The Bouchayers of Grenoble and French Industrial Enterprise, 1850--1970

By Robert J. Smith

The son of a village nail maker, Joseph Bouchayer forged a new identity in Grenoble and left as his legacy a thriving metalworking firm - Bouchayer et Viallet. His sons made this enterprise the dominant French producer of pipelines for the hydroelectric industry before 1914. As the Bouchayers became grands bourgeois, however, leisure, largesse, and individual prowess gradually displaced work, frugality, and family ties as core values. Without imaginative entrepreneurship after 1930, the firm lost momentum and finally terminated its century-old manufacturing operations in 1970.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801866839
• ISBN13: 9780801866838
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 6.3"