The Exchange

On June 16-17, 2016, the German Historical Institute will sponsor a workshop on "Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Transnational Comparative Perspective, 18th Century-Today." The workshop seeks to examine these key questions and to link research on immigrants from diverse backgrounds to the results of the German Historical Institute's multi-year project, Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present . According to the organizers (Hartmut Berghoff, Jessica Csoma, Bryan Hart, Kelly McCullough, Atiba Pertilla, Benjamin Schwantes, and Uwe Spiekermann), The workshop is conducted on the occasion of the completion of the project and seeks to contextualize its main findings. [The "Immigrant Entrepreneurship" website provides a very large number of biographies, images, and analytical essays, accompanied by teaching tools, bibliographies, and other resources; new entries appear regularly.] Bringing together scholars from a variety

Building on earlier efforts to stimulate business history in Canada, a small group of historians, former archivists, and business people began working last summer to create a new business history organization, the Canadian Business History Association – l’association Canadiennes pour l’histories des affaires (CBHA/ACHA) . The organization is now open for membership.     The group shares the conviction that the business heritage is an integral part of Canadian history and that this heritage cannot be preserved without a strong academic/ business partnership. The CBHA/ACHA mission is to establish a not-for-profit association that provides a forum for archivists, historians, managers, and management scholars to further the historical study of Canadian business and how that history relates to other countries. According to the group's website, The CBHA/ACHA is dedicated to the pursuit of Canadian business history and its role both domestically and in world business history. Our

Christmas Eve, and time for another small gift from "The Exchange": more sources positioning the holiday in business and historical terms (the first list can be found here ): "Christmas Season Starts Earlier Every Year" (actually not): "Saving Santa's Mail Bag" (the Post Office and Letters to Santa) "A Brief History of the Holiday Card" (Ellen Brown on JStor Daily) and also on The Takeaway (audio interview) "19th Century Christmas Cards Gain New Admirers" (AAS, on Louis Prang) "Louis Prang, Father of the Christmas Card" (NYHS) Alison Barnes on "The First Christmas Tree " ( History Today ) Bernd Brunner on "Inventing the Christmas Tree" Dickens' expenses for printing "A Christmas Carol" A Christmas Carol (modern-day economics edition) ( The Guardian )  Santa Claus and Coca Cola  Santa Claus and Thomas Nast  "When Santa Was a Bank," from Stephen Mihm 12 Days

Cornell's History of Capitalism Initiative is sponsoring a second conference on the "Histories of Capitalism" on September 29-October 1, 2016. Whereas the first meeting focused on American capitalism, the organizers hope that this event will include several panels and papers that incorporate non-U.S., regional, transnational, or global histories. The call for papers states: Building on the success of that conference and on developments in this rapidly growing field, we invite proposals for panels that continue to illustrate the diversity of the histories of capitalism(s) through a variety of perspectives, including intellectual, legal, gender, environmental history, as well as the history of science and technology.     Plenary Speakers include Jedidiah Purdy (Duke); Marcus Rediker (Pittsburgh); Emma Rothschild (Harvard University); and Juliet Walker (University of Texas-Austin).     Papers and panels may be submitted by scholars at any stage of their careers; th

The Institute for Constitutional History has announced a seminar for advanced graduate students and junior faculty: "Capital as a Constitutional Issue: Land and Money, 1776-1900." Instructors will be Christine Desan, the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the author of Making Money:  Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism , and Elizabeth Blackmar, professor of history at Columbia University. Her scholarship focuses on the history of property relations in the United States; her books include Manhattan for Rent, 1785-1850 and The Park and the People: A History of Central Park , co-authored with Roy Rosenzweig.     According to the announcement, the seminar will focus in particular on land and money, critical to state formation and capitalist development in the U.S. from the Revolutionary era to the Gilded Age. The contests to define or control each expose competing sovereignties (native American, imperial, settler; state and federal) before a

On September 12-13, 2016, the Georg-August University Göttingen will host a conference on "Corporations and Authoritarian Regimes in Latin America." The conveners are Hartmut Berghoff (Georg-August University Göttingen), Marcelo Bucheli (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and Manfred Grieger (Corporate History Department, Volkswagen AG). The organizers explain:     Historical research has dedicated considerable energy to the interplay between the business community and the Nazi dictatorship. Meanwhile, there is a large number of very detailed case studies available from Alusuisse to Volkswagen or from Deutsche Bank to General Motors demonstrating the close but often ambivalent relationship between political power and capitalist corporations. Between the 1960s and 1980s most Latin American countries were ruled by military regimes that often modeled themselves after the European Fascist regimes. A large number of works (particularly those written during the rule of

