What Happened to the Company That Dix Made?

In the early twentieth century, progressive employers tried to turn recalcitrant workers into cooperative partners with a menu of corporate welfare programs. One of those employers, Henry A. Dix, took a leap that few contemplated. In 1922 he announced a plan to give his profitable $ 1 million business to his employees. Dix became famous as " the man who gave his business to his employees." His ownership transfer scheme sought to make the welfare of the workforce the raison d'etre of a modern shareholder-owned corporation. It raised the possibility of building a capitalist society quite different from the one that emerged in the twentieth century. This paper connects the Dix plan to an understudied employer- based movement for industrial democracy and examines cultural, gender, and class dimensions of the Dix transfer from conception through the company's demise decades later.