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Investment Uncertainty During The Civil War—A Note On The McCormick Brothers*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2011
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- Copyright © The Economic History Association 1956
References
1 Wisconsin Historical Society, McCormick Collection, letter from William McCormick to Cyrus McCormick, March 15, 1863.
2 Ibid., September 28, 1862.
3 Ibid., October 19, 1862.
4 Ibid., October 28, 1862.
5 Hutchinson, William T., Cyrus Mall McCormick, Harvest, 1856–1884 (New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1935), p. 83Google Scholar.
6 Letter from William S. McCormick to Cyrus H. McCormick, April 8, 1863.
7 Ibid., February 28, 1864.
8 Ibid., January 31,1864.
9 Ibid., November 22, 1863.
10 Prior to the National Bank Act, state banks issued their own notes. This made it possible for the notes of one bank to be depreciated without a corresponding price rise and the notes of two banks to be depreciated to a different extent. Initially, William McCormick had this kind of currency depreciation in mind rather than a general price rise that reduced the value of all notes.
11 Letter from William S. McCormick to Cyrus H. McCormick, September 27, 1862.
12 Ibid., August 3, 1862.
13 Ibid., January 23, 1863.
14 Ibid., September 27, 1862.
15 Letter from E. M. Fowler to William McCormick, May 20, 1861.
16 Letter from William McCormick to Cyrus McCormick, November 23, 1862. Immediately after World War I broke out, a similar feeling of uncertainty made the American steel industry actually contract output. In 1914, 451 blast furnaces were in existence; of these, 287 were idle at the end of the year. The Crucible Steel Company completed a new factory but did not install the equipment to operate it until 1916. The 1914 annual report of Crucible Steel read in part: Owing to the unsettled business conditions throughout the world, brought about with such startling rapidity by the general European war, and the uncertainties as to the continuance of these conditions, it was thought best that the only proper policy was to conserve in every way possible…. The construction of this plant so far as its buildings are concerned is practically finished. Nothing has yet been done towards the installation of machinery because of the present uncertain business conditions prevailing throughout the country. (Quoted from Eldon S. Hendriksen, “Capital Expenditures in the Steel Industry, 1900–1953,” an unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.)
17 Ibid., September 25,1862.
18 Lerner, Eugene M., “Money, Prices, and Wages in the Confederacy, 1861–65,” The Journal of Political Economy, LXIII (February 1955), 20–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
19 Letter from William McCormick to Cyrus McCormick, October 12, 1862.
20 Ibid., September 28, 1862.
21 Ibid., November 23,1862.
22 Letter from Cyrus H. McCormick to William S. McCormick, December 2, 1862.
23 Ibid.
24 Letter from William S. McCormick to Cyrus H. McCormick, July 2, 1862.
25 Ibid., November 9,1862.
26 Ibid., November 7,1862.
27 Ibid., March I, 1863.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid., December 13, 1863.
30 Ibid., November 9, 1862.
31 Ibid., July 20,1862.
32 Ibid., July 9, 1862.
33 Ibid., September 25, 1862.
34 Ibid., October 19, 1862.
35 Ibid., January 4,1863.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid., October 12, 1862.
38 Ibid., December 2, 1862.
39 Ibid., November 7, 1862.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid., March 29,1863.
42 Ibid., March 15,1863.
43 Ibid., December 13,1863.
44 Ibid., October 4,1863.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid., January 23,1863.
47 Hutchinson, Cyrus Hall McCormick, p. 123.
48 Letter from William S. McCormick to Cyrus H. McCormick, March 6, 1864.