The Exchange

For those of you planning ahead, the Organization of American Historians has issued its call for papers for the 2019 meeting , which will be held on April 4-6, 2019, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The theme for the meeting will be "The Work of Freedom." The call states: Marking the 400th Anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in British North America, the theme of this program shifts the lens to the "Work of Freedom." It aims to capture the labor(s) involved in identifying and securing freedom, from the colonial era and founding of the Republic through the recent election of Donald J. Trump President of the United States.     The OAH has quite extensive guidelines and policies, as well as numerous categories of presentation, which are spelled out on the website and in their FAQ . Note that the submission system for 2019 will not be open until November 27, 2017; the deadline for proposals is January 12, 2018 .

The preliminary version of the program brochure for the 2017 meeting of the Economic History Association (EHA) has now been posted. The meeting will take place in San Jose, California, on September 15-17. The theme for EHA 2017 is “Macroeconomic Regimes and Policies: The Quest for Economic and Financial Stability and Growth.” In addition to the series of regular panels, the meeting will feature a plenary session with Barry Eichengreen, Harold James, Carmen Reinhart, and George P. Schultz on "Reflections from the Global Macro Economy of the Twentieth Century." The presidential address, by Michael D. Bordo, is titled "An Historical Perspective on the Quest for Financial Stability and Monetary Policy Regimes." The pre-registration deadline for the meeting is August 15, 2017 ; the hotel group rate deadline is August 22 . For complete details, please consult the EHA meeting website .

A collection of interesting sites around the web: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University highlighted its collection of photographs about the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad . We regret to report the death, on May 18, of Canadian historian Michael Bliss . Although his later works focused on medical history, Bliss's early research was in business history; in that field he is best known for A Canadian Millionaire: The Life and Business Times of Sir Joseph Flavelle and Northern Enterprise: Five Centuries of Canadian Business . An interesting post from Textilis on the Swedish East India Company ’s 18th-century dealing in fabrics used for handkerchiefs. On the blog for NICHE ((Network in Canadian History & Environment), Josh MacFadyen writes about "Weather Markets: A Business Case for Environmental History." From Bard Graduate Center, a digital exhibit about the 1853 Crystal Palace in New York City (with several essays, includi...

The Business History Initiative at Harvard Business School is hosting a one-day workshop on June 29, 2017: “Capitalism and the Senses.”   This workshop will bring together scholars from various disciplines, including marketing, history, and anthropology, to explore how businesses developed marketing strategies to appeal to consumers’ senses from the nineteenth century to today. As the organizer, Ai Hisano, writes, Attention to sensory appeals became a crucial part of business strategies in the modern consumer-oriented economy. The workshop will encourage participants to explore such themes as the creation of sensory experience in modern capitalist society from cross-cultural perspectives, the impact of technological development on sensory perception, the commercialization of the senses, and the construction of knowledge about the senses.  The program will feature prominent scholars in the studies of the senses, the history of science, and marketing, including David How...

The School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow has an opening for a full-time permanent lecturer in economic and social history. The successful applicant will be required to conduct high-quality research and knowledge exchange activities in the field of Economic & Social History with the capacity to support the Subject Area’s teaching commitments and research specialisms in post-1750 business history; make a substantial contribution to learning and teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels; and undertake management and administrative duties as directed by the Head of School and/or Head of Subject. Essential qualifications include a Ph.D. in economic and social history or equivalent research profile in the subject area; up-to-date knowledge of research within the field of economic and social history, and in particular 19th- and 20th-century business history and its international dimensions; development of an international research profile i...

More business historian appearances in the media recently: Benjamin Waterhouse discusses the changing relationships among small business, larger business, and government on Barry Moltz's podcast, "Business Insanity Talk Radio." Christy Ford Chapin discusses her book, Ensuring America's Health , with Russ Roberts at EconTalk. Chapin also has an essay on the blog Dissent, "America's Health Care System Is Even More Broken than You Think." And--just out today-- an op-ed in the New York Times on "How Did Health Care Get to be Such a Mess?" Philip Gura discusses "How the Panic of 1837 predicted the Great Recession" on the Marketplace podcast with David Brancaccio. Sharon Ann Murphy discusses her book, Other People's Money , on the Page 99 Test. Richard John writes about the different ways that historians have understood the political role of the business community, as evidenced in the book he co-edited with Kim Phillips-Fe...

