bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Use and Misuse of Price History
Authors: Hamilton Earl J.
Published: August 2016

The prices of commodities and wages of labor recorded in contemporaneous account books are the oldest continuous objective economic data in existence. Economic historians have not neglected this great intellectual resource. In fact, during the last hundred years a large proportion of the outstanding economic and historical talent has been lavished upon price history. Tooke, D'Avenel, and Rogers devoted more than twenty-five years each, at the most productive stage of their careers, to collecting price and wage statistics from manuscript sources and to writing an impressive total twenty-odd learned volumes. In the present century Beveridge in England, Elsas in Germany, Posthumus in the Netherlands, Pribram in Austria, Bujak in Poland, Bezanson and Cole in the United States, and a host of lesser lights on both sides of the Atlantic have uncovered new sources, combed old ones more exhaustively, and employed modern statistical technique to give us relatively complete and refined histories of prices in the leading economic areas of the Western world in modern times. If the old records of commercial transactions are not destroyed in total war, it seems safe to assume that future generations of scholars, seeking light from the past on recurrent inflation and deflation, will produce price histories that surpass all studies yet written in historical range, completeness, and scientific accuracy. In view of these achievements and prospects, social scientists should ask themselves what can be gained from a proper utilization of price history and what losses may result from its misuse.
British Experience with Foreign Investments
Authors: Jenks Leland H.
Published: August 2016

During the century which culminated in the First World War, Great Britain was the principal source of capital supply for countries that drew upon foreign resources. Until 1940 her claims as creditor remained substantially greater than those of any other nation. Investments grossing from forty to fifty billion dollars have been made in the course of her virtually continuous process of capital outlay abroad. The outstanding total in 1914 amounted to twenty billion dollars, yielding an annual income of about one billion, which was nearly one tenth of the national income of the United Kingdom. This was the result of a process of accumulation which reached its greatest intensity during the periods 1868–1875, 1884–1893, and 1905–1912, when annual public issues of foreign and colonial securities averaged 6 or 7 per cent of those outstanding. During the latter period, at least, more than half of all British investment of new capital was being made abroad.
The End of the Suffolk System
Authors: Lake Wilfred S.
Published: August 2016

During the early years of the nineteenth century the mercantile community of Boston suffered the inconvenience of a double currency system. Boston banks accepted for deposit only “Boston money,” bank notes issued by Boston banks and readily redeemable in specie on demand at the counter of the issuing bank. But the common currency for all ordinary transactions was “foreign money” or “current money,” bank notes issued by out-of-town banks usually called country banks. Originally the Boston banks had accepted the notes of country banks at par or at a small discount and had returned them to the issuing banks for redemption rather than placing them back into circulation in Boston in competition with Boston bank notes. This policy had to be abandoned because of the inability of some country banks to redeem their excessive issues and the subterfuges adopted by other banks to avoid or delay redemption on the ground that the request for redemption was an imposition which restricted their legal circulation of bank notes. Moreover, there was always the risk that a country bank might fail before its notes could be presented for redemption by the Boston banks.
Adolf Hitler and German Heavy Industry, 1931–1933
Authors: Hallgarten George W. F.
Published: August 2016

Adolf Hitler's position in the economic life of his days has been the object of ardent discussions from his early beginnings down to the present time. The Marxist and leftist view which sees in the Führer one of the most outstanding servants of German monopoly capitalism has been contested not only by Hitler's own followers but, to an even greater extent, by the spokesmen and legal representatives of the German industrial circles, who wished to disclaim any responsibility for the disastrous events of that period. A scientific investigation of this problem is the more imperative, since die preponderant role played by socioeconomic factors in the rise of the Führer is quite obvious. A leader of an insignificant little group who distinguished himself from the many antiproletarian dictator candidates of his time mainly by his qualities as a demagogue, rooted in his neurotic reaction to the experience of social decline, Hitler in 1923 suffered a complete political fiasco, because his following was too small. While times of full employment and economic boom were unfavorable for his party, his movement benefited greatly from periods of depression, such as die one that followed the stabilization of the mark in 1923, and especially from the big depression after 1929. This depression not only caused the ruined masses of the German middle class to follow a leader who knew how to fight his social decline by donning a field-grey uniform but it also made some big German producers more eager than before to listen to a man who seemed to be conquering a disaster that had been caused, to a large extent, by their own rationalization policy.
Economic Implications
Authors: Lewis Ben W.
Published: August 2016

