Difference between revisions of "Chamber of Commerce"
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===Shreveport=== | ===Shreveport=== | ||
Shreveport, Louisiana, weathered the [[Great Depression]] better than most towns. The city's civic improvement projects, begun in the 1920s and completed by 1930, helped to sustain the optimistic view that prosperous times awaited. Transportation and educational improvements, supported by federal dollars, continued even in hard times. The Chamber of Commerce waged a publicity campaign to boost retail sales and project optimism. The Chamber also established a farmer's market and lobbied for state road funds. Construction at Barksdale Field, at the time the largest airfield in the world, began in 1931. Barksdale provided jobs and injected cash into the local economy.<ref> Tom R. Thomas, "A Look at Shreveport's Reaction to the Great Depression, 1929-1935," ''North Louisiana History'' 1995 26(4): 125-145.</ref> | Shreveport, Louisiana, weathered the [[Great Depression]] better than most towns. The city's civic improvement projects, begun in the 1920s and completed by 1930, helped to sustain the optimistic view that prosperous times awaited. Transportation and educational improvements, supported by federal dollars, continued even in hard times. The Chamber of Commerce waged a publicity campaign to boost retail sales and project optimism. The Chamber also established a farmer's market and lobbied for state road funds. Construction at Barksdale Field, at the time the largest airfield in the world, began in 1931. Barksdale provided jobs and injected cash into the local economy.<ref> Tom R. Thomas, "A Look at Shreveport's Reaction to the Great Depression, 1929-1935," ''North Louisiana History'' 1995 26(4): 125-145.</ref> | ||
| + | ===Tucson=== | ||
| + | Tucson, Arizona, became an nationally famous winter tourist site during the 1920s. Troubled by economic stagnation, the Chamber of Commerce, the Tucson Sunshine-Climate Club, and the Arizona Polo Association did market surveys and inaugurated magnet events, like La Fiesta de los Vaqueros; they even built tourist facilities, like El Conquistador Hotel. The efforts were successful and tourism became a mainstay of the economy by 1930, and remains so into the 21st century.<ref>Alex Jay Kimmelman, "Luring the Tourist to Tucson: Civic Promotion During the 1920s," ''Journal of Arizona History'' 1987 28(2): 135-154</ref> | ||
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==Jaycees== | ==Jaycees== | ||
The Junior Chamber of Commerce, is known as the Jaycees, is for young business people. | The Junior Chamber of Commerce, is known as the Jaycees, is for young business people. | ||
Revision as of 02:34, November 19, 2009
The United States Chamber of Commerce (USCC) is the world's largest non-profit business federation representing 3 million businesses. Over 96% of U.S. Chamber members are small businesses with 100 employees or fewer.
Established in 1912, the national body typically endorses Republican candidates that advocate a pro-business, pro-job growth agenda. It is dominated by large national corporations.
The local bodies represent Main Street (locally owned businesses) and are boosters for their cities; they do not endorse candidates.
Boosters and job growth
A main role of local chambers is to boost the city and promote tourism. They work tirelessly to bring in new industries--for example, airports in the 1920s and 1930s.
Women
Women play a major role in tourism and local chambers were one of the first business organizations to find a role for women.[1]
Las Vegas
Sin is a big draw for men. The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce energetically promoted tourism in the 1930s, following the completion of Hoover Dam. They featured an image of Las Vegas as a 'last frontier.' Advertising brochures, newspaper publicity, and motion pictures celebrated Las Vegas for its hospitality, legal gambling, easy divorce laws, and local naughty attractions. It worked, as shown by the increasing number of tourists and visitors in the late 1930s. Completion of the El Rancho Vegas resort casino in 1941 foreshadowed the postwar boom in resort hotels.[2]
Mobile
The Alabama legislature passed the Cater Act in 1949 allowing cities and counties to set up industrial development boards (IDB) to issue municipal bonds as incentives to attract new industry into their local areas. The city of Mobile did not establish a Cater Act board until 1962. George E. McNally, Mobile's first Republican mayor since Reconstruction, was the driving force behind its creation. The existing Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce, considering itself better qualified to attract new businesses and industry to the area, saw the new IDB as a serious rival. After several years of political squabbling, the Chamber of Commerce emerged victorious. While McNally's IDB prompted the Chamber of Commerce to become more proactive in attracting new industry, the chamber effectively shut Mobile city government out of economic development decisions.[3]
Philadelphia
The Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) helped preserve urban manufacturing jobs as part of an industrial renewal effort during 1953-76. The PIDC, a nonprofit, quasi-public authority, was created in 1958 in a joint effort between Mayor Richardson H. Dilworth and the chamber of commerce to implement an industrial renewal project. Using industrial mortgages, funds were raised for the construction and renovation of small to medium-sized manufacturing plants on undeveloped land in and around Philadelphia. The PIDC is credited with having moderated the loss of industrial jobs in Philadelphia.[4]
