WINNERS AND LOSERS OF THE CENTURY

1900

Losers: Blacksmiths, buggy salesmen. Thank people like Henry Ford.

Winners: Auto mechanics. The Model T is introduced in 1908, putting the car into the hands of the everyday driver. That’s not always good.

Winner: John D. Rockefeller. Boom in auto sales puts oil baron in position to control just about everything until the government busts him up in 1912.

Losers: Factory workers. Conditions deplorable. Child labor. No overtime. Kind of like some overseas garment factories today.

1910

Winner: Al Capone. Passage of the 18th Amendment prohibiting alcohol in 1919 creates overnight business for bootleggers that will continue through the Roaring ‘20s, until Prohibition is repealed in 1933.

Winners: Silent-film stars. Does anyone care that stars such as Rudolph Valentino have accents?

Loser: Lloyds of London. Insurer takes a hit on the Titanic, just six years after taking one on the San Francisco earthquake.

1920

Losers: Organ players. Hollywood’s first “talkie,” “The Jazz Singer,” puts out of business the people who provided all that background music in movie theaters.

Winners: Chicken farmers and car salesmen. Herbert Hoover in 1928 campaign slogan promises a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage.

Losers: Anyone who believed him.

Winners: Bread makers. The pop-up toaster is invented in 1927. Pop Tarts will take a while longer.

Winners: Celebrities. Growth of radio and other mass media turns people such as Charles Lindbergh, Jack Dempsey, Amelia Earhart, Babe Ruth and Charlie Chaplin into the first modern-day celebrity superstars. One outgrowth: the annoying celebrity memorabilia business.

Winners: Stock speculators. Market goes up and up and up . . .

Losers: Stock speculators. “Wall St. lays an egg,” says Variety headline in October 1929. Walking on a sidewalk next to a tall office building becomes hazardous.

Winners: Cartoon artists and future Matterhorn ride operators. Walt Disney introduces Mickey Mouse in 1928. Disney will later say: “It all started with a mouse.”

1930

Winners: Daddy Warbucks, Joseph P. Kennedy. Hey, the Depression wasn’t that bad for people who got out of the market in time.

Losers: Just about everyone else, especially Dust Bowl farmers, auto workers in Detroit, rubber workers in Akron . . .

Winners: Civil servants. Roosevelt and New Deal usher in era of Big Government. Growth market for G-12s.

Loser: Herbert Hoover. Kicked out of office, starting a long tradition that Gerald Ford and George Bush will uphold in which the president gets blamed when the economy heads south.

Winners: Grocery store checkers. 1930 marks the first supermarket in the U.S. No club cards to swipe, no questions about paper or plastic.

Winners: Commercial real estate builders. High-rise buildings go up in cities across America, including the Empire State Building in 1931. Bonus: None had Donald Trump’s name on them.

Loser: Tom Joad. Dust Bowl forces Midwest farmers to pack up their belongings and move to California. Henry Fonda gets a movie role.

Winners: Union leaders. Industrialization leads to the organizing of workers. Major strikes launched against major U.S. industries, including 1936 auto workers walkout.

Losers: Sweatshop operators. Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 outlaws child labor. Too bad a lot of employers ignored it.

Winner: John Maynard Keynes. His theories will enchant government officials and bedevil Economics 101 students for decades.

1940

Winners: Assembly line workers. World War II puts U.S. industrial factories into high gear.

Winner: Rosie the Riveter. Women work factory lines previously worked by men who have been called off to war.

Winners: Makers of Hershey Bars, Coca-Cola, Wrigleys gum. World is exposed to U.S. products as U.S. Kilroys carry them around the world.

Losers: Orange growers. Tract homes replace Southern California’s groves.

Winner: G.I. Joe. Returning soldiers get married, have kids, buy homes under the G.I. Bill and live in housing tracts where every fourth house looks the same.

1950

Winner: Gregory Peck. As the man in the gray flannel suit, he is the quintessential corporate man of the 1950s.

Winners: Backyard bomb shelter contractors. Someone had to build those ridiculous storerooms to protect us from the Russian nuclear threat.

Winners: Rich Knerr and Arthur (Spud) Merlin, Wham-O founders (1948). The two, through their San Gabriel company Wham-O, enlivened backyard picnics and teenage parties with Frisbees, Hula Hoops and Slip ‘N Slides.

