Program Available: British Group of Early American Historians Conference

The British Group of Early American Historians (BGEAH) will hold its annual conference at the University of Portsmouth on August 31-September 3, 2017. Drawing on Portsmouth’s historic significance as a port town, this year’s conference theme is: “Land and Water: Port Towns, Maritime Connections, and Oceanic Spaces of the Early Modern Atlantic World.” The draft program for the meeting, which has several sessions on merchants, trade, and the early modern economy, has now been posted. In addition to regular sessions, there will be two keynote addresses, by Geoffrey Plank of the University of East Anglia, and Mark A. Peterson, of the University of California Berkeley.
    For more information about the meeting and registration details, please see the conference website.

CFP: EABH Workshop on “The Data Dilemma”

The European Association for Banking and Financial History (EABH) invites submissions for its next workshop, "The data dilemma: a risk or an asset? Business, academic and regulator perspectives on the past, present and future of data in the finance sector." From the call for papers:

Data about the finance sector is growing exponentially and storing it is becoming easier. Businesses are excited about the commercial possibilities of 'Big Data'; academics are relishing the research potential of deep data archives and regulators are hoping for a fuller view of systemic risk and stability. Will it all turn out well though? The current reality of massive data stores is often no more than massive cost and complexity. The workshop will explore how we got here with data and where we go next. Ultimately, can a meeting of business, academics and regulators resolve the data dilemma and find a way to turn a risk into an asset?

The workshop will take place on November 10, 2017, at the Westin Zagreb Hotel in Zagreb, Croatia, parallel to the international conference INFuture2017: Integrating ICT in Society (http://infoz.ffzg.hr/INFuture).
    Those interested in participating should send an abstract (400-500 words) and a short CV no later than August 31, 2017, to: g.massaglia@bankinghistory.org. The workshop committee consists of Jan Booth (DEFRA), Carmen Hofmann (EABH), and Hrvoje Stančić (University of Zagreb). Please consult the full call for papers for additional details.

CFP: “The Many Fourteenth Amendments”

On the 150th Anniversary of the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Department of History at the University of Miami, in Coral Gables, Florida, invites scholars to join a research symposium on the causes, consequences, and living legacies of this amendment. The conference will open on Thursday March 1, 2018 with a keynote address by Professor Dylan Penningroth, Professor of History and Law at U.C. Berkley. Four subsequent panels will be dedicated to different elements of the Fourteenth Amendment. It will conclude on March 3, 2018 with a roundtable discussion among the chairs of each panel.
The organizers solicit individual papers that will be appropriate for one of the following panels:

• Panel 1: Making a New Constitution: Chair: Steven Hahn, Professor of History, New York University 
• Panel 2: Capitalism, Corporatism, and Conservatism: Chair: Naomi Lamoreaux, Stanley B. Resnor Professor of Economics and History, Yale University 
• Panel 3: Birthright Citizenship and Immigration in a Globalized America: Chair: Mae Ngai, Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and Professor of History, Columbia University 
• Panel 4: Equal Protection and Civil Rights: Chair: Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Daniel PS Paul Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School 

Applications from scholars at every stage of their careers are welcome. Limited travel funds will be available to conference participants. Paper proposals should include a short c.v. and an abstract of no more than 250 words that describes the research to be presented and makes explicit the link with the larger theme of the panel. Applicants should e-mail their proposals to amendmentconference@gmail.com by September 15, 2017. All questions or inquiries should also be sent to that address.
    The full call for papers can be found here.

CFP: Journal Special Issue on Capitalist Transitions

The Journal of Historical Sociology has issued a call for papers for a special issue on "Capitalist Transitions, Empire Building, and American History." The editor writes:

there continues to be much confusion over what capitalism is in general, how to define it, and its role in American history. On a broader level this raises a series of questions going back to Marx and Weber, among others, over the transition to (or transitions to) capitalism and the uniqueness of capitalism as opposed to other historical social forms.The purpose of this special issue is to explore this problematic through the lens of the history of American capitalist development and empire building.

