Mayflower, early farmers, tobacco, taxes, cotton, steam, railways, gold, slavery, telegraph, beer, patents, oil, steel, machines, light, retail, guns, media, unions, meat, trusts, automobiles, fast food franchises, radio, banking, film, roads, computers, startups, internet, mobile… land of opportunities.
Interesting facts:
- I was surprised to learn just how instrumental was the government (municipal, state and federal) in sparking the innovation and business growth.
- Early medicine producers influence newspapers. Medicine producers at one point in time represented large proportion of newspapers’ ad revenues. In a monospon position, producers were able to enforce a contract clause that would cancel advertisments if the medicine becomes illegal in the newspaper’s region. Thus the newspaper had strong vested interest and spoke favourably of medicines, even if it was shady.
Personal score: 7/10