Enterprising Elite (1987) by Robert F. Dalzell, Jr.

Book Review

Enterprising Elite: The Boston Associates and the World They Made (1987)

by Robert F. Dalzell, Jr. 

Harvard University Press

   I go to Boston twice a year because my partner is from there and she fucking loves it.  I don't like it as much as she does but there is plenty to appreciate.  First off, the history- which- even in the shittiest, nothing small town in New England typically extends back to before the American Revolution.  There's Boston itself, which is a world-class city.  One of the things I've found interesting about the city is that Boston is like this shining crown jewel and then you go 30 minutes out of town and there are these super sad industrial suburbs- Lowell, Lawrence that are like caricatures of depressed-working-class towns.  What happened, exactly?  

  Fortunately I found this book on the shelf at the Boston Library and was able to check it out from the LAPL.  Voila, all my questions answered.  It turns out that the first wave of industrial capitalism in New England was started by a small group of interlinked family members who then relocated to Boston and turned their fortunes to improving the civic institutions that bore their names.  The lives of the people living in the towns they founded to put their factories- not so much.  Not at all, in fact.  One of the major points that Dalzell makes is that these guys (they were all men) were interested in community welfare but had a narrow definition of "their" community.  At its greatest, that encompassed everyone in Boston before the Irish showed up.  

   A later chapter on political involvement shows how narrow their appeal was- with men from the Lawrence family losing elections in Lawrence, the city they founded for their textile factories.  Dalzell points out that this was nothing close to what one would consider a "modern" industrial operation even though they were pioneers in the use of the corporate form to limit liability among owners. Most notably these textile factories didn't retain much capital instead handing out large dividends rather than reinvesting in the business.