The Exchange

Many researchers are able to access JSTOR articles without charge through subscriptions paid for by their home institutions. Now independent scholars who are alumni of an expanding group of colleges and universities can use JSTOR freely as well through the Alumni Access Program . A list of participating institutions is provided on the JSTOR website; registration with one's alumni association is required.    Other programs of particular interest to independent scholars are the Register and Read Program , in which up to three articles every two weeks can be stored and read on-line (though not downloaded), and the Early Journal Content initiative, which  makes journal content in JSTOR published prior to 1923 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere freely available to anyone; this includes nearly 500,000 articles from more than 200 journals, representing 6 percent of JSTOR content.

Film & History will hold its annual conference on November 20-24, 2013, in Madison, Wisconsin. The topic of the meeting is "Making Movie$: The Figure of Money On and Off the Screen." The program is divided into thematic sections, many of which would be of interest to business and economic historians—for example: "Capital, Inc.: Capitalists, Capitalism, and Corporations in the Cinematic Imagination"; "Financing the Frontier: Money and the Cinematic West"; and "Market Manners: The Exchanges between Economies and Cinematic Style." A complete list , leading to full descriptions, is provided on the conference website. The deadline for submissions is July 1, 2013 .

In an article in the March 2013 McKinsey Quarterly , HBS Newcomen Fellow and recent BHC Krooss Prize winner Caitlin Rosenthal discusses the difficulty of organizing "Big Data in the Age of the Telegraph." She focuses on the 1854 organizational chart of Daniel McCallum, who was superintendent of the New York and Erie Railroad in the mid-nineteenth century (and later head of all military railroads in the United States during the Civil War). He is credited with creating one of the first organizational charts in American business. As Rosenthal writes, "The problem was not a lack of information: the growing use of the telegraph gave the company an unprecedented supply of nearly real-time data, including reports of accidents and train delays. Rather, the difficulty was putting that data to use, and it led McCallum to develop one of the era’s great low-tech management innovations: the organization chart."     Rosenthal explains that, although Alfred Chandler had d...

“The Challenges of International Banking Regulation and Supervision after 1945” is a conference jointly organized by the European Association for Banking and Financial History (EABH) e.V. and the ERSC-funded project, ‘The Development of International Financial Regulation and Supervision (1961-1982),’ at the University of Glasgow; it will take place on January 16-17, 2014, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The organizers explain: Financial regulation and supervision has gained prominence in the public debate over the past few years. The aim of this conference is to contextualise discussions about financial regulation and supervision since World War II, in particular by providing an historical perspective to current debates. Conference organisers welcome proposals investigating the obstacles and challenges to international banking regulation and supervision after 1945. The aim of the conference is to bring together different approaches—legal, economic, political science / politic...

CHARM (the Conference on Historical Analysis and Research in Marketing) will hold its 2013 biennial meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, on May 30-June 2; the theme for 2013 is "Varieties, Alternatives, and Deviations in Marketing History." The conference website contains information about registration, lodging, and local sights and activities, as well as the preliminary program . Details of the Doctoral Workshop held in conjunction with the meeting are also available.

Columbia University Press has recently announced a new book series of interest.  Columbia Studies in the History of U.S. Capitalism aims to take "the full measure of capitalism's complexity, placing it squarely back at the center of the American experience by taking history 'from the bottom up' all the way to the top." Louis Hyman, Bethany Moreton, and Julia Ott will serve as the series editors.     Other book series related to business and economic history include: Routledge International Studies in Business History People, Markets, Goods: Economies and Societies in History (Boydell and Brewer), eds.: Nigel Goose, Steve Hindle, Jane Humphries, and Kevin O’Rourke Comparative Perspectives in Business History (Cambridge), eds.: Franco Amatori, Louis Galambos Princeton Economic History of the Western World , ed. Joel Mokyr American Business, Politics, and Society (University of Pennsylvania Press), eds.: Andrew Wender Cohen, Pamela Walker Laird, Mark H. ...

On May 15, 2013, CHORD (the Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution) will hold a workshop on the topic "Retailing, Shopping, and Gender: Historical Approaches" at the University of Wolverhampton. The day's program and abstracts of the papers have now been posted. For directions, registration form, and other details, please see the workshop website ; the registration fee is ϣ16.