The Business History Conference Liaison Committee seeks to sponsor a panel for the 2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Gender, and Sexualities, which will take place on June 1-4 at Hofstra University in New York. For the first time, the conference is creating a special track on “Gender and Capitalism.” We invite BHC members to propose original research papers for a panel on “The Gendered Business of Capitalism.” We will select from the submissions to form at least one complete BHC-sponsored panel.          Please send a 250-word proposal and 1-page CV to Vicki Howard ( howardv@hartwick.edu ) and Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor ( eoconnor@ucdavis.edu ) by January 15, 2016 , for consideration.

The 2016 Economic History Society (EHS) conference will be held on April 1-3 at Robinson College, University of Cambridge. The program for the meeting is now available on-line. The 2016 Tawney lecturer is Avner Offer of the University of Oxford, who will speak on "The Market Turn: From Social Democracy to Market Liberalism."     Registration is also open. For additional details and updates, please see the EHS meeting website .

The 2016 Organization of American Historians (OAH) annual meeting will take place in Providence, Rhode Island, on April 7-10. The theme for the meeting is "On Leadership." Registration is now open and will be available on-line until April 1, 2016 . On-site registration will be available after April 1, but with an accompanying surcharge. Questions not addressed by the meeting website can be addressed to meetings@oah.org  or call 812-855-7311.

On June 27-28, 2016, the American Bar Foundation and the University of Chicago will host a conference on "Law in the History of Capitalism." According to the organizers, In recent years, there has been an explosion of new scholarship on the historical relationship between law and capitalism. . . . This infusion of interdisciplinary scholarship creates an opportunity for new work that puts law, legal institutions, and legal processes at the center of capitalist transformations.    The aim of this conference is to provide junior scholars with a venue in which to share their previously unpublished research and to connect with senior scholars in the field. We thus invite junior scholars to submit proposals that offer original analyses of law in the history of capitalism.   Proposals may be submitted on-line at the conference website ; the deadline for submissions is February 15, 2016 . Organizers are Jane Dailey, Ajay Mehrotra, Christopher Schmidt, and Victoria Saker Woe

The Colonial North America Project at Harvard University "will make available to the world digitized images of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17 th and 18 th century North America." From the Institute for New Economic Thinking, an interview with Lance Davis : "Do Economists Understand the Economy?" "Ben Franklin's World" features a podcast interview with Max Edling, author of A Hercules in the Cradle: War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867 (University of Chicago Press, 2014). The New Yorker online highlighted a story on Bell Labs from a 1931 issue: "Bell Labs: The Invention Factory." Naomi Lamoreaux has posted her recent working paper , "Beyond the Old and the New: Economic History in the United States"; several others are linked from her faculty homepage .  The National Museum of American History blog has an illustrated article on shopping board games. S

A new blog has been established on the topic of Chinese economic history. According to the home page, ChineseEconomicHistory.com seeks to provide a bridge between these two isolated academic worlds – that of Chinese economic historians in the Far East, and economists in the West. Everything is conducted in English, and all periods of Chinese history are included. We cover topics of interest, provide commentary and discussion on research, and conduct interviews with prominent Chinese economic historians.  The site is brand new, but it already contains a useful set of video interviews with economic historians from the World Economic History Congress in Kyoto.     The site's organizer is Ronald A. Edwards of Tamkang University. Hat tip to Andrew Smith at The Past Speaks .

The History News Network routinely publishes essays by historians connecting historical scholarship with current events. In recent weeks, several of these essays have been written by members of the business history community: Bruce E. Baker , "This Historian Has Some Advice for Bernie" Baker is the co-author, with Barbara Hahn, of the just-published The Cotton Kings: Capitalism and Corruption in Turn-of-the-Century New York and New Orleans (Oxford University Press). Eric Rauchway , "How Hofstadter and Schlesinger Misled Us About FDR" Rauchway is the author of The Money Makers: How Roosevelt and Keynes Ended the Depression, Defeated Fascism, and Secured a Prosperous Peace (Basic Books, October 2015). Robert E. Wright , "An Open Letter to the Harvard Business School Dean Who Gave Historians an Assignment" Wright is the author, most recently, of Little Business on the Prairie: Entrepreneurship, Prosperity, and Challenge in South Dakota (Cente

