Cotton's Renaissance
A Study in Market Innovation

A history of Cotton Incorporated's impact on the cotton market in the United States.

George David Smith (Author), Timothy Curtis Jacobson (Author)

9780521808279, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 September 2001

364 pages
23 x 16 x 3 cm, 0.68 kg

Review of the hardback: 'This is an insightful case study about how a collective marketing and research organisation took on the chemical and synthetic corporate giants … this story offers convincing evidence in its own right that technical investment can promote the survival of cotton industries in advanced countries.' Business History

Cotton's Renaissance is an analytical and interpretive history of the responses of US cotton growers to problems of supply and demand, and of the unique public–private organization they founded to help them grow, compete, and survive in an increasingly competitive marketplace. It is a story of how cotton growers learned, after more than a century and a half of trying to manage supply, that they could actually influence demand for their commodity. The impact of that company, Cotton Incorporated, on the markets for cotton was a remarkable achievement in organizational entrepreneurship. In its 'total marketing' effort to rebuild cotton's market share, it has fostered substantial scientific, technological, and managerial improvements in the quality and performance of cotton. In doing so, it has enhanced the efficiency of not only the farmers who grow cotton, but also those who transform it into consumer goods.

Preface
Introduction: why grow cotton, anyway? Culture and economy
Part I. Managing Supply: 1. 'The snow of southern summers': King Cotton and his markets in the age of industrial revolution
2. Nature and know-how: organization and technology in the Postbellum era
3. Acts of God and Government: the search for political solutions
Part II. Approaching the Market: 4. Synthetic shock: competition's alarm
5. Creating Cotton Incorporated
Part III. Managing the Market: 6. Creating consumption
7. Managing the mill: the necessary illusion of control
8. Competitive markets in a global economy
Afterword: trends and cycles.

Subject Areas: Business & management [KJ], Economic history [KCZ], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], History of the Americas [HBJK]