Industrialists' Biographies and Publications
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Autobiographies, Biographies or Writings of Early 20th Century Industrialists

IBM was not founded in a vacuum. Too few historians study the environmental factors that surrounded the corporation for most of its first four decades. Too few historians give ample credit to America's foremost industrialists that built the country we live in today--many of whom worked side-by-side with Thomas J. Watson Sr. These men and women included the likes of Charles R. Flint, J. C. Penney, John H. Patterson, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Harvey S. Firestone, Henry Ford, Owen D. Young, Elbert H. Gary, Thomas Edison, A. B. Farquhar, George Eastman, Dorothy Shaver and many others--probably too few of which a current MBA could name, recognize or offer some insights on their leadership.

These were some of the individuals that worked to make Corporate America a better place to work. These industrialists were a hardy, outspoken and most times a blunt-speaking group. They did not speak as politically correct as we do today, but spoke what they thought, and people listened because they could see many of these executives' hearts through their caring actions.
Compared to America's 21st Century business leaders (who are more like capitalists or speculators than industrialists), these men and women lived by a more elegant, comprehensive and simple philosophy of life: The Golden Rule -- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. ​

​There were a few exceptions which will be reviewed below, but as a rule these were great men and women that believed in delivering on the promise of the American Dream. The best-of-the-best cooperated with other chief executives in numerous ways to accomplish this end.
The Story of New York
An Island Fantasy
​"This book is dedicated to Miss Dorothy Shaver in appreciation of what she has done for all of us in New York through the annual Lord & Taylor Award luncheons. ... This book is intended as a permanent record of that outstanding occasion, and as a tribute to Miss Shaver for her tireless efforts in behalf of the great City of New York."
Thos J. Watson, President of IBM
Some industrialists' biographies that are reviewed under "The IBM Classics" such as Charles R. Flint, John H. Patterson, George F. Johnson and Herman Hollerith are not repeated here.

Random Reminiscences of Men and Events

This autobiography of John D. Rockefeller Sr., was published in 1908-09. After reading Ida Tarbell's series of articles in McClure's Magazine on "The History of Standard Oil," I was looking forward to reading this book that was not published in response to, but in many ways driven by the public reaction to her articles. ​Miss Tarbell is not mentioned.

I was intrigued by the Table of Contents which started with a chapter entitled "The Difficult Art of Getting" and ends with a chapter entitled "The Difficult Art of Giving." These bookend chapters are a wonderful metaphor for the two sides of Mr. Rockefeller exposed in this book: getting and giving.
​Picture of John D. Rockefeller Sr. at 18 years of from this book: 1909"
I am sure that Mr. Rockefeller would not give two hoots about my opinion of him, but as I read this book I was reminded of many executives that I have worked around who operate exactly the way Ida Tarbell writes about Mr. Rockefeller in her series on Standard Oil: they compartmentalize their good works and sympathies. They can be different people in church and with family than they are around their employees, business associates and competitors. With over 50 years of experience as an employee of business, I have little respect for such individuals as they put on one face for those they want to be loved by and another for those they feel they own or can control. Their standards of conduct are conditional with the relationship, which is probably a too-common trait in most of us that we should address and not condone or excuse.
I know this sounds harsh because Mr. Rockefeller was a true philanthropist with the money he earned - many times at the expense of others. His biography would suggest that he probably assumed these individuals were just not as competent as him in running a business - they should have started a business in another industry. As a basketball player might say today, "He smoked them." As I read this book, I wanted to believe that this chief executive was a good man but a quote written by Merryle Stanley Rukeyser of Tom Watson Sr. came to mind that I think Mr. Rockefeller should have taken to heart: "Watson knew that, unless he went out of his way to show that a big enterprise could be humane and considerate, it would become a psychological symbol of oppression and exploitation." [or read Harvey S. Firestone's philosophy of business and competition from Men and Rubber.]

