Agricultural corporations;: The conversion of agriculture into a prosperous industry. Socializing the soulless corporation; a sequel to Agricultural corporations
(Lang:- English, Pages 124. Reprinted in 2016 with the hel...)
Lang:- English, Pages 124. Reprinted in 2016 with the help of original edition published long back1925. This book is in black & white, Hardcover, sewing binding for longer life with Matt laminated multi-Colour Dust Cover, Printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, there may be some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. If it is multi volume set, then it is only single volume. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. (Customisation is possible). Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. Original Title: Industrial Ownership 1925 Hardcover, Original Author: Robert S. Brookings
Robert Somers Brookings was an American business executive, philanthropist, and educator. He is known for his involvement with Washington University in St. Louis and his founding of the Brookings Institution.
Background
Robert Somers Brookings was born on January 22, 1850 in Cecil County, Maryland, the second son of Dr. Richard and Mary (Carter) Brookings. His ancestors on both sides, honorable and God-fearing men and women, had been among the early settlers of northeastern Maryland.
The Brookings family traced its lineage back to French Flanders; the Carters were of British descent. Before Robert was two years old Dr. Brookings died. Later his mother was married to Henry Reynolds, a carpenter in Baltimore, and the three Brookings children were taken to his home. After the Civil War the family moved to Perrymanville in Hartford County.
Education
Robert's only formal education beyond the elementary school consisted of one year at West Nottingham Academy and a few months at a business school in Baltimore.
Career
His business career was one of quick and extraordinary success. At seventeen he became a clerk in the Samuel Cupples woodenware company of St. Louis, where his brother Harry was already employed.
He demonstrated such phenomenal talent as a traveling salesman and so remarkable an aptitude for business management that when, four years later, the Brookings brothers sought to resign to establish their own firm, Cupples annexed them as partners, Robert becoming the virtual head of the company at the age of twenty-two.
Within a decade the Cupples Company stood first in its field, and Robert Brookings had become one of the outstanding business men of the Midwest.
It was this varied experience in business which gave Brookings the knowledge and understanding, and the practical wisdom, with which to administer, twenty years later, the difficult task of controlling prices in war time. One of the first group of business executives to be called to Washington by President Wilson, Brookings served first as commissioner of finished products of the original War Industries Board, and he continued as a member of the reorganized board of 1918.
His primary responsibility, however, came as chairman of the price-fixing committee, where his authority was second only to that of the President. Competent students concur in the view that under the conditions prevailing this intricate and delicate task was remarkably well performed.
In 1896 Brookings made the great decision of his life. At forty-six he had accumulated several million dollars. In the era of business prosperity that followed he might well have amassed one of the great fortunes of the country, but from the beginning the making of money had been to him of secondary importance--a means to the realization of larger social purposes.
Because he regretted his own lack of formal academic training, he had become keenly interested in education. After months of deliberation he decided to retire from active business and to devote his fortune, and himself, to the cause of higher education. He found his opportunity in the development of Washington University, St. Louis.
As president of the University Corporation, in less than a decade he had acquired a fine new site, had induced Cupples to join in giving the Cupples Station to the University as a basic endowment, and had interested other citizens in contributing funds for buildings and endowment.
Reading that his own medical school was mediocre at best, he was at first incredulous if not incensed. He was, however, quickly convinced by the evidence submitted and wasted no time in defending the school; he set out instead to rectify the situation. For months he studied all phases of medical education, in Europe as well as in the United States; he sought the advice of Dr. William Henry Welch of Johns Hopkins with respect to outstanding faculty possibilities; and he raised some fifteen millions for endowment and buildings, giving generously himself. Three years later the new medical school was pronounced by the President of the Carnegie Foundation as "unexcelled by any in the country. " The making of a university did not exhaust Robert Brookings's energy or dull his creative impulse. His horizon was constantly expanding.
Although he was not one of the original group who conceived the Institute for Government Research in 1916, he became the first chairman of the board and devoted his talents to raising funds for its support. In 1922 he induced the Carnegie Corporation of New York to establish the Institute of Economics with a ten-year sustaining grant, and in 1924 he provided funds for the establishment of a graduate school of economics and government in Washington.
These three agencies were the nucleus of the Brookings Institution--"Devoted to Public Service through Research and Training in the Social Sciences"--established in 1928. The trustees named the Institution in Brookings's honor in recognition, not so much of his financial contributions as of his creative imagination in conceiving, promoting, and developing an institution of unique character.
Brookings tackled economics at seventy with the zest of an undergraduate, and within the next ten years he published two books: Industrial Ownership (1924) and Economic Democracy (1929).
Brookings died of pyelonephritis in Washington, where he had made his home since 1923, and was buried in St. Louis.
Achievements
Brookings' crowning achievement was the construction in 1895 of the Cupples Station, a railroad terminal, which revolutionized the distribution of goods in St. Louis and served as a model for other cities.
In St. Louis he had been a patron of the Choral Society and Symphony Orchestra and president of the Mercantile Library.
His greatest service to the University Corporation was in the development in St. Louis of one of the finest medical centers in the country. His interest was aroused by the critical report on medical education in the United States and Canada issued by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, in 1910.
In 1910 he became one of the original trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and in 1913, with Carnegie, he represented the United States at the twenty-fifth anniversary reception of the German Kaiser. His war experience developed his interest in public affairs, which ultimately resulted in the establishment of the Brookings Institution.
His last book, published after he was eighty, was significantly entitled The Way Forward. Age never dimmed his eager spirit, which retained to the end a certain incandescent quality.
After the war he became the first board chairman of the Institute for Government Research and helped found the Institute of Economics and the Brookings Graduate School of Economics and Government. In 1927 these three organizations were merged and named the Brookings Institution in his honour.
The honors which came to him were a natural and fitting recognition of his varied contributions to the national welfare--in business, education, and government. Yale, Missouri, Harvard and Washington universities granted him honorary degrees. The Government of the United States awarded him the Distinguished Service Medal; France the Legion of Honor; and Italy the Commander of the Crown.
His adult life divides into three distinct periods. The first, between the ages of seventeen and forty-six, was concentrated on business; the second was devoted primarily to the development of university education, and the third, begun after he was sixty-five, was consecrated to public service, chiefly through the medium of the Institution which bears his name.
His success was based on personality, acute penetration, ability to appraise opposing points of view, intense concentration on essentials, daring, and quickness of action once his decision was reached. His business activities eventually spread beyond the mercantile field and included real estate, lumbering, and transportation.
His thinking was original in character. His mind always remained unfettered, and he was always quick to alter previous conclusions when confronted with new evidence. His publications reveal him as a constructive liberal, seeking new means of making the economic and political system a better servant of mankind.
Interests
During his years of active business he had read thoughtfully if not widely, and he had found time to spend nearly a year abroad (1884 - 85) in the study of languages and music--the latter with the thought that he might perhaps master the violin.
Connections
On June 19, 1927, Brookings was married to Isabel Vallé January of St. Louis and San Remo, Italy. She had long been a participant in his activities, contributing a building to the Washington University Law School and later providing also the buildings which house the Brookings Institution.
Father:
Dr. Richard Brookings
Mother:
Mary (Carter) Brookings
Wife:
Isabel Vallé
Friend:
Edward Mallinckrodt
Friend:
Adolphus Busch
Friend:
William K. Bixby
Brookings' friends, including William K. Bixby, Adolphus Busch, and Edward Mallinckrodt assisted with the building campaign.