The next World Economic History Congress (WEHC) will be held in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 29-August 3, 2018; the theme will be "Waves of Globalization." Please note that the deadline for the second round of session proposals is June 30, 2017 . Organizers are strongly encouraged to consult the list of accepted sessions, with the goal of adding to the breadth of the Congress program, as well as to find models of successful proposals.     Dissertation Prize submissions are not due until December 1, 2017; the Graduate Poster proposal deadline is January 31, 2018.      Those wishing to propose papers to specific accepted panels should contact the organizers of those sessions; the list of accepted sessions can be found here .     Many more details about WEHC 2018 are available on the congress website . Questions or concerns may be directed to Jeremy Land at jeremy.land@wehc2018.org . Social media users can follow WEHC2018 on Twitter and F...

A selection of recent (ungated) reviews of books in business and economic history: Christopher N. Blaker reviews Mark R. Wilson, Destructive Creation: American Business and the Winning of World War II , for H-War. Also reviewed by Thomas K. Duncan for EH.Net. Deborah Cohen reviews Frank Trentmann, Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First , for the New York Review of Books . Robert Gioielli reviews Tracy Neumann, Remaking the Rust Belt: The Postindustrial Transformation of North America, for H-Pennsylvania. Dylan Schleicher reviews Benjamin C. Waterhouse, The Land of Enterprise: A Business History of the United States , for 800ceoread. Melissa Teixeira reviews William Summerhill, Inglorious Revolution: Political Institutions, Sovereign Debt, and Financial Underdevelopment in Imperial Brazil , for H-Latam. David O. Whitten reviews Noam Maggor, Brahmin Capitalism: Frontiers of Wealth and Populism in America’s F...

In connection with the May issue of The American Historian from the Organization of American Historians (OAH), the OAH blog "Process" has declared June 2017 to be "History of Capitalism Month." It has invited contributions on topics such as the history of labor, taxation, infrastructure, and consumption, among other topics. Anyone interested in contributing a post on American history and capitalism for June should read the "About" section of the blog and then contact the editors at blog@oah.org .       The four relevant essays on the history of consumption in the May American Historian are:   Emily Remus explains how women shopping in downtown spaces in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries challenged traditional male territories; Joshua Clark Davis demonstrates that during the 1960s and 1970s, some critics of consumer culture went into business for themselves and opened businesses dedicated to altruistic causes; Lawrence B. Glickman detai...

The Canadian Business History Association/Association canadienne pour l'histoire des affaires ( CBHA/ACHA ) will hold its next annual conference on September 11-12, 2017, at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. The preliminary program for the meeting, whose theme is "150 Years of Canadian Business History," presented in conjunction with Canada’s Sesquicentennial birthday celebrations, is now available on the CBHA/ACHA website. According to the organizers, the conference "is multi-disciplinary and open to participation by academics, business leaders, professional archivists and the public. The conference will present a range of session topics on business sectors that have played an important role in shaping the Canadian economy since Confederation." Online registration is now open as well.

The Rethinking Regulation Program at the Kenan Institute for Ethics (RR@KIE) at Duke University is seeking a Postdoctoral Fellow for a one-year term (with a possible renewal for a second year, upon mutual agreement of all parties and if funding is available). RR@KIE is an interdisciplinary research, teaching, and outreach network exploring the broad terrain of regulatory governance. It fosters research, education, and policy engagement on the evolution, design, deliberation and performance of regulatory systems, across a wide array of policy areas. Linking diverse disciplinary approaches across the Duke campus and beyond, RR@KIE marshals multiple perspectives and methodologies to understand complex problems, confront ethical tradeoffs, and envision solutions. The Postdoctoral Fellow will support the Rethinking Regulation Program in the following ways: Work with faculty director and executive committee to facilitate collaborative research among faculty and students in the Rethi...

The next annual meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR) will be held on July 20-23, 2017, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The program is now available online. Sessions of particular interest include: Session 15: "Transnational Speculation and State Formation in Revolutionary America" Session 21: "Women, Gender, and Risk in the Development of Early American Capitalism" Session 26: "Anxieties in Print: Commercial Uncertainty and Trust in the Revolutionary and Antebellum U.S." Session 29: "Minimizing Risk: Life Insurance, Mutual Aid Associations, and Social Networks in Antebellum America" Session 42: "Gender Politics of the Family Business"     More information, including a link to online registration, can be found on the SHEAR conference website ; Twitter users can follow at #SHEAR17. Note that on-site registration will include $30 late fee.

The next annual congress of the European Business History Association (EBHA) will be held in Vienna, Austria, on August 24-26, 2017, hosted by the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU). The preliminary program for the meeting, whose theme is "Transformation in Business and Society: An Historical Approach," is now available online.     More details, including information about registration, lodging, and travel, can be found on the congress website . Note that the early bird registration discount ends on June 15 .