Trust and Power

Trust and Power argues that automobile corporations have historically faced conflicts with the very customers whose loyalty they sought.

Auteur

Sally H. Clarke, Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin, specializes in the political economy of the United States during the 20th century. Her interdisciplinary interests are reflected in articles in the Journal of Design History, Law and History Review, and Business History. She has been a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (Harvard University) and the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies (Princeton University). She is the author of Regulation and the Revolution in United States Farm Productivity.

Texte du rabat
Trust and Power argues that corporations have faced conflicts with the very consumers whose loyalty they sought. The book provides novel insights into the dialogue between modern corporations and consumers by examining the car industry during the twentieth century. In the new market at the turn of the century, car manufacturers produced defective cars, and consumers faced risks of physical injuries as well as financial losses. By the 1920s, cars were sold in a mass market where state agencies intervened to monitor, however imperfectly, product quality and fair pricing mechanisms. After 1945, the market matured as most U.S. families came to rely on car transport. Again, the state intervened to regulate relations between buyers and sellers in terms of who had access to credit, and thus the ability to purchase expensive durables like cars.

Résumé
Trust and Power examines the three major phases of the automobile market and argues that its corporations have faced conflicts with the very customers whose loyalty they sought. Such conflicts were present from the early 1900s through to the post-World War II market.

Contenu
Introduction; Part I. A New Market, 1896-1916: 1. Risks of innovation, risks of injury; 2. New firms and the problem of social costs; Part II. A Mass Market, 1916-41: 3. Corporate strategies and consumers' loyalty; 4. Engineering a mass product; 5. A machine age aesthetic; 6. The franchised car dealer and consumers' marketing dilemma; Part III. A Mature Market, 1945-65: 7. Automobiles and institutional change; Conclusion; Appendix: Automobile dealer agreements and sales manager contracts, 1900-14; Index.