Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T12:07:21.945Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Customer Stock Ownership as Monopoly Utility Political Strategy in the 1910s and 1920s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2017

DANIEL ROBERT
DANIEL ROBERT*
Affiliation:
Daniel Robert is a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. His book manuscript, which is under contract with Johns Hopkins University Press, is tentatively entitled, “Courteous Capitalism: Customer Relations and Monopoly Utilities, 1900–1930.” Department of History, University of California, Berkeley, 3229 Dwinelle Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-2550. E-mail: daniel.m.robert@berkeley.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the beginning of the twentieth century, as Americans erupted in righteous indignation over the flagrant abuses of monopoly utilities, utility executives responded by developing several strategies to improve public opinion, rein in regulation, and thwart public ownership. One of the most widely used and successful of these strategies was selling gas, electricity, and telephone company stock directly to customers. To reach these local customers, utility managers required their employees to peddle stock directly to their friends, family, and customers. Using this method, utilities reached a large number of Americans who would not normally have set up a brokerage account or been solicited by a securities sales agent. By farming these interstitial regions of America’s financial landscape, utility executives harvested millions of dollars in capital, but as executives explicitly made clear, the goal of customer stock ownership was not to raise capital but to raise political support. By the crash of 1929, utilities directly sold stock to 20 percent of the total number of stockholding Americans directly through customer stock ownership programs and not through traditional brokerage firms. This article situates the development of customer stock ownership in the political economic context from which it emerged as an organizational response, reveals the social and organizational processes by which utility monopolies sold stock, and appraises the effect of customer stock ownership on antimonopoly sentiment in America.

Type
Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , December 2017 , pp. 893 - 920
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2017. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved. 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Carver, Thomas Nixon. The Present Economic Revolution in the United States. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1926.Google Scholar
Danielian, N. R. AT&T: The Story of Industrial Conquest. New York: Vanguard Press, 1939.Google Scholar
Fischer, Claude S. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Walter A. Fortune Tellers: The Story of America’s First Economic Forecasters. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Great Crash of 1929. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1955.Google Scholar
Glaser, Leah S. Electrifying the Rural American West: Stories of Power, People, and Place. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Issel, William, and Cherny, Robert W., San Francisco, 1865–1932: Politics, Power, and Urban Development. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Insull, Samuel. Public Utilities in Modern Life. Chicago: Privately printed, 1924.Google Scholar
John, Richard R. Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacDougall, Robert. The People’s Network: The Political Economy of the Telephone in the Gilded Age. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Marchand, Roland. Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Myers, William A. Iron Men and Copper Wires: A Centennial History of the Southern California Edison Company. Glendale, CA: Trans-Anglo Books, 1983.Google Scholar
Nye, David E. Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880–1940. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Ott, Julia. When Wall Street Met Main Street: The Quest for an Investors’ Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perkins, Edwin J. Wall Street to Main Street: Charles Merrill and Middle-Class Investors. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Ripley, William Z. Main Street and Wall Street. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1927.Google Scholar
Statistical Supplement to the ‘Electric Light and Power Industry in the United States’ : Prepared, as the Statistical Section of the N. E. L. A. Handbook, Revised to January 1, 1929: Supplement to the N.E.L.A. Publication, 289–214. New York: National Electric Light Association, 1929.Google Scholar
Thelen, David P. Robert M. La Follette and the Insurgent Spirit. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1976.Google Scholar
Ransom, William L., and Moon, Parker Thomas, eds. “Popular Ownership of Property: Its Newer Forms and Social Consequences.” Special issue, Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York 11, no. 3 (April 1925): i–210.Google Scholar
Means, Gardiner C. “The Diffusion of Stock Ownership in the United States.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 44, no. 4 (August 1930): 561–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell Telephone Quarterly Google Scholar
The Mouthpiece Google Scholar
NELA Bulletin Google Scholar
Pacific Service Magazine Google Scholar
Pacific Telephone Magazine Google Scholar
PG&E Progress Google Scholar
San Francisco Chronicle Google Scholar
Southern Telephone News Google Scholar
Wall Street Journal Google Scholar
AT&T Archives and History Center, San Antonio, TX.Google Scholar
The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
California Public Utilities Commission Collection, California State Archives, Sacramento, CA.Google Scholar
Samuel Insull Papers, Loyola University Chicago Archives, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Southern California Edison Records, The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.Google Scholar
American Electric Railway Association Google Scholar
American Gas Association Google Scholar
National Electric Light Association Google Scholar
American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Comments Submitted to Federal Communications Commission by American Telephone and Telegraph Company on Commission Exhibit 230: Ownership of American Telephone and Telegraph Company, November 19, 1937.Google Scholar
Annual Report of the Bell Telephone Securities Company Incorporated .Google Scholar
Annual Report of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company .Google Scholar
Annual Report of the Pacific Gas & Electric Company. Google Scholar
Annual Report to the Stockholders of Southern California Edison Company. Google Scholar
