The Exchange

The revised and expanded web page for syllabi and reading lists in business and economic history (mentioned here a few weeks ago) has now been uploaded on the BHC site. Our call for syllabi did not result in many responses (though we heartily thank those who did send in materials); however, quite a large number of syllabi are available on the Web and indexed by search engines. We therefore collated and organized the results of numerous searches to produce the new BHC site. We are of course eager to expand the listings, and we encourage those of you who have not yet sent in materials to do so.

On Friday, May 18, 2012, the Hagley Library and Museum will hold a symposium featuring Daniel Raff of the Wharton School and NBER. Raff will deliver a talk entitled "How To Do Things with Time:  Reflections on Method and Practice in Business History." The symposium moderator will be Sidney Winter, of the Wharton School; commentary will be provided by Steven Usselman, Georgia Institute of Technology; Andrew Popp, University of Liverpool; and Christine Rose, University of California, Berkeley.     The symposium will be held in the Copeland Room at Hagley from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. For a copy of the paper if you are planning to attend, please contact Carol Lockman, clockman@hagley.org .

Richard Sylla , Henry Kaufman Professor of the History of Financial Institutions and Markets at the Stern School of Business, NYU, and former president of the Business History Conference, has been named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Sylla joins such luminaries as Hillary Rodham Clinton, Clint Eastwood, and Jeff Bezos, as well as historians David Blight and Lizabeth Cohen, in the class of 2012 fellows.    The Academy "is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems." In the words of the Academy's charter, enacted in 1780, the "end and design of the institution is . . . to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people."

Readers might wish to take a look at the printed program for the 2012 Organization of American Historians meeting, just concluded. Given that the theme of the meeting (held jointly with the National Council on Public History) was "Frontiers of Capitalism and Democracy," it is not surprising that a large number of business historians were on the program. One can see a list of most of them on page 38 of the program pdf . In addition, Richard R. John, past-president of the BHC, was one of those scholars who made a paper available for pre-circulation. John's session was "Antimonopoly: The Anatomy of an American Obsession," with a paper of the same name. The panel was chaired by James L. Baughman, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Naomi Lamoreaux, Yale University, and Jeffrey Sklansky, University of Illinois at Chicago, served as commentators. The paper can be found here .

The NEP-HIS blog , edited by Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo , professor of business history and bank management at Bangor Business School (Wales), selects papers recently abstracted in NEP-HIS (Report on Business, Economic and Financial History papers posted on RePEc) as a springboard for debate on topics of current interest. Bátiz-Lazo has published an interesting post on "Linking History and Management Discourse." He explores two recent papers, "Seizing the Opportunity: Towards a Historiography of Information Systems," by Nathalie Mitev and François-Xavier de Vaujany ( http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00671690 ), and "The Silence of the Archive: Post-Colonialism and the Practice of Historical Reconstruction from Archival Evidence," by Stephanie Decker ( http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:37280 ). Short reviews of these papers provide the basis for a discussion of business historians' interaction (or lack thereof) with management...

Laura Sydell on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" presented a three-part series on the history of Silicon Valley during the week of April 2. The three programs can be found on-line, with text, images, and both audio and written transcripts of the broadcasts: "A Rare Mix Created Silicon's Valley's Start-Up Culture" "America's Magnet for Innovation, and Investments" "Intel Legends Moore and Grove: Making It Last"    The site also includes an illustrated "Timeline." Leslie Berlin , author of The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley and Project Archivist at Stanford's Silicon Valley Archives , is quoted several times throughout the programs.

The Nation’s Business was the monthly magazine of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States from 1912 to 1999. The Digital Collections Department at Hagley has been working on a large-scale digitization project that will make the entire run of the Nation’s Business available online and full-text searchable. As the Hagley newsletter reports, Every major event that shaped American politics and business, from World War I to the early days of the internet age, is documented in the pages of The Nation’s Business . Many issues of pressing concern to the business community today, such as state-business relations, have roots in earlier periods and can be studied as they evolved during the 20th century. While politics is a common theme throughout The Nation’s Business , articles also cover the evolution of workplace technology, the development of new methods for marketing products and services to consumers, and the emergence of influential labor unions during the last century. T...

