One of the many reasons to mourn the passing of the late, lamented American Heritage magazine – especially for economics/finance geeks like us – was the end of John Steele Gordon’s “Business of America” column.
Second only to John Brooks, Gordon is my favorite writer about business and finance – and very much in the same vein: a wide-ranging choice of sometimes offbeat subjects, a fine eye for human foible, and a wicked (though never showy) sense of humor. Gordon would be in my pantheon if he had never written a word beyond what remains to this day the best single-volume history of the U.S. economy, An Empire of Wealth. (I read it for the sheer joy of doing so every couple of years, and you should too.)
About four dozen of the best American Heritage columns were collected some years ago in a volume titled The Business of America: Tales from the Marketplace – American Enterprise from the Settling of New England to the Breakup of AT&T. Each one of them is an antic gem: instructive, economical and witty.
Here is the story of Samuel Slater, who carried the plans for a mechanical spinning device to America in his head, because England had embargoed the transfer of that revolutionary textile technology. Here, too, is the saga of Jack Goeken, owner of tiny MCI, who presented himself at the headquarters of AT&T on a snowy New York day, not wearing a coat. Assuming he was an employee, a librarian gave him the super-secret document he needed to demonstrate how AT&T was covertly sustaining its monopoly power.
My personal favorite of these essays concerns a transaction in the mid-1950s which would lead directly to the $1.7 billion deal for the syndication rights to Seinfeld in 1998. It seems that Desi Arnaz, co-star with his wife Lucille Ball of the wildly popular I Love Lucy sitcom, offered CBS a minimal salary cut in return for full ownership of the show, which the network thought was like buying yesterday’s newspaper.
It turned out to be the deal of the century. For about $5,000 after taxes, Desi and Lucy gained control of the very first TV show that was being filmed. Half a century later, the price of broadcasting a single episode of I Love Lucy was more than $100,000.
Who but John Steele Gordon – seeking always to amuse as well as to inform – could spin yarns as fascinating as these, each in a fifteen-minute read? Nobody, which is why he and The Business of America are to be treasured.
© 2017 Nick Murray. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission. Nick reviews current books, articles and research findings in the “Resources” feature of his monthly newsletter, Nick Murray Interactive. Download a sample copy at www.nickmurraynewsletters.com. His new book is Around the Year with Nick Murray: Daily Readings for Financial Advisors.