Corporate Conservatives Go to War: How the National Association of Manufacturers Planned to Restore American Free Enterprise, 1939–1948 (Palgrave Studies in American Economic History)

World War II presented a unique opportunity for American business to improve its reputation after years of censure for inflicting the Great Depression upon the nation. No employers’ organization worked harder or devoted greater resources to reviving business prestige during the war than the National Association of Manufacturers, which spent millions of dollars on promoting the indispensability of private enterprise to the successful mobilization of the American economy in an uncompromising multi-media campaign which spanned the factory floor to the movie theatre. Now, using unpublished primary sources, the full extent of the NAM’s wartime mission to raise the stature of American business in the post-war era is revealed. During the war the NAM erected a vast structure of research on an unprecedented scale numbering more than one hundred persons dedicated to planning the best solutions for restoring American ‘free enterprise’ capitalism after the war in a direct challenge to the ‘liberal’ prescriptions of the reigning administration. These studies were painstakingly assembled and widely distributed and served as a complimentary arm to the better-known pro-business propaganda message of the organization. What emerges is a unique and telling glimpse into the minds of the corporate class of wartime America that reveals the determination of a major employers’ organization to exploit the exceptional circumstances of total war to influence both the power-brokers in Washington who wrote economic policy and the American public as a whole to embrace a post-war future ruled by private enterprise capitalism. Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii Introduction (Charlie Whitham)....Pages 1-21 The War Before the War, 1933–1939 (Charlie Whitham)....Pages 23-40 Managing the Mobilization, 1938–1941 (Charlie Whitham)....Pages 41-59 Coming in from the Cold: The Start of Post-war Planning, 1942 (Charlie Whitham)....Pages 61-110 The Peak of Post-War Planning, 1943 (Charlie Whitham)....Pages 111-164 Out of the Shadows, 1944 (Charlie Whitham)....Pages 165-216 On the Offensive, 1945 (Charlie Whitham)....Pages 217-270 Winning the Peace, 1946–1948 (Charlie Whitham)....Pages 271-299 Conclusion: Not Quite ‘Free’ Enterprise (Charlie Whitham)....Pages 301-320 Back Matter ....Pages 321-400 Preface 8 Contents 14 Abbreviations 16 Chapter 1 Introduction 17 Chapter 2 The War Before the War, 1933–1939 38 Chapter 3 Managing the Mobilization, 1938–1941 56 Chapter 4 Coming in from the Cold: The Start of Post-war Planning, 1942 75 Chapter 5 The Peak of Post-War Planning, 1943 125 Chapter 6 Out of the Shadows, 1944 179 Chapter 7 On the Offensive, 1945 231 Chapter 8 Winning the Peace, 1946–1948 285 Chapter 9 Conclusion: Not Quite ‘Free’ Enterprise 314 Appendix : Members of the NAM Active in Post-war Planning 334 Bibliography 382 Index 408