by Gary Hoover | Jul 2, 2020 | Articles, Business in General, Data, Newsletters
“Last week we brought you an unprecedented animated chart of the Fortune 500 list since 1994. Here we go back another 40 years, when steel companies and meatpackers were still giants. Taken together, you can learn a lot from 65 years of history.” Last...
by Gary Hoover | Jun 25, 2020 | Articles, Business in General, Data, Newsletters
An updated 2022 version of this chart can be seen here. The saga of American business in one chart! The fall of Enron, the rise of Apple and Amazon, the enduring legacy of John Rockefeller in Exxon and Chevron – see the years fly by! Below the two charts...
by Gary Hoover | Jun 25, 2020 | Videos
by Gary Hoover | Jun 19, 2020 | Articles, Articles, Business in General, Consumer Products, Newsletters
America has hundreds of thousands of privately-held, family-owned businesses. Thousands of them are large. The list of the largest ones is topped by the hundred-billion-dollar grain and commodities dealer Cargill, the diversified Koch Industries, and candy...
by Gary Hoover | Jun 11, 2020 | Articles, Biographies, Newsletters, Transportation
This article first appeared in the Archbridge Institute’s American Originals Series. The year 1921 was one of the worst years in the history of the American automobile business. Many companies folded in a brief but severe post-war recession as prices dropped...
by Gary Hoover | Jun 4, 2020 | Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters
In these troubling times, it’s important to remember something called “fun.” Our weekly newsletters tend to cover big industries like retailing and automobiles. But we also find smaller, niche industries fascinating. Here is a look at who makes the balls used by...
by Gary Hoover | May 29, 2020 | Articles, Biographies, Newsletters, Transportation
This week we present another very brief “bullet point biography.” A classic story of shattered dreams. At the American Business History Center, we focus our energies on those companies (and their founders and leaders) which became household names or large...
by Gary Hoover | May 22, 2020 | Articles, Newsletters, Other Industries
Our business history articles often focus on the consumer products and services industries with which we all interact – from auto companies to department stores. Yet it’s important not to forget the industrial companies that lie in the background, and make all...
by Gary Hoover | May 14, 2020 | Articles, Data, Newsletters, Retailing
Here is the article closest to my heart, which I had never intended to publish this soon, but once I got rolling on it, I could not stop.Gary Hoover Today, America’s great old department stores are under siege. The reasons for their decline are manifold,...
by Gary Hoover | May 14, 2020 | Data, Retailing
Click here to download the excel file.
by Gary Hoover | May 8, 2020 | Articles, Foodservice and Lodging, Newsletters
The lodging industry is one of the oldest industries on earth, and one of the most important. No one can do business, trade, spread ideas, practice diplomacy, explore the world, or migrate without temporary lodgings. From the lowliest hostel to the finest...
by Gary Hoover | Apr 30, 2020 | Articles, Books, Newsletters
Although little-known outside academia and students of management, the late Alfred Chandler, Jr., was the greatest business historian we have yet seen. His Pulitzer-Prize-winning 1977 book The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business is the...
by Gary Hoover | Apr 24, 2020 | Articles, Articles, Biographies, Media & Entertainment, Newsletters, Transportation
Over the last two years or so, we in conjunction with the Archbridge Institute have produced a series of “long-form” biographies of great entrepreneurs. Each of these runs five to seven thousand words and takes twenty to thirty minutes to read. In this...
by Gary Hoover | Apr 17, 2020 | Articles, Data, Newsletters, Retailing
In these difficult times, few companies are doing more for us than our food retailers. From aggressive steps by the largest food retailer in the world, Walmart, to advance planning by regional firms such as HEB in Texas, the nation’s grocers are continuing to...
by Gary Hoover | Apr 9, 2020 | Articles, Biographies, Business in General, Newsletters
This article first appeared in the Archbridge Institute’s American Originals Series. Over the last two-and-one-half years, we at the American Business History Center, in conjunction with the Archbridge Institute, have written and published...
by Gary Hoover | Apr 3, 2020 | Articles, Articles, Consumer Products, Healthcare, Newsletters
Ancient Remedies The Mesopotamian Ur III tablet, dating from about 3500 BC, mentions the willow tree (Salix in Latin) as a medicinal remedy. Centuries later, additional references are found in Egyptian papyrus documents. Throughout history, doctors in many...
