American Business History Assignment -
Part 1 -
Briefly identify ALL of the following pairs:
a) U-form; M-form
b) Gunpowder Trade Association; Petroleum Producers Union
c) Highland Park; Willow Run
d) S. C. T. Dodd; H. O. Havemeyer
e) The Erie Wars; The Cleveland Massacre
Part II -
In no more than a page each, answer 3 of the following:
a) What is the 'principal-agent problem'? Provide two examples of its relevance to 19th century American businesses. How and how far was it resolved in these cases?
b) What is the 'Rule of Reason?' How, and under what circumstances, did it develop?
c) How did public attitudes towards Big Business evolve between 1880 and 1914? Did it evolve consistently across different segments of the population?
d) Why 'five dollars a day'?
Part III -
Write an intelligent, structured and reasoned essay addressing one of the following three questions:
I. 'The history of railroad regulation in the post bellum period might legitimately be characterized as the battle over the legality of the tapering principle.' What is the tapering principle? Why was it so important to railroad companies, their customers, and their critics? What does its legislative history between 1870 and 1920 tell us about the evolving structures of regulation, at both state and federal levels?
2. 'While the nineteenth century industrial enterprise focused almost exclusively on the management of costs, manufacturing firms in the twentieth century turned increasingly towards demand management.' Why did this take place? What mechanisms of demand management were developed between 1900 and 1940? To what extent did this reduce the emphasis on supply-side management in the organization and operation of industrial enterprises?
3. 'The rise of the oligopoly between 1880 and 1920 was motivated less by the desire for bigness per se than by the need to control market share in a dynamic marketplace.' Why was there such a need in many American industries? Why not in others? (Give examples in both cases). What mechanisms were employed by firms in their desire to control market share? How successful were they?