Background
Gerard Swope was born on December 1, 1872 in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Isaac Swope and Ida Cohn. His father, a German Jew, had emigrated from Saxony in 1857 and by 1872 was a relatively prosperous manufacturer of watchcases.
https://www.amazon.com/Employment-assurance-insurance-Association-Advancement/dp/B0008CVFYA?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B0008CVFYA
Gerard Swope was born on December 1, 1872 in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Isaac Swope and Ida Cohn. His father, a German Jew, had emigrated from Saxony in 1857 and by 1872 was a relatively prosperous manufacturer of watchcases.
Swope attended public schools and early exhibited an interest in mathematics and electricity, a bent that led to his education as an electrical engineer.
While pursuing his degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he also spent a summer in Chicago, studying exhibits at the World's Columbian Exposition. Swope graduated with a B. S. degree in 1895.
While pursuing his degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Gerard Swope also spent a summer in Chicago, studying exhibits at the World's Columbian Exposition and working in a General Electric shop.
After graduating with a B. S. in 1895, Swope joined the Western Electric Company, beginning as a helper in the motor department and rising by 1913 to become vice-president in charge of all domestic sales and all operations abroad.
Although in the engineering department for a time, he made his mark primarily as a salesman, organizer, and negotiator. Henry Ford once called him the world's best salesman, and by 1913 he had already become a corporate trouble-shooter and innovator of the first rank.
Between 1913 and 1922 Swope undertook three tasks that enhanced his reputation as an organizational genius. The first involved a systematic reorganization of Western Electric's foreign interests, an assignment that led to extensive travel in Europe and Asia. The second, undertaken as a dollar-a-year man during World War I, involved an overhauling of the Army Supply Service. And the third, on which he embarked in 1919, involved a rebuilding of General Electric's operations abroad.
In 1922, when Charles Coffin retired as head of General Electric, Swope became president and Owen D. Young chairman of the board, thus forming the most celebrated managerial team of the 1920's. By 1929 the two had become firmly associated with the decade's "new capitalism, " especially with corporate welfare and employee representation programs, mass marketing of consumer durables, and the recognition of managerial responsibility to workers, customers, and the industry as a whole.
In September 1931, with the economy mired in depression, Swope's vision of an organized capitalism became the basis for the much publicized Swope Plan. All major firms, he proposed, should be organized into mandatory trade associations, and under federal supervision these should regulate economic activity and provide social insurance programs. The plan met with much initial criticism. But Swope's approach was adopted in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, and Swope himself served on such implementing agencies as the Industrial Advisory Board, the National Labor Board, and the Business Advisory and Planning Council.
In late 1933 he also set forth a second plan calling for greater industrial self-government, but this did not win administration support. Unlike most businessmen, Swope continued to support the New Deal after 1934.
His interest in urban problems also persisted. Following his retirement from business in 1939, he served as chairman of the New York City Housing Authority and later helped to develop cooperative housing. From 1942 to 1944, while his successor Charles E. Wilson served on the War Production Board, Swope returned to the presidency of General Electric. And following a second retirement, he remained active in such causes as health insurance and foreign aid. In 1951, as chairman of the Institute of Pacific Relations, he staunchly defended the organization against congressional critics.
He died in New York City.
(The Aldred Lectures at the Massachusetts Institute of Tec...)
Gerard Swope didn't have a strong affiliation to political causes, but later in life, he became a supporter of the Zionist movement.
Largely through his initiative, Western Electric became a pioneer in market research, cost analysis, institutional advertising, and statistically based sales planning. While rising in business, Swope also became keenly interested in the "social problem. " Seen in perspective, Swope stands as a major architect of what defenders call "enlightened capitalism" and critics label "corporate liberalism. "
Gerard Swope was a member of the National Health and Welfare Retirement Association.
Short, wiry, and imperious, Swope impressed others with his intense energy and command of detail, his cool but penetrating analysis of complex problems, and his ability to bring order out of chaos.
Quotes from others about the person
In an oral history interview, Leon H. Keyserling said the New Deal's National Industrial Recovery Act "started as a trade association act. The original draft of the act grew out of the so-called Gerard Swope plan for Recovery. "
When asked in November 1933 about an updated Swope Plan, President Roosevelt said, "Mr. Swope's plan is a very interesting theoretical suggestion in regard to some ultimate development of N. R. A"”
From 1897 to 1899 Swope lived and worked at Hull House in Chicago and later was active in a number of urban reform causes. Such interests were also enhanced by his marriage on August 20, 1901, to Mary Dayton Hill, a social worker whom he had met at Hull House. By 1913 they had five children and were living on a country estate, but much of their social life remained tied to the world of reform.