The policies of the Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) are headline news. The fact that Standard's policies are not spoken of as “public” policies is little more than an accident of terminology; certainly they are public in their sweep and import, and certainly in their impact upon the public mind. The policies and actions of Standard (New Jersey) are not alone in these respects. Standard is a giant corporation; there are other giant corporations and there are more in the making.
The Economic History of Malaysia: A Bibliographic Essay
Authors: Ken Wong Lin
Published: August 2016

Despite certain common cultural elements, the component states of Malaysia—the Federation of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, and Sabah—have each undergone a somewhat different historical evolution. But in the course of the last 180 years, they have evolved more or less a single regional economic system and common constitutional and administrative practices as the result of having shared British rule and influence. For this reason, this essay will confine itself principally to the period of British rule. Concern with an earlier period would mean involvement in the general economic history of the Malay Archipelago.
The Take-Off into Sustained Controversy
Authors: Rosovsky Henry
Published: August 2016

These brief quotes can serve as an excellent introduction to the volume under review. Solow was able, in a single phrase, to capture the main theme of this International Economic Association conference. And Gerschenkron adds a justified plea for tolerance on the part of critics. My own impression can also be stated at the outset: the boys may have had a fine bull session at Konstanz back in 1960, but as a book it doesn't add-up to much.
The Specie Circular and Sales of Public Lands: A Comment
Authors: Timberlake Richard H.
Published: August 2016

The chronology of events in 1836 surrounding Jackson's Specie Circular and the Act to Regulate the Deposits of Public Money, under which the Federal fiscal surplus was distributed to the states, has never been much in dispute. The orthodox analysis of these events likewise has been almost universally accepted. The Specie Circular has been seen as a device that provoked an increase in the demand for hand-to-hand specie in the West where the public lands were being sold, at the same time that specie was needed in the East to effect the distribution of the surplus. The monetary system could not have its specie in two places at once, the argument has been, and the attempt to do so led to the disastrous breakdown of the banking system and to the ensuing business recession of 1837.
Recent Membership Trends of the Economic History Association
Authors: Hill Forest G.
Published: August 2016

Hugh G. J. Aitken, as former chairman of the membership committee of the Economic History Association, made a very revealing analysis of the trends, geographical distribution, and prospects of the Association's membership as of 1962. See his communication on “The Association's Membership: Growth and Distribution” in this Journal for September 1963, pages 335–341. This updating of Aitken's analysis is based on the reports made by the membership committee and by Herman Krooss, the Association's treasurer, at the annual meeting in September 1964.
The Farmers' Attitude Toward British Investment in American Industry
Authors: Clements Roger V.
Published: August 2016

The flurry of British investment in American manufacturing industry from 1887 to 1891 was viewed with alarm, particularly in the West. At this time the farmer was preoccupied with the economic power of monopolistic industries and trusts, and so die British investor became deeply involved in this phase of the agrarian battle. In the past, capital from die United Kingdom had entered industrial concerns, chiefly railroads, without wresting the management out of American hands. More recently British investors had been building up and controlling dieir own enterprises in the West. Now, well-established and profitable American businesses were bought and directed from Britain. The farmer regarded this unaccustomed interest in American industrials either as a step toward die formation of great monopolies, or, even worse, as part of an imperialistic design conceived by London bankers to enslave the American people.
The Date of England's Treasure by Forraign Trade
Authors: Gould J. D.
Published: August 2016

Modern writers have usually dated die composition of Mun's work about the period 1630-1635. My article (pages 121-33 above) establishes diat much of die argument was the outcome of die trade crisis of 1620-1624, and die quotations and references there given prove that some of die most important sections of die work were first written, diough probably not as part of a book, during diat period. In addition, there are four pieces of internal evidence which help to date die complete work with some certainty.
The Sterling Crisis of 1337–1339
Authors: Ames Edward
Published: August 2016

The sterling crisis of 1337–1339 is interesting for two reasons. First, it seems to be the earliest such crisis for which detailed analysis is possible. Second, the details of this crisis, when compared to those pertaining to the 1340's, offer what might be called a “textbook example” of the differences between non-convertible and convertible foreign exchange systems.
Economic Systems and Economic History
Authors: Schweitzer Arthur
Published: August 2016

What is the relationship of economic history to the study of comparative economic systems? Perhaps the major contribution to thought on this subject has been made by Walter Eucken, whose ideas may be taken as the starting point for our discussion.
When the Pound Sterling Went West: British Investments and the American Mineral Frontier
Authors: Spence Clark C.
Published: August 2016

