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Coping with Competition: Cooperation and Collusion in the US Stove Industry, c.1870–1930

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Howell Harris
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Abstract

This article examines the attempts of several generations of manufacturers of cooking and heating appliances to manage competition in their very unconcentrated industry. They started with overt price-fixing, which soon failed, then moved on to a variety of more effective techniques—particularly joint regulation with the aid of a strong craft union, and the adoption of uniform cost-accounting and price-setting systems. The article illuminates the numerous ways in which a trade association could make cartel-like behavior work in an industry whose structural characteristics were apparently unfavorable and also the importance of state intervention to shaping and eventually limiting this strategy.

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Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 86 , Issue 4 , Winter 2012 , pp. 657 - 692
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2012

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References

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3 The inquiry cost $69,000, about $4.4 million at current prices, using the nominal GDP per capita method: USFTC Annual Reports, 1923–1925, Administrative Division, “Detailed Statement of Costs,” 1923, 23; 1924, 7; 1925, 6.

4 Sources underpinning its 187-page report are in Records of the Federal Trade Commission, Economic Division, Economic Investigations Files 1915–1938, RG122, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md. (hereafter, National Archives). Key materials, including interviews with the National Association of Stove Manufacturers' secretary and documents from his office, are in Box 2337 (hereafter, FTC Investigative File).

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15 Giles Filley to Marcus Filley (his older brother, a stove maker in Troy, New York) and others, 18 Dec. 1871, Box 1, “Targets” folder, Filley Papers, New York State Library, Albany, NY (hereafter, NYSL).

16 Ibid.

17 Albert Lyman (New York) to Marcus Filley, 30 Jan. 1872, Box 15, Folder A, Filley Papers, NYSL.

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