John D. Rockefeller Sr. felt that he was vilified in the press of his day. Whether right or wrong he failed to understand that his big enterprise, which was one of the first in American history, failed to act humanely and considerately with its competitors and it did become a symbol of oppression and exploitation. If his reputation was important to him, he could have reached out from his corner office to communicate with his detractors - or seen competition as less of a winner-take-all game [such as having a code of conduct like the "Gary Policies" of Elbert H. Gary discussed in the next book review]. Mr. Rockefeller chose his path of isolation for which he alone is fully accountable - not the press. This short book leaves too many of his actions unexplained to be a very fulfilling read: there are just too many questions left unanswered.
My favorite quote from the book and one that I agree with wholeheartedly is the following:
A man of business may often most properly consider that he does his share in building up a property which gives steady work for few or many people; and his contribution consists in giving to his employees good working conditions, new opportunities, and a strong stimulus to good work. Just so long as he has the welfare of his employees in his mind and follows his convictions, no one can help honouring such a man. It would be the narrowest sort of view to take, and I think the meanest, to consider that good works consist chiefly in the outright giving of money.
I think that John D. Rockefeller Sr. would have found Ida Tarbell in agreement with this statement. May they both rest in peace as the time for any personal animosities is long over.

The Life of Elbert H. Gary: The Story of Steel

A wonderful counterbalance to Mr. Rockefeller's autobiography is this biography published in 1925 by Ida Tarbell of Judge Elbert H. Gary--the man who helped launch the U.S. Steel Corporation and lead it at its founding. This book was a pleasant surprise. A sample of the unexpected was the extended elaboration on the "Gary Policies" in a chapter entitled "Who Shall Rule?"

The policies of Judge Elbert H. Gary were meant to demonstrate to the public that the new corporation's intentions were good. First, though, he had to overcome the myopic, financial intentions of many of his own board members (which weren't so "good"). He had to persuade J.P. Morgan that this was the right path. He felt his policies were the only way to ensure that the corporation would pass muster under the Sherman Anti-Trust act. ​His goal was to create the first "good trust."
​1917 - 01 - 01 - The American Magazine
​His practices and policies stand in stark contrast to Rockefeller Sr.'s, and because of his policies U.S. Steel won its anti-trust challenge in court.
Gary's policies included: be considerate of public opinion; give out frank and honest information; conduct business ethically; respect the wishes of the stockholders, many of whom were employee-owners; quit damning the government and try to meet the government half way by working with and not against it; ensure that all existing violations of the law, however advantageous, were ended; end the old and often illegal methods of competition; and finally, be considerate of, rather than bludgeoning labor.

One of the first examples of the implementation of these policies was Judge Gary's decision to eliminate the ability of the board to use its advance knowledge to trade their stocks--insider trading that was not illegal but unethical. Gary considered this unfair to the public and only much later would it be made illegal [this is relevant to IBM as Watson Sr. took similar action to stop certain members of his board from pumping and dumping the stock of the C-T-R Company]. This book is an amazing read and I find it insightful that Judge Gary sought out Ida Tarbell to write his biography even after her series of articles on Standard Oil and being branded a muckraker by President Roosevelt. Judge Gary must have seen something in her writing, frankness and approach that appealed to him.

Owen D. Young: A New Type of Industrial Leader

Frankly, I had never heard of Owen D. Young until I read this 1932 biography. Because of it, I have read his speeches and studied some of his other essays not included in this book. He was not only one of America's first and most recognized chief executives (General Electric) but he was also a great statesman and orator representing American interests internationally.

​His speech on "High Courage" at the commencement exercises of the University of Notre Dame in 1932--the depths of the Great Depression--was reprinted in a booklet format and excerpts were run in major newspapers around the country. He, like Watson Sr., was involved in both the U.S. and International Chambers of Commerce. Both men worked internationally as businessmen for world peace. They understood there could be no long-lasting political peace between nations unless there was also a strong foundation of economic peace built on a cooperative balance of trade.
It was from this book that I drew some of the characteristics of what is needed in an international business leader of great stature for the concluding chapter in my book THINK Again. One characteristic a man or woman should endeavor to cultivate was this description, in which I believe Mr. Young very poetically describes something I would call "intuition":
​Endeavor to develop those thousand and one antennae which unconsciously absorb, especially in your contacts with other human beings, impressions of which the mind either can not take account or comprehends all too slowly. Sensitiveness outside of the field of the mental operation is a magnificent substratum, especially when joined with character, on which to build the structure of a developed mind.
As I find with many books I read, one observation of Mr. Young's stands out in this book. It is the concept that a business should pay what he called a "cultural wage." Once again the papers of the time picked up the phrase and it became a topic of discussion both economically and politically. It is a discussion we as a country need to consider once again:
We must aim to make the earning power of human beings so large as to supply them not only with a living wage, but a cultural wage. No man is free until want is removed from his door and until his intellect may be developed to take advantage of all the opportunities which may be available and are guaranteed to him in a free country.
Wise words from a great individual and, I believe, a true statement of what we are driving for in an "American Culture."

