Hagley History Hangout

Twentieth-century history has taught us to imagine that competitive markets compliment democracies while closed markets serve authoritarian states. However, a glance at the global scene in the first quarter of the twenty-first century turns that assumption on its head, especially with regard to emerging high-tech industries. In his dissertation research Jingtian Chen, PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, observes that the United States has a highly concentrated tech sector and a relatively democratic state, while China has a highly competitive tech sector and a relatively authoritarian state, and the European Union lies somewhere in between along both axes. Chen’s project is to determine why this seemingly paradoxical arrangement exists. Using collections held in the Hagley Library, Chen suggests that American business associations played pivotal roles in devising and promulgating trade policies that favored concentration. In contrast, the decentralized incentive structure of Chinese economic development encouraged the flourishing of vibrant and competitive industries in new tech sectors like EVs and photovoltaics. In support of his work Chen received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our donations page: https://host.nxt.blackbaud.com/donor-form/?svcid=tcs&formId=c2f4e3f6-2d8a-4251-9a8b-cfdea1fe0e4a&envid=p-wYaPX570-EiMzBCsCu8rSg&zone=usa

Pentagon Capitalism: How the Cold War US Military Modeled Itself on Private Business (Harvard University Press, 2026) is a pioneering study of the Cold War military-industrial complex shows how defense leaders reorganized the US armed forces in the image of commercial enterprise. In an interview conducted by Roger Horowitz (Hagley Center Director), Muphy explains how leaders of the defense bureaucracy looked to private industry for inspiration. They reasoned that since the military now resembled a huge industrial conglomerate, it should be run like a business. The services even engaged management consultants to establish officer-training academies modeled on the Harvard Business School. After the Vietnam War, many military leaders pushed back, questioning “managerialism” and calling for a return to traditional concepts of command. Civilian critics also chimed in, protesting the callousness of the business-minded secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, who famously measured success and failure in body counts. By this time, however, the language and values of management had thoroughly infiltrated the military’s institutional structure and daily operations. As Murphy makes clear, the reorganization of the defense bureaucracy along the lines of a for-profit firm durably altered the experience of military work and facilitated the lasting privatization of US national security. Murphy made extensive use of Hagley collections in his research, and received financial support from two Hagley grants: the Henry du Pont Dissertation fellowship (2016) and the Lou Galambos Fellowship in Business and Politics (2018-19). Currently he is assistant professor of history at Brandeis University. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our donations page: https://host.nxt.blackbaud.com/donor-form/?svcid=tcs&formId=c2f4e3f6-2d8a-4251-9a8b-cfdea1fe0e4a&envid=p-wYaPX570-EiMzBCsCu8rSg&zone=usa

Historians of interior design are only just beginning to study the design of rooms that are not in buildings, but rather in machines: trains cars, elevators, jet planes, and many others. In his latest book project, Ronn Daniel, associate professor at Kent State University, explores the interior design of automobiles. Tracing changes in technology, marketing, and aesthetics, Daniel finds that the mid-twentieth century witnessed an explosion in the variety and cultural significance of auto interiors. Daniel’s book is under contract with the University of Virginia Press. In support of his work Daniel received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our donations page: https://host.nxt.blackbaud.com/donor-form/?svcid=tcs&formId=c2f4e3f6-2d8a-4251-9a8b-cfdea1fe0e4a&envid=p-wYaPX570-EiMzBCsCu8rSg&zone=usa

The United States empire is unlike any other in history. Among its unique attributes is the ability of Americans to project power, extract resources, and exercise hegemony without direct control and ownership of territory. In his dissertation research, Henry Jacob, PhD candidate at Yale University, compares the American imperial projects in the Caribbean and Arctic regions to assess their similarities using multiple collections held in the Hagley library, including the National Foreign Trade Council papers. Jacob argues that the United States developed a technique of empire by rental, or real estate, which served the interests of American business and government. In support of his work Jacob received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our donations page: https://host.nxt.blackbaud.com/donor-form/?svcid=tcs&formId=c2f4e3f6-2d8a-4251-9a8b-cfdea1fe0e4a&envid=p-wYaPX570-EiMzBCsCu8rSg&zone=usa

Women own over 40% of businesses in the United States and are responsible for a large majority of new business startups. How did this come to be? Dr. Debra Michals, associate professor and chair of the humanities department at Merrimack College, answers this question in her book She’s the Boss: The Rise of Women’s Entrepreneurship Since World War II (Rutgers University Press, 2025). Contrary to popular misconceptions about feminism pushing women into business, Michals finds that economic need drove women into business. More surprisingly, Michals finds that sexism and racism increased the numbers of women entrepreneurs by limiting their access to economic resources by other means. In support of her work Dr. Michals received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our donations page.

