Hagley Program to Discuss the Life of John J. Raskob, P. S. du Pont’s Right-Hand Man
Wilmington, DE (PRWEB) August 29, 2013 -- Hagley Museum and Library welcomes author David Farber on November 7, 7 p.m., to speak about one of America’s most significant yet under-appreciated twentieth-century capitalists, John J. Raskob (1879-1950). In "John J. Raskob, Pierre S. du Pont's Right-Hand Man and Capitalist Extraordinaire," Farber will trace Raskob’s rags to riches tale from selling candy on a railway between Lockport and Buffalo to the boardrooms of America’s biggest corporations like DuPont and General Motors. Admission is free. Reservations are requested; call (302) 658-2400, ext. 243. The lecture will be held in the Soda House auditorium. Use Hagley’s Buck Road East entrance off Route 100 in Wilmington, Delaware.
"John J. Raskob’s influence spread into so many corners of 20th Century America," explained Roger Horowitz, Director of Hagley’s Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society. "Through his terrific research, David Farber is able to convey Raskob’s immense contribution to the nation we know today."
Farber will discuss Raskob’s role in Pierre S. du Pont’s purchase and renovation of his great-grandfather’s explosives business as well as his role in transforming General Motors. The talk will also highlight Raskob’s most famous innovation - mass consumer credit. Raskob created General Motors Acceptance Corporation, a company that offered financing to consumers, and enabled working and middle-class Americans to purchase cars.
Farber’s lecture is based on his newest book, Everybody Ought To Be Rich: The Life and Times of John J. Raskob, Capitalist. Farber spent eight years writing the biography and relied heavily on sources for his book from Hagley Museum and Library’s John J. Raskob collection including personal letters, business documents, and receipts.
About the Speaker
David Farber is Professor of History at Temple University. He is the author of The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism; Taken Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and America's First Encounter with Radical Islam; and Sloan Rules: Alfred P. Sloan and the Triumph of General Motors.
About Hagley Museum and Library
Hagley Library is the nation’s leading business history library, archives, and research center. Current holdings compromise 37,000 linear feet in the Manuscripts and Archives Department, 290,000 printed volumes in the Imprints Department, 2 million visual items in the Pictorial Department, and more than 300,000 digital images and pages in the Digital Archives Department. For access to the digital collections, visit our Digital Collections Page. Hagley’s center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society organizes conferences, research seminars, and a public lecture series; it also operates a research grants-in-aid program.
At Hagley, we invite people of all ages to investigate and experience the unfolding history of American business, technology, and innovation, and its impact on the world, from our home at the historic DuPont powder yards on the banks of the Brandywine. For more information, call (302) 658-2400 weekdays for more information or visit http://www.hagley.org/.
Louise Eliason, Hagley Museum and Library, http://www.hagley.org, 302-658-2400 306, [email protected]
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