The American Businessman at the Turn of the Century1

The attitudes and preoccupations of businessmen at any given time are deemed important by historians both as clues to and reasons for business action. The year 1900 is a promising one in which to probe those attitudes and preoccupations because at that time a great many important characteristics of the business community were undergoing rapid change. Examination of business literature of the day suggests that the businessman of 1900 was preoccupied with the merger movement and with labor agitation, with shifting distribution patterns, and with trade association activity. His concern with financial techniques and public relations was intense, if erratic, and he was preoccupied with problems of administrative structure. He was, in short, concerned with those developments commonly emphasized by historians, but with so much more besides as to suggest several new research avenues. Surprising results emerge when business attitudes and preoccupations of 1900 are compared with those of 1956.