Lemuel Ricketts Boulware (June 3, 1895 – November 7, 1990) was General Electric's vice president of labor and community relations from 1956 until 1961.[1] Boulware's business tutelage and political cultivation of Ronald Reagan from 1954 to 1962 while Reagan was a spokesman for the company is argued to have led to Reagan's conversion from New Deal-style liberalism to Barry Goldwater-style conservatism.[2][3]
Lemuel Boulware | |
|---|---|
 A portrait of Lemuel Boulware | |
| Born | June 3, 1895 Springfield, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Died | November 7, 1990 (aged 95) Delray Beach, Florida, U.S. |
Boulware's aggressive 20-year-long policy of "take-it-or-leave-it" bargaining by GE became known as "Boulwarism". He devised the strategy in reaction to success in the 1946 general strikes by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) and the other two largest unions of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Bouleware has also been noted for his effective and innovative use of surveys and interviews of General Electric employees, to test which anti-union messages resonated most with staff.[3]
US Historian Rick Perlstein described Boulware as "the most influential American most people have never heard of." Perlstein argues that Boulware "conceptualized a way to promote the sort of right-wing politics traditionally favored by corporate behemoths—low taxes and neutralized union power; ...as a problem in modern marketing."[3]
Published works
edit- Boulware, Lemuel R. (1969). The Truth About Boulwarism: Trying to Do Right Voluntarily. Washington D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs. pp. 180.
References
edit- ^ Obituary, by Joan Cook, at the New York Times
- ^ "How did Ronald Reagan Become a Conservative?". Archived from the original on February 8, 2007. Retrieved 2014-04-14.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link), by Joshua Zeitz, at American Heritage - ^ a b c Perlstein, Rick (2014). The invisible bridge: the fall of Nixon and the rise of Reagan (First Simon & Schuster hardcover ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4767-8241-6. OCLC 869437988.
Further reading
edit- Evans, Thomas (August 11, 2008). The Education of Ronald Reagan: The General Electric Years and the Untold Story of His Conversion to Conservatism (Print). New York Chichester: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0231138611.
{{cite book}}:|work=ignored (help) ISBN 9780231138611 - Roberts, Harold S. (1986). Boulwarism (3rd ed.). Washington D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs. pp. 76–77.
{{cite book}}:|work=ignored (help)
External links
edit
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