Cleaning San Francisco, cleaning the United States: The graft prosecutions of 1906–1909 and their nationwide consequences

Uwe Spiekermann

Business History, 2018, vol. 60, issue 3, 361-380

Abstract: This case study examines public debates on, and investigations of, corrupt city officials and bribe-giving businesspeople in the western metropolis of San Francisco during the era of progressivism. Law enforcement was not only difficult because of the lack of juridical evidence but also because large portions of the local business elites were benefiting from illicit structures. The prosecutions failed, but financier, banker and capitalist Rudolph Spreckels initiated a national anti-graft movement in the early 1910s, which discussed the concept of corporate social and civic responsibility as an alternative to criminal prosecution and an opportunity to harmonise class conflicts.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00076791.2017.1369963 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:bushst:v:60:y:2018:i:3:p:361-380

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FBSH20

DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2017.1369963

Access Statistics for this article

Business History is currently edited by Professor John Wilson and Professor Steven Toms

More articles in Business History from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().