U.S. Department of Commerce - Business in United States of America

U.S. Department of Commerce: Agencies

U.S. Department of Commerce: International Outreach

U.S. Department of Commerce: A Change in Emphasis

U.S. Department of Commerce: World War II

U.S. Department of Commerce: Organization

U.S. Department of Commerce: Trade and Research

Identification: Cabinet department charged with promoting domestic and international trade, technological growth, and economic expansion

Date: Established in 1903 as the Department of Commerce and Labor; became a separate department in 1913

Significance: Probably no office of the United States government relates more directly to the American business community than does the Department of Commerce, which arranges for loans to businesses, monitors business opportunities both domestic and international, takes positive steps to control unemployment, and offers guidance to the nation’s workforce and to the businesses that employ that workforce, as well as to Congress.

The United States experienced unprecedented growth in industry during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Many influential industrialists felt that they needed a stronger tie to the federal government than they had at that time, and they especially favored the creation of a department that would represent them and their interests formally in the president’s cabinet.

On February 14, 1903, during the presidential administration of Theodore Roosevelt, the United States Congress voted to establish the Department of Commerce and Labor, a designation that survived for just over a decade. On March 14, 1913, Commerce and Labor were divided into two separate, cabinet-level entities, each headed by a secretary. By this time, with industrialism continuing to grow rapidly in the United States, it was clear that the regulation of this growth was too great for one department to handle efficiently. In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson appointed William C. Redfield the first secretary of commerce under the department’s new configuration.

Congress placed on the new secretary of commerce the task of monitoring trade between the United States and other nations with special attention to the sale and transportation of commercial goods to and from the United States. The responsibility of maintaining an American merchant marine also fell to the secretary of commerce.

Further Reading

• Borrelli, Mary Anne. The President’s Cabinet: Gender, Power, and Representation. Boulder, Colo.: L. Rienner, 2002. A feminist account of the functions of the presidential cabinet and of how it helps to shape attitudes about race and gender. 
• Brinkley, Alan, and Davis Dyer, eds. The Reader’s Companion to the American Presidency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Brinkley and Dyer devote twelve pages to Herbert Hoover, mostly to his term as president, although they comment briefly but cogently on his service as secretary of commerce. 
• Cicarelli, James, and Julianne Cicarelli. Distinguished Women Economists. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003. The authors devote four pages to a discussion of economist Juanita Kreps, who served as secretary of commerce in Jimmy Carter’s administration. 
• Gould, Lewis L. The Modern American Presidency. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2003. Gould devotes the first twenty-eight pages of his book to the relationship of the first secretary of commerce, George B. Cortelyou, to Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. 
• Holford, David M. Herbert Hoover. Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow, 1999. In this comprehensive biography, Holford provides insights on how Hoover helped to transform the United States Department of Commerce during his tenure as secretary of commerce. 
• Kreps, Juanita Morris. Sex, Age, and Work: The Changing Composition of the American Work Force. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975. An interesting account of how Kreps viewed the American workforce in this book published two years before she became secretary of commerce. 
• Miller, Walter L. The Life and Accomplishments of Herbert Hoover. Durham, N.C.: Moore, 1970. An appreciative assessment of President Herbert Hoover’s contributions to American business. 

See also: Federal Trade Commission; U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Department of the Interior; U.S. Department of Labor; Small Business Administration; Supreme Court and commerce; U.S. Department of Transportation.