    In addition to full papers of 7,000-8,000 words, shorter more specific pieces or review essays may also be considered. Authors must follow the Journal of Historical Sociology author guidelines, which may be found on the journal website. For a more complete discussion of appropriate articles, please see the full call for papers.
    Inquiries (including discussing potential paper topics before writing a formal proposal) and proposals, including a 300-word abstract, should be addressed the special issue editor James Parisot at Jpariso1@binghamton.edu. The deadline for proposals is October 1, 2017.

Library of Congress Digitizing All Available Sanborn Maps

The Library of Congress has placed online nearly 25,000 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, which depict the structure and use of buildings in U.S. cities and towns. Maps will be added monthly until 2020, for a total of approximately 500,000. The online collection now features maps published prior to 1900. By 2020, all the states will be online, showing maps from the late 1880s through the early 1960s. As the LofC website explains,

The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps are a valuable resource for genealogists, historians, urban planners, teachers or anyone with a personal connection to a community, street or building.  The maps depict more than 12,000 American towns and cities.  They show the size, shape and construction materials of dwellings, commercial buildings, factories and other structures.  They indicate both the names and width of streets, and show property boundaries and how individual buildings were used.  House and block numbers are identified.  They also show the location of water mains, fire alarm boxes and fire hydrants.

The Library also has a thorough explanation of the maps and how to search for them and understand their keys and color schemes. Additional examples were included in one of the Library's recent blog posts.

CFP: Policy History Conference 2018

The Institute for Political History, the Journal of Policy History, and the Center for Political Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University are hosting the tenth biennial Policy History Conference at the Mission Palms Hotel in Tempe, Arizona on May 16-19, 2018.  The call for papers invites panel and paper proposals on all topics regarding American political and policy history, political development, and comparative historical analysis. Complete sessions, including two or three presenters with chair/commentator(s), and individual paper proposals are welcome. Participants may only appear once as a presenter in the program.
    The deadline for submission is December 8, 2017. Proposals for panels and papers must be submitted online. For details, please see the full call for papers.

Archival Resource: Boots Opens Digital Archives

The well-known British firm Boots (now Walgreens Boots Alliance) has launched a digital archives that contains around 15,000 entries and includes photographs, letters, advertisements, building plans, and industry magazines. The majority of the archives' holdings relate to the UK’s leading pharmacy-led health and beauty retailer and chart its development from its foundations in the mid-19th century. According to the archives website:

In addition to the material relating to the history of Boots UK, other significant holdings also include the business records of Walgreens; Dollond and Aitchison; Optrex Ltd; Timothy Whites and Taylors Ltd; Unichem and E Moss Ltd. In 2015 the Walgreens Boots Alliance Archive, led by the Boots UK archive team, received funding from Wellcome to re-catalogue the entire collection. The current catalogue contains details of all the records which have been re-catalogued and are open to researchers. It contains individual content descriptions for the archives as well as any digitised images connected to it.

The re-cataloguing process is on-going, with new items to be added regularly; the current digital entries account for approximately a fifth of the holdings. Business historian Peter Scott of Reading University said that the collection constitutes "one of the most significant and multi-faceted British corporate archives."

CFP: SHEAR 2018

The 40th annual meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR) has been scheduled for July 19-22, 2018, in Cleveland, Ohio. The meeting will be headquartered at the Cleveland Marriott Downtown at Key Center. The program committee invites proposals for sessions and papers exploring all aspects of and approaches to the history and culture of the early American republic, c. 1776-1861. Particularly encouraged are submissions that

• reflect the diversity of the past, but also address the most pressing issues of the present;
• fill gaps in the historical narrative and/or historiography;
• focus on pedagogy, public history, digital humanities, and other alternative methodologies;
• foster audience participation, feature pre-circulated papers, or assess the state of a given field.

