The New Deal and the Modernization of Small Business: The McCreary Tire & Rubber Company, 1930–1940

By the onset of the Great Depression, the big four tire manufacturers had long become the dominant force in the American rubber industry; yet they did not have a monopoly. A substantial number of smaller firms had managed to survive, however tenuously, although their decline had continued through the hard times of the 1920s and their plight grew worse with the onset of the Depression. Like their giant rivals, however, the small, unintegrated firms serving limited markets sought to survive at least in part through the help of new federal agencies as well as with the aid of traditional institutions. In this article, which analyzes the story of the McCreary Tire & Rubber Company, Professor Fricke presents a view of the economic crisis from the perspective of small enterprise. If the experience of this manufacturer can be generalized, as Fricke suggests, small business not only had a different attitude toward the expanded role of government but also emerged from the Depression changed in the ways that it did business, a result of its experience with the new federal agencies and the economic crisis itself.