The period between 1860 and the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 saw the pound sterling moving into even the most isolated corners of the world, seeking, amoeba-like, to reproduce itself with a minimum of effort. Among other areas to feel its impact and to reap its benefits was the American West, particularly the mineral frontier. Records of the Board of Trade indicate that during these forty-one years at least 518 British joint-stock companies were incorporated, with a total nominal capitalization of not less than £77,705,751, to engage in mining and milling activities in the intermountain West, exclusive of the Pacific Coast.
Promoting the American West in England, 1865–1890
Authors: Winther Oscar O.
Published: August 2016

When in 1872 the English Reverend Alexander King, Secretary of the Freedmen's Mission Aid Society, returned to Blackheath (London) from his travels in the American West, he wrote a letter to the editor of the London Observer. Said he: “I believe our great national problem … must be solved by … the British occupation of America. Emigration, on a grand scale, to the trans-Mississippi regions will prove the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon people, and our cheapest and most effectual remedy for some of our most formidable national evils.”
Three Generations of Business Enterprise in a Midwestern City: The McGees of Kansas City
Authors: Wohl R. Richard
Published: August 2016

Some historians of Kansas City claim, with an arresting simplicity, that the principal reason for that city's growth and prosperity is to be found in the enterprise of its citizens. And, although enterprise is by no means a self-explanatory notion, it seems a compellingly obvious way to account for the circumstances of the city's formative years. Much of that history can be written around a series of crises of decision, urgent moments when poor judgment, or the faulty execution of policy, might have plunged the city into obscurity or downright decadence. Yet such was the city's good fortune, we are told, that at precisely these times brilliant leadership seems always to have been forthcoming, and enterprising men—usually businessmen—can be discerned standing in the storm center pointing the way to safety and success.
The Changing Pattern of American Economic Development
Authors: Kemmerer Donald L.
Published: August 2016

The name of our discipline, economic history, suggests the use of history in reaching economic conclusions, and the use of economic principles in classifying the findings of history. Actually, both practices deserve to be employed more than they are. This is an effort to employ a simple economic principle to reinterpret our nation's economic development. The principle is that the cheaper a factor of production is, the more generously it will be used, and contrariwise, the more costly a factor of production is, the more sparingly it will be used.
Some French Contributions to the Industrial Development of Germany, 1840–1870
Authors: Cameron Rondo E.
Published: August 2016

Germany in the 1830's gave few if any indications of its great industrial potentialities. The population was overwhelmingly rural and agrarian; Berlin was the only city containing more than 100,000 inhabitants, and the great majority of “cities” (in the legal sense) numbered less than 10,000. Nonagricultural production was carried on for the most part in the home or in small shops employing the old handicraft techniques. The pattern of foreign trade was that which has since come to be associated with “underdeveloped” agrarian nations: exports of agricultural products (grain, wool) and the output of artisanal industries, imports of manufactured goods and exotic wares. In those industries that were to lead the way in Germany's industrialization there were as yet no signs of growth. The few spinning factories that were set up in the 1820's and 1830's employed mainly English and Alsatian machinery, and sometimes foreign capital as well. Coal production lagged behind that of tiny Belgium, and was no greater than that of mineral-poor France. The small, dispersed iron industry was still almost universally conducted with the ancient charcoal technique, and the famed chemical industry was still to be born. The Zollverein was just beginning its great work of economic unification; the effective realization of its promise had to await more adequate means of transportation and financial institutions to provide capital; but by 1840 there were only a few short, isolated lines of railway and no modern credit facilities.
The Place of Learning, Science, Vocational Training, and “Art” in Pre-Smithian Economic Thought
Authors: Johnson E. A. J.
Published: August 2016

If one views economic development as the purposeful management of resources through time, an action program must perforce concern itself with utilizing natural resources as fully as possible; with improving the quality and effectiveness of the present and the future supply of human resources; and with changing and perfecting the technological processes whereby natural and human resources are combined. The keys that can open the treasures of economic progress are therefore forged in the schoolroom, the laboratory, the inventor's shop, and the research institute. We take this for granted today because the burgeoning teaching and research apparatus is now much more evident in a physical, financial, and workforce sense than in any previous context. But the difference between our era and earlier experiences with economic development is not absolute; in the past as in the present, whenever economic progress quickened it was a consequence of new insights and a new knowledge, of novelty in thought and action, in short, it was the usufruct of an educational awakening.
The Growth and Decline of Indigo Production in Colonial Brazil: A Study in Comparative Economic History
Authors: Alden Dauril
Published: August 2016

