The Corporation and the Twentieth Century

329. Postrel (2020, p. 221). It is, wrote Schumpeter, “the cheap cloth, the cheap cotton and rayon fabric . . . that are the typical achievements of capitalist production, and not as a rule improvements that would mean much to the rich man. Queen Elizabeth owned silk stockings. The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within the reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort” (Schumpeter 1950, p. 67). Writing before 1942, he probably had not yet even heard of nylon. During the war, nylon would be diverted to making parachutes and other mili- tary products. It would not be until after 1945 that women would genuinely be able to enjoy the innovation.

330. Mueller (1962).

331. J. K. Smith (1988, p. 314).

332. Gibb and Knowlton (1956, p. 541). Leaded gas was, of course, one of the great public-

health disasters of the century. The toxicity of lead was well known at the time, but industrial researchers viewed it largely as an occupational-health problem—dozens of workers were killed or driven insane by exposure early on—not as an environmental problem. Yet many contem- poraries in public health did speak out against lead. In 1925, the Surgeon General opened an investigation, and, despite wildly conflicting testimony, declared that there was no reason to ban the additive (Leslie 1983, p. 541). Jersey Standard became a co-owner (along with GM and Du Pont) of the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation to market the product, but initially Jersey itself refused to use the additive in its own gasoline (Gibb and Knowlton 1956, p. 543).

333. Enos (1962, p. 104); Gibb and Knowlton (1956, p. 525).

334. Williamson et al. (1963, p. 203).

335. Enos (1962, chapter 1); Giddens (1955, p. 152).

336. Enos (1962); Williamson et al. (1963, pp. 375–89). Universal Oil Products was founded

by meatpacker J. Ogden Armour, who believed that refining should emulate the continuous- process (rather than batch) approach to production meatpacking had pioneered.

337. Enos (1962, p. 118); Gibb and Knowlton (1956, pp. 554–55).

338. US Senate (1923).

339. Gibb and Knowlton (1956, pp. 555–59); Giddens (1955, pp. 266–80); Williamson et al.

(1963, pp. 389–91).

340. Standard Oil Co. (Indiana) v. United States, 283 U.S. 162 (1931). Harlan Fiske Stone—

who as Attorney General had initiated the case—recused himself.

341. Enos (1962, chapter 4).

342. As we will see, by the war the oil companies had taken advantage of the license for joint

research the Court had given them to improve on the process (and thus avoid Houdry’s pat- ents). Much of the wartime aviation fuel would come from the new continuous-process refineries.

343. Adelman (1972, p. 43).

344. Adelman (1972, p. 44).

345. Libecap and Wiggins (1984, p. 90).

346. Libecap (1984). One ironic outcome of the Teapot Dome scandal was that all federal

leases after 1930 would require unitization.

347. Ise (1926, pp. 402–22). In 1920, the director of the US Bureau of Mines predicted that

oil would run out in eighteen to twenty years.

612 Notes to Chapter 6

348. Libecap (1989, p. 835).

349. MacMillan v. Railroad Commission of Texas, 51 F.2d 400 (W.D. Tex. 1931).

350. Olien and Olien (2002, p. 186).

351. Libecap (1989, p. 837).

352. Nash (1968, pp. 128–52).

353. Hawley (1966, pp. 217–19); Libecap (1989).

354. Knoedler (1993).

355. Warren (2001, p. 124).

356. McCraw (1989).

357. Hogan (1971a, pp. 847–56).

358. This short-lived Columbia Steel Company is not to be confused with the West-Coast-

based Columbia Steel Company acquired by U.S. Steel in 1929 (Hogan 1971a, p. 894). 359. Aylen (2010).

360. Gold et al. (1970).

361. Baker (1989).

362. Bertin et al. (1996).

363. Warren (2008, pp. 132–43).

364. Hogan (1971a, pp. 1216).

365. Mowery (1981, p. 113).

366. Warren (2001, pp. 144–63).

367. Warren (2001, p. 156).

368. Chandler (1962, p. 334). Although Stettinius had come from GM, his duties as an as-

sistant to Sloan had been largely in the realm of public and government relations (Farber 2002, p. 152). Chandler credits the “highly rational business school graduate” Enders M. Vorhees with actually spearheading the change to the multidivisional structure at U.S. Steel.

369. Nicholas (2019, p. 64).

370. Graham and Pruitt (1990, p. 214)

371. FTC (1939, p. 7). Motor vehicle registrations dropped only 10 percent, meaning that

Americans largely kept their old cars in service instead of buying new ones. Between 1930 and 1937, registrations increased by 20 percent, most of that after 1933 (p. 17).

372. FTC (1939, p. 13).

373. Rae (1984, p. 80).

374. Ford (1931, p. 74); Sward (1968, p. 220).

375. “Ford to Maintain High Wages,” Barron’s, May 4, 1931, p. 26.

376. FTC (1939, p. 653).

377. This model became a favorite of hot-rodders in the 1950s and 1960s, immortalized by