The Corporation as Family The Gendering of Corporate Welfare, 1890-1930

Author/creator Mandell, Nikki Author
Format Electronic
Publication InfoChapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press
Description224 p. ill 09.250 x 06.130 in.
Supplemental ContentFull text available from Ebook Central - Academic Complete
Subjects

SeriesLuther Hartwell Hodges Series on Business, Society, and the State Ser.
Summary Annotation The beginning of the twentieth century witnessed a remarkable growth of corporate welfare programs in American industry. By the mid-1920s, 80 percent of the nation's largest companies--firms including DuPont, International Harvester, and Metropolitan Life Insurance--engaged in some form of welfare work. Programs were implemented to achieve goals that ranged from improving basic workplace conditions, to providing educational, recreational, and social opportunities for workers and their families, to establishing savings and insurance plans.Employing the critical lens of gender analysis, Nikki Mandell offers an innovative perspective on the development of corporate welfare. She argues that its advocates sought to build a new relationship between labor and management by recasting the modern corporation as a Victorian family. Employers assumed the authoritative position of fathers, assigned their employees the subordinate role of children, and hired male and female welfare managers to act as "corporate mothers" charged with creating a harmonious household. But internal conflict and external pressures weakened the corporate welfare system, and it eventually gave way to a system of personnel management and employee representation. With the abandonment of the familial model, the form of corporate welfare changed; but, as Mandell demonstrates, its content left an enduring legacy for modern industrial relations.
Access restrictionAvailable only to authorized users.
Technical detailsMode of access: World Wide Web
Genre/formElectronic books.
LCCN 2001043101
ISBN9780807853511
ISBN0807853518 (Trade Paper) Active Record
Standard identifier# 9780807853511
Stock number00027332

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