| How did corporate capitalists consolidate economic power and establish political authority in the early twentieth century United States? This dissertation helps answer that question by examining an organization of manufacturers, distributors, and commercial banks called the National Association of Credit Men. The Credit Men formed in 1896 and became, in terms of membership, the largest Progressive Era organization of business managers. Whereas most historians of capitalism examine internal dynamics within firms and ignore the power of ideology and culture, this dissertation excavates the collective mentality of the Credit Men to account for their rise to power. These managers crafted a worldview of intelligent moralism which held, first, that economic competition between oligopolistic firms should be socially created, and second, that the process of socializing competition would place moral boundaries on the economic behavior of those who extended and received credit. In other words, the Credit Men sought to supplant the ruthless individualism of nineteenth-century laissez-faire capitalism with a national network of ethical corporate men who---like Social Gospelers or anti-vice crusaders of the time---tried to prevent soulless materialism from destroying America. The story of the Credit Men alters our understanding of how corporations came to power. Intelligent moralism would not have resonated with business leaders unless mass consumerism became a dominant force in the nation's political economy much later than many historians have assumed. Credit Men mobilized to restrict the access of small retailers and consumers to credit, not to expand it. And their successful lobbying for federal legislation---including the Federal Reserve Act---suggests that the emerging corporate elite claimed political authority not as secular materialists but as Christian moralists. By eliminating "unworthy" creditors and debtors from the economy altogether while rewarding the "worthy," Credit Men convinced legislators that moral managers could undercut the self-indulgent individualism of ordinary citizens and monopolists alike. |