Not long ago an authority on dyeing observed that “in the history of the dyeing industry indigo holds a unique place by reason of its irresistible rise to supremacy among dyestuffs and its equally rapid dethronement by the modern chemical colors. …” Among the sources of this once flourishing industry, one that has never been studied adequately is that of colonial Brazil. Commercial indigo production began there in the early 1760's, but after an impressive start the industry disappeared within less than two generations. Its beginnings occurred at a time when Portugal, like other imperial powers of that era, was seeking to diversify the agriculture of her colonies so as to make them more lucrative to the mother country. A study of the industry's brief tenure in Portugal's most important colony reveals some of the problems that confronted its planters, merchants, and royal officials as they attempted, with limited experience and inadequate supporting capital, to develop new sources of income during a period of keen international economic rivalry. The factors involved in the rise and decline of the Brazilian indigo industry can best be appreciated when it is examined as part of the global history of indigo production and trade between the late fifteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
“The Evolution of The English Corn Market”
Authors: Kneisel Ernst
Published: August 2016

The purpose of this note is to examine the method by which N. S. B. Gras establishes his thesis concerning the evolution of the English grain markets. According to his book, grain, markets evolved through several distinct stages, culminating in the “metropolitan market.” Although the influence of the London market by the sixteenth century can be demonstrated without reference to the existence of the early stages, it is nevertheless they that constitute the essential novelty of Mr. Gras's approach and, presumably, the main contribution of the book to the study of economic history. It will be contended below that the existence of certain of these early stages is at least doubtful and that, in any case, their economic significance is either negligible or not provable.
Political Aspects of the Gold Problem
Authors: Whittlesey Charles R.
Published: August 2016

The political history of gold in the United States is inseparable from X that of silver. In large measure it is simply the obverse of the history of silver. Looked at positively, the case for silver was an attack on gold monometallism; looked at negatively, the case against silver was a defense of the single gold standard. Another and very practical reason for relating the history of gold to that of silver is that the story of what has happened to silver affords an enlightening parallel to what is happening, and conceivably may happen, to gold.
Business Attitudes Toward European Immigration, 1880-1900
Authors: Heald Morrell
Published: August 2016

Tradition depicts American business as the chiefexploiter of our national free immigration policy during the latter defender andhalf of the nineteenth century. The contribution of immigrant labor to the building of the American industrial empire is much discussed. The interest of employers in recruiting cheap labor and strikebreakers from Europe is a familiar story. That industrialists and their allies in the years of rapid expansion and mechanization of the American economy stood to gain as much as any other group, even including the aliens themselves, from the maintenance of large-scale immigration has appeared so obvious as to demand little careful investigation. Historians have ordinarily described the succession of laws after 1882, gradually narrowing the “open door” the United States offered to Europe and pulling in the welcome mat as well, as a series of labor and nativist victories in the face of dogged resistance by the business world. Yet such an interpretation fails to explain the fact that the period which saw the growth of strong anti-immigrant feeling among native workers witnessed a strikingly similar development in the ranks of businessmen. During the 1880's and 1890's, while labor leaders protested the competition of alien workers, business publications were criticizing no less bitterly the impact of immigration upon American society. When nativists sought financial support for their efforts to restrict immigration they found many businessmen in sympathy with their aims. Measures presented to Congress for regulating and limiting the admission of aliens were frequently concurred in by prominent business leaders. Indeed, a notable development in American business thought after 1880 was the rise of hostility toward the swarms of cheap foreign laborers which employers had long considered essential to their own, and the nation's, prosperity.
The Religious Factor in Canadian Economic Development
Authors: Clark S. D.
Published: August 2016

Canada has suffered throughout her history by the comparison of her rate of progress with that of the United States. Almost every traveler to this continent during the past two or more centuries has found occasion to comment on the apparent difference in the degree of economic prosperity on the two sides of the border. Lord Durham was compelled to recognize this difference as one of the underlying causes of political disaffection in the country. Local observers joined in deploring the failure of Canada to keep pace economically with the United States. Haliburton, expressing his views through his fictitious Yankee clockmaker, was scathing in his denunciation of the lack of industry and business imagination among his fellow Nova Scotians. Canadians today, with a similarly critical insight into the economic state of their country, are but little less inclined to point out the unfavorable comparison it makes with the neighbor to the south. The belief persists that the really enterprising Canadian must cross the border if he is to realize his fullest ambitions.
Geographical Differences in the Use of the Corporation in American Manufacturing in 1899
Authors: Evans George Heberton
Published: August 2016

Exploration of the data on the character of the ownership of manufacturing establishments presented in the 1900 Census volumes has revealed some challenging phenomena. Buried in this material, for example, is the somewhat unexpected information that the corporation was used extensively in manufacturing establishments in such localities as Arizona, Nevada, Washington, and California, but to a much smaller degree in places like New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, where by 1900 the corporation might be assumed to have become well established as a form of business organization.
Life Insurance and Investment Banking at the Time of the Armstrong Investigation of 1905-1906
Authors: North Douglass C.
Published: August 2016

