Stuart Anderson-Davis

2025 Atlanta, Georgia

Abstract: This paper will examine the work of several nineteenth century promoters who embraced new techniques to promote their business endeavors by any means necessary. I will consider the careers of men like George Francis Train, Francis O. J. Smith, Duff Green, John Novell, Amos Kendall, P.T. Barnum, and Albert Grant, across fields such as banking, railways, communications, and media. The paper will examine the tactics employed to generate support from politicians, investors, and the general public – including the use of misleading prospectuses, press advertising and “puffery,” media corruption, and lobbying operations that included inducing legislators with shares/board positions to pass bills and project respectability. These case studies will demonstrate how deceptive methods were employed to position personal interests as essential public utilities – part of a developing trend of 18th and 19th century Anglo-American business history, in which companies emphasized (and exaggerated) their broader societal benefit as a means to secure much-needed legitimacy and legal/commercial support (for example, to gain legislative approval for a corporate charter). The behavior of men like Train, Green, and Barnum contributed to an atmosphere of suspicion that pervaded mid-19th century American life – as depicted in works like Melville’s The Confidence Man (1857) and Barnum’s own Humbugs of the World (1866) – and the growing sense that deception was a feature of commercial and political life. This paper is based on my dissertation on deception, disinformation, and “front” organizations in the Anglo-American world, 1776-1865. Title quote: Anon., “The Law,” Daily National Intelligencer, Nov. 25, 1834.

2026 London

Abstract: During the final days of the American Civil War a U.S. diplomat stealthily leaked a document that he promised would explain “some of the incidents of our war that have seemed hitherto to most people incomprehensible.” The “Cotton List” – purportedly a record of British elites who invested in the $14.5m Confederate Cotton Bond, launched in 1863 – generated much media attention and public outrage on both sides of the Atlantic. Lambasted as disinformation by many of those named – including the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Editor of The Times – the document nevertheless suggested that private financial interests had motivated the pro-Confederate conduct of various political and commercial leaders in Britain: a persuasive explanation for why they had apparently abandoned the nation’s abolitionist creed to support a fledgling proslavery republic. My paper evaluates this thesis by examining both the origins of the “Cotton List” and the behavior of several individuals named on it, including entrepreneurs, merchants, bankers, speculators, and shipbuilders who directed and financed pro-Southern lobbying, PR, and community organizing in Britain. Founded on archival research, the paper reveals how these commercial elites sought to “co-create” using deception and misdirection: galvanizing popular support for the Confederacy that they hoped would enhance various profit-seeking ventures, from cotton smuggling to selling Confederate bonds. These Britons, in collaboration with Confederate agents, bastardized the popular persuasion playbook (one largely pioneered by anti-slavery activists): covertly coordinating grassroots associations, publishing and distributing Confederate propaganda, spreading disinformation about the North, coercing employees to sign parliamentary petitions, and more. The public exposure of their machinations not only damaged personal and professional reputations, but fueled broader debate about transparency,