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This is a biography of William McChesney Martin Jr. (1906–1998), the first paid president of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the chairman of the Federal Reserve System (Fed) under Presidents Harry S. Truman to Richard Nixon. The extent of Martin's influence on the course of American economic history was significant: arguably he has done more to strengthen and reform the nation's most important financial institutions than has any other individual. This book recounts Martin's life story, and explains his lasting impact on the NYSE and the Fed, both troubled institutions that he transformed. It provides an inside look at the economic deliberations of five presidential administrations, and describes Martin's battles to bring about ethical and intelligent regulation of U.S. financial markets. Martin's experiences shed light not only on the evolution of the American financial system but also on critical issues that confront the system today.

The United States is in transit from an industrial to a postindustrial society, from a modern to a postmodern culture, and from a national to a global economy. This book asks how we can distinguish the uniquely American elements of these changes from more global influences, focusing on the ways in which economic imperatives give shape to the shifting experience of being American. Drawing on a wide knowledge of American history and literature, the latest social science, and contemporary social issues, it investigates continuity and change in American race relations, politics, religion, conception of selfhood, family, and the arts. The chapter paints a vivid picture of contemporary America, showing how postmodernism is perceived and felt by individuals, and focusing attention on the strengths and limitations of American democracy.

When a new technology makes people ill, how high does the body count have to be before protectives steps are taken? This disturbing book tells a dark story of hazardous manufacturing, poisonous materials, environmental abuses, political machinations, and economics trumping safety concerns. It explores the century-long history of “fake silk” or cellulose viscose, used to produce such products as rayon textiles and tires, cellophane, and everyday kitchen sponges. The book uncovers the grim history of a product that crippled and even served a death sentence to many industry workers while also releasing toxic carbon disulfide into the environment. Viscose, an innovative and lucrative product first introduced in the early twentieth century, quickly became a multinational corporate enterprise. The book investigates the viscose rayon industry's practices from the beginning through two highly profitable world wars, the midcentury export of hazardous manufacturing to developing countries, and the current “greenwashing” of viscose rayon as an eco-friendly product. This book brings to light an industrial hazard whose egregious history ranks with those of asbestos, lead, and mercury.

This book looks at hundreds of autobiographies penned between 1760 and 1900 to offer an intimate firsthand account of how the industrial revolution was experienced by the working class of Britain. The industrial revolution brought not simply misery and poverty, but in fact, the book argues, raised incomes, improved literacy, and offered exciting opportunities for political action. For many, this was a period of new, and much valued, sexual and cultural freedom. This personal account focuses on the social impact of the industrialization, rather than its economic and political histories. The book gets under the skin of the period and creates a cast of colorful characters, including factory workers, miners, shoemakers, carpenters, servants, and farm laborers.

This book examines the challenges that confronted the peoples of the Western Arctic in the early twentieth century, a result of the collapse of the whaling industry and the nearly simultaneous rise of the market for white fox skins. The fur trade created temporary wealth for the Northerners and induced population movements throughout the region. When the price of white fox skins declined during the 1930s these peoples, who had dispersed for trapping opportunities, consolidated into towns and villages that possessed schools, missions, and stores – a movement that was the beginning of today’s arctic demographic condition.