Shashi: A Tool for Japanese Business History

A recent post on H-Business led us to investigate a resource perhaps little known among Western business historians and non-specialists. Shashi are Japanese company histories—usually published by the companies themselves and often commemorative. Most shashi publications are not sold; they are therefore unavailable through the usual distribution system in Japan and often are not easily found in libraries. Recognizing the potential value of these items for business history (and other genres as well), the North American Japanese Company Histories (Shashi) Group has been working on efforts to collect and catalog as many shashi as possible. They have established a wiki and a discussion group. Much of the available material is in Japanese, but the group's discussions and library listings are bilingual. A set of introductory links:

Shashi at the University of Hawai'i
Shashi Database at Ohio State University and
Japanese Company Histories at the Ohio State University Libraries
Shashi at the University of Kansas
Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation Resource Center for the History of Entrepreneurship Shashi Project

Both the University of Hawai'i and the Shibusawa Eiichi Foundation sites provide very useful links to other information (informational text and links are in English; sources are usually in Japanese). Another starting point in English is Yuko Matsuzaki's 2007 article, and an article in the Japan Times.

Digital Collection: Princeton Exhibit of Subway Posters

The Princeton University Library has digitized a number of posters from the Interborough Rapid Transit Subway Company . The posters, designed by the public relations firm Ivy Lee, were displayed in subway cars to provide information to riders about changes in fares and routes, safety issues, and other matters of interest. The collection consists of 385 images dating from 1918 to 1932; many of them provide financial information about rates, company dividends, and a general look at an early rapid transit system. October 29, update: Jonathan Rees over at "More or Less Bunk" was moved by this post to go off in search of a better site, and found the massive collection of the London Transport Museum , which displays over 5,000 items in a searchable collection .

The Exchange has moved to the BHC's website

Dear members subscribers of The Exchange The Exchange, the weblog of the BHC, is now part of our website ( https://thebhc.org ). We migrated the blog to serve our membership and interested parties best since Blogger is discontinuing its email service. Note that this will be the last message we will send from Blogger . The Exchange was founded by Pat Denault over a decade ago, and it has become an essential channel for announcements from and about the BHC and from our subscribers and members. Announcements from The Exchange will come up on the News section of our website as they did before. However, if you wish to receive these announcements via email, and you have not done so yet, please subscribe to The Exchange by: Going to our website's homepage ( https://thebhc.org ), s crolling down to the end of the page, and clicking on "Subscribe to the Latest BHC News." Or go to the “News” section of our website's homepage ( https://thebhc.org/ ), and click on...

Wilfried Feldenkirchen (1947-2010)

With sadness we report the death of longtime BHC member Wilfried Feldenkirchen. He died in a car accident on June 21, 2010, while test driving a replica of Siemens' 1905 electric car, the Victoria , a project for which he was the manager. He was professor of economic, social, and business history in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. A former trustee of the BHC and a member of the editorial board of Enterprise & Society , Professor Dr. Feldenkirchen specialized in nineteenth- and twentieth-century corporate and financial history, focusing particularly on Siemens. In addition to numerous articles and essays, his works include: The Banks and the Steel Industry in the Ruhr: Developments in Relations from 1874 to 1914 (1981) Werner von Siemens: Inventor and International Entrepreneur (1994) Siemens, 1918-1945 (1999) Siemens: From Workshop to Global Player (2000) "Vom Guten das Beste": Von Daimler und Be...

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