Individual proposals will be considered, but the program committee gives priority to proposals for complete panels that include a chair and commentator. Attention should be given to forming panels with gendered, racial, institutional, and interpretive diversity, representing as well different professional ranks and careers. Individuals interested in serving as chairs or commentators should submit a one-page curriculum vitae. The committee co-chairs are Lorri Glover, St. Louis University, and Ami Pflugrad-Jackisch, University of Toledo.
     All submissions should be filed as one document (Word doc preferred), labeled with the first initial and surname of the contact person (e.g., “SmithJ2018”). All proposals must include

• Panel title and one-paragraph description of panel’s topic
• Email addresses and institutional affiliations for designated contact person and each participant •
A title and description in no more than 100 words for each paper
• A single-page curriculum vitae for each participant, including chairs and commentators
• Indication of any needs for ADA accommodation or requirement
• Indication of any audio-visual requests (please request only if A/V is essential to a presentation) 

Proposals should be submitted via email at shear2018@gmail.com with “SHEAR2018” in the subject line. The deadline for submissions is December 1, 2017.
   [Note: the CFP will soon appear on the SHEAR website, but it can currently be found on page 78 of the 2017 meeting brochure.]

New in Paperback: Spring/Early Summer Edition

A (belated) spring and early summer listing of books of interest newly published in paperback covering April through June (does not include books published simultaneously in hardcover and paper, but does include books published as paperback originals):

Mark Braude, Making Monte Carlo: A History of Speculation and Spectacle (Simon & Schuster, April 2017 [2016])

Francesa Bray, et al., eds., Rice: Global Networks and New Histories (Cambridge University Press, May 2017 [2015]

Gerald M. Carbone (with the Rhode Island Historical Society), Brown & Sharpe and the Measure of American Industry (McFarland, April 2017 [pb original])

Jefferson Cowie, The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (Princeton University Press, April 2017 [2016])

Donald Creighton, The Empire of the St. Lawrence: A Study in Commerce and Politics (University of Toronto Press, May 2017 [1937]). [This book is part of the University of Toronto Press's Canada 150 Collection, a series of reprints in honor of the sesquicentennial of Canadian Confederation. See here for the complete list.]

Peter B. Doran, Breaking Rockefeller: The Incredible Story of the Ambitious Rivals Who Toppled an Oil Empire (Penguin Random House, May 2017 [2016])

Jonathan Eacott, Selling Empire: India in the Making of Britain and America, 1600-1830 (University of North Carolina Press, April 2017 [2016])

Xing Hang, Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia: The Zheng Family and the Shaping of the Modern World, c. 1620-1720 (Cambridge University Press, June 2017 [2016])

Douglas E. Haynes, Small Town Capitalism in Western India: Artisans, Merchants and the Making of the Informal Economy, 1870–1960 (Cambridge University Press, April 2017 [2012])

Louis Hyman and Edward E. Baptist, American Capitalism: A Reader (Simon & Schuster, May 2017 [2014, as ebook])

Robert Jones, Bread Upon the Waters: The St. Petersburg Grain Trade and the Russian Economy, 1703–1811 (University of Pittsburgh Press, May 2017 [2013])

Erik Loomis, Empire of Timber: Labor Unions and the Pacific Northwest Forests (Cambridge University Press, May 2017 [2015])

Kathryn S. Olmsted, Right Out of California: The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism (The New Press, June 2017 [2015])

Marc-William Palen, The 'Conspiracy' of Free Trade: The Anglo-American Struggle over Empire and Economic Globalisation, 1846–1896 (Cambridge University Press, May 2017 [2016])

Roman Studer, The Great Divergence Reconsidered: Europe, India, and the Rise to Global Economic Power (Cambridge University Press, June 2017 [2015])

There is also a new crop of titles in Routledge's Modern Economic and Social History paperback reprint series.