1850-1877: Business and the Economy: Publications

Charles Francis Adams Jr., A Chapter of Erie (Boston: Fields, Osgood, 1869)—exposes the shady financial dealings of Jay Gould, Jim Fisk, and Daniel Drew in seizing control of the Erie Railroad from Cornelius Vanderbilt;

Adams, Railroad Legislation (Boston: Little, Brown, 1868)—a comprehensive study of the industry and its laws, recommending the confederation of lines and government regulation;

David Christy, Cotton Is King (Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach, Keys, 1855)—the author, who was neither a Southerner nor a proslavery advocate, argues that the Southern slave system formed a key component in the nation’s larger economic system of agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing, and that it thereby contributed to prosperity in both the North and South;

Jay Cooke, The Pacific Railroads as the Relations Existing between Them and the Government of the United States (New York, 1879)—a promotional tract extolling the financial potential of a project in which Cooke had invested heavily, a railroad running from Duluth, Minnesota, to Tacoma, Washington;

William H. Maher, On the Road to Riches (Toledo: T.J. Brown, Eager & Company, 1876)—hints for clerks and young businessmen on such subjects as buying goods, business correspondence, selling goods on the road, duties of clerks, partners, etc;

New York Life Insurance Company, Cable-Cipher and Crytograph for Economical and Confidential Correspondence by Letter or Telegraph (New York: Hart, 1877)—a handbook suggesting a secure method of business communication using telegraphy;

Henry Varnum Poor, Money and Its Laws (New York: H. V. and H. W. Poor, 1877)—a financial history of the United States;

A Practical Guide to Business (Philadelphia: J. G. Fergus & Co., 1872)—A handbook for the American farmer, merchant, mechanic, and investor, with advice about earning and saving money;

Abraham Ritter, Philadelphia And Her Merchants As Constituted Fifty to Seventy Years Ago (Philadelphia: The Author, 1860)—an anecdotal history of business in Philadelphia, illustrated with diagrams of the riverfront and portraits of some of the prominent occupants;

William Leete Stone, History of New York City from the Discovery to the Present Day (New York: E. Cleave, 1868)—an early history of New York City, valuable for its account of the development of business interests;

Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] and Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, 1873)—a satiric novel which lampooned, among other subjects, the period’s mania for economic speculation in railroads and land deals, as well as the political corruption this economic activity engendered;

Amasa Walker, The Science of Wealth: A Manual of Political Economy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1866)—an analysis by a lecturer on economics at Amherst College of various aspects of the emerging industrial economy. Among other topics, Walker examines the structuring of manufacturing operations so that “each workman confine himself to a single operation,” maximizing efficiency and productivity.