“Swope of Hull-House: The Influence of Settlement Life on Gerard Swope.”
By Thomas Perrin
Gerard Swope was born on December 1, 1872 in St. Louis, Missouri to Isaac and
Ida Swope. Isaac and Ida were first-generation German Jewish immigrants who
emigrated from Saxony, Germany to the Midwestern city in 1857.1 Isaac owned a
modestly profitable watchcase manufacturing business that sustained a comfortable
lifestyle and provided Gerard and his brother Herbert with exceptional educational
opportunities.2 Swope moved into Hull-House in 1897 equipped with a Bachelors of
Science in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a position
as a repairman at a Western Electric manufacturing plant on Chicago’s West Side that
paid twelve and a half cents per hour, and a growing awareness of the social problems
associated with industrialization. The last of these attributes was uncommon for a man of
his profession and was an endowment imparted on the twenty-five year old during his
year-old association with Hull-House. While living at Hull-House Swope witnessed the
arithmetic of unchecked greed and corruption: wealthy industrialists paying below
subsistence wages to an army of the unskilled and desperate, corrupt city alderman
extorting money from vulnerable immigrants, and immigrant families living in squalor
due to insufficient public funding for sanitation. Living in a cramped slum amidst
poverty and pestilence which negligent city officials, local business leaders, and
respected community members did little to relieve made an indelible mark on Swope.
His experiences at Hull-House impelled Swope to argue that industrialists had an
obligation to provide: “decent housing, adequate schooling and elemental security” to
1
workers.3 The observations that Swope made while at Hull-House imbued the future
industrial leader with a lifelong commitment to civic responsibility and social reform. In
1922, Swope took over as president of General Electric, one of the most influential and
innovative American corporations of the time.4 Swope’s unique approach to industrial
management and social reform gained fame around the globe because he was an
influential man within a vital industry. Swope’s socially responsible labor policies were
guided by the lessons he learned at Hull-House and made possible by his connection with
the infrastructure of progressive reformers linked to Hull-House.
The year that Swope spent as a resident and teacher of English, algebra, and
electronics at Hull-House proved to be a pivotal one in the young man’s personal and
professional life. After long workdays at Western Electric, Swope taught classes in his
field free of charge to upwardly mobile neighborhood immigrants and Western Electric
foreman.5 According to his biographer, the young engineer “learned at least as much as
he taught” at the classes.6 Swope took particular interest in the career of one of his more
ambitious students, Philip Davis, who would author And Crown Thy Good, part of which
depicts Davis’ relationship with Hull-House. Davis’ reflections forecast Swope’s
benevolent corporate leadership and suggest that female-led progressive politics and
Settlement life had an impact on the traditionally male-dominated sphere of private
enterprise. Of Swope, Davis writes:
He was an example of the future industrialist, at ease with labor men like Bisno,
Hillman and others of his day, as well as with the prominent figures representing
management. Although a man of means, he was active in the cause of reform in
playgrounds, bath houses and above all, housing. Up to the time that I met
Swope, I had associated only with workers and trade-unionists. Their doctrine
that all bosses were evil men and, by inference, that all trade unionists were
righteous, appeared absurd when I saw what sort of individual Swope was. 7
2
Here Davis hints at the admixture of influences that guided the corporate policymaking of
Swope the industrialist and social reformer. Swope practiced the lessons he learned at
Hull-House when he became president of G.E. by responding to worker grievances and
working with unions to create a better work environment. Swope took pride in his
unusually copasetic relationship with the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers
of America (UE). Negotiating with the leaders of the UE seemed a practical and moral
step to Swope who believed that loyal workers deserved a voice in labor negotiations.8
Swope, as a former resident of Hull-House and a former industrial worker, had witnessed
the results of unfair work conditions and poor communication between labor and
management. He understood that poor labor-management relations would ultimately lead
to labor unrest that could result in government regulation of employment practices. As a
businessman, Swope deemed government regulation a threat to both democracy and
capitalism. Moreover, as an advocate of social reform he believed that a worker’s social
welfare was most secure when disseminated from the top-down by socially responsible
corporate leaders.9
During his one-year residency at Hull-House Swope met, courted, and fell in love
with fellow Hull-House resident Mary Dayton Hill. Hill was a former student of
educator John Dewey at the University of Chicago and remained committed to social
reform long after she and Gerard left Hull-House.10 Gerard and Mary were wed in 1901
at a ceremony presided over by Jane Addams and attended by many members of HullHouse’s extended family. Addams’ memorable wedding address expressed her
confidence that the Swopes’ dedication to social reform would flourish long after they
exchanged their vows that summer day on Mackinac Island. Her address is a unique
3
combination of socially conscious profundity and heartfelt sentimentality that expresses
her high opinion of the couple and their strong ties to Hull-House.
