Du Pont Turns 150: Corporate Culture as Public Culture

摘要

This article details the ways in which the executives of Du Pont used the chemical company's 150th-anniversary festivities in 1952 and its associated sponsored media as an opportunity to explicitly link the history of the company with the history of the nation. This was an attempt to legitimatize the company's existence and its ultraconservative worldview, espouse free trade, and fight antitrust litigation. This article explores the conflation of private and public history in Du Pont-sponsored anniversary materials to illustrate how corporate public relations meant for private corporate consumption reverberated into a shared American public culture.