On December 14-15, 2015, the Bank of France will host a conference emphasizing the contribution of economic history to policy making. The meeting will take place at the Banque of France conference center, 31 rue Croix des Petits Champs, Paris. According to the organizers, The various works that will be presented illustrate how long-time series inform decision making. They also show how historical models and case studies help to improve our thinking about topical policy issues such as monetary policy in a world of high public debt, the impact of financial regulation on financial markets, and the policies stimulating innovation or favoring financial stability. The conference is organized by the Banque de France, Sciences Po, and the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and the Universities of Oxford, of Carlos III Madrid, of Humboldt zu Berlin, and the London School of Economics, and the Graduate Institute Geneva as member institutions of the European network Macrohist .     The progr

The next gathering of the World Economic History Congress (WEHC) will convene July 29 – August 3, 2018 in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Executive Committee of the IEHA welcomes proposals from all members of the international economic history community, whatever their institutional affiliation or status, as well as from scholars in related disciplines. The conveners state: We invite you to join us in Boston to consider the many ‘Waves of Globalization’ that have given rise to the varied and multi-directional connections that characterize the economic and social world we know today. While seeking proposals for sessions that explore facets of this broad theme, we also welcome submissions on the economic and social histories of all places and periods, on the exploration of varied sources and methods, and on the theory and the uses of economic history itself. Furthermore, we invite members to employ and analyze diverse strategies for representing the past.     The IEHA is

Douglass C. North, co-recipient (with Robert Fogel) of the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and the Spencer T. Olin Professor Emeritus in Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died Monday, November 23, 2015, at his summer home in Benzonia, Michigan. He was 95.      North examined the formation of political and economic institutions and the impact of those institutions on the performance of economies through time. In the words of his Nobel citation, he was honored “for having renewed research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods in order to explain economic and institutional change.”       North received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley; before moving to Washington University in 1983, he taught for many years at the University of Washington. His major works include The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790-1860 (1961), Institutional Change and American Economic Growth (with Lance Davis

On November 20, the conference "Making Markets: Histories of Commodity Trading and Grading" took place under the auspices of the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society at the University of California at Berkeley. According to the organizers, Caitlin Rosenthal of Berkeley and Espen Storli of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Since 1750, social, political, and technological conditions have dramatically transformed the trading of commodity goods. Through advances in measurement and communication, previously differentiated products have been transformed into fungible commodities that can be traded on paper and at great distances. These products and the markets where they are exchanged have become terrain for speculation, risk management, and even political negotiation. . . . We believe that these practices of measurement and exchange are at the heart of the process of commoditization: it is the mathematics and measurement of grading and trad

The Institute for Economic and Business History Research (EHFF) at the Stockholm School of Economics invites proposals for papers to be presented at a conference/symposium on Cold War Business History, to be held in Stockholm, Sweden, on March 11, 2016. The symposium will focus on the participation of businesses (outside the defense industry) in the defense effort (or in preparedness or contingency planning) during the Cold War. This includes, but is not limited to, war production (including preparations for war production), contingency storage of raw materials and foodstuffs, planning for evacuation or relocation, and participation in government planning and information services.     Proposals dealing with any of these aspects or related fields, regardless of country, are welcome. Proposals should include a one-page CV and an abstract not exceeding 250 words that addresses the research plan and the original contribution to historical knowledge the final product is expected to make

The 2016 annual meeting of the Economic History Association will be held in Boulder, Colorado, on September 16-18; the theme is “Economic History and Economic Development.” According to the call for papers , 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 2015 meeting are not eligible for inclusion in the 2016 program. Proposals must be submitted online; the deadline is January 31, 2016 . More information about the meeting theme, gra

On May 27-28, 2016, the Association of Business Historians (ABH) and the German Business History Society (GUG) will hold a joint conference at the Humboldt University Berlin, Germany. The theme will be "Creativity and Entrepreneurship in the Global Economy." The program committee consists of: Hartmut Berghoff (GHI Washington), Lucy Newton (Henley Business School), Alexaner Nützenadel (Humboldt-University), Teresa da Silva Lopes (University of York), and Andrea Schneider (GUG).     The organizers welcome papers on any topic related to business history, even where it does not focus on the conference theme, and on any time period or country. Proposals are welcomed for either individual papers or entire sessions (each of normally one-and-a-half hours). Each paper proposal should include a one-page abstract, a list of 3 to 5 keywords, and a one-page CV. Proposals for sessions should also include a cover letter containing a title and a one-paragraph session description. A

