The Big Change: America Transforms Itself by Frederick Lewis Allen is an account of famous businesses and business leaders and how they transformed America throughout the 20th century. Excerpt: «On the morning of January 1, 1900, there was skating for New Yorkers in Van Cortlandt Park, and presently it began to snow. But the sharp cold had not chilled the enthusiasm of the crowds who, the night before, had assembled in Lower Broadway to celebrate either the beginning of the twentieth century or the beginning of the last year of the nineteenth: there was some disagreement as to the proper interpretation of the event…"