Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Iron Masters
- 3 Laying the Foundations: Peace and War in the Metal Trades, c. 1890–1904
- 4 Combat, Crisis, and Consolidation, 1904–1915
- 5 “The Largest, Strongest, and Most Valuable Association of Metal Manufacturers in Any City”
- 6 Riding the Storm, 1915–1918
- 7 The War After the War, 1918–1923
- 8 Pacific Passage: Quaker Employers and Welfare Capitalism, c. 1905–1924
- 9 A Liberal Interlude: The Modernization of the MMA, c. 1924–1931
- 10 The Deluge: The Great Depression and the End of the Open Shop
- 11 The New World: Accommodation and Adjustment, 1936–1939
- 12 Afterword: “We'll Still Be There. We're Not Going Away”
- Appendix: Databases Referred to in Text: Nature, Sources, Use
- Index
9 - A Liberal Interlude: The Modernization of the MMA, c. 1924–1931
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Iron Masters
- 3 Laying the Foundations: Peace and War in the Metal Trades, c. 1890–1904
- 4 Combat, Crisis, and Consolidation, 1904–1915
- 5 “The Largest, Strongest, and Most Valuable Association of Metal Manufacturers in Any City”
- 6 Riding the Storm, 1915–1918
- 7 The War After the War, 1918–1923
- 8 Pacific Passage: Quaker Employers and Welfare Capitalism, c. 1905–1924
- 9 A Liberal Interlude: The Modernization of the MMA, c. 1924–1931
- 10 The Deluge: The Great Depression and the End of the Open Shop
- 11 The New World: Accommodation and Adjustment, 1936–1939
- 12 Afterword: “We'll Still Be There. We're Not Going Away”
- Appendix: Databases Referred to in Text: Nature, Sources, Use
- Index
Summary
This chapter describes how and why the MMA responded to some of the liberal currents that had swept through the awakened consciences of some of its members. The progressive impulse was necessarily diluted as it spread from proprietor-managers, who were convinced of the rightness of their program, through the Business Problems Group, few of whose members were able to accompany them very far down the welfare capitalist road, and into the MMA, where the Orthodox were never more than a small but influential minority. The MMA remained a voluntary association with an increasingly diverse membership whose needs it existed to serve. In this context, the impact of managerial liberalism could not but be limited. However, Leeds and his associates had allies who might not share their religious perspective but could agree to their specific policy recommendations. These allies were professional managers (particularly personnel specialists) of the MMA's new recruits, including some of Philadelphia's largest metal products companies and branch plants of both of the giant electrical manufacturers, General Electric and Westinghouse. The electrical manufacturers in particular were at the forefront of the employee representation and other movements for the reform of capitalist employment relations by enlightened capitalists themselves. In addition, the reformers found support outside of the local business community, in the new world of foundation-backed, university-based applied social science, represented in Philadelphia by Joseph Willits and the Wharton School's Department of Industrial Research (DIR), which he created and ran.
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- Information
- Bloodless VictoriesThe Rise and Fall of the Open Shop in the Philadelphia Metal Trades, 1890–1940, pp. 309 - 351Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000