Staff Profile
Publication details for Professor Howell John Harris
2008 Harris, Howell John 'Inventing the U.S. stove industry, c. 1815-1875: making and selling the first universal consumer durable', Business History Review 82, pp. 701-733- Publication type: Journal papers: academic
- ISSN/ISBN: 0007-6805
- Keywords: Stoves, Consumer durables, Distribution networks.
- View online: Online version
- Durham research online: DRO record
Author(s) from Durham
Abstract
This article examines the emergence of the American stove industry, detailing the complex interactions among changes in the product, the organization of production, and the methods of selling cast-iron heating and cooking equipment to consumers nationwide, particularly in the antebellum years. This highly competitive industry, composed of hundreds of proprietary firms, became a site of considerable innovation in marketing. Manufacturers integrated forward, controlling the sale and distribution of their goods through networks of small retailers nationwide. The article explains how and why.