Reputation and commercialism: Did accounting have a golden age? The US audit profession 1929–1990

Abstract

This paper argues that maintaining the CPA’s reputation, along with a collegial professional environment, were the central goals of the American audit profession through most of the twentieth century. Matthews (2017) and Lee (1995) contend that economic self-interest has always been the profession’s goal. This paper, based on extensive study of primary sources largely unused by accounting historians, argues that the existing record is not consistent with an economic self-interest thesis. Magali Larson argued in The Rise of Professionalism that professionals tend to pursue social status and collegiality over profit seeking. Auditors worked to maintain the quiet, collegial profession that enhanced their self-image as professionals, not businessmen. But this proved to be unsustainable as the American economy expanded and a market-based ethic pervaded American culture and government in the last third of the twentieth century.