The Age of Big Business: A Chronicle of the Captains of Industry

Chronicles of America #39

by Burton J. Hendrick

Burton Jesse Hendrick (1870-1949) was born in New Haven, Connecticut. While attending Yale University, Hendrick was editor of both The Yale Courant and The Yale Literary Magazine. After completing his degree work, Hendrick became editor of the New Haven Morning News. Hendrick went to work in 1913 at Walter Hines Page's World's Work magazine as an associate editor. In 1919, Hendrick began writing biographies, when he was the ghostwriter of Ambassador Morgenthau's Story for Henry Morgenthau. He won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page and again in 1929 for The Training of an American. Hendrick wrote The Age of Big Business in 1921, using a series of individual biographies, as an enthusiastic look at the foundation of the corporation in America and the rapid rise of the United States as a world power. His other works include: The Jews in America (1923), Biography of William Crawford Gorgas (1924), The Life of Andrew Carnegie (1932), The Lees of Virginia: Biography of a Family (1935) and Lincoln's War Cabinet (1946).

Genres: History, Business

196 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1919

About the author

Associate editor of World's Work 1913-27. Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner: in American History for the co-written A Victory at Sea (1920) and in American Biography for the first volume of The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page (1922) and The Training of an American (1928).

Reviews

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Age of Big Business" is a history of how businesses changed from small, competing businesses to large corporations that controlled major portions of or all of an industry. Since the book was written in 1919, it was fascinating to see how the various industries have changed from post-Civil-War to post-World-War-I to now. For example, I didn't realize that America once exported oil.

Chapter One compared 1865 to 1919 in terms of technology and business. Chapter Two gave an overview history of the discovery and business of oil and described how "the first great American Trust," the Standard Oil Company, was formed. Chapter Three gave an overview history of the major development and business of steel and how Carnegie Steel Company was formed. Chapter Four gave an overview history of the invention, development, and business of telephones and how the American Telephone & Telegraph Company was formed. Chapter Five gave an overview history of the development of public utilities. Chapter Six gave an overview history of the development and business of agricultural machinery and talked about McCormick's inventions and his three main competitors in that business. Chapter Seven gave an overview history of the invention, development, and business of the automobile and talked about Henry Ford.

Overall, the book was easy to read and interesting. I'd recommend this book to those who enjoy reading about technology and business history.