An Essential factor in the rise of the investment banker to a dominant position in the American economy in the decades following 1880 was his command of the mobilized savings of the country's financial institutions. While considerable research has been devoted to the investment bankers' domination of transport and industry, little attention has been paid to their organization of financial institutions and their significance for the development of these institutions and their reorientation toward the securities market. This paper is a study of the relationship between the large life insurance companies and investment banking in the years immediately preceding the Armstrong Investigation.
Gayer, Rostow, and Schwartz on the British Economy
Authors: Imlah Albert H.
Published: August 2016

More than a decade ago, Arthur Gayer, W. W. Rostow, and Anna Jacobson Schwartz completed their remarkable work of collaborative scholarship. Preoccupation of the authors with other usks during and after the war was, it is stated, the main cause for the delay in publication; but one may surmise that with a study of such full-bodied proportions as was originally put together, the ever-rising cost of publication was also a factor. Fortunately, the surviving authors (Mr. Gayer died in 1951) have not been too reverent of the arduous fullness of their well-planned product. They have accepted the expedient of microfilming to meet their purpose of making unpublished parts accessible to other scholars. How generous their prewar intentions were is indicated by the list, occupying nearly seventeen pages in Volume II, of full texts of several sections and of tables of monthly data on prices of stocks and commodities, as well as other basic matter, which will be available through the Columbia University Council on Research in the Social Sciences, which has fostered the study virtually from the conception of the project by Mr. Gayer twenty years ago.
Henry Burden and the Question of Anglo-American Technological Transfer in the Nineteenth Century
Authors: Uselding Paul J.
Published: August 2016

My object in this article is to use the historical evidence of one man's life to raise questions concerning the way we have come to understand our technological history. Inventors and mechanicians have long occupied a prominent place in American history. However, the bases for selecting and certifying these national heroes have resulted in a curious record of achievement and considerable distortion in our understanding of the development of American manufacturing technology. The principal historical perspective that enshrined the names of Evans, Whitney, Perkins, etc. has been first, the emphasis on originality of invention or “dramatic newness,” and, secondly, the attempt by historians to confine mechanical genius or creativity within national boundaries—Slater and DuPont, of course, being the exceptions to this generalization. Thus we speak quite naturally of American inventors, British inventors, and so on.
Canadian-American Reciprocity: A Comment
Authors: Ankli Robert E.
Published: August 2016

In the December 1968 issue of this Journal, Professors Officer and Smith question the “classical and generally accepted view of Reciprocity.” A careful reading of earlier writing on this subject casts doubt upon the novelty of their conclusions. D. C. Masters, one of their authorities, was aware of the limited effects of the Treaty. In Reciprocity, 1846-1911, he writes, “To a considerable extent the prosperity of the period, including the increase in American-colonial trade, was the result of factors other than the treaty itself.” My note raises questions about the authors' use of customs union theory (Part I) and their interpretation of the data (Part II).
Farm Fencing in the Nineteenth Century
Authors: Primack Martin L.
Published: August 2016

The cost of fencing the farm was a topic of constant discussion and complaint in American agricultural circles in the second half of the nineteenth century This prosaic topic appeared continually during the period 1850 to 1880 in agricultural journals, state agricultural bulletins, and annual reports of the Federal Commissioner of Agriculture.
Cocoa in the Gold Coast: A Study in the Relations between African Farmers and Agricultural Experts
Authors: Green R. H. , Hymer S. H.
Published: August 2016

“The peasant” is consistently cited as an obstacle to economic development in Africa. He is unwilling, it is said, to alter traditional practices and behavior, and is thus unable to take advantage of economic opportunities. As Stephen Enke puts it, “The resource in shortest supply, in most backward but developing countries, is officials who can argue ordinary people into forsaking tradition and risking new ways.” And E. S. Mason has stressed the complexity of “the process by which a group of tribally organized and self-sufficient peasants, sowing and reaping in accordance with age old traditions and possessing limited and easily satisfied wants, become a collection of risk-taking individuals, responsive to price and income incentives, and interested in conserving their land and improving its productivity.” In numerous instances, however, African farmers have rapidly accepted new crops and new techniques and have shown a high propensity to innovate, to accept risk, and to invest well in advance of returns. The sharp increases in the production of export crops show this to be true. Between 1919 and 1959, exports of Ghana (Gold Coast) rose 838 per cent, those of Nigeria 955 per cent, and those of (former) French West Africa 1,031 per cent. In all three cases, radical shifts in crop pattern and new practices in cultivation, planting, and harvesting were involved.
Steam and Waterpower in the Early Nineteenth Century
Authors: Temin Peter
Published: August 2016