San Diego
Spurred by members of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, the city actively lobbied the Navy and the federal government to make San Diego a major location for naval, marine, and air bases. Its 'culture of accommodation' determined the way the city would grow and created a military-urban complex rather than a tourist and health resort. With the reduction in naval spending after 1990, the Chamber turned to tourism and conventions. [5]
San Francisco
In the first half of the 20th century, business interests in San Francisco, organized into the Chamber of Commerce, asserted themselves as the only legitimate leaders of the community, asserting that labor unions were only a disruptive special interest. However the voters and the overall political culture of the city were much more sympathetic to the working class and to labor unions as their representatives in civic decisionmaking. After conflict between business and unions, including strikes sometimes requiring federal troops, business finally accepted the legitimacy of labor unions after the bitter strike in 1934. The resulting business-labor partnership aided San Francisco's postwar expansion.[6]
The Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939-40 boosted San Francisco. The exposition's board was dominated by members of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce who had the support of major area corporations, other western states, and federal agencies. The Exposition departed from the tradition of world fairs in its eclectic organization of exhibits, which included productions, displays, lectures, films, demonstrations, and bazaars. These exhibits reflected a transitional phase in American culture, characterized by the process of fragmentation and recombination. The tensions of American society on the eve of World War II were manifested in exhibitions expressing both desires for peace and simplicity, and fascination with expansion and technology. [7]
Shreveport
Shreveport, Louisiana, weathered the Great Depression better than most towns. The city's civic improvement projects, begun in the 1920s and completed by 1930, helped to sustain the optimistic view that prosperous times awaited. Transportation and educational improvements, supported by federal dollars, continued even in hard times. The Chamber of Commerce waged a publicity campaign to boost retail sales and project optimism. The Chamber also established a farmer's market and lobbied for state road funds. Construction at Barksdale Field, at the time the largest airfield in the world, began in 1931. Barksdale provided jobs and injected cash into the local economy.[8]
Tucson
Tucson, Arizona, became an nationally famous winter tourist site during the 1920s. Troubled by economic stagnation, the Chamber of Commerce, the Tucson Sunshine-Climate Club, and the Arizona Polo Association did market surveys and inaugurated magnet events, like La Fiesta de los Vaqueros; they even built tourist facilities, like El Conquistador Hotel. The efforts were successful and tourism became a mainstay of the economy by 1930, and remains so into the 21st century.[9]
Jaycees
The Junior Chamber of Commerce, is known as the Jaycees, is for young business people.
Ethnics and international trade
Many cities have a chamber of commerce for a specific ethnic group. For example, In 1939, 11 small businessmen (mostly grocers), one businesswoman, and Dallas's Mexican consul formed a Mexican chamber of commerce, La Camara Mexicana de Comercio de Dallas.
The American-Polish Chamber of Commerce and Industry in New York (APCCI) was established in 1920 to facilitate wider trade and financial contacts between the United States and the newly independent Poland. It promoted trade and arranged loans to Poland between 1920 and 1939, then closed down.[10]
After 1885 the Italian Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco was active in promoting trade between Italy and California.
Worldwide
Since the late 19th century similar chambers of commerce operate in major cities around the world, as well as an International Chamber of Commerce.
External Link
references
- ↑ Lee Simpson, "Boosters in Petticoats: California Women and the Chamber of Commerce, 1880-1930," Journal of the West 2003 42(4): 35-43,
- ↑ Larry Gragg, "Selling 'Sin City': Successfully Promoting Las Vegas During the Great Depression, 1935-1941," Nevada Historical Society Quarterly 2006 49(2): 83-106,
- ↑ Bill Patterson, "The Founding of the Industrial Development Board of the City of Mobile: The Port City's Reluctant Use of Subsidies," Gulf South Historical Review 2000 15(2): 21-40,
- ↑ Guian McKee, "Urban Deindustrialization and Local Public Policy: Industrial Renewal in Philadelphia, 1953-1976," Journal of Policy History 2004 16(1): 66-98,
- ↑ Abraham J. Shragge, "'I like the Cut of Your Jib': Cultures of Accommodation Between the U.S. Navy and Citizens of San Diego, California, 1900-1951," Journal of San Diego History 2002 48(3): 230-255
- ↑ William Issel, "Business Power and Political Culture in San Francisco, 1900-1940," Journal of Urban History, 1989 16(1): 52-77
- ↑ Lisa Rubens, "Re-presenting the Nation: The Golden Gate International Exposition," European Contributions to American Studies 1994 27: 121-139.
- ↑ Tom R. Thomas, "A Look at Shreveport's Reaction to the Great Depression, 1929-1935," North Louisiana History 1995 26(4): 125-145.
- ↑ Alex Jay Kimmelman, "Luring the Tourist to Tucson: Civic Promotion During the 1920s," Journal of Arizona History 1987 28(2): 135-154
- ↑ Boguslaw W. Winid, "The American-Polish Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the United States, Inc., 1920-1939," Polish American Studies 1989 46(2): 5-24