Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from 2014

NEH Summer Programs for K-12 Teachers

Each year the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) sponsors a series of summer programs for K-12 teachers and educators. Of particular interest in 2015 are: "Rethinking the Gilded Age and Progressive Era: Capitalism, Democracy, and Progressivisms, 1877 to 1920" (University of Chicago) "Immigration, Migration, and the Transformation of the African-American Community in the 20th and 21st Centuries" (Schomburg Center, New York Public Library) "The News Media and the Making of America, 1730-1865" (American Antiquarian Society) "Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition and Ideas of Progress" (Buffalo State SUNY) "Crafting Freedom: African-American Entrepreneurs in the Antebellum South" (Thomas Day Education Project, Research Triangle Park, NC) "Forge of Innovation: The Springfield Armory and the Genesis of American Industry" (Springfield, MA) "Inventing America: Lowell and the Industrial Revolution" (Lo

“PanAm Records Available for Researchers”

With an online exhibit, "Cleared to Land: The Records of Pan American World Airways, Inc.," the University of Miami Libraries Special Collections division announces the enhanced cataloging of this significant collection. The collection contains "[f]ifteen hundred boxes of administrative, legal, financial, technical, and promotional materials as well as internal publications, photographs, audiovisual material and graphic material." With a grant from the National Historical Publications & Records Commission, the library staff has organized the PanAm records into eighteen thematic groups with over three hundred sub-themes to assist those searching the collection. To aid researchers, the library has prepared a visualization of the thematic outline . There is also an extensive Finding Aid , prepared by project archivist Emily Gibson. According to the website, "The end result is a collection that has been thematically mapped, mended, and preserved for generati

Over the Counter: Issue No. 10

Media coverage of Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton continues: Beckert has an essay focusing on the book in The Atlantic and is interviewed by Diane Rehm on NPR. BackStory has an interesting episode on the railroads and the standardization of time zones, "High Noons." The World Economic Forum blog features an essay by Simon Ville , professor of economic and business history at the University of Wollongong, on "Why We Need to Teach Economic History." Jeremy Adelman and Jonathan Levy describe "The Fall and Rise of Economic History" in a recent Chronicle Review issue (this is gated, but viewable at the Chronicle by those whose institutions subscribe, or here , in an ungated copy). Congratulations to Jennifer Klein of Yale University, who has been awarded the 2014 Hans Sigrist Prize by the Hans Sigrist Foundation at the University of Bern in Switzerland for her contribution to the field of “Women and Precarity: Historical Perspectives.”

About Christmas Shopping

The consumer aspects of the Christmas season affect everyone, even those who do not celebrate the holiday. With this in mind, our own small gift is a selection of websites focusing on the history of (Christmas) shopping: Histocrats in the Classroom has a feature on "Gilded Age Christmas Shopping" Backstory Radio offers "Counter Culture: A History of Shopping" (with commentary from, among others, Elaine Abelson, Louis Hyman, and T. H. Breen) "The Commercial Christmas," from BBC History Magazine Slate , explaining that Christmas shopping season has started "early" since Victorian times "An Economist Goes Christmas Shopping," from the New York Times , by Josh Barro, son of Harvard economist Robert Barro, and "If Economists Wrote Christmas Cards," from The Atlantic (and the poll about gift-giving on which the piece is based) Slate, again, with "The Original War on Christmas" and the Society for the Preve

WEHC2015: Accepted Sessions Posted, Registration Open

The XVIIth World Economic History Congress (WEHC) will meet in Kyoto, Japan, on August 3-7, 2015, around the theme of "Diversity in Development." The accepted sessions have now been posted to the Congress website.     The site provides links to abstracts and expected participants for each session, as well as notices from those session organizers seeking papers. Among many relevant sessions, some of particular interest to BHC members include: S20035 , organized by Tom French: "The Economic and Business History of Occupied Japan" S20039 , organized by Hugh Rockoff: "How Financial Networks Become Vulnerable to Crises: A Global and Historical Perspective" S20058 , organized by Robin Pearson: "Risk Management, Insurance and Organisational Choice in History" S20068 , organized by Peter Coclanis: "Diversity in the Development of the U.S. South" S20083 , organized by Geoffrey Jones: "Shibusawa Eiichi’s Gappon Capitalism (Ethic