New Ideals in Business by Ida Tarbell

This book was a wonderful find and an easy, insightful read. It is not about a single American industrialist but about many who were running their businesses with a new management concept--one that brought employer and employee together in the pursuit of a common goal. This is a consolidation and further extension of a series of articles that Miss Tarbell wrote for the American Magazine under the title "The Golden Rule in Business."
​The new management employs not only science but humanity, and by humanity I do not mean merely or chiefly sympathy but rather a larger thing, the recognition that all men, regardless of race, origin or experience, have powers for greater things than has been believed. I doubt, indeed, if there has been any economic and social gain in the last fifty years which equals this growing conviction of the Powers of the Common Man. ... Nothing is introduced [in this book] which I have not seen in operation; nothing which has not seemed to me to be good for the worker, skilled and unskilled; nothing which has not been carried to a point of profit; nothing which an active intelligence and a just spirit cannot realize.
In this beautifully written book, Ida Tarbell covers companies such as Metropolitan Life, The Kodak Company, Proctor and Gamble, Norton Company, Link Belt Company, Boston Consolidated Gas, Baker Manufacturing, U.S. Steel Corporation, Westinghouse and Link Belt Company. She also covers such exotic characters as "Golden Rule" Jones and "Safety First" Thomas Lynch. If you want to realize how far Corporate America came in this period, consider this from the book (a personal observation of Miss Tarbell as she did her on-site research):
Any one familiar with old conditions and the new understands what experts mean when they tell you that safety meetings are frequently like prayer meetings. ... I had some terrible memories to take with me, for I had been close at hand once when a smelting furnace burst and the flood of molten iron had caught a dozen laborers on the pig-bed. I had seen the victims of an overturned ladle carried to their homes. All my old impressions were destroyed at a glance, for I was confronted with an order in yard and plant that I had supposed impossible in steel- and iron-making.
Isn't this what the United States of America is all about: overcoming the supposedly impossible?

Julius Rosenwald: The Life of a Practical Humanitarian

Julius Rosenwald: The Life of a Practical Humanitarian lives up to its title. Mr. Rosenwald is portrayed in every respect as practical whether it is in business in only paying competitive wages at Sears, Roebuck & Company or in his philanthropy to very worthwhile causes that are innumerable in a short review. Even when he was moved with sentiment to right an existing wrong, he sought others to match his funds. He preferred making a change permanent rather then only providing temporary relief with a donation. He did not want to lift a person from poverty, but enable the man or group of individuals to lift themselves. Reading the book about him I remembered my father's saying, "It is better to teach a starving man how to fish rather than to just give him a fish."
At the time of Julius Rosenwald's death Thomas J. Watson Sr. wrote the following in an editorial entitled, "Julius Rosenwald, Distinguished Merchant."
Julius Rosenwald, the distinguished Chicago merchant and philanthropist, whose death this week caused a wave of sadness to sweep the world, exemplified the potentialities of American youth. Born in rather less than moderate circumstances, he rose to be one of the most respected citizens of his era. His wise philanthropies have done much to improve the condition of the peoples of the world, especially those of this country. ... IBM ... feels the deepest regret at the passing of an individual whose influence stands as a landmark of education, humanitarianism and business progress.
I found Mr. Rosenwald very human and very logical. One of the more important insights from this book was the impression how different individuals can view philanthropy in so many different ways.
  • Mr. Rosenwald wouldn't pay his employees more than market wages but sought to correct the injustices to the black race with tremendous donations of his accumulated wealth; Watson Sr.'s philanthropy was more along the lines of distributed justice as he gave up tremendous wealth to provide leading-edge wages and benefits for his employees.
  • Andrew Carnegie set up long-lived institutions to give back to society over time. This was a proposition Julius Rosenwald was adamantly against. He mandated in most instances that his gifts be used within a certain period of time.
Rosenwald felt that these two books influenced him more than anything else he had ever read. Images link to reviews.
​If one believes in diversity of thought, these three men exemplify a reasonable diversity in their handling of their money while still motivated to right wrongs or redistribute wealth.

How does society view each today?

