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 ...