ABSTRACT
Drawing chiefly on the multi-generational strategies of a durable family firm in the Philadelphia textile industry, this article strives to suggest the creative manner in which kin-based managerial teams responded to shifting economic environments in the United States, c. 1850–1940. Central to the Bromleys’ success was the spinning off of new firms in different, but related, textile sectors, thereby taking advantage of market opportunities and easing inter-generational successions. Still, key failures of vision in the inter-war era defeated the expansionism of the Bromley clan’s most successful section. Two regional case studies of family firms in metalworking and foodstuffs are appended to suggest the range of variation in succession strategies and their results in differing industrial sectors and market environments. As might be expected, a call for more intensive and conceptually refined research is offered at the close.