At such a moment, we surround a man and a woman, so far as possible by those
who represent their earliest ties and tenderest affections -- by their families who have
long known them and some of whom have experienced with them the high comradeship
of identical aim and effort. Because all of us here have known Gerard and Mary so
intimately, because they have each shown so genuine a sense of social obligation, and
because each has for years striven to fulfill something of the social claim, we may
perhaps venture to emphasize the social aspects of this marriage.11
Addams’ focus on civic-mindedness at the wedding ceremony aptly expresses the
social vision spread among the white, middle-class professionals who resided at HullHouse. According to Addams, all professional and personal decisions of progressives
were to be guided by a dedication to social reform. This lesson, imparted on the couple
by one of the founding women of U.S. social reform, would ultimately influence Gerard
Swope to devote General Electric resources to improving the welfare of industry workers.
In 1899, Gerard was promoted to the position of branch manager at the Western
Electric office in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, and the Swope’s dedicated
themselves to ameliorating the conditions of the poor in a new city. Following their
marriage two years later, Mary and Gerard purchased a pair of modest homes in Carr
Square, a deteriorating St. Louis slum that was home to a growing population of Italian
and Russian immigrants. Swope’s biographer alludes to Mary’s desire to continue the
social work she had began at Hull-House as the deciding factor in the Swopes’ relocation
to the neighborhood.12 Indeed, one of the homes purchased housed looms at which Mary
4
was able to teach sewing classes to underemployed immigrant women. Teaching basic
industrial skills to immigrants who haled from rural backgrounds was a common activity
at Hull-House and Mary replicated that aspect of settlement life on a smaller scale when
she moved to St. Louis. Meanwhile, Gerard worked fifty-six hour weeks and had little
time to help Mary with her efforts to bring the legacy of Hull-House to the neighborhood.
It was not long before this changed. In 1903, Gerard’s social conscious was piqued by
the dearth of open spaces and playgrounds in the city. That year he joined the Civic
Improvement League and was appointed to the Open Air Playgrounds Committee.
According to the organizations tabulations, 67, 843 people attended the six parks funded
by the committee and 41,720 baths were provided to residents of the community.13
Gerard’s work on the Playgrounds Committee was an extension of the social reform spirit
celebrated at Hull-House. In 1905, Swope expressed his commitment to the
neighborhood in the form of philanthropy when he furnished $170.10 to help purchase a
plot of land for a playground on Eleventh St. in downtown St. Louis. The slogan of the
playground committee -- “A boy without a playground is father to the man without a job”
-- foreshadowed Swope’s dedication to full employment of the able-bodied which
became the cornerstone of a sweeping industrial reform model outlined in the “Swope
Plan.”14 Gerard remained active on the playground committee for the remainder of the
Swopes’ stay in St. Louis that ended in 1906 when Gerard was transferred back to
Chicago.15 The continued influence of Jane Addams and Hull-House on Gerard and
Mary is evident in their dedication to the community of St. Louis. The same year that
Gerard helped purchase the playground on Eleventh Street he typed up a letter to Addams
that is revealing of his high opinion of the woman who co-founded Hull-House. The
5
letter is a request for Addams’ assistance in finding a ‘worthy gentleman’ to take the
place of the Civic Improvement League’s departing chairman. Gerard shows his respect
for Addams and his commitment to improving the lives of the poor in two
characteristically direct sentences. Gerard writes: “Much needs to be done and a great
deal of work can be done in Saint Louis if we get the right kind of a man for Secretary ...
It is my great desire that they do get the right kind, and I, therefore, write to you to ask if
you know of a gentleman or not.”16 It is evident that Gerard’s respect for Hull-House and
his dedication to its principles had not diminished in the four years he had lived away
from Chicago’s near west side.
Hull-House and its mission always held Swope’s high esteem, but when he
became General Electric’s C.E.O. in 1922 he understood that his primary responsibility
was to the stockholders and workers of that company. Unlike many present-day
progressives and industrial capitalists Swope believed that civic-responsibility could
complement the pursuit of profit. Swope initiated socially responsible corporate policies
at G.E. in an attempt to combine the dedication to social reform he gained at Hull-House
with company interests. In order to accomplish this, Swope advocated and implemented
welfare capitalism at G.E.17 A model of labor-management relations in which employers
provide uncommon benefits to employees, welfare capitalism intent is to promote worker
contentment, stave off unionization and government regulation, increase productivity,
and foster company loyalty.18 In the 1920s, economists and a growing number of
capitalists believed welfare capitalism would serve to stabilize labor-management
relations and secure the future of America’s largest corporations.