BHC Seeks New Web Editor

The Business History Conference announces its search for a new Web Editor to oversee its online presence as an organization.     The new Editor will succeed the current Web Editor, Pat Denault, who will be permanently stepping down as of June 2015. The new Editor's term would officially start in March 2015 (running for 3 months concurrently with the present editor), runs for three years, and is renewable.     The BHC Trustees recently approved the appointment of Shane Hamilton as Web Administrator, in charge of developing and maintaining the website's content management software. The Web Editor will thus not need special technical skills in website design or server operations, but should instead be prepared to focus solely on matters of producing and updating content and information for our membership. The ongoing responsibilities of the Web Editor include the following: Posting annual meeting materials. This involves both proactively contacting people for relevant

Web Exhibit from the NMAH: “America on the Move”

America on the Move is a physical exhibit at the National Museum of American History with a strong online component. The Museum’s online transportation collection includes more than a thousand artifacts and photographs. The web version of the exhibit provides numerous ways to explore the material, including a chronologically divided set of sections spamming times pre-1876 through 2000. In addition to the visual materials, there are a number of thematic "stories," featuring many essays divided into topics such as "work and lesiure," "technology," and "immigration." The site also includes a list of learning resources such as self-guided tours, a "classroom activity guide," a reading list, and a list of other web links.

Sven Beckert on Slavery and Capitalism in the Chronicle Review

The current issue of the Chronicle Review has a long essay by Sven Beckert on "Slavery and Capitalism" : "What distinguishes today's historians of capitalism is that they insist on its contingent nature, tracing how it has changed over time as it has revolutionized societies, technologies, states, and many if not all facets of life." Citing scholars including Seth Rockman, Edward Baptist, Caitlin Rosenthal, and Walter Johnson, Beckert concludes that There are still many open questions about slavery and capitalism, some specific, some broad. We have not yet conclusively shown, for example, how methods of labor control migrated from the world of the plantation to the world of the factory. We need more-detailed research on where the profits from slavery accumulated in Europe and the American North, and how they mattered to other sectors of the economy. We would benefit from a better understanding of how the tight economic connection between Northern entre

HBS Historical Collections Announces Doriot Exhibition

Baker Library recently opened a new exhibition, Georges F. Doriot: Educating Leaders, Building Companies . The physical exhibition, which will run through August 3, 2015, in the North Lobby, Baker Library | Bloomberg Center, Harvard Business School, is accompanied by an extensive website. According to Laura Linard, director of Baker Library Special Collections: Baker Library recently opened a new exhibition, The exhibition and related website examine the career of Georges F. Doriot, an educator and a founder of the modern venture capital industry. During his 40-year tenure at Harvard Business School, the charismatic professor taught business and leadership in his celebrated Manufacturing course to nearly 7,000 students. He realized his dream of establishing the first Master of Business Administration program in Europe by helping establish the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD). Doriot learned the art of bringing science and industry together in World War II,

CFP: Cliometric Society Conference, 2015

The annual Cliometric Society Conference in 2015 will be held on the weekend of Friday, May 15, through Sunday, May 17, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and hosted by the University of Michigan and the National Science Foundation. The conference is designed to provide extensive discussion of new and innovative research in economic history. Applicants from all continents and papers addressing important topics in economic history for all countries will be considered. Interdisciplinary research is particularly encouraged.      Applications to present papers or to attend the conference are welcome from graduate students, junior faculty, and senior faculty in economic history, as well as from distinguished faculty in other fields who have research interests in economic history. Typically, twelve papers are selected for presentation and discussion. All participants are required to have read all papers and to attend the entire conference--that is, arrive before the opening ses

