The Exchange

Just a reminder that the American Historical Association annual meeting , to be held January 6-9, 2011, in Boston, Massachusetts, includes several sessions of direct interest to business and economic historians. Links to those sessions were published here last October. The complete program can be found on the AHA site, either in searchable form arranged by day or as a pdf of the printed version .

Celebrating fifty years of Cliometrics, the 2011 Cliometrics Conference will be held on the weekend of Friday, May 20, through Sunday, May 22, 2011, at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The call for papers states: The conference is designed to provide extensive discussion of new and innovative research in economic history. Typically, twelve papers are selected for presentation and discussion, and they are sent out to all conference participants in advance. Each presented paper is given an entire session, in which authors have five minutes to make an opening statement and the rest of the session is devoted to discussion among all conference participants. All participants are required to read all papers and to attend the entire conference. At least one author must be a member of the Cliometric Society.     The deadline for paper proposals and requests to attend the meeting is Friday, January 14, 2011 . Only a limited number of participants may be invited, so it is importa...

The most recent issue (November 2010) of the French journal L'economie politique focuses on financial crises and the lessons of history ("Crises financières: Les leçons d'histoire").  Articles (in French) include: Antoin E. Murphy John Law et la bulle de la Compagnie du Mississippi Nesrine Bentemessek Kahia La bulle des Mers du Sud, ou le "too big to fail" avant l'heure Christian Tutin and Julien Mendez De la crise bancaire à la régulation: l'expérience américaine de 1907 Isaac Johsua Quand 2009 questionne 1929 Christine Sinapi, Pierre Piégay, and Ludovic Desmedt L'analyse des crises: Minsky, après Fisher et Keynes Lotfi Boulahrir Face aux déboires d'une finance spéculative, quel mode de financement? A subscription is required to access the full texts, but brief extracts are available on the journal site.

The December 2010 issue of Enterprise & Society contains essays from the Krooss Dissertation Prize Session at the 2010 BHC Annual Meeting (won  by Josh Lauer), as well as four articles and numerous book reviews.  Abstracts of all the articles and extracts from the reviews are available on the journal's Current Issue page at Oxford University Press. Dissertation Session Essays Felipe Tâmega Fernandes Institutions, Geography, and Market Power: The Political Economy of Rubber in the Brazilian Amazon, c. 1870–1910 Josh Lauer The Good Consumer: Credit Reporting and the Invention of Financial Identity in the United States, 1840–1940 Terri Lonier Alchemy in Eden: Entrepreneurialism, Branding, and Food Marketing in the United States, 1880–1920 Articles Joseph M. Adelman “A Constitutional Conveyance of Intelligence, Public and Private”: The Post Office, the Business of Printing, and the American Revolution Albert Schrauwers “Regenten” (Gentlemanly) Capitalism: Saint-Si...

The German Historical Institute (GHI) offers four fellowships of interest to business and economic historians: A Doctoral Fellowship in International Business History A Fellowship in Economic and Social History Two Fellowships in the History of American or European Consumption 1) Doctoral Fellowship in International Business History This is a six-month doctoral fellowship in International Business History, with a six-month extension possible. The recipient must begin the term in the summer of 2011. Preference will be given to fellows whose projects fit into the GHI's research foci on transatlantic relations and the history of consumption. Comparative work is also strongly encouraged. The fellow will be expected to be in residence at the GHI and to participate in GHI activities and events. The fellow will have the opportunity to make use of the resources in the Washington, DC, area, including the Library of Congress and the National Archives, while pursuing his or her own...

The European Association for Banking and Financial History (EABH) has issued a call for papers for its second "Workshop for Young Scholars," which will be held at Erasmus University in Rotterdam on March 29, 2011. Those within five years of the Ph.D. and working in the fields of monetary and financial history are eligible to apply. Papers on all topics in the field of insurance, banking, financial and monetary history will be considered, but those working in the following areas are particularly welcome: Models of corporate governance Governance mechanisms in financial institutions Regulation and legislation of governance Please see the full call for papers for additional details. All costs (travels, accommodation, and food) for presenting authors will be covered. Paper proposals should be sent by January 15, 2011 , to: Abe de Jong, Rotterdam School of Management, ajong@rsm.nl or info@bankinghistory.de .

The Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA), in cooperation with the American Studies Network (ASN), will host a conference entitled “Religion and the Marketplace: New Perspectives and New Findings”  on October 6-8, 2011. The conference aims to investigate how the conditions of the marketplace have determined, influenced, and limited American religion in the past and present. Given the prominence of the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses in the American Constitution, a broad-based "competition for souls and purses" has historically helped define the contours of religion in America. This conference will build upon previous insights while probing further into the complex relationship between religion and the marketplace.  Scholars in American Studies and broadly defined related fields to submit paper abstracts for this conference. Individual paper abstracts (200-250 words) must be received by March 31, 2011 . Paper topics must correspond to the subjects ...

The Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) has issued calls for papers for two workshops to be held in spring 2011 at the University of Wolverhampton. The first, "Retailing and Institutions, 1400-2000," will meet on March 24, 1011. The term 'institutions' is to be interpreted widely, and includes both institutions established by retailers and institutions that sought to influence, control, limit, or to do business with retailers.  Proposals are due by January 28, 2011 . The second, "Distribution: Historical Perspectives, 1400-2000," devoted to the exploration of commercial networks and distribution, will be held on April 7, 2011. All methodological and disciplinary perspectives are welcome, as are papers based on any geographical area. Proposals, including a title and 200-word abstract, should be sent to L.Ugolini@wlv.ac.uk by the deadlines indicated.

The Centre for History and Economics invites applications for two 3-year Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in history, starting on October 1, 2011, or as soon as possible thereafter. The posts are in connection with the research program on Exchanges of Economic, Legal and Political Ideas , supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The program is based at the Centre for History and Economics, Magdalene College, Cambridge and at Harvard University, and is coordinated by Professor Emma Rothschild. The Fellowships are not associated with a fellowship at a Cambridge college, but can be combined with a non-stipendiary college fellowship. The stipend will be £27,319 in the first year and subject to increments in subsequent years. The positions are pensionable.    The fellows appointed will be expected to undertake research in the general fields of economic, political, and transnational history described in the program outline at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~histecon/...

Two recent job announcements: 1) The Department of Economics, Whittemore School of Business & Economics at the University of New Hampshire, invites applications for a visiting position at the assistant professor level beginning September 2011. A Ph.D. in economics is expected. The successful applicant will teach sections of a freshman-level course on business and economic history and in the UNH Discovery program. A secondary interest is in the areas of international finance or macroeconomics.For the full announcement, see the position listing in Jobs in Economics (JOE). 2) London School of Economics, Economic History Department , Lectureships in Economic History The Department of Economic History hopes to appoint two lecturers in Economic History from 1 August 2011, with a salary of £40,323 to £46,710 per annum inclusive.     Applications are welcome from all fields of economic history in its broadest sense. The Department is particularly keen to receive app...

Thomas K. McCraw has won the 2007–2009 Alfred and Fay Chandler Book Award in Business History for Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction (Harvard University Press, 2007; paper, 2010). The award is given once every three years to the best work in the field of business history published in the United States, as determined by a vote of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Business History Review . The award was first granted in 1962 and was formerly known as the Thomas Newcomen Book Award. Prophet of Innovation also won the BHC's Hagley Book Prize for the best book in business history in 2008.     McCraw is the Isidor Straus Professor of Business History, emeritus, at the Harvard Business School. He also is a former president and trustee of the Business History Conference, which at its 2009 meeting presented him its Lifetime Achievement Award.