The use of steam power in manufacturing has long been recognized as an important part of the English industrial revolution, but in studies of the United States the role of the steam engine in manufacturing has been overshadowed by its application in railroads. This paper attempts partially to redress the balance by examining the use of stationary steam engines in America about 1840. Section I explores the characteristics of the supply of stationary engines in America, contrasting the engines used in America with those used in Britain. Section II discusses the demand for steam engines, that is, the factors underlying the choice between steam and waterpower in different industries.
Perspective on Recent Japanese Economic Growth
Authors: Forster Colin
Published: August 2016

That Japanese economic growth since the war has been spectacular is well known. Real net national income per head at the beginning of the 1960's was roughly twice that of the middle thirties, and four times the postwar low of 1946. In all sorts of ways—industrial structure, levels of regular employment, composition and level of consumption—Japan has made a decisive break from the economy of the 1930's. While the achievement is obvious, it is more difficult to know how to assess the performance, even when attention is directed solely toward the overall growth of the economy as measured by total output. What standards or measures can be applied to permit the answering of such questions as whether recent Japanese growth has been “fast” or “satisfactory”? There is a variety of ways in which this problem could be approached. One would be to compare Japanese growth with that of other countries; another would be to consider the potentialities of growth since the war and whether they have been used to maximum advantage. Here the question will be considered from an historical point of view: How does recent growth measure up against past performance of the economy?
American Urban Growth Preceding the Railway Age
Authors: Taylor George Rogers
Published: August 2016

The rate of urban growth in the United States reached its highestlevel in the twenty years before 1861. Nevertheless in the five preceding decades, 1790 to 1840, those coming just before the railroad age, the cities of the nation grew at a remarkably rapid rate. It is true that during one 10-year period of relatively slow growth, 1810–1820, the city population increased at a pace slightly below that for the total population. But in the other four decades, 1790–1800, 1800–1810, 1820–1830, and 1830–1840, the rate of increase in the number of people living in cities was almost double that for the whole population and exceeded the urban growth rate attained in any post-Civil War decade. This study makes available detailed statistics on urban population changes from 1775 to 1840, directs attention to the differing contributions to urbanization made by four city groups, and notes some of the influences affecting urban population expansion in the years before the railroad became a dominant influence.
Labor Policies of the General Managers' Association of Chicago, 1886–1894
Authors: McMurry Donald L.
Published: August 2016

The activities of the General Managers' Association of Chicago in the great strike of the American Railway Union in 1894 are well known, but the earlier history of this association has remained obscure. Even the most scholarly writers on the Pullman strike have accepted statements made in testimony before the United States Strike Commission that this association first participated in a labor conflict in 1893. As a matter of fact, it originated in a strike, and early in its career it set precedents for many of its exploits a few years later.
An Estimate of Industrial Product in Austria in 1841
Authors: Gross Nachum T.
Published: August 2016

Austria was among the countries that began to develop modern industry at the turn of the eighteenth century and in particular during the Continental Blockade. Cotton spinning was mechanized and construction of textile machinery began. Similarly, when in the late 1820's horse-drawn railroads were constructed on the European Continent, Austria was among the pioneers. This onset of modern economic growth followed a long tradition of handicraft and manu-factories in several regions of the Habsburg domain. Notwithstanding these early beginnings, in 1900 about 58 percent of the economically active population was still engaged in agriculture, as against 22 percent in industry. According to estimates based on Colin Clark's figures Austrian national product per head of the “working population” was in 1913 about 47 percent of the corresponding British product, almost 60 percent of the German, and above 70 percent of the French. Population growth throughout most of the nineteenth century was rather steady, at an average annual rate of below 1 percent. When at the turn of the century the rate increased, Austria became one of the major sources of European emigration.
Some Theoretical Aspects of Economic Development
Authors: Baldwin Robert E.
Published: August 2016

While the problem of economic development long has been a standard topic for economic historians, it has not been until recent years that most other modern economists have displayed a more dian casual interest in this subject. Two sets of factors have been particularly important in stimulating this new activity. The first, of course, concerns the ever-increasing efforts being made to accelerate economic development in the so-called “backward” regions of the world. Since World War II a number of the countries in the economically backward list have received eitfier complete political independence or a much greater degree of freedom. And one of the major ways they are using this new freedom of action is to plan and undertake extensive governmental development projects. For rightly or wrongly most of these countries feel that their former rulers thwarted the type of economic development most beneficial to the native population, and they are almost fanatically anxious to remedy this condition.
Business History and Economic History
Authors: Williamson Harold F.
Published: August 2016