6
The perquisites that Swope granted G.E. workers when he was appointed
president in 1922 included life insurance, mortgage assistance, worker grievance boards,
company health care, and eventually unemployment security.19 Swope and the chairman
of G.E., Owen D. Young, believed they were working within the interests of the company
by crafting company policy that addressed the needs of workers. The catchy objective of
the company coined by Swope was to provide, “more goods for more people at lower
prices.”20 Welfare capitalism was the vehicle that Swope and Young believed could help
the company meet this objective while avoiding the labor conflicts that slowed
production in the mining and railroad industries. Their programs of welfare capitalism
were not immune from the criticisms of either laborers or industrial managers. The
young duo’s commitment to their workers raised eyebrows among leaders of finance and
industry who believed that their programs were infected with radicalism and socialism.
Indeed, within the conservative circle of industry leaders the young pair were rightly
identified as revolutionary thinkers. Labor organizers on the other hand believed the two
were only trying to undermine unions and saw their concern for workers as implicitly
paternalistic and cynical.21
That the two were criticized from above and below for their policymaking is
evidence that they were embarking upon a path of industrial management that was not yet
well traveled. And, as with any path-breakers, it is a revealing exercise to identify the
inspiration that impelled the two to blaze the trail. How can the socially-conscious
decision making of the two be accounted for in a period when government had minimal
power to regulate industrial employment practices and unions were yet to realize great
power within the industry? Progressive politics, Settlement Life, and Hull-House were
7
not far from the minds of Swope and Young when they implemented their
unconventional business plans.22 In a letter to Swope, Young confessed that progressive
influences led the pair to adopt welfare capitalism, pay their workers a ‘cultural wage,’
and work to insure workers’ job security. Young reminisced to his partner:
Perhaps you and Mary were discolored a little by your rather intimate contact
with Jane Addams of Hull House and Lillian D. Wald of Henry Street. Perhaps I
had gained a little understanding of color from Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens. I
mention them not as excuses for our behavior but in gratitude for their help to
both of us.23
Young’s reflection raises interesting questions: Did social reformers like Addams and
Wald, who generally advocated government regulation as the best means to relieve social
ills caused by industrialization, influence the growth of welfare capitalism in the 1920s?
Were the objectives of Young and Swope’s private programs of welfare capitalism
similar to those of the female-led progressive movement that, during the same period,
worked to expand governmental powers to bring about social reform? Did Swope and
Young simply maintain better than average work conditions and a relationship with
unions as a means to insure the loyalty and complacency of their workers? What is clear
is that the policymaking of Young and Swope represented a fundamental change in
industrial labor-management relations. The two innovators were molded by ideas that
were at odds with profit-driven and traditionally male-dominated professional culture.
It had been over two decades since Swope had lived at Hull-House when he was
appointed to the top position at G.E. and began to implement programs of welfare
capitalism. Nonetheless, Swope had not occupied the president’s office too long before
he sought out the advice of Mary’s old Hull-House roommate, Dr. Alice Hamilton,
regarding improving health conditions at G.E.24 In the early 1920s, progressive industry
8
leaders were beginning to recognize that unhealthy work environments contributed to
certain kinds of ailments among their manufacturing workers that could be prevented by
proper ventilation, lighting, and the establishment of worker safety standards. Florence
Kelley of Hull-House was an early crusader for establishing health standards and
reforming child labor laws for heavy and light industries where repetitive work and
stifling work environments put the health of the industrial worker at risk. Kelley and
Hamilton set out to perform the daunting task of persuading private enterprise to take an
interest in the health of workers before the turn of the twentieth century. According to
Addams, Kelley’s efforts had the effect of “galvanizing us all into more intelligent
interest in the industrial conditions all about us.”25 The impact of their work was
beginning to be evident in the 1920s in the practices of industrial leaders like Swope and
Young. Swope’s first inquiry into the matter was addressed to Harvard’s new School of
Public Health where Cecil Drinker, professor of physiology, and Roger I. Lee, professor
of hygiene, became interested in the prospect of conducting a broad and expensive audit
of the health conditions at all of the companies manufacturing plants. The price for such
a comprehensive company survey was $100,000. This amount was unacceptable to
Swope who had discussed the project with Hamilton beforehand and had some idea of
what he wanted to be done. Hamilton, who had worked for the Department of Labor
under the Harding administration and would serve as an advisory member of the newly
formed Workers’ Health Bureau, agreed to conduct surveys of the Schenectady, N.Y. and
Pittsfield, M.A. plants at the lucrative rate of $25 per day.26 Hamilton was uncomfortable
with the high rate of pay but Swope insisted that the service she provided was worth it.