On May 10-11, 2013, the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC, will host a workshop on "New Technologies and Cultures of Communication in the 19th and 20th Centuries." Convenors are Clelia Caruso (German Historical Institute-Washington), Peter Jelavich (Johns Hopkins University), Richard R. John (Columbia University), and Benjamin Schwantes (German Historical Institute-Washington). The program for the workshop is now available on the GHI website. The call for papers stated the organizers' objectives in the following way: Historiographical research on electrical communication media often tends to present a deterministic narrative of the development of technological objects towards a predominant use. Alternative forms of use are often narrated as historical aberrations . . . . We wish to examine what, from today's perspective, appear to be unusual usages of well-established media, even those usages that have been short lived or purely imaginary. This focu...

As reported here two years ago, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is planning a new exhibition, American Enterprise , which will open in the spring of 2015 (moved back from 2014). The exhibition will focus primarily on stories from five economic sectors: agriculture, finance, information and communication technology, manufacturing, and retail/service. In conjunction with the physical exhibit, the NMAH created a website to track the exhibit's progress and to allow public interaction with the curators. Readers can learn about additions to the exhibit and read articles by following the project's blog . Posts include an article on pawning by Wendy Woloson; on Alfred Bloomingdale's cartoon collection by Robin Einhorn; a series of posts (generated by Steven Lubar's class at Brown University) on the significance of business board games ; on the making of Labor Day by Paul Buhle; and on the business of philanthropy by Amanda Moniz. Interested reader...

The Portuguese Association of Economic and Social History (APHES) has issued a call for papers for its annual meeting, which will be held in Braga on November 15-16, 2013. The conference theme will be "State, Society, and Markets in a Global World." The call for papers states: The State’s role in the economic and social system has always been the subject of controversy, something which has been strengthened by the importance it gained in the 20th century.The economic and social policies that emerged from the State’s action in society, as well as the mechanisms used for its implementations. open a vast field of research that seeks new analyses and interpretations. Reflecting on the changes that have occurred in the relationships between market, society and State could provide an important contribution to the redefining that occurred with the role the State assumed in different historical contexts.    Proposals should be accompanied by an abstract of 500 words maximum ...

Kristin Hall, author of "Selling Sexual Certainty? Advertising Lysol as a Contraceptive in the United States and Canada, 1919–1939" in the March 2013 issue of Enterprise & Society , has written an essay about her study, "Buyer Beware: The Case of Lysol Disinfectant," for the Oxford University Press blog. In light of her research, Hall concludes, "Perhaps the safest way to approach the market is with some consumer confidence, accompanied by a healthy dose of skepticism." Oxford Journals is making the article freely available on its website for a limited period.    Hall is a graduate student in history at the University of Waterloo.

WBHC   In summer 2012 representatives from the European Business History Association (EBHA) and the Business History Society of Japan (BHSJ) met colleagues from other regions of the world (Latin America, the United States, South Korea, Australia, and South Africa) to discuss the suggestion of creating a World Business History Congress. To further planning, they have set up an Academic Committee, which consists of Takeshi Abe (president, BHSJ), Carlos Davila (Colombia), Andrea Schneider (organizer of the Frankfurt meetings), Harm Schröter (president, EBHA), Grietjie Verhoef (president, International Economic History Association ), and Andrew Godley, representing the Business History Conference .     It was decided that a one-day World Business History Conference would be organized to meet in conjunction with the 2014 Business History Conference meeting in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The two events will not be merged into one, but rather will be held one after anoth...

At the Business History Conference annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio, held on March 21-23, 2013, officers announced the following recipients of BHC prizes and grants. Lifetime Achievement Award The award is bestowed every two years to a scholar who has contributed significantly to the work of the Business History Conference and to scholarship in business history. 2013 recipient: Mansel Blackford (The Ohio State University) 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. 2013 recipient: Michael B. Miller (University of Miami) Europe and the Maritime World: A Twentieth-Century History (Cambridge University Press, 2012). Ralph Gomory Prize This prize, made possible by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, recognizes historical work on the effects of business enterprises on the e...