| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 33.3

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 33.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Company Men: White-Collar Life and Corporate Cultures in Los Angeles, 1892-1941. By Clark Davis. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. xvii + 298 pp. Illustrations, tables, notes, bibliographical essay, index. $39.95.)

Company Men is a fascinating book about white-collar employees. The work is mostly about the company men rather than the city, but illuminates many urban themes. Corporations did not come naturally or logically to Americans in the 1890s. Therefore, new firms had to convince the public of their utility. Employers found their increasingly large corporations impossible to manage directly, so sought ways to make them effective in lieu of personal involvement. That in turn meant emphasizing employee efficiency, but employers found it difficult to guarantee efficiency because they found it hard to attract and retain the best men. At first, the best men seemed more interested in establishing their own autonomy through running their own businesses. The book is about how managers found ways to cement the loyalties of these ambitious young white men. Yet, companies had to survive in a competitive market, which meant balancing employee contentment and customer satisfaction. . . .

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