As Fritz Redlich has had occasion to point out, business history is neither of American nor of recent vintage–that interest in company histories which began on the Continent early in the nineteenth century had by 1900 prompted at least one prominent German scholar to suggest how a study of business might be developed into an academic discipline. What was new in the United States was the term “business history,” and what is more relevant for my comments in this paper were the circumstances that led to its emergence as a special field and the effect that this separation has had on the relationship between business history and economic history.
Levels of Nineteenth-Century American Investment in Education
Authors: Fishlow Albert
Published: August 2016

From the earliest time, the United States and her predecessor colonies stood close to or at the very forefront of the world in the educational attainment of the mass of the populace. The first available literacy statistics of 1840 testify to that past impressive accomplishment: overall, more than 90 per cent of white adults achieved this degree of minimum competence, and even in the laggard South the record was not significantly poorer. At that date only Scotland and Germany are comparable, with England and France much farther behind. What therefore seems to be the case is that popular education successfully preceded an extensive system of publicly supported and controlled schools.
Foreign Entrepreneurship in Russian Industrialization, 1880–1914
Authors: McKay John P.
Published: August 2016

It is well known that foreign capital was very important in Russian industry before the revolution. Various investigators have attempted to quantify this foreign investment by industry and nationality; according to the most generally reproduced estimate, almost one third of the total capital of all industrial corporations operating in Russia was held by foreigners in 1914. These statistical studies, which sum up much of our present knowledge of foreign enterprise in Russia, are set forth in the introductory chapters.
A Half-Century in Economic History: Autobiographical Reflections
Authors: Clough Shepard B.
Published: August 2016

The first president of our Association, Edwin F. Gay, remarked to me as he was pondering the subject of his presidential address that presidents of learned societies should present in their messages to their scholarly colleagues the results of their current research. This seems to me to be a capital idea, but, as I look back upon the speeches of my predecessors, I discover how few have followed the counsel of our wise and esteemed forebear. Even Gay himself, in his command performance, failed to adhere to his own precept. Most of our presidential addresses have been devoted to making suggestions for research (mostly to be undertaken by others), to delineating the broad “tasks” of economic history, to defending the kind of work in which the speaker has been engaged, and to advocating some particular methodology in our discipline. In the course of time, our presidents have exposed a variety of positions, have espoused a multitude of causes, and from time to time have excited controversy. They have created a tradition that presidential addresses should be homilies and exhortations.
The Influence of Tradition on Agriculture in New Mexico
Authors: Mosk Sanford A.
Published: August 2016

In New Mexico Spanish civilization left a deep imprint. There the economic and social institutions which established themselves firmly in the Spanish colonial period profoundly influenced the course of subsequent economic development, and are a vital force today. Human problems in contemporary New Mexico cannot be understood, nor can plans for the use of her human and physical resources be made, without understanding the colonial institutions, their strong resistance to change, and the mutual adjustments between them and Anglo-American institutions.
Historical Aspects of Imperfect Competition
Authors: Cochran Thomas C.
Published: August 2016

Operating theories are more or less concealed in the structure of all historical writing. They are readily discerned when the theories are comprehensive and at variance with generally accepted ideas, as in the case of Thomism or Marxism. They are hard to detect when like Spencerianism they conform closely to the mores of American life. Writers may honestly deny in this latter case that they have any special theory; they are simply recording the “facts” from a “common-sense” viewpoint. But since theory must be either implicit or explicit, it is better for scholarly purposes that it should be explicit. Carefully formulated theory restricts unconscious bias, gives meaning to otherwise formless data, and is more likely to reveal unexpected relationships.
The Economic Impact Of Imperial Germany
Authors: Rosenberg Hans
Published: August 2016

German political empire building had a decisive and powerful influence not only on the making, but also on the writing of economic history. The initial effect upon the history of economic history was negative rather than positive. The so-called “political historians” of the midnineteenth century were inspired by the contemporary struggle for the enhancement of the nation's political power and for constitutional liberty. The subsequent formation of Imperial Germany by “blood and iron,” instead of broadening the historical perspective and social vision of Droysen, Duncker, Häusser, Sybel, Treitschke, and the more docile among their followers, merely knocked out their liberalism and intensified and militarized their nationalism. In the new Reich they felt irritated and annoyed rather than roused and shaken by the grave economic conflicts and social disharmonies which grew out of the rapid industrialization of the German national economy and the narrow social class structure of the Imperial government and its Junker personnel. The hypnotic spell emanating from Bismarck's leadership accounted for the sterility of the political historians' response. Although the work of these academic civil servants greatly improved in technical perfection and thoroughness and extended the boundaries of factual knowledge, including knowledge not always worth knowing, it lost vigor and fertility and deteriorated into staleness and irksome monotony as to fundamental ideas and social ideals.
Commercial and Colonial Policies
Authors: Townsend Mary E.
Published: August 2016