She conducted the surveys of the plants to the great satisfaction of Swope who utilized
9
her expertise several times over the next decade in order to insure that adequate health
conditions were maintained at G.E.27 Yet again it is evident that the birth of a corporatesponsored program for the improvement of the welfare of workers at G.E. was directly
linked to the female-led social reform movement and Hull-House.
Scholars of Hull-House and the Progressive-era have noted that the Settlement
movement caused ripples of female-led social activism that affected federal policymaking
in the U.S. Robyn Muncy’s, Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, explores
the link between Hull-House residents and the female-led movement for federal child
welfare reform. Muncy rightly identifies the essential role of Hull-House’s professional
network in the formation of new female-dominated professions and institutions within the
federal government.28 The United States Children’s Bureau was established in 1912 with
Julia Lathrop, Florence Kelley’s long-time ally in the fight for children’s rights,
appointed as the new organization’s chief. Viewed as an obtrusive organization by many
immigrant mothers and as a ‘threat to womanhood’ by ‘superpatriotic’ conservatives, the
Bureau became one of the first exclusively female spheres of influence within the federal
government. The power the institution wielded allowed it to question child labor laws,
government welfare policies, and intimate child-rearing practices. More significantly for
Muncy’s argument than the power the Bureau attained was the manner that Kelley and
Wald’s dream came to fruition. Muncy recounts how a discussion between Kelley and
Wald held over breakfast at the Henry Street settlement prompted the two to devote their
significant energies into the establishment of the Children’s Bureau. In short, the two
decided that morning that if the federal government was able to provide resources to
Southern farmers facing a boll weevil infestation then it could also afford to devote
10
resources to improving child welfare. Kelley contacted one of the many powerful friends
of Hull-House and the Settlement movement, Edward Devine, editor of the social reform
periodical Charities and general secretary of the Charity Organization Society in New
York. Devine was so enthused by the idea that he set up a meeting between Wald and
President Roosevelt at which, as the story goes, Wald easily convinced the President to
support the Children’s Bureau. Whether or not this dramatic description of the
Children’s Bureau’s founding is wholly accurate is less noteworthy than the fact that
Wald and Kelley’s breakfast conversation and their subsequent call to Devine resulted in
the birth of a female-led federal institution. The founding of the Children’s Bureau
illustrates that women involved in the Settlement movement attained power and respect
within an infrastructure of social reformers that linked male and female progressives.
Muncy’s book makes a strong argument that Progressive networks formed at Settlement
houses affected policymaking in the public sector. However, Muncy ignores the
influence that Settlement Life and female-led progressive politics had within traditionally
male-dominated professional spheres in the private sector.
By advocating social responsibility among future business leaders Settlement life
helped activate the development of welfare capitalism in the modern corporation.29 To
arrive at this conclusion one must allow that the motivations behind welfare capitalism
are not simple, wholly profit-driven, or divorced from the intentions of the ProgressiveEra political reform movement. It is apparent in her conclusions that Muncy either is not
willing to make this allowance or is unaware that Settlement life and progressive politics
may be connected to the development of welfare capitalism. In a paragraph that begins
by iterating one of the main premises of the book Muncy asserts that: “While some
11
people -- especially men in male-dominated professions -- were fashioning a professional
culture that opposed the tenets of social reform, this study has identified another version
of the professional creed that grew out of female experience and actually sustained the
values of reform.”30 The industrial leadership of Gerard Swope and other welfare
capitalists who expressed their dedication to social reform through political action and
company policymaking repudiates this assessment of male professional culture. Muncy’s
condemnation of male-dominated professional culture does not take into account the
multifarious objectives and inspirations behind the growth of welfare capitalism in the
1920s.
Welfare capitalism was established at G.E. in order to prevent government
intervention in the industry and to stunt the growth of unions in the electrical industry.
These objectives were clearly intended to benefit private enterprise and were antithetical
to the objectives of Julia Lathrop, Florence Kelley, and Lillian Wald. However, selfinterested objectives such as these cannot stand alone as conclusive evidence that: “men - in male-dominated professions were fashioning a professional culture that opposed the
tenets of social reform”.31 Indeed, Lathrop, Kelley, and Wald believed that the
proliferation of federal institutions and the expansion of federal powers would best
facilitate social reform. Progressive women staked their claim to power within the
federal government because they believed federal institutions and ‘municipal ownership’
to be the most proficient vehicles for social reform in the first two decades of the
twentieth century.32 Conversely, Swope and Young believed that the growth of
corporate-sponsored social welfare programs, or welfare capitalism, would benefit all
classes and that further government intervention in the nation’s economy posed a threat
12
to democracy.33 Swope believed that responsible corporations had earned public trust by
providing social welfare programs for workers in the 1920s while maintaining financially
solvent institutions.