On December 1, the Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society launched a new "gallery," "The Institution of Experience: Self-Regulatory Organizations in the Securities Industry, 1791-2010." As the curators explain in the introduction: Placing Orders, Early 1920s SROs [self-regulatory organizations] grew first as member-owned stock exchanges and out of necessity developed private mechanisms of direction and control. . . . In looking at three different SROs—the New York Stock Exchange; the National Association of Securities Dealers, along with the Nasdaq, its market mechanism, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, its successor organization; and the Chicago Board Options Exchange—we can document their development within the broader context of shifting markets, varying membership, and economic and political change. This gallery, the seventh posted by the Society, provides access to the virtual museum and archive’s collection of more t...

The Academic Association of Historians in Australian and New Zealand Business Schools ( AAHANZBS ) has posted the program for their 2010 meeting, which will be held at the Women's College, University of Sydney, December 16-17, 2010. The conference organizer is Greg Patmore ; the keynote speaker will be Geoffrey Jones , Isidor Straus Professor of Business History at the Harvard Business School.  A registration form is also available.

The New-York Historical Society library has recently unveiled a digitized collection of manuscripts relating to slavery and the slave trade from its holdings. Economic historians of the subject can find much of interest here; as the NYHS introduction explains, the materials " consist of diaries, account books, letter books, ships’ logs, indentures, bills of sale, personal papers, and records of institutions," including an account book kept by the slave trading firm Bolton, Dickens & Co.  Page from the account book of the Brig Othello , slaving off the coast of Africa, 1768-1769 (NYHS) Many materials relating to the abolitionist movement have also been made available, including " the records of the New York Manumission Society and the African Free School, the diaries and correspondence of English abolitionists Granville Sharp and John Clarkson, the papers of the Boston anti-slavery activist Lysander Spooner, the records of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery ...

The Program in Economic History , a part of the Economic Growth Center at Yale University, has announced the program for its conference, "Before and Beyond Europe: Economic Change in Historical Perspective," to be held February 25-26, 2011. In the words of the organizers: It is broadly held now, following Douglass C. North and others, that History matters to Economics.  This shift has contributed to a rebirth in Economic History and inspired lively debates and new and exciting cross-disciplinary exchange.  This conference aims to capture this new dynamism in Economic History by inviting scholars working on Economic History from different disciplinary angles, in different historical periods, and in many areas of the world.  Topics in the conference range from the Ancient Mediterranean to Medieval Europe, from Early Modern China to Modern Africa.  Its premise is that cross-disciplinary dialogue is best cultivated in a collegial atmosphere and by discussion ...

Catherine Fisk of the University of California, Irvine, School of Law has been awarded the John Phillip Reid Book Award of the American Society for Legal History for Working Knowledge: Employee Innovation and the Rise of Corporate Intellectual Property, 1800-1930 (University of North Carolina Press, 2009). The award is for the best monograph beyond an author’s first book published in English in Anglo-American legal history, broadly defined. The ASLH citation read in part: Catherine Fisk’s Working Knowledge is a book of many different virtues. It takes on a novel question—when, how, and why did corporations come pervasively to own and control the intellectual property created by their employees?—and it brings to bear prodigious primary research, not just in case law but in corporate archives as well. By combining these two types of sources, among others, Fisk delivers a compelling story of doctrinal development—especially in the areas of patent, copyright, and trade secrets...

A reminder that the application deadline for the 2011 Oxford Journals Doctoral Colloquium in Business History is December 1, 2010 . The Colloquium will be held in conjunction with the Business History Conference annual meeting in St. Louis . This prestigious workshop, sponsored by the BHC and generously funded by Oxford University Press, which publishes the BHC journal Enterprise & Society , will take place Wednesday evening, March 30, 2011, and all day Thursday, March 31, 2011. The Colloquium is limited to ten students. Participants will discuss dissertation proposals, relevant literatures and research strategies, and employment opportunities in business history with distinguished BHC-affiliated scholars, including at least two BHC officers. The Colloquium is intended for doctoral candidates in the early stages of their dissertation projects. To be considered for the Colloquium, applicants must provide: a statement of interest a CV a preliminary or final dissertat...