Winner: Dr. Benjamin Spock. Baby boom makes pediatricians busiest doctors around.

Winner: Pitchmen. Television makes Madison Avenue and anyone selling toothpaste a force in everyday life.

1960

Winners: Burger flippers. Ray Kroc buys McDonald’s in 1961 from the McDonald brothers in San Bernardino. Big Mac, Super Sizing and Disney tie-ins still to come.

Winners: Engineers. Post-World War II boom in aerospace and defense, especially the Apollo rush to the moon, makes slide-rule-carrying numbers crunchers a hot ticket.

Winners: Xerox repairman. Proliferation of office copiers from company with name nobody can pronounce creates huge market.

Winners: Tie-dye shirt makers. Profession flourishes until places like J.C. Penney catch on.

Winner: Sam Walton. Starts building chain of discount stories in Podunks everywhere. In 30 years, he’ll be the richest guy in America.

Losers: Eight-track car stereo salesmen. Anyone miss how the things would switch sides in mid-song?

1970

Losers: Engineers. Winding down of Vietnam War, cuts in defense and eclipse of the space program and what do you have: slide-rule carrying numbers crunchers working the register at Jack-in-the-Box.

Winner: Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani. $1-a-gallon gasoline makes household name of once-anonymous Saudi oil minister.

Winners: Petroleum engineers and geologists. As oil soars past $30 a barrel, those who find it write their own tickets.

Loser: Anyone with a license plate ending in an odd number on a day when only even ones can buy gasoline.

Winner: Fred Smith. Turns a business school paper his professor laughed at into Federal Express in 1973.

Winner: Werner Erhard. Former car salesman finds gold mine in people’s insecurities. His est seminars become big business, attracting thousands who don’t mind spending hours in a ballroom without being allowed to go to the restroom.

Winner: John Travolta. Disco is king. “Saturday Night Fever” is a hit. You and I can’t get into Studio 54. So what if the fad only lasts a couple of years.

Losers: Anyone with a Whip Inflation Now button. Possible future market on EBay.

Winner: Paul Volcker. Sends country into recession, but drives a stake through the heart of 1970s-style inflation.

Winners: Toyota salesmen. Selling fuel-efficient models a breeze when everyone’s paying through the nose for gasoline.

1980

Losers: Union members. Firing of air-traffic controllers by President Reagan in 1981 portends a rough stretch for Big Labor, as union membership and influence dwindles.

Winner: T. Boone Pickens Jr. Corporate raiders like Pickens get rich just by offering to buy a company, and get paid off even when they don’t end up the winner. Not a bad way to make a living.

Winners: Bankers, S&L; executives. Fat city as deregulation ushers in era of wild spending and loose lending practices. Apartments, golf courses, resorts, private planes. Hey, it’s not our money.

Winners: Lawyers representing bankers and S&L; executives. No-contest pleas, cooperating with the investigation. Plenty of work to go around, with executives trying to avoid jail time for all that loose lending.

Losers: Taxpayers. Average U.S. citizen doesn’t understand how so much money could be lost in the savings and loan mess but picks up the tab for the bailout anyway.

Winner: Judge Harold Green. Busts up AT&T; in 1984 so 15 years later Baby Bells can again merge.

Losers: Anyone who bought a Betamax videocassette recorder. Technology advances remind us that if you make the wrong bet, tough luck.

Winner: The guy who made a fortune selling that annoying “Baby on Board” sign that used to hang from every Volvo in America.

Loser: Anyone who still has one. Another potential EBay opportunity?

Winner: Lexus salesmen. Decade of greed takes stigma off indulging.

1990

Winners: Bill Gates, Paul Allen and all the other guys who spent their time in high school fooling around with computers. Ultimate revenge as their stock holdings exceed value of the GNP of a lot of countries.

Anyone with a “.com” site. Start Web site, show no profit, go public, get rich, start over.

Defense workers. When there’s no more Soviet Union, an arms race with the Soviets becomes moot.

Tabloid reporters. O.J. . . . Jon-Benet . . . Kathie Lee and Frank . . . Diana . . .

James Carville. Era of spin makes publicists and spin artists valuable. Does anyone not have one these guys?

Personal Coaches. Whatever they are, it seems a lot of people need them.

Losers: People who compile end-of-the-century lists. Thankfully, on Jan. 1 they won’t be needed anymore.