The Exchange

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 we...

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-spo...

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 genealog...

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 .

Readers outside Australia may not be familiar with Trove , a product of the National Library of Australia . This massive site is a combination of many things: a metadata aggregator, a portal for all things Australian, and a home to large digital collections, particularly of Australian newspapers . The site is free to use, but it also allows users to create a profile; logged-in users can manage their findings and contribute to the site in various ways. Trove's organizers have produced a number of videos to help new users construct searches and to understand the organization of the collections. Whenever possible, Trove provides information about the physical location and method of access for non-digitized items returned in searches.      Readers who wish to keep up with new items in Trove can subscribe to the project's blog .

The 2016 Economic and Business History Society (EBHS) conference will be held in Montreal, Canada, on May 26-28. The group has just issued its call for papers . Proposals for presentations on any aspect of ancient to recent economic or business history are welcome, as are proposals for whole panels. Submissions from graduate students and non-academic affiliates are welcome. The Conference will also include a French track.     Proposals, in English or French, should include an abstract of no more than 500 words and contact details. The deadline for submission of proposals is February 15, 2016 March 1, 2016. Proposals may be submitted through the EBHS website, by email to ebhs2016@ebhsoc.org , or to the Program Chair by postal mail (not preferred): Patrice Gélinas Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies Atkinson Building, #254 4700 Keele Street Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3 If you have further questions about the meeting or organization please contact ...