"From Public Interest to Private Profit: The Changing Political and Social Legitimacy of International Business" will be held in Toronto, Ontario, on May 5-6, 2016. Funded by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust in the UK, and sponsored by the Centre for the Political Economies of International Commerce (PEIC) at the University of Kent, UK (directed by William Pettigrew), and the Business History Group at the Rotman School of Business, this two-day conference "will bring historians, business historians, management scholars, and business practitioners together to discuss . . . questions within a long time frame and within a cross-disciplinary framework."      The event will include a keynote lecture, an opening panel of business practitioners in which the present-day challenges facing international corporations are discussed. The first day of the conference will focus on the period 1600-1850; the second day will focus on 1850 to the present day. The conference

The journal Business History has issued a call for papers for a special volume on "Historical Research on Institutional Change." Guest editors will be Stephanie Decker, Lars Engwall, Michael Rowlinson, and Behlül Üsdiken. The editors write, Institutional change is by its very definition a process that unfolds over long time periods with fundamentally unpredictable outcomes that can only be properly evaluated with hindsight. Because institutional change is a fundamental feature in historical research, many historians do not necessarily define or reflect on this as a research phenomenon in its own right. On the other hand many research debates in organization studies have remained curiously a-historical when developing the antecedents, outcomes and mediating factors for processes of institutionalization, institutional maintenance, and deinstitutionalization. . . . Nevertheless, between these two extremes there are many processes of institutional change in organizations tha

The European Association for Banking and Financial History (EABH) is celebrating its 25th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, the organization will meet on January 28-29, 2016, at the Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence, Italy, for a two-part conference .     The first day will feature a workshop whose aim is to "lay the groundwork for a project on the oral history of European Finance. . . . [and] to kick of a larger discussion on European oral history and about exemplary ways of  integrating oral history to financial archivists practice." The program for this section is available here .     On the second day, in a section called "Eurovision? The Initial Period of Europe’s Monetary Union," the meeting will take the form of a 'Conversation' with "those financiers, politicians, lawyers, archivists and academics that were involved in relevant decisions concerning the financial sector 25 years ago -- and those today." T

Those unable to attend the recent Economic History Association meeting should note that abstracts of the papers are available from the full conference booklet . In addition, most of the papers are linked from the on-line version of the program . A new site, "Records of London's Livery Companies Online" (ROLLCO), provides records of Apprentices and Freemen in the City of London Livery Companies between 1400 and 1900. The debate on slavery and capitalism continues: NYU sociologist John Clegg reviews several recent books in Critical Historical Studies (unfortunately behind a paywall). At The Junto, Tom Cutterham reflects on Clegg's review, and Edward Baptist then responds . [There is also a roundtable review of the Baptist book in the September 2015 Journal of Economic History .]     Readers may also be interested in Slate's audio presentation, "When Cotton Became King," for which Baptist is a guest commentator. A conference on "The His

The 2016 Organization of American Historians (OAH) annual meeting will take place in Providence, Rhode Island, on April 7-10. The theme of the meeting is "On Leadership." The full program has not yet been posted, but sessions and abstracts for various topics are now available, including one for "Business & Economy." Several of these sessions are sponsored by the Business History Conference. Included are "Temporalities of Agriculture and Capitalism," chaired by Lisa Gitelman "No-Fault: Injury, Compensation, and the Shifting Rhetoric of Responsibility in Twentieth-Century America," chaired by Jonathan Levy "History, Numbers, Numeracy: Opportunities and Obstacles in Quantitative and Digital History," chaired by Caitlin Rosenthal "Law, Finance, and Institutional Leadership: New Perspectives on the History of Financialization," chaired by Naomi Lamoreaux "The Business of Leadership," chaired by Pamela Laird

The Business History Conference has just launched a Twitter presence. Those interested can follow the account (@TheBHCNews) or look at the posts here: https://twitter.com/TheBHCNews even without a Twitter account. This is a new experiment for the BHC, and we hope that you will join us in the “twittersphere.” Twitter can be an excellent way to keep up with announcements in the field, research and grant opportunities, publications, and conferences, and to stay connected to colleagues. The Portland annual meeting will be using the hashtag #BHC2016 , and everyone is encouraged to use it. (Here is some more info about hashtags: https://support.twitter.com/ articles/49309# ). If you are new to Twitter check out this getting started guide: https://support.twitter.com/ articles/215585# . Ellan Spero is the BHC Twitter editor.

The Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) will hold its 2016 meeting on June 22-26 in Singapore. The call for papers has been posted, with a submission deadline of December 31, 2015 [extended] ( December 1 for Open Session proposals). According to the call for papers, the Program Committee invites proposals on any topic in a broadly defined history of technology, including topics that push the boundaries of the discipline. The Committee welcomes proposals for complete sessions (preferred) or individual papers from researchers at all levels, whether veterans or newcomers to SHOT's meetings, and regardless of primary discipline. Because complete session proposals are strongly preferred, the Committee has set up an Open Session system, whereby individuals can find others to join them in a full session. For details on this process, please see the full call for papers. Both traditional and unconventional complete sessions (roundtables, etc.) may be submitted via the l

Stephanie Decker, Christina Lubinski, and  an Wadhwani have launched a new blog and website, the Organizational History Network . The goal of the project is to bring together people interested in the various organizational history initiatives at the moment, such as the ESRC seminar series (Stephanie Decker with Mick Rowlinson and John Hassard), the CBS Business History Initiative (Mads Mordhorst, Christina Lubinski, and Dan Wadhwani), and the EGOS (European Group for Organizational Studies) stream in MOH (Management and Organization History) (Dan Wadhwani, Stephanie Decker, and Matthias Kipping) and also to serve as a platform for calls for papers and events. As the editors explain, This page is run by a network of scholars interested in historical approaches to studying organizations. In recent years a number of scholars from around world have hosted seminars, events at conferences, published articles and books and run research projects and networks in this field. This websit

The conference "Port Cities in the Modern World, 1500-1800" will be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 5-7, 2015. According to the organizers, Port cities rose to occupy a critical space, mediating between their own hinterlands and an oceanic world of circulation and exchange. Highly local institutions and networks influenced and reacted to global networks and the movements of people, goods, fashions, ideas, and pathogens. This conference explores comparisons and connections among ports in the age of sail. Through broadly comparative papers and revealing case studies this conference provides a forum to explore comparisons and contrasts, diversity and congruence, competition and emulation, among far-flung port cities on a global scale. The program for the meeting has now been posted. Information about registration and accommodations can be found on the conference website ; questions should be directed to Cathy Matson .     The conference is co-sponsor

Business History (BH) has announced a call for papers for a special issue on "The Brand and Its History: Economic, Business, and Social Value.” The guest editors are Patricio Sáiz and Rafael Castro, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. According to the editors, For this special issue, we expect contributions to clarify how firms conceived branding strategies, whether they adapt or not (and how) to new market conditions, how international legal issues affect branding activity, how other agents beyond the firm (communities, consumers, regions) faced trademarking, and how studies on collective marks, certification and quality marks, and appellations of origin may complete our current knowledge. Contributions are also invited to develop new studies on domestic trademark tendencies, international comparisons, or case studies based on significant trademark-related sectors such as food, beverages, and tobacco; consumer chemical products; and luxury goods. For further information of pos

“Southern Capitalisms” is a graduate student conference to be held on March 4-5, 2016, at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. According to the call for papers, Among the contributions made by this new generation of scholars is a re-conceptualization of the spatial trajectory of capitalism. Rather than an economic system emanating outward from the industrialized North, capitalism, as scholars like Edward Baptist and Caitlin Rosenthal have shown, arguably has its roots in the accounting practices and slave labor of the plantation in the American South and the Caribbean. If these works have helped to create space for thinking about capitalism in the South, recent literature on the Sunbelt has raised new questions about the relationship between capitalism and place. Rather than a simple product of geography, many new works have shown how the “South” itself has been constructed and reconstructed with the help of capital. For a full discussion of the aims of the conferenc

Given the rapid deterioration of paper files and the unwieldy and incomplete runs of microfilm, recent years have seen a great increase in efforts to digitize historical newspapers all over the world. Nearly every major library and many national and state governments have projects in process, making it impossible to list all the websites. The following list provides some useful links to meta-sites and major projects, with emphasis on freely accessible sites. Companies such as Readex, Gale, and ProQuest have subscription-based historical newspaper collections, which may be available via academic affiliation. Among those, the new Readex Mercantile Newspapers collection is especially relevant to business historians.      Meta-Sites (include both free and fee-based sites) Online Historical Newspapers (maintained by genealogist Miriam Robbins Midkiff) [and see also her blog , where she posts news of updates) Digital Historical Newspapers (Family Search genealogy site) Online Dig

