Strictly business: Walter Carpenter at Du Pont and General Motors

Abstract

From 1919 to 1962, Walter Carpenter exemplified the establishment professional--the manager who produced nothing himself but who oversaw everything in the company and much in the community. A successful chief executive officer at the Du Pont Corporation and an important director at General Motors, Carpenter personified the power and status many American executives dreamed of winning. Yet, despite his status as an archetype of the organization man described by sociologists and praised by business leaders, he frequently confronted the limits of his power and worked hard to maintain his personal autonomy. In this illuminating career study, Charles W. Cheape makes use of voluminous and previously unpublished business records at the Hagley Museum and Library to analyze Carpenter's rise, influence, and leadership techniques--and to shed new light on American corporate culture in the mid-twentieth century. While focusing on Carpenter's career, he offers insights into the processes of management, decision-making, and economic competition at the highest levels of American industry. 'Strictly Business' offers a penetrating and informative study of a uniquely American role and the type of character best suited to play it. This is an historiographically important study of the transition from owner management to professional management, a process that most companies will eventually have to go through. It is the author's special merit to have shown how Walter Carpenter managed to balance the interests of the Du Pont family with those of the corporation. The comparisons of the three Du Pont brothers, Alfred Sloan, and Walter Carpenter proved particularly illuminating.--John K. Smith, Jr., Lehigh University. Charles W. Cheape is professor of history at Loyola College in Baltimore.