by Gary Hoover | Mar 23, 2020 | Newsletters
Last Friday we sent you a link to a business history crossword puzzle, which many of you visited. We promised the answers today, so here they are. If for any reason you missed the puzzle, you can still take it here and fill it out right in your browser. Or look at the...
by Gary Hoover | Mar 20, 2020 | Newsletters
Like everyone else, we at the American Business History Center have no sports to watch, fewer restaurants to patronize, and even a shortage of exciting primary elections to follow. So what better time to entertain and educate ourselves through reading and...
by Gary Hoover | Mar 12, 2020 | Books, Newsletters
Entrepreneurship and business are at the core of modern life. Both have given us many great innovations and improvements in life and prosperity. We at the American Business History Center understandably focus our efforts on the United States,...
by Gary Hoover | Mar 5, 2020 | Articles, Biographies, Media & Entertainment, Newsletters
This article first appeared in the Archbridge Institute’s American Originals Series. On February 11, 1898, John Charles Smith of Toronto hit his head and died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The Irishman left behind his wife, Charlotte; five-year-old...
by Gary Hoover | Feb 28, 2020 | Articles, Media & Entertainment, Newsletters
Here is a quick note on an interesting twist in American business history. In 1948, the federal government trustbusters decreed that the big movie studios should not own movie theaters. In the preceding twenty years, the studios had put together big theater...
by Gary Hoover | Feb 20, 2020 | Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters
We all grow up surrounded by brands. Being part of our daily lives, they often seem as if they have been around forever and will be around forever. Yet, like most everything else, brands have lifecycles. Only the lucky few survive for decade after...
by Gary Hoover | Feb 14, 2020 | Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters
Happy Valentine’s Day! Here is a sweet story of candy and soda pop, and of incredible persistence which overcame failure and controversy. Caleb Bradham In 1893, young Caleb Bradham bought the drugstore at the corner of Middle and Pollock Streets in New Bern,...
by Gary Hoover | Feb 6, 2020 | Articles, Biographies, Newsletters, Transportation
This article first appeared in the Archbridge Institute’s American Originals Series. Few industries have had a greater impact on the world than our airline system. This global network was built over a period of forty years by a handful of leaders who...
by Gary Hoover | Jan 31, 2020 | Articles, Biographies, Media & Entertainment, Newsletters
Fox News and the Fox Network have become part of the daily lives of millions. Yet few know where the name “Fox” came from, other than the historic Twentieth Century-Fox Studios. That movie-making part of the Fox empire was recently sold by Rupert Murdoch...
by Gary Hoover | Jan 23, 2020 | Articles, Data, Foodservice and Lodging, Newsletters
Few industries are more fascinating than the “hospitality” industry, which includes lodging (hotels, motels, BnBs) and foodservice (restaurants, bars, stadium corporate and institutional foodservice). Going to a restaurant convention is one of the most exhilarating...
by Gary Hoover | Jan 17, 2020 | Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters
In 1752, Amish/Mennonite farmer Christian Schmucker migrated from Switzerland to Pennsylvania. In 2016, his son’s son’s son’s son’s son’s son’s son’s son’s son, forty-six-year-old Mark Smucker, became Chief Executive of the J. M. Smucker Company of Orrville,...
by Gary Hoover | Jan 9, 2020 | Articles, Newsletters, Other Industries
Here we go again – another decade of the “twenties” – hopefully these twenties roar in the good sense. This is a perfect time to look back at what was going on in business history one hundred years ago. 1920 was an important year in business history. ...
by Gary Hoover | Dec 20, 2019 | Articles, Newsletters, Retailing
We have previously written about the rise of Sears, Roebuck to become the world’s greatest retailer. The company’s subsequent decline now fills the headlines and is apparent across America. Yet important vestiges, physical memorials, of the...
by Gary Hoover | Dec 12, 2019 | Articles, Newsletters, Transportation
The routes travelled by explorers, immigrants, peddlers, and goods are a critical part of history. There would be no business or commercial history without the Silk Road or the great transoceanic shipping lanes. Here is a great story about the evolution of...