American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism (Random House, October 2010), by H. W. Brands, has been receiving a good deal of media attention, both critical and approving. It was reviewed by John Steele Gordon in the November 18 New York Times , and by Amity Shlaes in the Wall Street Journal on October 29. Extensive newspaper coverage includes reviews for the San Francisco Chronicle by T. J. Stiles, by Steve Weinberg for the Dallas Morning News , and by Ezra Klein for the Barnes and Noble Review (on Salon.com), An excerpt is available on the Random House site. An audio  interview of Brands by Lewis Lapham of Bloomberg is available, as are another with Michael Medved of the American Conservative University and a video podcast sponsored by the Pritzker Military Library in Chicago. The C-Span video library presents video of a panel (called "The Age of Titans") from the Texas Book Festival that includes both Brands and T. J. Stiles. Stiles is the author of The First Tyco...

The XVI th World Economic History Congress of the International Economic History Association (IEHA) will take place in Stellenbosch, South Africa, July 9-13, 2012. The organization has recently issued the second call for session proposals: Although the IEHA welcomes sessions on all topics in economic history, history of economics, demographic history, social history, urban history, cultural history, gender studies, methodological aspects of historical research, and related fields, the WEHC 2012 theme is “Exploring the Roots of Development.” The IEHA has, therefore, a particularly strong desire to attract sessions on the period before 1800 and sessions that include countries other than those of Western Europe and North America. Organisers will be given wide discretion to shape the format of sessions to be the most interesting and efficient, given the topic and the participants invited. Session proposals must be submitted via the online submission form . Those submitting proposals w...

The organizers of an international colloquium on "Merchant Practice in the Age of Commerce, 1650-1850 (no website yet available)," to be held in Paris, France, June 9-10, 2011, have issued the following call for papers: The goal of this colloquium is to explore new ways of analyzing and conceptualizing commercial activity in the preindustrial age. Commerce was central to European and colonial economies at the time, and considerable historiographical work has been devoted to its study.  Recent research, however, has tended to focus on network-building in a sociological tradition, without really dealing with more strictly economic issues such as price formation, market structures, or the nature of managerial organizations. The latter questions are thus usually left for standard economic theory to answer, with the result that tools and notions from current economic analysis, from market formation to price signals, offer and demand, managerial strategy, or profit-making...

A sampling of recently published and forthcoming books on topics of interest: Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo, J. Carles Maixé-Altés, and Paul Thomes, eds.,  Technological Innovation in Retail Finance: International Historical Perspectives (Routledge, November 2010) Michael B. Boston, The Business Strategy of Booker T. Washington: Its Development and Implementation (University Press of Florida, August 2010) Craig Miner, A Most Magnificent Machine: America Adopts the Railroad, 1825-1862 (University Press of Kansas, October 2010) Eric J. Morser, Hinterland Dreams: The Political Economy of a Midwestern City (University of Pennsylvania Press, November 2010) Monica Neve, Sold! Advertising and the Bourgeois Female Consumer in Munich, c. 1900-1914 (Franz Steiner, October 2010) Geoffrey Owen, The Rise and Fall of Great Companies: Courtaulds and the Reshaping of the Man-Made Fibres Industry (Oxford University Press, October 2010) Caroline de la Peña, Empty Pleasures: The Story of Artifici...

The German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C. (GHI) is seeking contributors for a massive project "aimed at fostering research into the cornerstones of the American experience." Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present will, according to the Institute, consist of approximately 250 biographical articles of first- and second-generation German-American entrepreneurs, contextual essays that explore the wider business and immigration themes of the period, and a complementary website providing a wealth of additional material. . . . The project will trace their lives, careers and business ventures from colonial times to the present, integrating the history of German-American immigration into the larger narrative of U.S. economic and business history and situating the American past in a transnational framework. Key questions that will be addressed include the importance of business strategies, knowledge transfer, forms and source...