Over the Counter: Issue No. 9

Stephen Mihm had an article in the New York Times Sunday Review on "Why CEOs Are Growing Beards." Sven Beckert was in the news: his new book, Empire of Cotton , was the subject of a review in Slate by Eric Herschthal; and Beckert can be heard discussing his research in a broader context on Radio Open Source with Christopher Lydon. The Junto had a post on "Economic Growth and the Historicity of Capitalism," by Tom Cutterham. More on Edward Baptist and "The Half Has Never Been Told" : Brett Rushforth has posted a compilation of reviews and responses to date. Congratulations to Richard Roberts, winner of the 2014 Wadsworth Prize for Business History , presented by the Business Archives Council; the prize was awarded to Roberts for Saving the City: The Great Financial Crisis of 1914 (Oxford University Press). The George Washington Financial Papers Project at the University of Virginia aims to produce a digital-only edition of these materia

BHC Launches New Website

This week the Business History Conference launched its new website . The URL remains the same, but the site has been enhanced and updated in many ways, thanks largely to the efforts of Shane Hamilton (who, as the BHC web administrator, will manage the website's background workings), with assistance from current web editor Pat Denault (who will step down in June 2015). The new site is built with Drupal, an easy to use content management system that will allow those working on the site to focus on content rather than technical aspects.     The new design aims to bring to the fore the rich material to be found on the BHC website--syllabi, web resources, interest-group bibliographies, and current books of interest--as well as information about the organization's governance, history, and annual meetings.     One of the most important improvements is a dynamic members-only space that permits BHC members to post information directly: BHC members can add job listings, announcement

CFP: Organization of American Historians, 2016

The Organization of American Historians (OAH) will hold its 2016 meeting on April 7-10 in Providence, Rhode Island. The theme of the meeting will be "On Leadership." The call for papers states: In this presidential election year the Program Committee invites proposals addressing the theme "On Leadership" and exploring any aspect of leadership in American history. The character, origin, and practice of leadership; its successes, achievements, disappointments, and failures in any and every area of American life from the earliest years of human settlement to the early twenty-first century will be the principal topics of the 2016 OAH Annual Meeting. . . . Proposals may consider leadership as it applies to any aspect of American history, including—though certainly not limited to—politics, revolts, economics, race, gender, reform, technology, education, religion, agriculture, arts, resistance, sports, entertainment, research, communications, sexuality, literature, s

Digital Resource: Papers of the War Department, 1784-1800

The early papers of the U.S. War Office, from 1784 to 1800, were destroyed by fire in 1800. Continuing a project begun over a decade ago, the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University has searched local repositories in the United States and Europe to find copies of the early documents and to digitize them. Over 45,000 documents have been found, consisting of hundreds of thousands of pages; the beginnings of the project are now available online at Papers of the War Department, 1784-1800 . The archive contains many different kinds of documents in addition to traditional correspondence, such as accountant records, Indian treaties, inventories of equipment, and draft notes. According to the project website: These Papers record far more than the era’s military history. Between 1784 and 1800, the War Department was responsible for Indian affairs, veteran affairs, naval affairs (until 1798), as well as militia and army matters. During the 1790s, the

Conference: “Entrepreneurship in Fashion”

The Enterprise of Culture: International Structures and Connections in the Fashion Industry has announced that its next event will be a conference entitled " Entrepreneurship in Fashion: Student, Academic and Industry Perspectives ." The one-day meeting will be held in Edinburgh on March 5, 2015. Financially supported by the HERA Joint Research Programme, the conference has been organized by Enterprise of Culture team members based at the School of Management and Languages at Heriot-Watt University, Andrew MacLaren and Robert MacIntosh.      The conference will explore the changing structure of the European fashion business, with reference to the fashion intermediaries who work behind the scenes to run the fashion system.  According to the organizers, the conference will take the idea of fashion entrepreneurship and consider it in two novel ways: First, the day will give a platform for students, researching academics and active industry practitioners to offer their respe

Web Resource: South Sea Bubble Material at Baker Library

The web exhibit on the South Sea Bubble, "Sunk in Lucre's Sordid Charms," at Baker Library's Historical Collections focuses on the library's extensive collection on that topic, which includes more than 300 books, broadsides, pamphlets, Parliamentary documents, manuscripts, prints, and ephemera. Among the many items are digitized images of an entire set of playing cards , each one containing a bit of verse related to the Bubble. On the ace of diamonds depicted here, for example, is written: "An old Welch Justice mounted on a Goat/Is ask'd which way his Worship means to trot;/To London hur is Travelling, quoth he,/To sell Welch Copper, and to Buy South Sea."     A complete list of the digitized records can be found on the website.

