Dalzell, Enterprising Elite - The Boston Associates And The World They Made

Abstract

In this fine collective biography of the merchants-turned-industrialists who developed the famed Waltham-Lowell system of textile manufacture, Robert F. Dalzell has produced a book of considerable importance in the history of American industrialization, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy. Dalzell presents a well-researched and lucid study of this wealthy, closely knit group of businessmen, a study that appropriately places these men and their activities in the broad sociocultural setting. The Boston Associates, according to Dalzell, were industrial pioneers who introduced integrated innovations on a hitherto unparalleled scale, but whose motivation was essentially conservative.