AMERICAN EXPRESS: A Century of Service

A guided tour of the American Express Company which lines up its changing presidents and personnels, its departments and department heads, surveys its services and its past history. From its antecedent, William F. Harnden, to the official founding of the company in 1850, American Express was soon to become a prodigious establishment which survived the Civil War, the scrambles for railway contracts among rival competitors, and later the Bank Holiday in 1933. The inauguration of Money Order service, Travelers Cheques, the European travel business as well as freight lines beyond the border, this all makes up the story of this company but does not place the book much above a rather dull institutional biography. A centennial tribute no doubt.