Educators ’ Perspective continued from page 11
Educators ’ Perspective continued from page 11
who felt that the Mercantile Agency was spying on them in what they described as a “ system of espionage .”
The Mercantile Agency grew slowly because of poor economic conditions , and it never really caught on in the South until after Lewis Tappan retired from the firm in 1849 . His two successors , Benjamin Douglas and Robert Graham Dun ( who renamed the company after himself in 1859 ), were able to expand the business into the South because of their ambivalence towards abolition . This allowed the company to offer a truly nationwide service and to dominate the field of credit ratings for years as the company continued to improve and expand its credit reporting abilities .
In 1933 , R . G . Dun & Co . merged with its biggest competitor , The Bradstreet Companies , to form Dun & Bradstreet : a company which today claims to have “ compiled the most comprehensive and accurate repository of business data on the planet .”
The task Lewis Tappan set out to achieve in 1841 eventually succeeded beyond his wildest dreams , providing much-needed credit ratings and more for businesses worldwide .
Brian Grinder is a professor at Eastern Washington University and a member of Financial History ’ s editorial board . Dr . Dan Cooper is the president of Active Learning Technologies .
Sources
Atherton , Lewis E . “ The Problem of Credit Rating in the Ante-Bellum South .” The Journal of Southern History . Vol . 12 , pgs . 534 – 556 . 1946 .
Foulke , Roy A . The Sinews of American Commerce . New York , NY . 1941 .
Madison , James H . “ The Evolution of Commercial Credit Reporting Agencies in Nineteenth-Century America .” The Business History Review . Vol . 48 , pgs . 164-186 . 1974 .
The Mercantile Agency : The Story of Impartial Credit Reporting . New York , NY : Dun & Bradstreet , Inc . 1941 .
Norris , James D . R . G . Dun & Co ., 1841 – 1900 : The Development of Credit-reporting in the Nineteenth Century . Westport , CT : Greenwood Press . 1978 .
Olegario , Rowena . A Culture of Credit : Embedding Trust and Transparency in American Business . Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press . 2006 .
Sandage , Scott A . Born Losers . Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press . 2009 .
Thoreau , Henry D . The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau . New York , NY : New York University Press . 1958 .
Wyatt-Brown , Bertram . Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War Against Slavery . Cleveland , OH : Press of Case Western Reserve University . 1969 .
38 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Winter 2017 | www . MoAF . org