In 1931, it appeared to Swope that the government was incapable of performing
either of these tasks and did not deserve the public’s trust, or expanded powers. That
year Swope summarized his view of the role of welfare capitalism in society before a
congressional committee:
I think that industry ought to take care of its own [welfare and employment]
difficulties and problems. You see, the moment government begins to help there
is no economic restraint. You can vote money. We would be glad to have the
money, as anyone would; but the moment the General Electric Company or any
industrial organization … provides for these various factors it is reflected in costs
… And selling prices reflect costs; and therefore the people who use the product
will ultimately pay for that [provision of welfare] service; whereas, of course, if
you vote the money by Government assistance your general public will pay for it
through taxation, which is very general and very indefinite.34
Because Swope believed G.E. was a stable and socially responsible institution he
expected the federal government to cede the power of distributing social welfare to
industry leaders. Responsible industry leaders should be granted the power to set
industry standards for company social welfare programs, coordinate production, and
regulate costs argued Swope. This was an arrangement that Swope was convinced would
advance the interests of the industrial worker, the general public, and the capitalist. Jane
Addams agreed. In an essay entitled “Social Consequences of Business Depressions”
Addams praised Swope for his efforts to stabilize employment at G.E. Remarkably,
Addams points to the successes of corporations that were able to stabilize employment
during the depression as a model to be followed by government. Addams’s opinions on
the matter mirrored those of Swope. After enumerating the social ills and personal pain
13
caused by unemployment and poverty she points to the success of corporations in
alleviating those problems with intelligent planning. She writes:
“On the contrary, the consequences upon big industry have been encouraging in
many ways. . . [P]erhaps the most encouraging of all is the plan recently
announced by Gerard Swope, president of the General Electric Company, which
advocates that each group of the great industries should regulate employment by
the basic method of a careful estimate of the output required, as well as by
providing unemployment insurance through the mutual efforts of all concerned.
This plan also predicates governmental supervision. Its widespread discussion
and favorable comment at least registers an approval of the fact that big industry
is ready to hold itself responsible not only for its own unemployed, but also to
avert the overproduction and lack of planning implicit in the situation itself.”35
In this excerpt Addams is referring to Gerard’s “Swope Plan” that was presented
to Herbert Hoover in 1931 and would have implemented Swope’s corporatist social
vision nationwide. It called for industry leaders to form trade associations that would
stabilize industry and insure the full employment of all able-bodied and willing laborers.
Squashed by Hoover, who believed the plan was in violation of the Sherman and Clayton
anti-trust acts, it nevertheless gained proponents among powerful men within the private
and public sectors.36 The plan would have established trade associations comprised of
industry leaders who would: “outline trade practices, business ethics, methods of standard
accounting and cost practice, standard forms of balance sheet and earnings statement,
etc., … in order to promote stabilization of employment and give the best service to the
public.”37 In effect, these trade associations, or cartels, would run the nation’s industrial
economy. In addition, the Swope Plan called for Hoover’s administration to spend $2
billion on public works projects (federal spending in 1931 totaled $3.5 billion) including
the building of schools, hospitals, and railroads.38 In many ways the “Swope Plan” was a
privatized version of the New Deal legislation enacted in the first hundred days of the
Roosevelt administration. The “Swope Plan” and the New Deal’s shared objectives were
14
to rejuvenate the economy and create jobs for able-bodied men desperate for work. The
“Swope Plan” would have achieved these goals by increasing the power of industrial
leaders and the expanding the breadth of welfare capitalism.39
According to Swope’s biographer, solving the problem of rampant unemployment
was the main objective of the Swope Plan. Of course Swope’s motives were tinged with
self-interest. Job relief was of primary importance to Swope because General Electric
was a company whose success was intertwined with working-class consumption.40 The
electrical appliances that G.E. pledged would become part of every modern home were
nothing more than useless superfluities in the thousands of households where the main
breadwinner was unemployed. Thus, it was not strictly the conditions of the
downtrodden that concerned Swope when he unveiled his grandiose reform plan at the
Oval Office and before G.E.’s most influential stockholders. Swope of General Electric
authored the Swope Plan in an attempt to rejuvenate consumerism, advance G.E.’s
