Trust and Power

Trust and Power argues that corporations have faced conflicts with the very consumers whose loyalty they sought. The book provides novel insights into the dialogue between corporations and consumers by examining the car industry during the twentieth century. In the new market at the turn of the century, car manufacturers produced defective cars, and consumers faced risks of physical injuries as well as financial losses. By the 1920s, cars were sold in a mass market where state agencies intervened to monitor, however imperfectly, product quality and fair pricing mechanisms. After 1945, the market matured as most US families came to rely on car transport. Again, the state intervened to regulate relations between buyers and sellers in terms of who had access to credit, and thus the ability to purchase expensive durables like cars.

Author Biography

Sally H. Clarke, Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin, specializes in the political economy of the United States during the 20th century. Her interdisciplinary interests are reflected in articles in the Journal of Design History, Law and History Review, and Business History. She has been a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (Harvard University) and the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies (Princeton University). She is the author of Regulation and the Revolution in United States Farm Productivity.