Active stock pickers treated index funds as an un-American threat to their profession

Evidence

Those who believed themselves to be skilled stock pickers, able to identify investment opportunities that the other participants in the market had not seen, often despised index funds. One such firm modified the classic Uncle Sam recruiting poster so that the caption read “Indexing is un-American.” Soon a copy of the poster was “nailed behind [the] trading-room doors of practically every money manager in the country, replacing Marilyn Monroe” (Fouse interview). — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 379

Categorization

• CANDY: The Uncle Sam poster with ‘Indexing is un-American’ replacing Marilyn Monroe is a delicious, tweetable image of the culture war over indexing.
• XREF: connects to: Active fund managers rarely beat stock-market indices once costs are counted — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 373; Early options traders ridiculed spreadsheet users as unmanly and untraderlike. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 722

Broader Connections

• Early options traders ridiculed spreadsheet users as unmanly and untraderlike. #epitomizes (0.85) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 722
• Active fund managers rarely beat stock-market indices once costs are counted #corroborates (0.75) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 373