{"product_id":"2940013822245","title":"THE AGE OF BIG BUSINESS, A CHRONICLE OF THE CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY","description":"CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e     I.   INDUSTRIAL AMERICA AT THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR\u003cbr\u003e     II.  THE FIRST GREAT AMERICAN TRUST\u003cbr\u003e     III. THE EPIC OF STEEL\u003cbr\u003e     IV.  THE TELEPHONE: AMERICA'S MOST POETICAL ACHIEVEMENT\u003cbr\u003e     V.   THE DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC UTILITIES\u003cbr\u003e     VI.  MAKING THE WORLD'S AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY\u003cbr\u003e     VII. THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF THE AUTOMOBILE\u003cbr\u003e          BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE AGE OF BIG BUSINESS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I. INDUSTRIAL AMERICA AT THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA comprehensive survey of the United States, at the end of the Civil\u003cbr\u003eWar, would reveal a state of society which bears little resemblance to\u003cbr\u003ethat of today. Almost all those commonplace fundamentals of existence,\u003cbr\u003ethe things that contribute to our bodily comfort while they vex us with\u003cbr\u003eeconomic and political problems, had not yet made their appearance.\u003cbr\u003eThe America of Civil War days was a country without transcontinental\u003cbr\u003erailroads, without telephones, without European cables, or wireless\u003cbr\u003estations, or automobiles, or electric lights, or sky-scrapers, or\u003cbr\u003emillion-dollar hotels, or trolley cars, or a thousand other contrivances\u003cbr\u003ethat today supply the conveniences and comforts of what we call our\u003cbr\u003eAmerican civilization. The cities of that period, with their unsewered\u003cbr\u003eand unpaved streets, their dingy, flickering gaslights, their ambling\u003cbr\u003ehorse-cars, and their hideous slums, seemed appropriate settings for\u003cbr\u003ethe unformed social life and the rough-and-ready political methods of\u003cbr\u003eAmerican democracy. The railroads, with their fragile iron rails, their\u003cbr\u003elittle wheezy locomotives, their wooden bridges, their unheated coaches,\u003cbr\u003eand their kerosene lamps, fairly typified the prevailing frontier\u003cbr\u003ebusiness and economic organization. But only by talking with the\u003cbr\u003ebusiness leaders of that time could we have understood the changes that\u003cbr\u003ehave taken place in fifty years. For the most part we speak a business\u003cbr\u003elanguage which our fathers and grandfathers would not have comprehended.\u003cbr\u003eThe word \"trust\" had not become a part of their vocabulary; \"restraint\u003cbr\u003eof trade\" was a phrase which only the antiquarian lawyer could\u003cbr\u003ehave interpreted; \"interlocking directorates,\" \"holding companies,\"\u003cbr\u003e\"subsidiaries,\" \"underwriting syndicates,\" and \"community of\u003cbr\u003einterest\"--all this jargon of modern business would have signified\u003cbr\u003enothing to our immediate ancestors. Our nation of 1865 was a nation of\u003cbr\u003efarmers, city artisans, and industrious, independent business men, and\u003cbr\u003esmall-scale manufacturers. Millionaires, though they were not unknown,\u003cbr\u003edid not swarm all over the land. Luxury, though it had made great\u003cbr\u003eprogress in the latter years of the war, had not become the American\u003cbr\u003estandard of well-being. The industrial story of the United States in\u003cbr\u003ethe last fifty years is the story of the most amazing economic\u003cbr\u003etransformation that the world has ever known; a change which is fitly\u003cbr\u003etypified in the evolution of the independent oil driller of western\u003cbr\u003ePennsylvania into the Standard Oil Company, and of the ancient open\u003cbr\u003eair forge on the banks of the Allegheny into the United States Steel\u003cbr\u003eCorporation.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070379540720,"sku":"2940013822245","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013822245_p0.jpg?v=1763595167","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013822245","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}