Imagine a store that not only provides a variety of quality products and efficient service but also offers employees a bank, a school, a library, a gymnasium, medical care–and a weekly prayer meeting. Is this a modern business experimenting with new ideas to retain employees? No, it was a late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century business that was far ahead of its time. (In fact, at least the prayer meeting part would be considered politically incorrect today and possibly e

The perennial favorite that had made Ford a household name was the 4-cylinder Model A, and he seemed content to continue producing that as long as people would buy it. But other carmakers had begun to outsell Ford. William Durant of Chevrolet had introduced a V-6 engine that produced 20 more horsepower than Ford’s engines, and by 1931 consumers were buying more Chevys than Fords. Ford had to do something to regain the market. His engineers suggested their own V-6, but Ford ha

Looking through a nostalgia magazine the other day, I came across a half-page “1956 Advertising Flashback.”  It was an ad for a Kodak Argus slide projector with a two-tone-green carrying case and rectangular aluminum slide magazines. The ad grabbed my attention because my parents bought one of those sometime between 1956, when it came out, and 1959, when our family and another family took a trip “out West” together. For many years afterward, we kids enjoyed viewing for hours

Too often today, business leaders (especially successful ones) get a bad rap as miserly, money-grubbing, selfish, and uncaring. Although you’re bound to find some business people who are those things, for the most part, they are not. Rather, if one looks back into history with an unbiased eye, he can find many business people who are exemplars of the very opposite characteristics. Those are the people who make free enterprise work, resulting in not only their own success but