interests, and curb federal regulatory power. However, Swope of Hull-House believed
that contained within “Stabilization of Industry” (the speech that outlined the Swope
Plan) were also appropriate and humane solutions to the social problem of
unemployment. Like the programs of welfare capitalism Swope implemented at G.E., the
Swope Plan reflected the businessman and social reformer’s attempt to balance his selfinterest with the ‘genuine sense of social obligation’ that Jane Addams attributed to him
on his wedding day.41
Swope maintained a relationship with Hull-House and Addams into the 1930s. In
1930 he agreed to return to the settlement house for its fortieth anniversary to address the
institution’s alumni and friends. Interestingly, he shared the speaking responsibilities that
15
day with Florence Kelley and Julia Lathrop, who advocated strict government regulation
of industry as an essential element to the improvement of the social welfare of the
working class. It bears mentioning that Swope shared the podium that day with these two
women and that he maintained a steadfast commitment to Hull-House while many of its
alumnus worked to expand the role that government played in regulating private
enterprise. Swope’s continued relationship to the settlement house and the women
involved implies that the capitalist did not feel alienated in female-dominated spheres
created by settlement life and the progressive movement. And Addams and Starr were
equally comfortable having the capitalist represent Hull-House at the anniversary. There
is no evidence of skepticism on the part of Addams or Starr regarding Swope’s
implementation of welfare capitalism. The two did not question whether Swope’s
fundamental aims were to squash unionization and government regulation or create a
dependent and complacent work force at G.E. Indeed, they invited Swope back as a
speaker that day as an example of a person who upheld his dedication to social reform
throughout his career. 42
Welfare capitalism at G. E. developed partly because of Gerard Swope’s
relationship to the infrastructure of social reformers that he formed during his residence
at Hull-House. Swope’s career raises interesting questions concerning the link between
progressivism, the Settlement movement, and development of welfare capitalism.43
While Swope was impelled to author worker-friendly policy by the fear that external
forces (i.e., growing government regulation and unionization) would usurp his power to
control labor-management relations at G.E., his background in progressive politics and
16
short residence at Hull-House enabled him to better understand and respond to the needs
of industrial workers.
1
David Loth, Swope of G.E. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1958): 9.
“Gerard Swope”, American National Biography, ed. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1999): 219-221 Herbert Bayard Swope moved away from St. Louis to pursue a
career in journalism and won a Pulitzer prize while writing for the New York Times. ANB, 222-223
3
Josephine Young Case and Everett Needham Case. Owen D. Young: An American Enterprise (Boston:
David R. Godine publisher, 1982): 252.
4
G.E. numbers.
5
Loth, Swope of G.E., 30
6
Loth, Swope of G.E., 31.
7
Philip Davis, And Crown Thy Good (New York: Philosophical Library, 1952): 90. Abraham Bisno
organized the women’s garment worker’s trade union in Chicago. Bisno organized the predominantly
immigrant female garment workers and agitated for job security, improved work conditions, and a living
wage. See Abraham Bisno Union Pioneer: An Autobiographical account of Bisno’s early life and the
beginnings of unionism in the women’s garment industry. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967.)
8
Schatz, Electrical Workers, 170. Whether or not Swope’s openness with the UE was a wise business
move is a debated aspect of his legacy. One of GE’s labor negotiators in 1960, Herbert R. Northrup,
believed that Swope and his chairman Young were naïve in their dealings with the Communist-led UE.
Schatz cites Northrup: “[Swope and Young] understood, like few industrialists of their time, the need for
employees to have a voice in the determination of their affairs and an avenue of appeal when they felt
aggrieved. But Swope and Young did not understand either the nature of unions, or the type of union
leadership which had won bargaining rights in the General Electric plants.” Northrup, Boulwarism, p. 14.
9
On corporate social responsibility during the progressive- Era see Morrell Heald. “Business Thought in
the Twenties: Social Responsibility,” American Quarterly, Volume 13, Issue 2, Part 1 (Summer, 1961),
126-129. Walter S. Gifford, another former Hull-House resident and President of AT&T is quoted in the
article and properly summarizes the view the role of the socially responsible public corporation during the
era: “. . .not only our stockholders, but the public generally, are entitled to know how we are carrying on
our stewardship. . .It is our further purpose to conduct the affairs of the Bell System in accordance with
American ideals and traditions, so that it may continue to merit the confidence of the people of the
country.”
10
Loth, Swope of G.E., 32.
11
Jane Addams Address at Swope Wedding, 24 August 1901, Swarthmore College Peace Collection,
JAMC reel 46-1067-1077.
