Abstract

"Corporate Ambassadors: The Diplomacy of American Business in Revolutionary Russia"

Sarah Snyder, American University (ssnyder@american.edu)

My paper will show how International Harvester Company and Singer Manufacturing Company navigated the revolutions in Russia in the early twentieth century. International Harvester and Singer were two early American corporations that penetrated foreign markets, established international manufacturing, and dispersed American employees to manage far-flung operations. They were dynamic, well-known American corporations with an increasing presence overseas at the end of the nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century, however, they faced a series of crises in Europe, including a world war, and in Russia, where each had significant manufacturing and sales, they confronted two revolutions and a civil war. Throughout this period Singer and International Harvester sought to preserve and expand their businesses. In some cases, with the support of U.S. consular officials and, at times, more independently, they worked to reinvent themselves to survive the changing political and economic circumstances around them. This paper will connect to the conference’s theme of “reinvention” as it will address both the adaptability of American entrepreneurs and firms in new geographic and political contexts in times of uncertainty and change as well as illuminate the changing roles of governments, politics, and power at times of reinvention such as a revolution.