CFP: EBHS 2015 Conference

The next annual conference of the Economic and Business History Society (EBHS) will be held in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on May 28-30, 2015. Proposals for presentations on any aspect of economic or business history are welcome, as are proposals for whole panels. Graduate students and non-academic affiliates are also welcome to submit proposals. According to the call for papers: The EBHS conference offers participants the opportunity for intellectual interchange with an international, interdisciplinary, and collegial group of scholars (typically about half our participants are from economics departments and half are from history or economic history departments). The EBHS prides itself on its openness to new members and we offer reduced conference fees for graduate students and early career researchers (four years or less since doctorate earned). Our regular registration fees are reasonable, as is the cost of accommodation at the conference venue. The keynote speaker at the conferenc

CFP: “Beyond the New Deal Order”

The University of California at Santa Barbara will host a conference on September 24-26, 2015, on the topic “Beyond the New Deal Order.” The organizing committee (Nelson Lichtenstein and Alice O’Connor, UCSB, co-conveners; Steve Fraser, The Murphy Institute, CUNY; Gary Gerstle, University of Cambridge; Romain Huret, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales; and Jean-Christian Vinel, Université Paris-Diderot) writes: When Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle edited The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order in 1989, they made the concept of a political and social “order” central to an interpretative framework that reperiodized U.S. history, from the election of Franklin Roosevelt, through Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and on to Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980. The New Deal was not just a presidential moment, but a far larger construction - a combination of ideas, policies, institutions, cultural norms and electoral dynamics - that spanned several decades and sustained a hegemonic gover

CFP: 2015 EABH Conference Will Focus on Inflation History

The 2015 EABH ( European Association for Banking and Financial History ) conference will take place on May 15 in Prague, Czech Republic, hosted by the Czech National Bank and in cooperation with the Czech Banking Association. The theme of the meeting will be "Inflation: Does It Still Matter Today?" The conference will focus on the history of inflation, ranging from the Roman Empire to modern times. According to the organizers: Inflation is one of the biggest challenges for any country. If price levels rise all across the economy, nations can be threatened by impoverishment. Thirty years after the development of global disinflation (which occurred in the 1980s), does inflation still matter? Recent global developments challenge policy-makers. Does current US monetary policy bring dangers of inflation back to the global economy? Or is the contrary a greater concern: Is the Eurozone well on its way toward deflation? . . . The conference will focus on the history of inflation

CFP: Asia-Pacific Economic and Business History Conference

The next Asia-Pacific Economic and Business History (APEBH) Conference will take place at the University of New South Wales in Canberra on February 12-14, 2015. The theme will be “Recovery and Rebuilding,” but the organizers are open to proposals for contributions on other topics in economic, social, and business history, as well as to proposals for sessions on particular themes. Researchers across a broad range of disciplines are warmly welcomed. Early career researchers are encouraged to participate.     The conference organizers are particularly interested in attracting papers that examine developments in countries and regions in the Asia-Pacific region and papers that provide an international comparative perspective. As the call for papers states, Over the next few years we observe a series of anniversaries: 2015 marks 70 years since the end of World War II and the massive rebuilding required in Europe and Asia- and the first institutional outcomes from Bretton Woods in 1944

Reminder: BHC Doctoral Colloquium Submissions Due Soon

The BHC Doctoral Colloquium in Business History will take place in conjunction with the 2015 Business History Conference annual meeting , to be held jointly with the Euopean Business History Association on June 24-27 in Miami, Florida. This prestigious workshop, sponsored by the BHC and funded by Cambridge University Press, will take place at the conference site on Tuesday, June 23, and Wednesday, June 24. The colloquium is limited to ten students. Participants work intensively with a distinguished group of BHC-affiliated scholars that includes at least two BHC officers. The colloquium will discuss dissertation proposals, relevant literatures and research strategies, and employment opportunities in business history. This colloquium is intended for doctoral candidates in the early stages of their dissertation projects.     Those interested in being considered for this colloquium should submit a statement of interest, a CV, a preliminary or final dissertation prospectus of 10-15 p

