Lemuel Boulware

{{Infobox person | name = Lemuel Boulware | image = Lemuel Ricketts Boulware.jpg | caption = A portrait of Lemuel Boulware | birth_date = {{birth date|1895|06|3}} | birth_place = Springfield, Kentucky, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|1990|11|7|1895|06|3}} | death_place = Delray Beach, Florida, U.S. }}

'''Lemuel Ricketts Boulware''' (June 3, 1895 – November 7, 1990) was an American business executive who was vice president of labor and community relations for General Electric from 1956 until 1961.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/08/us/lemuel-ricketts-boulware-95-headed-labor-relations-for-ge.html Obituary], by Joan Cook, at the New York Times</ref> Boulware's business tutelage and political cultivation of Ronald Reagan from 1954 to 1962 while Reagan was a spokesman for the company is argued to have led to Reagan's conversion from New Deal-style liberalism to Barry Goldwater-style conservatism.<ref>{{cite web |title=How did Ronald Reagan Become a Conservative? |url=http://www.americanheritage.com/people/articles/web/20070122-ronald-reagan-conservatism-screen-actors-guild-general-electric-lemuel-boulware.shtml |url-status=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070208181115/http://www.americanheritage.com/people/articles/web/20070122-ronald-reagan-conservatism-screen-actors-guild-general-electric-lemuel-boulware.shtml |archivedate=February 8, 2007 |accessdate=2014-04-14}}, by Joshua Zeitz, at ''American Heritage''</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Perlstein |first=Rick |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/869437988 |title=The invisible bridge: the fall of Nixon and the rise of Reagan |date=2014 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=978-1-4767-8241-6 |edition=First Simon & Schuster hardcover |location=New York |oclc=869437988}}</ref>

Boulware's aggressive 20-year-long policy of "take-it-or-leave-it" bargaining by GE became known as "Boulwarism". He devised the strategy in reaction to success in the 1946 general strikes by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) and the other two largest unions of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Bouleware has also been noted for his effective and innovative use of surveys and interviews of General Electric employees, to test which anti-union messages resonated most with staff.<ref name=":0" />

US Historian Rick Perlstein described Boulware as "the most influential American most people have never heard of." Perlstein argues that Boulware "conceptualized a way to promote the sort of right-wing politics traditionally favored by corporate behemoths—low taxes and neutralized union power; ...as a problem in modern marketing."<ref name=":0" />

==Published works== *{{cite book|last1=Boulware|first1=Lemuel R.|title=The Truth About Boulwarism: Trying to Do Right Voluntarily|url=https://archive.org/details/truthaboutboulwa00boul|url-access=registration|pages=[https://archive.org/details/truthaboutboulwa00boul/page/180 180]|location=Washington D.C.|publisher=Bureau of National Affairs|year=1969}}

==References==

==Further reading== *{{cite book |first1=Thomas |last1=Evans |title=The Education of Ronald Reagan: The General Electric Years and the Untold Story of His Conversion to Conservatism |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York Chichester |type=Print |date=August 11, 2008 |work=Columbia Studies in Contemporary American History |isbn=978-0231138611}} {{ISBN|9780231138611}} *{{cite book |last1=Roberts |first1=Harold S. |title=Boulwarism |work=Roberts' Dictionary of Industrial Relations |edition=3rd |location=Washington D.C. |publisher=Bureau of National Affairs |year=1986 |pages=76–77}}

==External links== * [http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/ead/upenn_rbml_MsColl52 Lemuel R. Boulware papers, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boulware, Lemuel R.}} Category:1895 births Category:1990 deaths Category:General Electric people Category:20th-century American businesspeople Category:Labor history of the United States