Solar Challenger: Energy, Environment, and the Spectacle of Solar Aviation, 1976-1981 Ben Spohn interviews Karlyn Allenbrand about her ongoing dissertation research on the Solar Challenger, the world's first solar-powered airplane built by Dr. Paul MacCready's company AeroVironment. Allenbrand argues that from the start MacCready recognized that the Solar Challenger was a promotional project meant to highlight the potential of solar power and renewable energy rather than become a commercially viable alternative to fossil fuel burning aircraft. In addition to using photovoltaic cells for power, the aircraft was made in partnership with DuPont who had an interest in highlighting the viability of their plastic products. Karlyn Allenbrand is currently a Phd student at University of Delaware. For more Hagley History Hangouts, and more information on the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our donations page.

Let’s say that poison gas leaks from a manufacturing plant, sickening workers and local residents. Should OSHA investigate, or the EPA? Who is responsible when both agencies have a claim to jurisdiction? The American federal government regulates the workplace and the non-workplace environments separately, despite their material inseparability; the workplace is part of the environment and vice versa. How and why did the American regulatory landscape come to have this awkward and contradictory split? Jasper Cattell, PhD candidate at Brown University, formulated this novel question and seeks an answer in his dissertation project. Cattell conducted research in the archives of labor organizations, environmental groups, federal agencies, and the business community. To get at the latter, Cattell visited the Hagley Library to examine the archives of the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other private business organizations. The messily drawn boundary between workplace and environmental regulation served the interest of the various outside groups who could play one agency against the other to gain favorable outcomes. In support of his work Cattell received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our donations page: https://host.nxt.blackbaud.com/donor-form/?svcid=tcs&formId=c2f4e3f6-2d8a-4251-9a8b-cfdea1fe0e4a&envid=p-wYaPX570-EiMzBCsCu8rSg&zone=usa

Twentieth-century Chile relied heavily on its copper mining industry, which was vulnerable to disruption due to its dependance on foreign supplies of blasting powder. It was to address this strategic weakness that Chilean leaders formulated a plan to lure a powder manufacturer from the Global North to open a plant in Chile. In her latest research, Dr. Ángela Vergara, professor at California State University at Los Angeles, uncovers the story of DuPont in Chile, including its plant built to supply the domestic copper mining industry, and other business ventures like licensing DuPont synthetic textile technology to Chilean manufacturers. DuPont promoted its plant as a safe workplace with reduced risk of harm, but Dr. Vergara found evidence that workers suffered from respiratory and dermatological conditions, and blamed the plant environment. In support of her research, Dr. Vergara received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.

From the 1750s to the present day, Salem Township in northeastern Pennsylvania has been a site of financial speculation and the social changes it sets in motion. In her latest book project, Dr. Nancy Campbell, professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, uncovers the many superimposed layers of speculation and extraction that have left Salem Township with a complex series of social legacies and infrastructures. From land wars and coal mines, to nuclear plants and data centers, Campbell traces three centuries of speculation in one small location. In support of her research Dr. Campbell received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.

In this episode of the Hagley History Hangout, Roger Horowitz interviews Rebecca Kobrin about her new book, Credit to the Nation: Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and American Finance 1873-1930. From the publisher: "What are immigrants to do when business opportunities abound in their new home, but banks refuse essential financial support? How could they make the journey in the first place without helping hands? In this lively history, Rebecca Kobrin chronicles the turn-of-the-twentieth-century Jewish immigrants who stepped up by doing the lending themselves. Arriving from the Russian Empire and settling primarily in New York, they made livelihoods by assisting fellow Jews so they could purchase passage to the United States and, after arriving, obtain credit that other lenders would not dare provide. "Credit to the Nation traces the novel practices of bankers who not only enabled the flourishing of American Jewry but also revolutionized the US financial industry. Drawing on previously unexamined archival materials in Russian, Yiddish, German, and English, Kobrin tells a story that is also crucial to the history of New York, as immigrant bankers’ financing of real estate transformed wide swathes of the city. Lenders drove a boom in the prices of tenement buildings, but heavy speculation eventually precipitated the downfall of immigrant banking. Kobrin notes in particular the case of the Bank of United States—a private lender catering primarily to Jewish businessmen—which the Federal Reserve refused to bail out from bankruptcy in 1930. "Immigrants’ grasping for credit, and the rise and fall of immigrant banks, gave way to a contemporary banking industry that, ironically, refuses credit to today’s immigrants. Kobrin reminds us that now, as before, the denial of credit pushes entrepreneurial Americans into unregulated money-lending and the trap of endless debt." For more Hagley History Hangouts, and information on the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library, visit us online at hagley.org. To make a donation underwriting this program and others like it please visit our donations page: https://host.nxt.blackbaud.com/donor-form/?svcid=tcs&formId=c2f4e3f6-2d8a-4251-9a8b-cfdea1fe0e4a&envid=p-wYaPX570-EiMzBCsCu8rSg&zone=usa