12
Loth, Swope of G.E., 50.
13
Gerard Swope to Jane Addams, 5 January 1905, Jane Addams Memorial Collection (JAMC), reel 41027, Special Collections, Richard J. Daley Library, University of Illinois at Chicago.
14
Loth, Swope of G.E., 50.
15
Gerard Swope, American National Biography, 221.
16
JAMC 4-1027.
17
“Gerard Swope,” American National Biography, 220.
18
Sanford Jacoby, Modern Manors: Welfare Capitalism Since the New Deal (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1997): 5.
19
Josephine Young Case and Everett Needham Case. Owen D. Young and American Enterprise (Boston:
David R. Godine, 1982): 257.
20
Case and Case, Owen D. Young and American Enterprise. 257.
21
Schatz, 20. Alluding to Stuart Brandes book American Welfare Capitalism 1880-1940 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1976). Schatz summarizes the skeptical worker’s view of welfare capitalist
programs. Brandes argues that welfare capitalism was meant to stave off unionization and make the worker
dependent on the company. Companies like G.E. provided assistance in purchasing homes, planning for
retirement, and in attaining middle-class status in order to insure worker complacency. Social control was
the true motive behind welfare capitalism according to Brandes as companies indoctrinated workers to
2
17
chase success narrowly defined as homeownership and an ability to attain the consumer products that
granted middle-class status. Jacoby presents a revised view of modern welfare capitalism that incorporates
some of Brandes’ assertions on social control while also considering the point of view of welfare
capitalists. Whether welfare capitalism was (is) an effort on the part of corporate leaders to control the
leisure time of workers, regulate the interpersonal relationships in the communities which those companies
reside, enforce middle-class standards of consumption and behavior, and generally maintain a stable, loyal,
and complacent workforce is a matter for further debate, discussion, and study. Brandes’ social control
theory and Jacoby’s focus one the development of company policy and its affect on society, represent two
different ways to approach the topic of welfare capitalism. That these the studies, Brandes (1976) and
Jacoby’s (1997), are written decades apart and constitute the two seminal works in the study of welfare
capitalism is indicative of the dearth of attention the topic has been given by business or labor historians.
22
Swope’s letter to Addams. And Addams’ comments on Swope’s plans contained in her radio address.
23
Loth, Swope of G.E., 153.
24
Loth, Swope of G.E., 158.
25
Kathryn Kish Sklar, Florence Kelley and the Nation’s Work: The Rise of Women’s Political Culture,
1830-1900 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995): 228.
26
Barbara Sicherman. Alice Hamilton: A Life in Letters. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984.):
266.
27
Ibid.
28
Robyn Muncy, Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform. (Oxford University Press, 1991.): 48.
Muncy shows that settlement women established separate spheres of female influence rather than
challenging male authority in traditionally male-held government positions. “Rather than competing with
men for positions of authority in established areas of policy, they led in the creation of a brand-When the
logic of separate spheres encouraged men to cede this particular territory—child welfare—to women,
female reformers were able to win their first bid for a position of official authority in the national
government.”
29
Hull-House Residents 1889-1929, Hull-House Association Papers, University of Illinois at Chicago,
University Library, Department of Special Collections, folder 294. Of the approx. 360 alumni’s of HullHouse listed 56 are business professionals among these are influential businesspeople including: Mr.
Gifford Walter, Pres. AT& T, Mr. B. E. Hutchinson V. P. Chrysler Motor Companies, and Mr. Royal
Hauer V.P. International Motor Company. The influence of HH on business leaders was not just evident in
the policies of these former residents but more widely in the development of welfare capitalism in the
1920s. Julius Rosenwald who was active at HH and founded Sears implemented welfare capitalist
programs at his company, Sears Roebuck that reflected his dedication to social reform. The majority of the
list is comprised of female leaders employed in social and civic work and among the business people listed
only seven are female. For a discussion of welfare capitalism after the New Deal at Sears Roebuck see
Sanford Jacoby. Modern Manors: Welfare Capitalism Since the New Deal. (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1999)
30
Muncy, 160.
31
Ibid.
