google Scholar