On the 100th anniversary of the Titanic 's sinking, a few links to sites offering information from a business history perspective: Turnip Rail discusses the relationship between the ship and the London and South Western Railway History of the White Star Line White Star Line and Cunard White Star Line Timetables Echoes blog on the Titanic and the modern radio industry  Pirrie and Ismay Partnership Harland and Wolff and the Titanic (current company website here ) Passenger Lists for Titanic Sailing; some examples from First Class:   John Jacob Astor Recovered body listing for Astor: NO. 124. - MALE. - ESTIMATED AGE, 50. - HAIR AND MUSTACHE, LIGHT. CLOTHING - Blue serge suit; blue handkerchief with "A. V."; belt with gold buckle; brown boots with red rubber soles; brown flannel shirt; "J. J. A." on back of collar. EFFECTS - Gold watch; cuff links; gold with diamond; diamond ring with three stones; £225 in English notes; $2440 in notes; £...

The preliminary program for the 2012 meeting of the Economic History Association , which will be held September 21-23 in Vancouver, B.C., has now been posted. The conference theme is "Revisiting the Transportation Revolution."    The registration system for the meeting will open at the end of May. Note that applications to present at poster sessions are still open (deadline, May 16), as are submissions for the Nevins and Gerschenkron dissertation prizes (deadline, May 15). See the "Graduate Student" section of the meeting website for complete application details.

At the Business History Conference annual meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 29-31, 2012, recipients of the following BHC prizes and grants were announced: Harold F. Williamson Prize .The award is bestowed every two years to a mid-career scholar who has made significant contributions to the field of business history. The prize memorializes the contributions to business history of the late Harold F. Williamson. 2012 recipient: Mary O’Sullivan , University of Geneva Hagley Prize . The prize is awarded jointly by the Hagley Museum and Library and the Business History Conference to the best book in business history (broadly defined) written in English and published during the two years prior to the award. 2012 Recipient: Sharon Ann Murphy , Providence College, Investing in Life: Insurance in Antebellum America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011). Ralph Gomory Prize . This prize, made possible by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, recognizes historical work on the ef...

“Capitalism by Gaslight: The Shadow Economies of 19th-Century America,” a two-day symposium co-sponsored by the Library Company of Philadelphia and the McNeil Center for Early American Studies , will highlight the many ways Americans earned livings through economic transactions made beyond the spheres of “legitimate” commerce and explore the crucial importance of the shadow economy to the development of commercial and industrial capitalism in nineteenth-century America. It takes its inspiration from the Library Company's current exhibition “Capitalism by Gaslight.” In the words of the organizers,Wendy Woloson and Brian Luskey, . . . this conference highlights the innovative research being done by historians of capitalism and its culture. These scholars examine the many ways in which Americans earned a living through economic transactions made beyond the spheres of legitimate commerce. Although these shadow economies may have unfolded off the books, they were anything ...

As reported here earlier, the 1940 U.S. Census went public on April 2, marked by a ceremony at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. The manuscript pages of the 1940 Census, which can be viewed online at http://1940census.archives. gov/ , are rich with data for the study of business history during the Depression decade. At the ceremony, long-time BHC member David Sicilia (University of Maryland) shared the stage with Archivist of the United States David Ferriero and U.S. Census Director Robert Groves. In his remarks, Professor Sicilia explained that The answers to many of the 81 questions asked in the 1940 U.S. Census will help us understand as never before not only how the Great Depression affected work and residence as well as how the roll out of New Deal programs affected the material lives of Americans. (Nine questions are about Social Security, for example.) Now we can see property values, the size and frequency of mortgage payments, and what kind of lending institution...

As an outgrowth of the "Teaching Business History" roundtable at the recent BHC meeting in Philadelphia, we are undertaking a project to update and increase the syllabi on the BHC "Resources" website . We would therefore like to invite readers to send in relevant syllabi (or parts thereof—see below), which we will post on a dedicated area of the BHC web pages. Syllabi may be sent as Word documents, PDF files, or, if the material is already freely available on the Web, via a URL. The following guidelines apply: The course need not be taught in a history department or even by a historian, but it must be primarily "history" in methodology and content. You must be willing to allow the syllabus to be posted for free viewing on the Web. The course in question does not have to be called "Business History," as long as it pertains to a topic in business history: for example, histories of capitalism, banking, industrialization, entrepreneurship. We def...

The Business History Conference invites proposals for its 2013 annual meeting , taking place March 21–23, 2013, at the Hyatt Regency Columbus hotel in Columbus, Ohio.   The theme of the annual meeting is “The Cultures and Institutions of Business.” We are interested in all topics embracing the culture of business and the business of culture. Papers may engage the ways in which cultural beliefs, values, practices, institutions, meanings, language, identities, habits, and cognition shape business orientation, governance, behavior, and performance in different geographical, historical, or social settings. Papers may also address the ways in which business has acted upon cultural practices and institutions, both high and popular culture, or how the language of business has entered into wider public discourses. Works might cover such matters as the business of entertainment and the arts or cultural differences (or conformity) in ideas and practices of management, accounting, human ...