Enterprising America: Businesses, Banks, and Credit Markets in Historical Perspective

A variety of economic enterprises, pursued within the framework of laws and institutions that set the rules for their organization and operation, launched America from a colonial outpost to one of the world’s most productive economies.
To better understand the historical processes central to American economic development, Enterprising America brings together research studies by distinguished economic historians who address the economic behavior of American firms and financial institutions—and the associated legal institutions that shaped their behavior—throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Among the topics studied are the rise of incorporation and its connection to factory production in manufacturing, the organization and operation of large cotton plantations in comparison with factories, the regulation and governance of banks, the transportation revolution’s influence on bank stability and survival, and the emergence of long-distance credit in the context of an economy that was growing rapidly and becoming increasingly integrated across space.