"A Man's Thanksgiving": A Hymn to the God of Business

Abstract: President Calvin Coolidge captured the spirit of the 1920s when he announced in a speech before the Society of American Newspaper Editors that "the chief business of the American people is business." Coolidge's aphorism revealed the centrality of commerce to the nation and its culture in the 1920s, even while it concealed some of the wrenching cultural changes required to accommodate a commercial civilization. An even more forceful publicist for the view that business and spirituality were compatible was Bruce Barton. The son of a Congregational minister, Barton cofounded one of the nation's largest and best-known advertising agencies. Barton's greatest fame, however, came from the best-selling book that he published in 1925, The Man Nobody Knows , in which he crafted a new vision of Christ and Christianity that was not simply compatible with, but organically connected to, the business-oriented 1920s. Barton's aggressive efforts to merge business and Christianity may seem comical in the late 20th century, but his exertions were sincerely felt by him and sincerely received by many Americans. The Jaqua Way , a business publication, offered on its first page the hymn, "A Man's Thanksgiving," in the which author thanked the "God of business men" for "my customers and for the power to serve them faithfully."

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