Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-fwgfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T02:31:48.990Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The American System: A Review Article

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Robert A. Lively
Robert A. Lively
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The role of government in the ante-bellum American economy has been boldly redefined in a score of books and articles published during the past decade. Close analysis of state and local sponsorship of enterprise, initiated and supported by the Committee on Research in Economic History, has suggested a thesis that appears to invite a new view of American capitalism in its formative years. Taken together, the works here reviewed form a consistent report of economic endeavor in an almost unfamiliar land. There, the elected public official replaced the individual enterpriser as the key figure in the release of capitalist energy; the public treasury, rather than private saving, became the major source of venture capital; and community purpose outweighed personal ambition in the selection of large goals for local economies. “Mixed” enterprise was the customary organization for important innovations, and government everywhere undertook the role put on it by the people, that of planner, promoter, investor, and regulator.

Type
Review Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , March 1955 , pp. 81 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1955

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beard, Earl S., “Local Aid to Railroads in Iowa,” Iowa Journal of History, L (1952), 1–34.Google Scholar
Cadman, John W. Jr., The Corporation in New Jersey. Business and Politics 1791-1875 (Cambridge, 1949).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Callender, Guy S., “The Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises of the States in Relation to the Growth of Corporations,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, XVII (1902-1903), 111–62.Google Scholar
1.Goodrich, Carter “Public Spirit and American Improvements,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, XCII (1948), 305–9.Google Scholar
2.Goodrich, Carter “National Planning of Internal Improvements,” Political Science Quarterly, LXIII (1948), 16–44.Google Scholar
3.Goodrich, Carter “The Virginia System of Mixed Enterprise. A Study of State Planning of Internal Improvements,” Political Science Quarterly, LXIV (1949), 355–87.Google Scholar
4.Goodrich, Carter “Local Planning of Internal Improvements,” Political Science Quarterly, LXVI (1951), 411–45.Google Scholar
5.Goodrich, Carter with Segal, Harvey H., “Baltimore's Aid to Railroads. A Study in the Municipal Planning of Internal Improvements,” Journal of Economic History, XIII (1953). 2–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6.Goodrich, Carter “The Revulsion Against Internal Improvements,” Journal of Economic History, X (1950), 145–69.Google Scholar
1.Hammond, Bray “Banking in the Early West: Monopoly, Prohibition and Laissez Faire,” Journal of Economic History, VIII (1948), 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2.Hammond, Bray “Jackson, Biddle, and the Bank of the United States,” Journal of Economic History, VII (1947), 1–23.Google Scholar
3.Hammond, Bray “Free Banks and Corporations: The New York Free Banking Act of 1838,” Journal of Political Economy, XLIV (1936), 184–209.Google Scholar
1.Handlin, Oscar “Laissez-Faire Thought in Massachusetts, 1790-1880,” Journal of Economic History, III, Supplement (1943), 55–65.Google Scholar
2.Handlin, Oscar with Handlin, Mary Flug, “Origins of the American Business Corporation,” Journal of Economic History, V (1945), 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3.Handlin, Oscar with Handlin, Mary Flug, Commonwealth: A Study of the Role of Government in the American Economy. Massachusetts, 1774-1861 (New York, 1947).Google Scholar
1.Hartz, Louis “Laissez Faire Thought in Pennsylvania, 1776-1860,” Journal of Economic History, III, Supplement (1943), 66–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2.Hartz, LouisEconomic Policy and Democratic Thought: Pennsylvania, 1776-1860 (Cambridge, 1948).Google Scholar
1.Heath, Milton S. “Public Railroad Construction and the Development of Private Enterprise in the South before 1861,” Journal of Economic History, X, Supplement (1950), 40–53.Google Scholar
2.Heath, Milton S. “Public Co-operation in Railroad Construction in the Southern United States to 1861” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1937).Google Scholar
3.Heath, Milton S. “Laissez Faire in Georgia, 1732-1860,” Journal of Economic History, III, Supplement (1943), 78–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, Frederick K., “The Development of American Laissez Faire. A General View of the Age of Washington,” Journal of Economic History, III, Supplement (1943), 51–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirkland, Edward Chase, Men, Cities, and Transportation. A Study in New England History 1820-1900 (Cambridge, 1948).Google Scholar
Pierce, Harry H., Railroads of New York. A Study of Government Aid, 1826-1875 (Cambridge, 1953).Google Scholar
Primm, James Neal, Economic Policy in the Development of a Western State. Missouri, 1820-1860 (Cambridge, 1954).Google Scholar
Taylor, George Rogers, The Transportation Revolution 1815-1860, Vol. 4, The Economic History of the United States (New York, 1951).Google Scholar