Free Enterprise: An American History

355 Pages·2019·4.317 MB·English

by  Lawrence B. Glickman

free enterprise
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lawrence b. glickman
Free
Enterprise
an american history
new haven & london
Published with assistance from the Louis Stern Memorial Fund.
Copyright © 2019 by Lawrence B. Glickman.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in
any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S.
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Set in Times Roman type by Integrated Publishing Solutions,
Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019931295
ISBN 978-0-300-23825-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Jill Frank, Sandra Glickman, and Ronald Glickman
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 “A Memo That Changed the Course of History” 22
2 From “Free Labor” to “Free Enterprise” 55
3 Free Enterprise versus the New Deal Order 79
4 A “Beautiful but Much-Abused Phrase” 111
5 “The Party of Free Enterprise” 141
6 “Faith in Free Enterprise” 167
7 “Free Enterprise Needs Restatement to Suit
Our Modern Needs” 198
8 From Public Spending to “Entitlements” 229
Epilogue 254
Notes 265
Index 329
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
in the essay “i, pencil” (the subject of chapter 6), Leonard Read speaks
with awe of the pencil’ s “innumerable antecedents.” As with Read’s pencil,
behind this book is an impossibly long line of people who have helped bring the
project to fruition, and I am extremely grateful to them all. Although it is, to
quote Read, “impossible for me to name and explain all of my antecedents,” I
would like to credit some small fraction of the people and institutions that made
this book possible.
I’d like to start with the historians who inspired me. I would not have thought
to write this book if it were not for the intriguing mentions of free enterprise in
the works of Angus Burgin, Nathan Connolly, Darren Dochuk, Elizabeth Fones-
Wolf, Howell John Harris, Katherine R ye Jewell, Kevin M. Kruse, Bethany
More ton, Kathryn S. Olmstead, Kim Phillips-Fein, Wendy L. Wall, and many
others cited in the endnotes. Thanks also to the dozens of librarians and archi-
vists who helped me along the way, with a special shout-out to Lucas R. Claw-
son, the reference archivist at the Hagley Museum and Library who helped me
during my research visits and patiently responded to my many email queries. I
am also tremendously grateful to the extraordinary librarians at Cornell, includ-
ing Virginia Cole, Lynn Thitchenor, and especially Heather Furnas, who went
way above and beyond the call of duty many times, doggedly tracking down
obscure sources that I’d given up on ever finding. Many other scholars gene -
ously answered my queries, shared information with me, and/or agreed to write
letters on my behalf, including Leon Fink, Eric Foner , Gary Gerstle, Howell
John Harris, Richard John, the lateA nn Johnson, Michael Kazin, Pamela Walker
ix