Fellowships: Lemelson Center at the Smithsonian

The Lemelson Center Fellowship Program and Travel to Collections Award Program support projects that present creative approaches to the study of invention and innovation in American society. These include, but are not limited to, historical research and documentation projects resulting in dissertations, publications, exhibitions, educational initiatives, documentary films, or other multimedia products. The programs provide access to the expertise of the Institution's research staff and the vast invention and technology collections of the National Museum of American History (NMAH). The NMAH Archives Center documents both individuals and firms across a range of time periods and subject areas. Representative collections include the Western Union Telegraph Company Records, ca. 1840-1994 and the Earl S. Tupper Papers, documenting Tupper, and his invention, Tupperware. In addition, the NMAH Library offers long runs of historical technology serials like Scientific American and A

CFP: Economic History Association, 2015

The next annual meeting of the Economic History Association will take place in Nashville, Tennessee, on September 11-13, 2015. The theme of the meeting will be "Diversity in Economic History." The call for papers states:   The program committee welcomes submissions on all subjects in economic history, though some preference will be given to papers that specifically fit the theme. Papers should be submitted individually, but authors may suggest to the Committee that three particular papers fit well together in a panel. Papers should in all cases be works in progress rather than accepted or published work. Submitters should let the program committee know at the time of application if the paper they are proposing has already been submitted for publication. Individuals who presented or co-authored a paper given at the 2014 meeting are not eligible for inclusion in the 2015 program. Proposals should be submitted on-line, using the EHA form . The submission deadline is J

Over the Counter: Issue No. 8

For those on Twitter but unable to attend: the 2014 SHOT meeting can be followed at #SHOT14; the Histories of Capitalism Conference at Cornell is at #HOC2014 . Update: Finn Arne Jørgensen has compiled the SHOT2014 tweets here on Storify. There is an extensive review essay in The Nation related to the slavery and capitalism debate: "Apostles of Growth" The Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering, and Technology in Kansas City, Missouri, has an interesting web exhibit on "The Transcontinental Railroad."   The library's holdings are a great resource for many areas of business history, and research fellowships are available. See the GIS website by Cameron Blevins at Stanford illustrating his research on "The Geography of the Post." The Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at Hagley is making available audio records of many of its scholarly talks on SoundCloud . Among them will be the Center's new series, &q

CFP: CHORD 2015 Workshop

The Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution (CHORD) invites submissions for a workshop that explores the history of retailing and distribution in a rural context, to be held on May 13, 2015, at the University of Wolverhampton. Papers focusing on any historical period or geographical area are welcome. Some of the themes that might be considered include: The village shop Rural networks of supply Marketing and selling ‘the countryside’ Rural commodities, services and industries Transport, networks and consumer information The rural consumer Markets, fairs and peddlers Representations of rural retail. Retailing, distribution and agriculture To submit a proposal, please send title and abstract of c.300 to 400 words to Laura Ugolini, at l.ugolini@wlv.ac.uk by February 13, 2015 .     For further information, please e-mail: Laura Ugolini at l.ugolini@wlv.ac.uk or Karin Dannehl at k.dannehl@wlv.ac.uk .

Duanaire: Data for Irish Economic History

According to its website, The Duanaire project borrows the Irish word for song-book or anthology (loosely, a 'treasury'), to convey the sense of a rich, varied corpus handed down and explored anew. This project, led by Dr Aidan Kane (economics at NUI Galway), will open up a wealth of Irish economic history data, and in particular, Irish fiscal history data, by making accessible online a range of datasets in flexible forms to diverse audiences. The project is constructing a unique infrastructure for the imaginative curation, exploration, and sharing of significant tranches of Irish economic history data. Duanaire's first release is a dataset of the public finances of Ireland in the eighteenth century. The core sources are the detailed accounts of revenues and expenditures printed in the Journals of the House of Commons of the Kingdom of Ireland throughout the 1700s. These accounts are presented online in a variety of ways: one can browse the accounts year-by-y

