Chamber of Commerce
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
A main role of local chambers is to boost the city and promote tourism. Woemn play a major role in tourism and local chambers were one of the first business organizations to find a role for women.[1]
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]
Economic development
The Chambers work tirelessly to bring in new industries--for example, airports in the 1920s and 1930s.
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.[3]
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.[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]
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.[6]
Jaycees
The Junior Chamber of Commerce, is known as the Jaycees, is for young business people.
Ethnics
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.
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,
- ↑ Guian McKee, "Urban Deindustrialization and Local Public Policy: Industrial Renewal in Philadelphia, 1953-1976," Journal of Policy History 2004 16(1): 66-98,
- ↑ 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,
- ↑ 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
- ↑ Tom R. Thomas, "A Look at Shreveport's Reaction to the Great Depression, 1929-1935," North Louisiana History 1995 26(4): 125-145.