The Master Workers' Library - A Four-Volume Set
The following four books were sold as part of a promotion for World's Work Magazine in 1914:
  • The New Freedom by Woodrow Wilson
  • The Difficult Art of Getting by John D. Rockefeller Sr.
  • The Empire of Business by Andrew Carnegie
  • Highways of Progress by James J. Hill
Technical World Magazine Advertisement for World's Work, March 1914

The Empire of Business by Andrew Carnegie
I really enjoyed this book, but a reader has to take into consideration the times when it was written as the tone is paternalistic, at times borders on condescending, and is preachy. Understanding that this was a man that fit the description of self-made and he was obviously taking on the socialist movement in the '20s, does offer some clues as to why the tone is so strong. Although a distraction, it did not get in my way. The message was still clear: Work is a requirement for success, and poverty doesn't need to get in the way of high achievement. Carnegie felt poverty was almost a prerequisite for success and definitely preferable to being born wealthy.

As with Henry Ford, quotes seem to be the best way to offer some insight into this book. Many of his views I found very interesting as they were not what I expected:
  • "A heavy progressive tax upon wealth at death is not only desirable, it is strictly just."
  • "Wealth is not chiefly the product of the individual under present conditions, but largely the joint product of the community. ... The community created the millionaire's wealth​."
Picture of Andrew Carnegie from The Empire of Business (public domain as published in 1913)
  • ​"Lack of proper recognition of the workers by the employers as fellow-men causes most of the labor disputes."
  • "Not one of us can feel his duty done, unless he can say as he approaches his end, that, because he has lived, some fellow-creature, or some little spot of earth has been made just a little better."

Highways of Progress by James J. Hill
Highways of Progress, was included as part of The Master Workers Library set in 1909-10. From the very beginning, I was pleasantly surprised by this book.

From the frontispiece that is shown to the right and the portrayal of James J. Hill, I was expecting a stuffy book about railroading. I never felt the stuffiness, and yes, railroading was there but only as part of what came across as a man that loved his country, loved the settlers of the west, and had an amazing grasp on the statistics that drove the country westward. One gets the feeling that if he had been alive when Watson Sr. took over the C-T-R Company, James J. Hill would have been one of the first businessmen in line (as most railroads were) to order a tabulating machine to better understand his business and his customers.

The entire book is consumed with his views on agriculture, its detailed analysis, and the sustainability of farming in the western lands. I thought I was reading about the wrong person. But he ties this all back to his obligation as a railroad owner to serve his customers.
Picture of James J. Hill from Highways of Progress (public domain as published in 1913)
​A few quotes from the book that should question any over-generalization about the beliefs of early railroad men:
  • "In a democracy the first essential is to force the facts of the situation deep into the public consciousness; to make men realize their duty toward coming generations exactly as the father feels it a duty to see that his children do not suffer want." (this is quite similar to William Henry Baldwin Jr.'s (another railroad man) belief in An American Citizen.​"
  • "Land without population is a wilderness, and a population without land is a mob. ... The first act in the progress of any civilization is to provide homes for those who desire to sit under their own vine and fig tree."
  • "There is not one valid argument in favor of the system that makes our international boundary bristle with custom houses, and forces every dollar of trade between them to show its passport and pay its entrance fee."
  • "You might as well try to set a broken arm by statute as to change a commercial law by legislative enactment. ... Such combinations as are evil, and some there are, will be found self-destroying. ... The large material view of things as well as the moral shows that the affairs of men are subject to a moral order. That which is wrong cannot continue indefinitely. Every mistake carries within it the seed of failure."

The Difficult Art of Getting by John D. Rockefeller Sr.
Awaiting to acquire this book.

The New Freedom by Woodrow Wilson
Awaiting to acquire this book.
Peter E. Greulich is an author, publisher and public speaker.

He has written three books on IBM and three essays on Thomas J. Watson Sr.’s leadership during the Great Depression. His latest book, Think Again!: IBM CAN Maximize Shareholder Value is a sweeping historical look at IBM and its nine chief executives. It puts a spotlight on IBM's current human resource practices in light of IBM’s time-tested, human-relationship achievements.
2011
2014
2017
Think Again! is a different perspective from Louis V. Gerstner’s Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance. Pete's thoughts are always a view from beneath—the perspective of an IBM employee-owner. IBMers with stories to share can reach Pete at IBMers @ mbiconcepts.com.
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