They created towns and became the center of Western life, enabling wheat, cattle, and minerals to flow out of the West
In one day, the stock market plummeted 22 percent shortly after the author became Chairman of the Federal Reserve
Banker J. P. Morgan rescued the dollar and bailed out the nation
For all his previous successes, President Herbert Hoover proved incapable of arresting the economic free fall of the Depression— or soothing the fears of a distressed nation
It was the nation’s biggest business, it was well organized as a Detroit assembly line, and it was here to stay. It was slavery. David Brion Davis, a lifelong student of the institution, tells how he discovered—and then set about teaching—its vast significance.
Foreign trade—import and export alike—has been indispensable in building America from the very start, and many of our worst economic troubles have arisen when that trade wasn’t free enough. A historic overview.
For two hundred years the United States patent system has defined what is an invention and protected, enriched, and befuddled inventors. As a tool of corporate growth in a global economy, it is now more important than ever.
While New York families were spending fortunes inherited from fathers and grandfathers, the Chicago rich had to start from scratch, both making and lavishly spending money within one generation
She lived only six years, but it was a history-packed career
The opium trade is remembered as a British outrage: English merchants, protected by English bayonets, turning China into a nation of addicts. But Americans got rich from this traffic—among them, a young man named Warren Delano. He didn’t talk about it afterward, of course. And neither did his grandson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
We built a merchant marine despite the opposition of the Royal Navy, went on to develop the most beautiful of all sailing ships, and held our supremacy for years. But how do we measure up today?
Once again, Americans are learning the delicate art of trading with the biggest market on earth. Here’s how they did it the first time.
A Classic Riddle of the Sea From an Absorbing New Book
The Curious World of the Trademark
An excerpt from a new bicentennial history of his native state
HOW AND WHY THE UNITED STATES GOT INVOLVED IN THE MIDDLE EAST
“57 VARIETIES” WAS ONLY A SALES SLOGAN, BUT H. J. HEINZ UNDERSTOOD FROM THE START THAT THERE WAS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR HONEST PRODUCTS AND WELL-TREATED WORKERS
In the early days of giveaways the pocket mirror was a handy means of promoting a product: the advertisement was on one side, the customer on the other