The Exchange

The American Society for Legal History (ASLH) will meet in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area on November 7-10, 2013. The preliminary program , now posted on the ASLH website, has several papers of interest to business and economic historians.    Of most interest is Panel C.5: "The Legal History of American Capitalism from Below," which will be chaired by Christopher Tomlins with commentary by Jonathan Levy. Panelists are Anne Fleming, Nate Holdren, and Adam Wolkoff. Other panels include:    Panel A.2: "The Origins of Constitutional and Corporate Law in International Perspective"    Panel B.1: "Commerce and Obligation in the Islamic World, c. 1850-1919"    Panel A.5: "Law and Counterrevolution: Charles Beard and the Origins of American Constitutionalism" For information about the meeting and other details, please see the ASLH conference website .

The Economic History Society (EHS) will hold its 2014 meeting at the University of Warwick, March 28-30. The call for papers and on-line submission system are now available on the newly redesigned EHS website. According to the call, The conference programme committee welcomes proposals on all aspects of economic and social history covering a wide range of periods and countries and, particularly, papers of an interdisciplinary nature. Preference may be given to scholars who did not present a paper at the previous year's conference. . . . The committee invites proposals for individual papers, as well as for entire sessions (3 speakers [optimum], 1.5 hours duration; no more than 4 papers will be accepted for any one session). The latter should include proposals and synopses for each paper in the session, although the committee reserves the right to determine which papers will be presented in the session if it is accepted. If a session is not accepted, the committee may incorpor...

The Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library will hold a one-day conference on November 8, 2013, on "Business and Politics in 20th Century America." The meeting, which will take place in the Hagley's Soda House, will run from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., preceded by coffee at 8, and followed by a reception. The program has now been posted; it includes sessions on "State-Building," "Shaping Conservatism," "Engaging with Liberalism," and "American Business in the World."     There is no fee for the conference, but advance registration is required. To register and to obtain more information, call (302) 658-2400, ext. 243, or email Carol Lockman at clockman@Hagley.org .

British Telecom (BT) has just launched a website providing access to a large portion of its archives for the period 1865-1983. The overall BT collection includes records, photographs, and films of BT itself, records of the Post Office telecommunications function, and of the private telephone and telegraph companies taken over by the Post Office in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Digital Archives project, as the developers explain, "aimed to catalogue, digitise and develop a searchable online resource of almost half a million photographs, images, documents and correspondence, a core part of the overall collection assembled by BT over 165 years, including over: 45,000 photographs and pictures, c1865-1982 190,000 pages from over 13,500 research reports, 1878-1981 230,000 documents from over 550 policy and operational files, 1851-1983." According to the launch announcement, "Anyone can view and search the records available on the website. Regist...

John Wilson (Newcastle University Business School), Steve Toms (Leeds University Business School), and Abe de Jong (Rotterdam School of Management), the editors of a new volume in the Routledge "Companion" series, a "Routledge Companion to Business History," have issued a call for contributors. According to the editors, "The purpose of this compendium is to enhance the research agenda, to develop knowledge and understanding, and to offer researchers and students an introduction to, and overview of, current scholarship in the expanding discipline of Business History." The call for contributors flyer provides a proposed table of contents and contact information for the editors. The deadline for expressions of interest is October 1, 2013 .

The Economic and Business History Society (EBHS) is now accepting proposals for its next annual conference, which will be held on May 29-31, 2014, in Manchester, UK. Proposals for presentations on any aspect of economic or business history are welcome, as are proposals for whole panels, typically of three presentations. Proposals should include an abstract of no more than 500 words, a brief CV, postal and email addresses, and telephone and fax numbers. Submissions from graduate students and non-academic affiliates are encouraged.     Proposals may be submitted through the EBHS website, by email to ebhs2014@ebhsoc.org , or by postal mail to the program chair: Mark Billings, Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Business History, University of Exeter Business School, Streatham Court, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4PU, UK.     Please visit the EBHS website for the complete call for papers and submission directions. The deadline for submissions is February 15, 2014 .

The 2013 CHORD (Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution) Conference will be held on September 5 at the Marks & Spencer Company Archives in Leeds. The theme of the meeting is "Retailing and the Senses: Historical Perspectives." The conference organizers have now posted the program, paper abstracts, and full information about registration, fees, and the venue on the meeting website . Questions may be directed to Karin Dannehl at k.dannehl@wlv.ac.uk or Laura Ugolini at L.Ugolini@wlv.ac.uk .     CHORD also has a new website where readers can find the latest information about the organization's activities.

The Business History Group at the Harvard Business School offers several fellowships, two of which have September deadlines. The Thomas K. McCraw Fellowship seeks applicants who are established scholars from around the world interested in the business and economic history of the United States. The recipient receives a $7,000 stipend for travel and living expenses and is expected to be in residence at Harvard Business School a minimum of two months. Main activities include researching in Baker Library archives or other Boston-area libraries, presenting research at a seminar, and interacting with HBS faculty. Application materials and letters of reference are due by September 15 of the year preceding the year the Fellowship is to be used. The Alfred D. Chandler Jr. International Visiting Scholar in Business History Program seeks applicants who are established scholars in business history based outside the United States. The recipient receives a $7,000 stipend and is required...

In 2011, Robert Weems, Jr. , accepted a position as the Willard W. Garvey Distinguished Professor of Business History at Wichita State University. Since his arrival there, he has been researching the history of African American businesses in Wichita. Because many earlier African American businesses no longer exist, Weems is concerned that their histories will be lost, “this whole significant area of the African-American experience . . . come and gone with barely a trace.” “In general we know African-American history continues to be one of the more under-reported areas of historical inquiry,” says Weems. “But [when] we look at the economic and business dynamic of the African American experience, that’s especially underreported.” To help remedy the gap, he is conducting interviews with Wichita's surviving black entrepreneurs with a view to establishing a database of information about Wichita's African-American business history that will be of use to future students and sch...

The London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) has created a new collections aid, "Guide to Business Archives."   According to the LMA website, London Metropolitan Archives holds the largest single collection of business archives held by a local authority in England and Wales. . . . The earliest business records date back to the fifteenth century. The records include management and financial series showing the changing fortunes of the companies, a vast array of production records with technological innovations illustrated through specifications, plans and photographs, rich sales, advertising and employment records. The guide is a comprehensive A-Z listing of company names and individuals for which substantive catalogued business records are held by the LMA. There are two associated indexes–a trade subject index and a geography index for sites where companies operated outside the United Kingdom. There is also an explanatory introduction.      For more informati...

Per H. Hansen has won the 2012 Henrietta Larson Article Award for his essay, “Business History: A Cultural and Narrative Approach," which appeared in the Winter 2012 issue of the Business History Review . The award is presented annually by the Harvard Business School to the best article published in the BHR, as selected by its editorial advisory board. Hansen, professor in the Department of Management, Politics, and Philosophy at the Copenhagen Business School, is the current president of the Business History Conference and a council member of the European Business History Association. His primary research areas are financial history, with particular focus on financial and banking crises and modern Danish furniture. He is also interested in entrepreneurship and organizational culture, and identity and change in historical perspective. An earlier article, “Organizational Culture and Organizational Change: A Narrative Analysis of the Transformation of Savings Banks in Denmark, 19...