Cotton's Renaissance: A Study in Market Innovation

by George David Smith , Timothy Curtis Jacobson

• ISBN13: 9780521808279
• ISBN10: 0521808278
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-09-17
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This is an analytical and interpretive history of the responses of US cotton growers to problems of supply and demand, and of the unique public-private organization they founded to help them grow, compete, and survive in an increasingly competitive marketplace. It is a story of how cotton growers learned, after more than a century and a half of trying to manage supply, that they could actually influence demand for their commodity. The impact of that company, Cotton Incorporated, on the markets for cotton was a remarkable achievement in organizational entrepreneurship. In its 'total marketing' effort to rebuild cotton's market share, it has fostered substantial scientific, technological, and managerial improvements in the quality and performance of cotton. In doing so, it has enhanced the efficiency of not only the farmers who grow cotton, but also those who transform it into consumer goods.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xv
Introduction Why Grow Cotton, Anyway? Culture and Economy	1	(40)
PART ONE Managing Supply
``The Snow of Southern Summers'': King Cotton and Its Markets in the Age of Industrial Revolution	41	(19)
Nature and Know-How: Organization and Technology in the Postbellum Era	60	(26)
Acts of God and Government: The Search for Political Solutions	86	(23)
PART TWO Approaching the Market
Synthetic Shock: Competition's Alarm	109	(33)
Creating Cotton Incorporated	142	(29)
PART THREE Managing the Market
Creating Consumption	171	(26)
Managing the Mill	197	(36)
The Necessary Illusion of Control	233	(43)
Competitive Markets in a Global Economy	276	(37)
Afterword Trends and Cycles	313	(6)
Appendix A	319	(2)
Appendix B	321	(5)
Appendix C	326	(1)
Index	327