Readers may be interested in the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Search Center website, which allows visitors to "search over 5.4 million records with 460,000 images, video and sound files, electronic journals, and other resources from the Smithsonian's museums, archives & libraries." One can search by typing in a term or by using the headings provided, including "Type," "Place," "Name," "Culture," or "Datasource." Each of the headings is further subdivided; "Type," for instance, includes books, paintings, trade catalogs, and a huge number of other types of material. Just as an example, a simple search on "railroads," limited to results with online media, calls up nearly 2,000 items; one on "steel" returns over 4,400. Tip of the hat to the American Historical Association blog .

The German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., announces the publication of its latest reference guide, Business History in the United States: A Guide to Archival Collections . Compiled by Dr. Terry Snyder, the director of the library division at Hagley Museum and Library, the guide provides an overview of holdings of interest to business historians from nearly 200 libraries, archives, and museums from across the United States. Each entry provides pertinent contact information and an overview of the entire collection and of the noteworthy business collections. The listings are arranged geographically by city and state, and there is also an index of individual and business names for easy navigation. The guide is available free of charge. Interested researchers can contact Mrs. Bärbel Thomas at the German Historical Institute to have a copy mailed to them (though the number of hard copies is limited), or it can be viewed and downloaded from the GHI web site . The online vers...

Atrium, Guinness Storehouse The European Historical Economics Society will hold its next meeting in Dublin on September 2-3, 2011. The EHES welcomes conference paper submissions in all areas of economic history. Potential participants should send an abstract of 500 words as soon as possible, and no later than January 31, 2011 , to Kevin O'Rourke— kevin.orourke@tcd.ie . All submissions will be reviewed by the Conference Scientific Committee, and decisions will be made by March 31, 2011. Accepted papers must be submitted in completed form no later than August 1, 2011. The conference will take place at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.

The International Committee for the History of Technology will hold its annual meeting in Glasglow, Scotland, on August 2-7, 2011.  The main theme of the meeting will be "Consumer Choice and Technology." The aim is to examine the interaction of technology and consumer behavior in a historical perspective, with a primary focus on factors steering consumption and how consumers by their choices have influenced technological development. The transition from agrarian society to consumer society is one of the epoch-making phases in human history that can be studied from various aspects and contexts. ICOHTEC welcomes individual paper and poster proposals as well as the submission of compact and coherent sessions. The symposium program will include scientific and plenary sessions, poster presentations, business meetings and general assemblies of the organizing societies, excursions, social events such as receptions, a formal banquet, and pre- and post-conference trips. We especi...

A one-day conference on the history of tobacco and tobacco advertising will be held at the School of History at the University of Nottingham on May 18, 2011. Expressions of interest and abstracts for papers are welcomed. Please send these and any questions to Andrew Newnham . The deadline for abstracts is November 30, 2010 .

Applicants are sought for up to two $10,000 fellowships for doctoral thesis research in American business or economic history. These fellowships are available largely through the generosity of the late John E. Rovensky . The Rovensky Fellowship program is administered by the University of Illinois Foundation. Applicants must be working toward a Ph.D. degree with American business or economic history as the area of major interest. Fellowship recipients must be enrolled in a doctoral program at an accredited college or university in the United States. Preference will be given to applicants who are preparing for a career in teaching and research and who will have completed all graduate course work prior to the fall of 2011. Awards are non-renewable and may not be taken simultaneously with an Economic History Association graduate dissertation fellowship. Application forms may be found on the web at http://www.thebhc.org/awards/rovenapp.html ; the full announcement is at http://www.theb...

Mira Wilkins, professor of Economics at Florida International University, will present a guest lecture at the Centre for Evolution of Global Business and Institutions (CEGBI) at the University of York School of Management on November 24, 2010, at 5:15 p.m. Her topic will be "The International Confronts the Comparative: The Historical Role of Multinationals." The abstract: There seems to be an uneasy companionship between the globalization literature and the literature on economic comparisons between nations. It is simpler to study change by comparing nations than by considering interactions within the whole complex world. Research on the historical role of multinational enterprises offers a lens that leads to new understanding. The lecture addresses: how the history of multinational enterprise (one aspect of globalization) helps us in explaining the convergence and divergence in the course of economic growth and development of nations and, in turn, the successes (and failur...

