Before reading Jennifer Delton's book, I thought of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) as a parochial, nationalist, protectionist, conservative organization that fought furiously against unions and was founded by midsized midwestern companies in the 1890s to promote American manufacturing goods overseas. This view, which I imagine is common among labor historians, is not entirely accurate. The NAM was more complicated than that, as Jennifer Delton demonstrates in her highly informative study of the association from its founding until today.
To begin, although the large majority of the association's members were small and midsized manufacturers, it also enrolled the presidents of the largest manufacturing corporations in the United States. During its most influential period, in the early twentieth century, it was led by David Perry, who owned the country's largest carriage-manufacturing plant. Perry's factory covered six city blocks in Indianapolis and employed 2,800 workers. Perry also owned and directed other...
