American business has also developed a great talent for publicity. Nearly all our big corporations have assembled much material about their own history, all of which is public property. Thus the American Telephone and Telegraph Company can furnish detailed information on every phase of its business and history. Indeed, one's respect for the achievements of American industry is increased by the praiseworthy curiosity which it displays about its own past and the readiness with which it makes such material accessible to the public. Despite the abundance of data, there is not a great amount of popular writing on these subjects that has much fascination as literature or much value as history. The only book that is really important is Miss Ida M. Tarbell's "History of the Standard Oil Company," 2 vols. (new edition 1911). Of other popular volumes the present writer has found most useful Herbert N. Casson's "Romance of Steel" (1907), "History of the Telephone" (1910), and "Cyrus Hall McCormick: His Life and Work" (1909); J.H. Bridge's "Inside History of the Carnegie Steel Company" (1903); "Henry Ford's Own Story" as told to Rose Wildes Lane (1917).