The annual meeting of the Economic History Association will be held in Boston, Massachusetts, September 9-11, 2011.  The theme of the meeting is "Crises and Turning Points." In the words of the conference organizers: If the global economic and financial crisis has a silver lining, it is that recent events have heightened awareness among policy makers and the general public of the importance of economic history.  Crises – economic, financial, social, demographic, environmental, and political, to name only a few – are a hardly perennial.  An understanding of their history is essential to begin to understand what if anything is distinctive about the recent experience.  The history of crises continues to be studied from a number of perspectives: in terms of their causes and their consequences, in terms of their changing incidence, in terms of their short-term impact and their longer-term implications for the development of economies and societies.  This c...

The Lemelson Center 's Fellowship Program and Travel to Collections Awards support projects that present creative approaches to the study of invention and innovation and draw upon the holdings of the Archives Center and curatorial divisions at the National Museum of American History . Projects may include, but are not limited to, historical research and documentation projects resulting in publications, exhibitions, educational initiatives, and multimedia products. Both programs provide access to the Smithsonian's vast artifact and archival collections, as well as to the expertise of the Institution's research staff. The Center offers fellowships and travel grants to pre-doctoral graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, and other professionals who have completed advanced training. The Archives Center holds more than 20,000 feet of archival materials. The collections are particularly strong in documenting the history of technology, invention, and innovation in the nine...

Videos of the talks given at the University of Houston's recent (September 23) Oil Spill Symposium are now available. Speakers included UH doctoral candidate Jason Theriot , who spoke on "Building America's Energy Corridor during the Environmental Era of the 1970s"; Joe Pratt , who talked about "Lessons for Government and Environment from the Exxon Valdez"; and Ty Priest , who discussed "MMS [Minerals Management Service] and BOEMRE [Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement]."

Harper's Weekly , Sept. 7, 1867 Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School, announces the opening of a new exhibition, “Buy Now, Pay Later: A History of Personal Credit.” The exhibit will run from October 22, 2010, through June 3, 2011, in the North Lobby, Baker Library | Bloomberg Center, Harvard Business School. The physical exhibit is accompanied by on-line examples and resources . “Buy Now, Pay Later: A History of Personal Credit” demonstrates that, although the instruments and institutions of twenty-first century credit—the installment plan, the credit card, and the home finance industry—are less than a century old, credit itself is as old as commerce. The exhibition draws from Baker Library’s Historical Collections materials to show how previous generations devised creative ways of lending and borrowing long before credit cards or mortgage backed securities. Please contact Baker Library Historical Collections to request a copy of the exh...

The just-announced program for the American Historical Association annual meeting, to be held January 6-9, 2011, in Boston, includes several sessions of direct interest to business and economic historians: Session 28 : Global Markets and Local Communities: Social Histories of International Business Session 52 : Local Markets/ Marketing the Local: American Retailing, 1920 to the Present Session 106 : Rethinking Advertising in the 1960s and 1970s: A Roundtable on African American Consumers and the Soul Market Session 107 : Advertising, Global Concepts of Hygiene, and the Making of Disciplined Consumers, 1918-45 Session 242 : Making Capitalism Sacred: The Image of Business in the American Mind EHA Session: Wealth, Poverty, and Empire in Global History: Reflections on Kenneth Pomeranz's The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy Also of interest are Session 140 , Challenges in Transnational Research: A Conversation about Methods, chaired by C...

A symposium on "Business and Trade Organizations in Europe: Early Stages, Historic Forms and Structures, XIX-XXth Centuries" will be held June 9-10, 2011, at both the University of Paris 13 and the University of Paris 1 Sorbonne. The aims of the symposium are to study the genesis, historic forms, and structures of trade and business organizations in Europe. Preferred topics or paper submission are expected to address the following themes: Roots, early stages, and specific frameworks underlying business and trade organizations. What strategies have been adopted for the promotion and defense of entrepreneurs and managers (unions, professional societies, chambers and trade organizations, clubs, miscellaneous groups, etc.)?  In what historical context, for what reasons, and where (local or nationwide)? Have these organizations been driven and/or curbed by ideological, social, political, or judicial actions? Speakers are encouraged to adopt a comparative perspective co...

