Dr. Eric Daniels on "The Commercial Revolution in American Business"
Americans today live in unparalleled abundance. Millions of consumer goods--everything from cars and cellphones to laptops and plasma televisions, from gourmet espresso to custom-made business suits--are easily within our reach. How did the United States ever achieve such a standard of living? What makes it possible for so many Americans to enjoy the fruits of so much stuff?View the flyer for this event.
American wealth today owes its very existence to the heroic achievements of the great businessmen--entrepreneurs of the nineteenth and early-twentieth century. These men saw that industrial technology could make life easier and more comfortable for all Americans. By innovating and creating new forms of business, businessmen heros revolutionized the way that Americans purchased consumer goods, thereby improving the lives of every American and making possible the enormous growth and development of American business today. Focusing on business history, this lecture will highlight the accomplishments of these men and assess their importance for American economic development.
Dr. Eric Daniels is a postdoctoral fellow and research associate at Duke University's Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace. In addition to teaching at Duke, Dr. Daniels has taught at the University of Wisconsin, where he earned his Ph.D. in American history. He has lectured internationally on the history of American ethics, American business and entrepeneurship, and the American Enlightenment. Dr. Daniels was a contributor to the recently-published Oxford Companion to United States History and is currently working on a book dealing with American politics and ethics in the ante-bellum period.