Authors: Alfred Dupont DuPont Chandler, Stephen Salsbury
ISBN-13: 9781587980237, ISBN-10: 1587980231
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Beard Books, Incorporated
Date Published: December 2000
Edition: (Non-applicable)
This meticulously researched biography of Pierre S. du Pont, head of the Du Pont Company and later General Motors, describes how the Delaware scion took a loosely run, family gunpowder factory and turned it into a giant corporation. Moreover, by astute business management he transformed a faltering General Motors into one of the world's most profitable enterprises. Chandler and Salsbury, who had access to business and personal records rarely available to historians, made the most of them. It is truly one of the finest business histories ever written.
Acknowledgments | xvii | |
Introduction | xix | |
I. | The Years of Preparation | |
1. | The Family and the Firm | 3 |
2. | The Apprenticeship | 23 |
3. | The New Company | 47 |
4. | The Big Company | 77 |
II. | Managing the Powder Company | |
5. | The Treasurer | 123 |
6. | Formulating Financial Policy | 149 |
7. | Investment Overseas? | 169 |
8. | Maintaining Financial Control | 201 |
9. | Toward Vertical Integration | 227 |
III. | The New Challenges | |
10. | The Powder Company Assailed | 259 |
11. | The Problem of Succession | 301 |
12. | The Cousins Split | 322 |
13. | Supplying the Allies | 359 |
14. | The American War Effort: Negotiations Begun | 390 |
15. | The American War Effort: Negotiations Completed | 410 |
IV. | The General Motors Story | |
16. | Initial Involvement, 1915-1917 | 433 |
17. | Du Pont "Control" at General Motors, 1918-1920 | 457 |
18. | The Crisis, 1920 | 475 |
19. | Reorganization and Regeneration, 1921 | 492 |
20. | Product Policy and Technological Innovation, 1921-1923 | 511 |
21. | General Motors Rebuilt, 1923-1924 | 537 |
22. | Last Years at General Motors and Du Pont | 560 |
23. | The Family and the Enterprise | 592 |
Appendix | 605 | |
Sources of Information | 615 | |
Notes | 617 | |
Index | 709 |