Thanks to a generous donation from a member, Section L (History & Philosophy of Science) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science will offer a limited number of Philip Morrison fellowships for graduate students studying history or philosophy of science and technology who are presenting posters at the association's next annual meeting in Washington, DC, February 17-21, 2011 ( http://www.aaas.org/meetings/ ). October 25 is the deadline to submit poster proposals at http://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2011/poster/cfp.cgi/ . The grant is to defray costs of travel, lodging, and registration up to $500.  Highest preference will be given to graduate students who are presenting posters or otherwise on the program; secondary preference will be given those who serve as session aides at the meeting (see http://www.aaas.org/meetings/2011/ts/aides.shtml ). To apply, send a CV, a statement of support from your advisor, and a brief statement about why attending this m...

Proposals are now being accepted for the 36th annual conference of the Economic and Business Historical Society (EBHS), to be held at the Hyatt on Capitol Square in Columbus, Ohio. Proposals for presentations on any aspect of economic or business history are welcome. The EBHS conference offers participants an opportunity for intellectual interchange within a collegial interdisciplinary group of scholars from around the world (a typical mix of participants includes around half from economics departments and half from history/economic history departments).This year’s keynote speaker will be Richard Steckel (Ohio State University). Papers presented at the conference may be submitted for consideration by the EBHS’s peer-reviewed journal, Essays in Economic and Business History , edited by Janice Traflet (Bucknell University). The society seeks proposals for individual papers and/or for panel sessions. Proposals should include an abstract of no more than 500 words, a brief ...

The Princeton University Library has digitized a number of posters from the Interborough Rapid Transit Subway Company . The posters, designed by the public relations firm Ivy Lee, were displayed in subway cars to provide information to riders about changes in fares and routes, safety issues, and other matters of interest.  The collection consists of 385 images dating from 1918 to 1932; many of them provide financial information about rates, company dividends, and a general look at an early rapid transit system. October 29, update: Jonathan Rees over at "More or Less Bunk" was moved by this post to go off in search of a better site, and found the massive collection of the London Transport Museum , which displays over 5,000 items in a searchable collection .

The Special Collections Department of the Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has digitized 4,735 images from the work of famed photographer Lewis Hine, The Lewis Hine Collection contains images from his work with the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), which asked him to document the circumstances of child labor throughout the United States; Hine worked for the NCLC off and on between 1907 and 1934.  In the words of the UMLB description: Lewis Hine, c. 1930, 10-year-old shoeboy. Lewis Hine Collection, UMBC Kuhn Library. [Hine] traveled from Maine to Texas documenting children working in factories, mines, mills, farms, and in street trades. He photographed their living conditions as well. The photographs were published in newspapers and magazines, as well as mounted on posters for NCLC conventions. His photographs did not embellish the child laborers’ destitution, and instead showed accurate and poignant depictions of t...

Many university presses provide podcast audio interviews with their authors, several of them featuring business historians.  One company, Heron & Crane, operates a podcast series on business and management topics called "The Invisible Hand" (most of their audios are free, but some require a payment  of $1.99 to download).  A sampling from their (free) offerings and others: Steve Fraser , Wall Street: America's Dream Palace Harold James , The Creation and Destruction of Value: The Globalization Cycle Pamela Walker Laird , Pull: Networking and Success since Benjamin Franklin Thomas McCraw , Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction Stephen Mihm , A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States David Nye , When the Lights Went Out: A History of Blackouts in America Andrew Sandoval-Strausz , Hotel: An American History Bryant Simon , Everything but the Coffee: Learning about America from Starbucks ...