by Gary Hoover | Dec 12, 2019 | Articles, Books, Newsletters
As you know, I love books and live in a personal library of more than 57,000 of them. Only a few – say 2-300 of them – really capture my excitement and enthusiasm. Fewer, Richer, Greener by Larry Siegel is one of those books. It just...
by Gary Hoover | Nov 27, 2019 | Articles, Data, Retailing
In 1941, Fred Lazarus, Jr., had some time to kill in Houston. He had come to visit his son Ralph who was serving in the Army at nearby Ellington Field. Twelve years earlier, Lazarus and his family had united their family-owned Lazarus department...
by Gary Hoover | Nov 21, 2019 | Articles, Books, Technology
Tech companies from Apple to Dell, from Adobe to Oracle, work each day to outsmart their competitors, to develop innovative products and services, and to best market and sell their products and services. No technology company in history has been more successful in...
by Gary Hoover | Nov 14, 2019 | Articles, Data, Demography and Geography, Newsletters
Click here to see the detailed chart or watch it here on youtube. Two weeks ago, we presented an animated chart showing the most popular American cities – the metropolitan areas which received the most domestic migrants in each year from 2010 through...
by Gary Hoover | Nov 14, 2019 | Articles, Business in General, Data, Data, Demography and Geography
Two weeks ago, we presented an animated chart showing the most popular American cities – the metropolitan areas which received the most domestic migrants in each year from 2010 through 2018. This week, we created an animated chart showing “the...
by Gary Hoover | Nov 13, 2019 | Demography and Geography, Videos
by Gary Hoover | Nov 7, 2019 | Articles, Articles, Articles, Biographies, Consumer Products, Newsletters, Other Industries
This article first appeared in the Archbridge Institute’s American Originals Series. Outside of the field of product and transportation design, too few people know who Raymond Loewy was. The best-known industrial designer, founder of the industrial...
by Gary Hoover | Nov 1, 2019 | Data, Demography and Geography, Videos
by Gary Hoover | Oct 31, 2019 | Articles, Data, Demography and Geography, Newsletters
This week we present another of our animated charts. This one looks at which cities Americans have been moving to, from 2010 through 2018. Population growth is a key factor in business and where business takes place. Entrepreneurs and innovators often...
by Gary Hoover | Oct 31, 2019 | Data, Data, Demography and Geography
by Gary Hoover | Oct 24, 2019 | Articles, Newsletters, Other Industries
With this newsletter, we begin a periodic series, “Whatever Became of?” As students of business history, we learn much from both success and failure. About 80% of the largest companies of America in the mid-twentieth century are no longer with us. ...
by Gary Hoover | Oct 9, 2019 | Articles, Biographies, Consumer Products, Newsletters
This article first appeared in the Archbridge Institute’s American Original Series. Born in upstate New York in 1801, Gail Borden was raised there and in Kentucky and Indiana. As a young man, he moved to Mississippi and then Texas in search of...
by Gary Hoover | Oct 4, 2019 | Articles, Newsletters, Transportation
I grew up in Anderson, Indiana, which played a special role in the development of America’s original high speed all-electric railroads, the interurbans. Here is a quick look at that story, which reflects one man’s obsession with a new technology, perhaps with...
by Gary Hoover | Sep 19, 2019 | Articles, Data, Demography and Geography, Newsletters
Dear Friends of History, Here at the American Business History Center, we usually focus on the long-term view, going back decades. But today, for a change of pace, we take a look at very recent history….the 2010’s. Here is one of our “bar race charts” created using...
by Gary Hoover | Sep 19, 2019 | Data, Data, Demography and Geography
by Gary Hoover | Sep 13, 2019 | Videos
by Gary Hoover | Sep 13, 2019 | Videos
by Gary Hoover | Sep 13, 2019 | Videos
by Gary Hoover | Sep 12, 2019 | Articles, Articles, Articles, Articles, Biographies, Business in General, Foodservice and Lodging, Other Industries
This article first appeared on June 24, 2019 in The Archbridge Institute’s ‘American Originals’ series. Despite being often forgotten today, Henry J. Kaiser was one of the most unusual and diverse entrepreneurs in American history. Quitting school at...
by Gary Hoover | Sep 4, 2019 | Business in General, Data