CFP: 2015 Appalachian Spring Conference on World History and Economics

The Tenth Annual Appalachian Spring Conference in World History and Economics , an interdisciplinary meeting aimed at bringing together scholars from Appalachian State University (Boone, NC) and scholars from other universities in North Carolina, the surrounding states, and abroad, will hold its next meeting on April 10-11, 2015, on the Appalachian State University campus. The theme will be "The History and Nature of Capitalism"; though paper or panel proposals do not have to be directly tied to the conference theme, papers fitting with the theme will be given special consideration.     The 2015 keynote speaker will be Deirdre McCloskey, Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a world-renowned scholar of economic history and the history of capitalism.   Those interested in participating should let the organizers know by February 10, 2015 . A one-page abstract describing the scholar’s pr

Digital Resource: New Deal Map

The Living New Deal Project at the University of California, Berkeley, has released an interactive map that will eventually show every New Deal project in the United States and territories. One can focus in on an individual area, or even an individual project; the site supplies basic details for each item listed. One can also search by project type or a combination of place and type. The site offers illustrations of many artworks and construction projects completed under the auspices of New Deal agencies. According to the designers, "Our goal is to inventory and map all New Deal public works across the nation. We want to involve Americans in a collective rediscovery of what New Deal agencies did to extricate this country from the Great Depression and lay the foundation for postwar prosperity." The project is directed by Richard Walker, professor emeritus of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught from 1975 to 2012.

GHI Fellowship Deadline Reminder

The German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., offers a number of fellowships of direct interest to business historians. Doctoral Fellowship in International Business History Preference for this 6- to 12-month fellowship in International Business History will be given to applicants whose projects fit into the GHI's research foci on transatlantic relations and the history of consumption. Comparative work is also strongly encouraged. The monthly stipend is €1,700 for doctoral students from European institutions; students based at North American institutions will receive a stipend of $1,900. In addition, fellowship recipients based in Europe will receive reimbursement for their round-trip airfare to the United States. Fellowship in Economic and Social History   Preference for this fellowship is given to applicants on the postdoctoral level. Candidates doing original research for a second book project will be preferred. The monthly stipend is €3,000 for EU citizens and $3,20

PEAES “Economic History's Many Muses” Papers Available

Those unable to attend the recent anniversary conference of the Program in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES), "Economic History's Many Muses," can find most of the papers freely available for download on the conference website. Presenters included Joseph Adelman, Caitlin Rosenthal, Stephen Mihm, Seth Rockman, Ellen Hartigan-O'Connor, Michelle Craig McDonald, and Dael Norwood; the full program is posted here .

Over the Counter: Issue No. 7

Karen Cox's "Pop South" has a post on the history of the Aunt Jemima advertising campai gn and a discussion of the women on whom the ad campaign was based. Slate has an article on the world's oldest businesses and why so many of them are in Japan. At the "History of Economics Playground," Beatrice Cherrier has an interesting post on the development of the JEL code s. Congratulations to Bernardo Batiz-Lazo of Bangor Business School, whose co-authored (with Tobias Karlsson and Björn Thodenius) paper, "“The Origins of the Cashless Society: Cash Dispensers, Direct-to-Account Payments and the Development of On-Line Real Time Networks, C. 1965-1985,” was a co-winner of the Soltow Award for the best paper published in Essays in Business and Economic History , the journal of the Economic and Business History Society. The paper is freely available here . A research group founded at the University of Portsmouth, "Port Towns and Urban Cultur

Digital Resource: The Hispanic Liverpool Project

The Hispanic Liverpool Project , based at the University of Warwick, investigates the city's role as a hub in the networks of trade, commerce, migration, travel, tourism, politics, and culture that connected the Anglophone and the Luso-Hispanic worlds during the long nineteenth century. The project seeks to gather, record, and interpret the stories of the people who inhabited those networks, the trading connections they forged and exploited, the places they lived, worked, and are remembered, and the traces one can still find of them today, in Liverpool and elsewhere. According to project coordinator Kirsty Hooper , The Hispanic Liverpool Project works with a range of sources, including shipping records, trade directories, census returns, church records, newspaper articles, travel guides, memoirs and company archives. It combines a macrohistorical approach, which aims to understand Liverpool's place in the grand narratives of nineteenth-century Anglophone and Luso-Hispan

CFP: “Financialization: A New Chapter in the History of Capitalism?”