When Hitler based so much of his campaign of 1936–1937 for the return of the colonies upon the Fatherland's economic need of them, he was reverting to the pattern of Germany's colonial history. It mattered not that the economic value of these colonies had been proven negligible or, at least, problematical so far as any advantage in trade and raw materials accruing to the empire was concerned. He and the Nazi leaders continued to stress the economic motive of expansion and aggression; to emphasize the close connection between commercial and colonial policies which had always characterized German imperialism.
History and Social Causation
Authors: MacIver R. M.
Published: August 2016

Historians are not so prone as their brethren of the social studies to lengthy disputation concerning the function, the objective, the method, the locus and the limit of their subject. They tell us freely enough and often enough and variably enough what history is and does, but they seldom justify their pronouncements by elaborate argument. They rarely seek to place the other social disciplines in relation to their own. Not uncommonly their own proceeds as though these others did not exist or as though they existed on another level of communication altogether. History takes so free an amplitude that these others become angles of incidence to its main highroad. It is presumptively concerned with the concrete reality, the wholeness of things, while these others attach to abstractions such as law and government and economics and morals. The other social disciplines vex themselves with the ambition to be entitled sciences and cast aspiring and emulous eyes on the physicist and the mathematician, but history loses no sleep over such aspirations—untroubled by the inferiority complex of its associates it is even ready to reject the title of science when offered.
The Social and Psychological Setting of Veblen's Economic Theory
Authors: Riesman David
Published: August 2016

In Veblen's own critique of other economists—andtion of his theory is just that—he relied securely on quasi-Marxist a major por-simplicities concerning causation. Other economists “got that way” because they were members of or sycophants of the kept classes, aristocratically disdainful of the actualities of production. Their theories, if they were classicists, were “superstructural” in the sense of being both above and behind the battle, for Veblen was one of the pioneers in the use of the culturallag concept which has done so much to confuse the understanding of the relations between technology and society. If they were American classicists, such as (in Veblen's view) J. B. Clark, diey were likely to couple a pallid reformism with their “fine-spun technicalities,” offering palliatives at the level of pecuniary theory for evils rooted in the very divorce of the pecuniary culture from its industrial base. And this reformism Veblen saw as a leisure-class product, along with female philanthropy, the arts and crafts movement, social work, and vegetarianism—the archaic by-products of the sheltered life of the better-off and the better-educated strata whose menial and hence life-giving work was done for them by others. Reformism was archaic because it was pre-evolutionary, pre-Darwinian; for Veblen, “A.D.” meant “After Darwin.” His emphasis on the datedness of economic theory—a charge to which Americans are especially sensitive since we like to be progressive and up-to-date—led Veblen to express recurrent hopes for the “younger generation” of economists, whom he wanted to make less literate and theoretical, less parasitic and less sanguine, less refined and more machine-minded. For Veblen as for Rousseau, what was young was less likely to be corrupted and spoiled.
Thomas Mun and Specie Flows
Authors: Wilson George W.
Published: August 2016

J. D. Gould in a fairly recent article attempts to explain why Thomas Mun did not develop the “self-regulating mechanism of specie distribution.” I find Mr. Gould's argument unconvincing and while I hesitate to question one point in an otherwise interesting atricle, I think the point merits further discussion.
Ideological Factors in Specie Resumption and Treasury Policy
Authors: Timberlake Richard H.
Published: August 2016

The general sentiment of Congress toward resumption of specie payments had become more and more desultory, not to say negative, during the early part of the 1870's. Nevertheless, the Resumption Act was passed in 1875, and resumption of specie payments at the pre-Civil War parity occurred on schedule in 1879. Observers have slighted this incongruity. Passage of the Resumption Act has come to be regarded as a true reflection of Victorian sentiment; ultimate resumption in 1879 was the proof of the pudding.2 What seems to have been lost in this rationalization of cause and effect is the generally unfavorable light in which resumption was being viewed in the middle 1870's, the alternatives that were available in lieu of resumption, and some of the forces of “immorality” that made these alternatives attractive.