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP) has launched a new digital exhibit, "Politics in Graphic Detail: Exploring History through Political Cartoons." The HSP site contains about 125 cartoons; users can "search for cartoons on specific topics, analyze individual cartoons in depth, and follow links between cartoons and related contextual material." According to the HSP announcement: The cartoons featured in the project span American history from the colonial period through the Progressive Era and represent a wide array of topics and situations. Many of the cartoons portray well-known public figures like presidents and politicians, while others depict fictional or generic characters, such as Uncle Sam or figures embodying ethnic stereotypes. Reflecting the evolution of the political cartoon genre, the selected cartoons encompass a variety of visual styles, ranging from intricate scenes with a great deal of text to stark images with few or no words. The S

Money, Power and Print is an association of scholars interested in interdisciplinary studies of contemporary attitudes toward the Financial Revolution in early modern Britain, specifically the rise of banks, paper money, joint-stock corporations, stock markets, and public debt. The next biennial meeting will be held on June 23-25, 2016, in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales. According to the meeting website, Five session are planned, four with geographic themes and one with a focus on a particular individual. The four geographic themes will be: Scotland, Ireland, North America (and other colonial entities), and France. . . . There will also be a panel on Joseph Harris (1702–1764) astronomer, navigator, economist, natural philosopher and King’s Assay Master at the Royal Mint. Papers will be distributed in advance and presented in 2-hour sessions at which all colloquium participants are present. Presenters will have five minutes to summarize their paper. The remainder of each session will b

A list of recent and forthcoming titles of interest now issued in paperback: Marie Anchordoguy, Reprogramming Japan: The High Tech Crisis under Communitarian Capitalism (Cornell University Press, September 2015 [2005]) Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (Random House, November 2015 [2014]) Marcelo Bucheli and R. Daniel Wadhwani, eds., Organizations in Time: History, Theory, Methods (Oxford University Press, May 2015 [2014]) Charles W. Calomiris and Stephen H. Haber, Fragile by Design: The Political Origins of Banking Crises and Scarce Credit (Princeton University Press, August 2015 [2014]) Margaret M. Chin, Sewing Women: Immigrants and the New York City Garment Industry (Columbia University Press, September 2015 [2005]) Oscar Gelderblom, Cities of Commerce: The Institutional Foundations of International Trade in the Low Countries, 1250-1650 (Princeton University Press, December 2015 [2013]) Richard R. John, Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommuni

The number of podcast series (digital audio files accessed via the Web) has grown considerably in recent years. Those centered on business and economic history include: Economic History Society podcasts EconTalk Planet Money , NPR Stories from the Stacks (Hagley Museum and Library) University of Cambridge Economic and Social History podcasts Who Makes Cents (Betsy Beasley and David Stein) Many general history podcast series often feature topics and speakers of interest: 15 Minute History (University of Texas at Austin) BackStory with the American History Guys (Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, and Brian Balogh) Ben Franklin's World (Liz Covart) History Talk (Department of History, Ohio State University) In Our Time (BBC) Institute of Historical Research podcasts Journal of American History podcasts The Juntocast (early American history) National Museum of American History podcasts (recent episodes featured Lisa Cook, Bernard Carlson, and Lee Vinsel) Talking H

"Redlining," the process of marking off neighborhoods as less desirable, has a long history. According to the "Redlining Richmond" website, In the late 1930s the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC), a New Deal agency created to refinance homes and prevent foreclosures, surveyed real estate trends in the nation's largest cities. Working with local lenders and realtors, they assessed neighborhoods using a number of factors ranging from terrain to income levels to the "infiltration of a lower grade population" (by which they meant African Americans, Jews, and immigrants). . . . red "D" areas were "characterized by detrimental influences in a pronounced degree." Developers of the Richmond site at the University of Richmond have now combined with the T-RACES project ("Testbed for the Redlining Archives of California's Exclusionary Spaces") at the University of Maryland and researchers at Johns Hopkins Univers

The Society for Historians of the Early Republic (SHEAR) will hold its next annual meeting in New Haven, Connecticut, on July 21-24, 2016. The Program Committee invites proposals for sessions and papers exploring the history and culture of the early American republic, together with its northern and southern borderlands and transnational connections, c. 1776-1861. The Committee will consider proposals for individual papers and for full sessions, with a preference for complete panels. All submissions should be sent via email according to the directions in the call for papers . The deadline for proposals is December 1, 2015 .      For more details about the meeting and complete instructions, please see the full call for papers .