ABSTRACT
In the second half of the nineteenth century, as the corporation was becoming a dominant force in American life, American writers responded to its torrid growth with praise and trepidation. One of the most pervasive manifestations of the corporation – the railroad – was both celebrated and feared. 1 In 1868, Walt Whitman sang of the “mighty railroad” as one of “the great achievements of the present,” a wonder that “spann’d” the New World. 2 But in his 1901 novel, The Octopus, Frank Norris described the corporate railroad as “the soulless force, the iron-hearted power” – an unrelenting monster that ravaged and consumed the landscape “from horizon to horizon.” 3 Whitman’s railroad symbolizes not only industry but “modern” expansiveness. For Norris, the railroad stands as the “symbol of a vast power” that has no soul and an unfeeling heart. Both writers suggest that the railroad’s significance resides in its capacity as an organized structure that offers unprecedented reach and unrelenting growth. Put another way, the railroad is the corporation made visible, a creation symbolizing the energy and power of a new age, yet also looming with the presence of an impersonal, menacing giant. Chroniclers of the nineteenth century like Whitman and Norris tempt us to examine the corporation by studying its most spectacular examples – like the railroad – as organizations to be revered or condemned. But the story of the corporation requires a far more complex accounting than what is revealed by such apparently polarized responses.