The German Historical Institute in Washington, DC, has issued a call for papers for “Financialization: A New Chapter in the History of Capitalism?” to be held at the GHI on June 12-13, 2015. The conveners of this workshop are Hartmut Berghoff (Washington, DC), Kenneth Lipartito (Miami), and Laura Rischbieter (Berlin). The call for papers states: The term “financialization” is understood by most authors to refer to the shift since 1970 from industrial to finance capitalism, a shift that had profound social and political repercussions. Over the past few decades traditional industrial economies became dominated by financial capitalism. Financial services now constitute a large and increasing share of output in the world’s most advanced industrial nations. Financial institutions have grown to enormous size, magnified by various mechanisms of financial leverage. Capital markets have gained the ability to influence and limit national economic priorities. Financialization also influences

CFP: FEEGI Conference

The Economic and Social History Section, History Institute, Leiden University, will partner with the Forum on European Expansion and Global Interaction (FEEGI) to host a joint conference on June 2-5, 2015, under the theme "Agents, Networks, Institutions and Empires." According to the call for papers: Agents, networks and institutions are the cornerstones of empire-building. This applies to European and non-European empires, originating in the late Middle Ages, Early Modern, Modern or Contemporary period. The agency of individuals, by themselves or in various groups and communities, forged the first contacts between colonizers and colonized. At the same time, the individual and collective capacity to negotiate personal and communal interests brought about autonomy and forms of self-government in various colonized societies. Through perennial exchanges institutions were created, changed and adapted to the needs, demands and impositions of expanding empires. FEEGI has

Hartman Center Fellowships Available

The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History, part of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library of Duke University, offers several grants for research travel to its collections. The Hartman Center holds an extensive collection of over 3,000,000 items — correspondence, publications, advertisements, photographs, slides, films, books and serials — that document the history of advertising, sales, and marketing over the past two centuries. In addition to the J. Walter Thompson (JWT) Company Archives, the most comprehensive historical record of any advertising agency, the Center contains the collections of other key companies and individuals in the dynamic fields of advertising and marketing. The grants available through the Hartman Center include the Alvin A. Achenbaum Travel Grants, which provide up to $750 in funding to support researchers in their use of any Hartman Center collections.The Hartman Center also offers two fellowships,

Business History at the AHA

The 2015 American Historical Association Meeting will be held in New York City on January 2-5. The full program has now been published. As an affiliated member of the AHA, the Business History Conference is able to propose sponsored sessions. We are delighted to report that several of these proposals were accepted. The headline event will be a luncheon/roundtable discussion on January 4 organized around the theme of “Capitalism, Global Business, and Inequality”; speakers will be Richard R. John, Juliette Levy, Stephanie Decker, and Bartow Elmore, with BHC president Mary Yeager presiding.      Other BHC sessions are: AHA session  57 : Tipping in American History (chaired by Julia Ott) BHC Session 2 : The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: A Century of Protest Art (chaired by Daniel Levinson Wilk) AHA session 252 : Immigrant Women at the Edge of the Nineteenth-Century Marketplace (chaired by Tracey Deutsch, comment by Jocelyn Wills) AHA session 278 : Exceptional Failures? I

Over the Counter: Issue no. 6

A recent NPR "Morning Edition" feature focused on "The Forgotten Female Programmers Who Created Modern Tech" (audio and text). The program mentions particularly Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper, as well as the resources of the Computer History Museum . The New York Times published two more essays on Edward Baptist's "The Half Has Never Been Told": "Harvesting Cotton-Field Capitalism: Edward Baptist’s New Book Follows the Money on Slavery" and a review by Eric Foner. Still on Baptist, there is an analytical post by Patrick Rael on the African American Intellectual History Society blog: "Capitalism's Slavery" ; and Tom Cuttenham over at The Junto continues the discussion with "Commodifying Labour, Commodifying People." Sad to report the death of well-known French business historian Maurice Lévy-Leboyer, on September 27; Hubert Bonin has published a homage . Some time ago, we reported on the efforts of busines