by Gary Hoover | Apr 17, 2022 | Articles, Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters, Other Industries
Few industries are more important to modern life than the chemical industry. Almost everything we touch, the clothes we wear, and much of what we eat contains chemicals or was processed by chemicals. Yet the companies are usually out of sight of...
by Gary Hoover | Mar 9, 2022 | Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters, Share Your History
If you read Part One of this story, published in our last newsletter, you know that TravelFest was an immediate success with customers. The store was not big enough to handle the traffic, so we decided to build larger stores. The original 6,000 square foot...
by Gary Hoover | Feb 27, 2022 | Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters, Share Your History
Read the second part of this two-part story here. Two years ago, we started our “Share Your History” page on our website. We solicited contributions from our readers, telling us of their history with enterprises large or small. To start the page, we seeded...
by Gary Hoover | Feb 6, 2022 | Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters
No industry touches us more frequently or intimately than the apparel industry. Yet few if any books document the history of this important industry. There are plentiful books about costume and fashion trends, but not about the enterprises which made the...
by Gary Hoover | Jan 14, 2022 | Articles, Articles, Biographies, Consumer Products, Newsletters, Other Industries
Isaac Merritt Singer (1811-1875) had a dream: to become a great actor on the stage, performing Shakespeare to accolades. For almost the first forty years of his life, he failed to achieve any success in this pursuit. Continually tinkering with machines, he...
by Gary Hoover | Nov 20, 2021 | Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters, Student Essay Contest
In this week’s newsletter, we publish one of the best essays from our high school essay contest, by one of our honorable mention winners. This excellent history of the Campbell Soup Company was written by Diya Patel of Woodland Park, New Jersey. Diya...
by Gary Hoover | Sep 12, 2021 | Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters
From its founding in 1898 at the height of the trust era, the National Biscuit Company quickly rose to become the largest of the big branded food companies. By the 1920s the company was far larger than such well-known companies as HJ Heinz, Campbell Soup,...
by Gary Hoover | Aug 21, 2021 | Articles, Articles, Consumer Products, Transportation
There are an estimated one billion bicycles in the world today, almost half of them in China and another one hundred million in the United States. About one hundred million new ones are manufactured each year, over half in China and many others in Taiwan, around...
by Gary Hoover | Aug 7, 2021 | Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters, Other Industries
Early in the twentieth century, the Kimberly-Clark paper company pioneered “sanitary napkins” with their Kotex brand. Magazine publishers resisted running ads for the innovative but very private product and retailers hesitated to display Kotex. The company...
by Gary Hoover | Apr 29, 2021 | Articles, Articles, Articles, Business in General, Consumer Products, Newsletters, Retailing
While most big companies disappear over time (as shown in our recent newsletter), some figure out how to survive and prosper decade after decade, even century after century. But is the journey from founding to long-term durability a straight path? Today...
by Gary Hoover | Mar 19, 2021 | Articles, Articles, Consumer Products, Other Industries
In setting the stage for this story, I interject myself, because “I was there.” Setting the Stage The year is 1975. I am two years out of college, a junior securities analyst for institutional investor Citibank in New York. My veteran analyst boss Pete...
by Gary Hoover | Feb 5, 2021 | Articles, Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters, Technology
From the telegraph to the modern age, high technology has seen continuous innovation, followed by the rise of numerous competitors, then consolidation into fewer companies, and finally decline. Here is one of our favorite stories. The advent of television rivals...
by Gary Hoover | Dec 5, 2020 | Articles, Articles, Articles, Consumer Products, Media & Entertainment, Newsletters, Other Industries
Rudolph Wurlitzer and his sons Howard and Farny Wurlitzer The Wurlitzer Company is one of the most interesting companies we have studied. At their peak, their slogan was “Music for the Millions.” Here is the story of this formerly great company, based on...
by Gary Hoover | Nov 13, 2020 | Articles, Articles, Consumer Products, Data, Data, Healthcare, Newsletters
“Big pharma” and “biotech” are in the news these days. Politicians attack the industry and the price of drugs. At the same time, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and others hurry along to develop a COVID vaccine. These companies have been among the...
by Gary Hoover | Oct 23, 2020 | Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters
For decades America’s largest food company, General Foods was one of the most highly regarded marketing companies in the world. Formed in the roaring twenties by consolidating companies that led the way in convenience foods, GF became an industry giant. ...
by Gary Hoover | Oct 16, 2020 | Articles, Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters
A current buzzword is “pivoting,” which means changing your company’s strategy and direction, often into entirely new businesses. Pivots are frequent in young companies trying to find the best markets and a footing for future opportunities. Here we look at...
by Gary Hoover | Sep 25, 2020 | Articles, Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters
Every industry tells a story of competition: the rise and fall of companies. Technological industries often see more “changing of the guard” than more stable businesses like food, soap, and beverages. One of the first high-tech industries in America...
by Gary Hoover | Aug 7, 2020 | Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters
Here is an unsung but key part of the long and illustrious history of Coca-Cola, one of the world’s most successful and well-known brands. Few realize the links between the company and the patent medicine (quack) products of the 19th century, which connect it to...
by Dave Stanwick | Jul 9, 2020 | Articles, Biographies, Consumer Products, Newsletters
This article first appeared in the Archbridge Institute’s American Originals Series. Born in rural Pennsylvania in 1857, Milton Hershey attended seven different schools and never made it beyond the fourth grade. At fifteen, he found his passion in a...
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 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | Jul 25, 2019 | Articles, Biographies, Consumer Products, Share Your History
I really appreciate the history of the Indiana Glass Company provided by The Museum of Glass in West Virginia (and Tom Felt, Monograph #69) and Craig Schenning in his great book about Indiana Glass from Schiffer Publishing. As well as the folks at...
by Gary Hoover | May 25, 2019 | Articles, Consumer Products, Newsletters
Donate today and become a founding member of the American Business History Center. At the American Business History Center, we are always looking for ways to connect the present to the past. And hopefully learn some lessons along the way. May is a critical month...
by Gary Hoover | Jul 5, 2018 | Articles, Biographies, Consumer Products
This article first appeared on July 5, 2018 in The Archbridge Institute’s ‘American Originals’ series. It’s December 1875. Thirty-one-year-old Henry John “HJ” Heinz is bedridden the entire month with deep depression. On some days, he...
by Gary Hoover | Feb 12, 2018 | Articles, Biographies, Consumer Products
This article first appeared on February 12, 2018 in The Archbridge Institute’s ‘American Originals’ series. Today, the Estée Lauder Companies have become among the most important cosmetics companies in the world—against huge odds and...
by Gary Hoover | Jan 24, 2018 | Articles, Articles, Biographies, Consumer Products, Technology
This article first appeared on January 24, 2018 in The Archbridge Institute’s ‘American Originals’ series. The technologies of today are built upon those of the past, and the superstars of our era would be nothing without the great...
by Gary Hoover | Oct 31, 2017 | Articles, Biographies, Consumer Products
This article first appeared on October 31, 2017 in The Archbridge Institute’s ‘American Originals’ series. Her Westchester County neighborhood was the home of Vanderbilts, Morgans, and Astors. Jay Gould and John D. Rockefeller had assembled...