The 1900s: Business and the Economy: People in the News

THE 1900s: BUSINESS AND THE ECONOMY: PEOPLE IN THE NEWS

William Crapo Durant chartered the General Motors

Company in 1908. It acquired four motor vehicle firms—Buick, Cadillac, Oakland (later Pontiac), and Oldsmobile—and several parts manufacturers. Durant's bankers told him that Henry Ford's company was not worth the $8 million in cash that Ford demanded, so Ford did not join.

Harvey Samuel Firestone organized the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in 1900, joining a group that controlled a "crosswire" patent for solid tires. A large order from the Ford Motor Company in 1906 marked the beginning of a long and important business relationship between the companies and led to a personal friendship between the two owners.

In 1903 the Harley-Davidson motorcycle was introduced by Milwaukee draftsman William Harley, pattern maker Arthur Davidson, mechanic Walter Davidson, and toolmaker William Davidson. Harley-Davidson produced fifty motorcycles in 1906, incorporated in 1907, and by 1917 produced eighteen thousand motorcycles to become the leading U.S. producer.

In 1903 Milton Snaveley Hershey began construction of a new plant in Derry Church, Pennsylvania, for a chocolate factory. Hershey's products dominated the chocolate candy and beverage industry by making milk chocolate affordable for the middle class.

Edward Francis Hutton, a New York stockbroker, founded E. F. Hutton and Company in 1904. His firm was the first to serve California by wire service.

Will Keith Kellogg, backed by Charles D. Balin, founded the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1905. Its corn flakes cartons carried the legend: "None Genuine Without the Signature—W. K. Kellogg," in simulated script. The new company began production at the rate of thirty-three cases a day; by 1909 more than one million cases were being sold a year.

Cyrus Hall McCormickJr., along with William Deering and other leaders of the agricultural implement industry, persuaded J. P. Morgan and Company to underwrite the International Harvester Company in 1902.

The new company controlled about 85 percent of the American harvester and reaper market.

John Mitchell Jr., a black publisher and banker, helped found the Mechanic's Savings Bank in 1902. He abdicated his political leadership in the black community and threw his support to his white associates. He then devoted himself solely to business activities, managing the Mechanic's Bank and editing The Plant, a local newspaper started in 1882 by thirteen former slaves.

Cereal manufacturer Charles W. Post, along with several others, founded the Citizens' Industrial Alliance, which opposed unionism. This organization was succeeded by the National Trade and Workers Association as a substitute for trade unions.

John D. Rockefeller spent much of the early 1900s devoting his time to philanthropy. He had acquired tremendous wealth in the oil business by making Standard Oil Company one of the most dominant companies in the country. The Standard Oil Company was thought to control 90 percent of U.S. oil-refining capacity and had an annual income of $45 million in 1902.

Novelist Upton Beali Sinclair published his book The Jungle in 1906. Sinclair lived among the stockyard workers of Chicago in preparation for his book. His hero, Jurgis, is persuaded to immigrate to America and take a job in the stockyards of "Packington." Sinclair was hailed by novelist Jack London, who declared, "What Uncle Tom's Cabin did for the black slaves The Jungle has a large chance to do for the white slaves of today." With U.S. meatpacking conditions exposed by Sinclair's best-seller, many Americans turned vegetarian, sales of meat products fell off, and Congress was aroused.

Booker T. Washington and others founded the National Business Association in 1900 to assist in the development of small businesses in the black community.

By 1900 Frank Winfield Woolworth controlled fifty-nine stores, up from twenty-eight in 1895, with sales more than $5 million. He had long admired the red color of A&P grocery stores, and he painted his store fronts the same color, adding the firm's name in gold letters. By the time of his death in 1919, American sales were more than $119 million in 157 stores. He left a fortune of some $60 million in his estate.