Bell Telephone Securities Company. Bell Telephone Securities Reference Tables and Descriptions for the Use of Investors, Investment Houses, and Bankers, with a Brief Introductory Statement of the Organization and Financing of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and Associated Companies. New York: 1935.Google Scholar
Federal Communications Commission. Proposed Report Telephone Investigation Pursuant to Public Resolution No. 8, 74th Congress. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1938.Google Scholar
Jordan, Frank C., Statement of Vote at General Election Held on November 7, 1922 in the State of California. Sacramento: State Printing Office, 1923.Google Scholar
Letter from the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission Transmitting in Response to Senate Resolution No . 83 a Monthly Report on the Electric Power and Gas Utilities Inquiry, Nos. 1, 3-5, 18-19, 22, Filed with the Secretary of the Senate, 1928, 1930. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Southern California Edison Photographs and Negatives, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.Google Scholar
“Purchasing Power Calculator,” www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/relativevalue.phpwww.faqs.org/people-search/thomas-l-taylor/ Google Scholar
“Dividend and Stock Split History,” www.pgecorp.com/investors/shareholders/dividend_history.shtml Google Scholar
Carver, Thomas Nixon. The Present Economic Revolution in the United States. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1926.Google Scholar
Danielian, N. R. AT&T: The Story of Industrial Conquest. New York: Vanguard Press, 1939.Google Scholar
Fischer, Claude S. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Walter A. Fortune Tellers: The Story of America’s First Economic Forecasters. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Great Crash of 1929. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1955.Google Scholar
Glaser, Leah S. Electrifying the Rural American West: Stories of Power, People, and Place. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Issel, William, and Cherny, Robert W., San Francisco, 1865–1932: Politics, Power, and Urban Development. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Insull, Samuel. Public Utilities in Modern Life. Chicago: Privately printed, 1924.Google Scholar
John, Richard R. Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacDougall, Robert. The People’s Network: The Political Economy of the Telephone in the Gilded Age. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Marchand, Roland. Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Myers, William A. Iron Men and Copper Wires: A Centennial History of the Southern California Edison Company. Glendale, CA: Trans-Anglo Books, 1983.Google Scholar
Nye, David E. Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880–1940. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Ott, Julia. When Wall Street Met Main Street: The Quest for an Investors’ Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perkins, Edwin J. Wall Street to Main Street: Charles Merrill and Middle-Class Investors. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Ripley, William Z. Main Street and Wall Street. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1927.Google Scholar
Statistical Supplement to the ‘Electric Light and Power Industry in the United States’ : Prepared, as the Statistical Section of the N. E. L. A. Handbook, Revised to January 1, 1929: Supplement to the N.E.L.A. Publication, 289–214. New York: National Electric Light Association, 1929.Google Scholar
Thelen, David P. Robert M. La Follette and the Insurgent Spirit. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1976.Google Scholar
Ransom, William L., and Moon, Parker Thomas, eds. “Popular Ownership of Property: Its Newer Forms and Social Consequences.” Special issue, Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York 11, no. 3 (April 1925): i–210.Google Scholar
Means, Gardiner C. “The Diffusion of Stock Ownership in the United States.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 44, no. 4 (August 1930): 561–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell Telephone Quarterly Google Scholar
The Mouthpiece Google Scholar
NELA Bulletin Google Scholar
Pacific Service Magazine Google Scholar
Pacific Telephone Magazine Google Scholar
PG&E Progress Google Scholar
San Francisco Chronicle Google Scholar
Southern Telephone News Google Scholar
Wall Street Journal Google Scholar
AT&T Archives and History Center, San Antonio, TX.Google Scholar
The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
California Public Utilities Commission Collection, California State Archives, Sacramento, CA.Google Scholar
Samuel Insull Papers, Loyola University Chicago Archives, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Southern California Edison Records, The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.Google Scholar
American Electric Railway Association Google Scholar
American Gas Association Google Scholar
National Electric Light Association Google Scholar
American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Comments Submitted to Federal Communications Commission by American Telephone and Telegraph Company on Commission Exhibit 230: Ownership of American Telephone and Telegraph Company, November 19, 1937.Google Scholar
Annual Report of the Bell Telephone Securities Company Incorporated .Google Scholar
Annual Report of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company .Google Scholar
Annual Report of the Pacific Gas & Electric Company. Google Scholar
Annual Report to the Stockholders of Southern California Edison Company. Google Scholar
Bell Telephone Securities Company. Bell Telephone Securities Reference Tables and Descriptions for the Use of Investors, Investment Houses, and Bankers, with a Brief Introductory Statement of the Organization and Financing of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and Associated Companies. New York: 1935.Google Scholar
Federal Communications Commission. Proposed Report Telephone Investigation Pursuant to Public Resolution No. 8, 74th Congress. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1938.Google Scholar
Jordan, Frank C., Statement of Vote at General Election Held on November 7, 1922 in the State of California. Sacramento: State Printing Office, 1923.Google Scholar
Letter from the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission Transmitting in Response to Senate Resolution No . 83 a Monthly Report on the Electric Power and Gas Utilities Inquiry, Nos. 1, 3-5, 18-19, 22, Filed with the Secretary of the Senate, 1928, 1930. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Southern California Edison Photographs and Negatives, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.Google Scholar
“Purchasing Power Calculator,” www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/relativevalue.phpwww.faqs.org/people-search/thomas-l-taylor/ Google Scholar
“Dividend and Stock Split History,” www.pgecorp.com/investors/shareholders/dividend_history.shtml Google Scholar