Government and Women’s Business Ownership
Lewis, Beech and Rudkin all took advantage of government opportunities and actively resisted its intrusions, and this was essential to their success. Close examination of the World War II and Korean War eras—key episodes in the expansion of the federal government as regulator and customer—shows that for these businesswomen building a relationship with government was both necessary and important. Military contracts and Reconstruction Finance Corporation loans kept Lewis and Beech in business while Excess Profits Tax posed a real threat that both women fought and wartime rationing as well as regulations by the Office of Price Administration fundamentally shaped Rudkin’s business strategy and success. Prevailing scholarly interpretations have argued that women’s businesses were too small to attract federal attention but the experience of these entrepreneurs reveals that for women who operated businesses big enough to cater to a national market, government programs were fundamental to their success and federal regulation threatened significant losses in profit. By the mid-twentieth century, in fact, developing a relationship with the federal government was hardly a choice; a strategic one could determine a business’ future.