Industry groups and lobbying in 19th-century U.S.

This project examines the mobilization of associations of “friends of industry” from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the formation of the National Industrial League in the mid-1860s. Its focus is on the coalescence of the manufacturing interest, its agenda, organizational structure, modes of operation, and the resources it mobilized. While political parties have attracted a great deal of attention among scholars of 19th­century United States, other modes of organizing interests and channeling political activism have been largely overlooked. Drawing perspectives and tools from collective action theory, this study of the emerging manufacturing interest provides important new insights into U.S. 19th-century politics and the making of industrial capitalism.