32
Another male involved with HH, William Kent, advocated municipal ownership in a speech entitled A
Political Survey. Kent’s view of social reform is vastly different than Swope’s. The two were both involved
with the playground movement and Hull-House, Kent inherited his wealth and was able to devote much of
his time and energy to social reform, graduated from Yale, and went on to be a spokesman for municipal
ownership. The most significant difference between the two is the methods they advocate for bringing
about social reform. Kent believed that the private sector and industrialism was the source of urban social
ills while Swope believed the private sector could provide and implement the best remedies for the social
ills caused by public corruption and private irresponsibility. The differences between Swope and Kent
illustrate that male middle-class progressives did not have a monolithic view of social reform. Not all of
these men -- certainly not William Kent -- fit into Maureen Flanagan’s thesis in “Gender and Urban
Political Reform: The City Club and the Women’s City Club of Chicago in the Progressive Era” The
American Historical Review, Vol. 95, No. 4. (Oct., 1990), pp. 1032-1050 See also on the UEIC website
William C. Boyden, "Interesting People: William Kent," American Magazine (August 1910). And William
Kent profile in American Magazine (1910)
18
33
Loth, 202. For a discussion of the opposing methods of reform advocated by male and female
progressives see Maureen A. Flanagan. “Gender and Urban Political Reform: The City Club and the
Women’s City Club of Chicago in the Progressive Era” The American Historical Review, Vol. 95, No. 4.
(Oct., 1990), pp. 1032-1050. Flanagan studies the leading male and female reform clubs in Chicago from
1900-1920 and shows that the male City Club members advocated the privatizing of public works as the
best way to reform city sanitation, education, policing, etc. Flanagan argues that men in the City Club used
their membership to advocate private interests over public and the motivations behind their efforts of
reform were profit-driven. The women of the Women’s City Club, many of whom were wives of men in
the City Club according Flanagan, did not believe that advancing private interests would benefit the city as
a whole and advocated municipal ownership. For example, women advocated municipal ownership of
sanitation and education that stressed academic over vocational pursuits and the men’s City Club advocated
the opposite.
34
Edward Berkowitz and Kim McQuaid. Businessman and Bureaucrat: The Evolution of the American
Social Welfare System, 1900-1940. The Journal of Economic History, Volume 38, Issue 1, The Tasks of
Economic History (Mar., 1978), 129. Quoted from David Nelson, Unemployment Insurance, pp. 45-46;
U.S. , Congress, Senate, Select Committee on Unemployment Insurance, 72nd Congress, 1st session.
(testimony of Gerard Swope), (Washington, 1932), pp. 29-30.
35
Jane Addams. “Social Consequences of Business Depressions” Aspects of the Depression, p. 16 ed. By
Felix Morley (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1932.
36
Loth, Swope of G.E., 209.
37
Loth, 204. One of the first to know the full extent of Swope’s plan for the stabilization of employment at
G.E. was Addams. In 1931, he sent a letter that read in part: “In view of the interest you have displayed not
only in our conversations but also your kindly references in your book, I though you would be interested in
seeing the attached copy of letter to the employees of General Electric Company declaring an emergency
along the line of our unemployment plan.” Swope trusted Addams to not reveal his plan before he unveiled
it to G.E. workers. This is evidence that the co-founder of Hull-House appreciated the efforts of welfare
capitalists who sought to provide for the welfare of their workers. Indeed, Swope’s letter indicates that
Addams may have recognized welfare capitalism as an extension of the social reform vision spread by the
settlement. Gerard Swope to Jane Addams. 10 December 1930. JAMC reel 21-1443. Special Collections.
University Library. UIC. Gerard Swope to G.E. workers. 24 November 1930. JAMC reel 21-1444-1446.
Special Collection. University Library. UIC.
38
Ronald Schatz, The Electrical Workers: A History of Labor at General Electric and Westinghouse: 19231960. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991.): p. 56.
39
For a discussion on the debate between private and public intereì who had experience providing social
welfare in the industrial economy. In this way, argue Berkowitz and McQuaid, welfare capitalism at
corporations like G.E. directly impacted and shaped government welfare policies.
40
Ronald Schatz, The Electrical Workers: A History of Labor at General Electric and Westinghouse: 19231960. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991.): p. 55.
41
JAMC 46-1070
42
Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr letter to Edith Abbott. 25 April 1930. JAMC reel 21 470-471.
University Library. UIC.
43
In addition to the links between welfare capitalists and the settlement movement enumerated above [i.e.
Rosenwald (Sears Roebuck), Swope (G.E.), and Gifford (AT &T)] Kim McQuaid alludes to a link between
settlement reformers and the development of welfare capitalism at one of the first companies to practice the
model; Filene’s Department Store of Boston. According to McQuaid: “Lincoln Steffens, Louis D. Brandeis,
settlement worker Robert Woods and municipal ownership advocate Frank Parsons worked as consultants
for the Filene Store.” McQuaid and Berkowitz, “Businessman and Bureuacrat” p. 23 footnote 6.
19