bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Financing a Steam-Navigation Company in China, 1861–62
Authors: Liu Kwang-Ching
Published: April 2006

Russell & Co., the Boston partnership which had long been prominent in the China trade, found its business as commission agent in a state of serious decline by 1861. Therefore Edward Cunningham, a junior partner resident in Shanghai, conceived the idea of founding a steamship line to operate up the Yangtze River. This venture would require a capital far exceeding that used by Russell & Co. in its commission business. The head of the firm, Paul Sieman Forbes, who lived in New York and Newport, spurned the project in favor of more lucrative and secure investments in the United States. Cunningham then showed his promotional abilities by raising the necessary capital in China. Not only was the resultant Shanghai Steam Navigation Company profitable in itself, it also brought much commission business to Russell & Co. This article, based mainly on the manuscript records of the Forbes family, contributes to a more realistic estimate of the amount of American capital in the Far Eastern trade and to a greater appreciation of the administrative problems and methods involved.
Patterns of American Railroad Finance, 1830–50
Authors: Chandler Alfred D.
Published: April 2006

When American railroad promoters, in the years immediately after 1830, had to look beyond their own regions for capital, they turned first to Broad Street in Philadelphia, where Nicholas Biddle and his associates served as the agents for marketing vast amounts of sterling bonds in London. This mechanism was disrupted by the failure of the Bank of the United States of Pennsylvania in 1841. Then State Street in Boston became the center, and common stock became the chief instrument, of American railroad finance. The sharp recession of 1847 showed that the Boston capitalists had already made long-term investments in excess of the liquid capital available to them. New York merchants, bankers, and brokers now took up the task of financing the railroads of the South and West, and Wall Street became the undisputed financial center of the country.
Professionalization of Leadership in the Big Business Corporation
Authors: Newcomer Mabel
Published: April 2006

This study of the chief executives of large corporations over the period from 1900 to 1950 introduces specific evidence both to support and explain the thesis, hitherto vaguely entertained by many students of business, that administration of such corporations is rapidly becoming a profession.
The American System: A Review Article
Authors: Lively Robert A.
Published: April 2006

The role of government in the ante-bellum American economy has been boldly redefined in a score of books and articles published during the past decade. Close analysis of state and local sponsorship of enterprise, initiated and supported by the Committee on Research in Economic History, has suggested a thesis that appears to invite a new view of American capitalism in its formative years. Taken together, the works here reviewed form a consistent report of economic endeavor in an almost unfamiliar land. There, the elected public official replaced the individual enterpriser as the key figure in the release of capitalist energy; the public treasury, rather than private saving, became the major source of venture capital; and community purpose outweighed personal ambition in the selection of large goals for local economies. “Mixed” enterprise was the customary organization for important innovations, and government everywhere undertook the role put on it by the people, that of planner, promoter, investor, and regulator.
Thomas Cook and the American Blanket Trade in the Nineteenth Century
Authors: Glover Frederick J.
Published: April 2006

Dominance of the American blanket trade was obtained and held for half a century through a combination of aggressive marketing, progressive manufacturing methods, and far-sighted administration of a business beset by constant difficulties, part of which were peculiar to the times; part familiar to business in every age and circumstance.
Harold P. Brown and the Executioner's Current: an Incident in the AC-DC Controversy
Authors: Hughes Thomas P.
Published: April 2006

The Age of Electricity was foreshadowed by the “battle of the currents.” This almost forgotten controversy had important technological implications, but it is also a macabre chapter in the history of marketing tactics. Westinghouse's superior alternating current system was ingeniously attacked by proponents of direct current. Exploiting contemporary evidence from the penitentiary, the direct-current adherents declaimed against use by the public of a system employed by the state to rid itself of its most dangerous criminals.
A Business Elite: German-Jewish Financiers in Nineteenth-Century New York
Authors: Supple Barry E.
Published: April 2006

Business history, if it is to comprehend the men and movements with which it deals, must of necessity invade other academic fields. This article is an attempt to trace the social and economic influences which fashioned the ultimate business activities of German-Jewish investment bankers in the late nineteenth century. Second only to the group of houses of Yankee origin, the group led by Kuhn, Loeb & Co. provides us with an outstanding example of a business elite in operation. Significant from the point of view of business history is the fact that in origins, early activities, and outlook, these family firms displayed remarkable similarities. Once established in New York they became even more tightly knit through marriage and social life. Only when all these factors have been taken into account can we claim to understand the unique role which these businesses played in the development of the American capital market.
Business Manuscripts at Baker Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration
Authors: Lovett Robert W.
Published: April 2006

Many manuscript collections contain business materials of one sort or another, but Baker Library, of the Harvard Business School, has the largest single accumulation of such records, acquired by a private institution for purposes of research. These qualifications are necessary, since the records of many large companies, such as U. S. Steel, would greatly outnumber our holdings; and such a public institution as the National Archives contains extensive business materials.
The Robber Baron Concept In American History
Authors: Bridges Hal
Published: April 2006

The most vehement and persistent controversy in business history has been that waged by the critics and defenders of the “robber baron” concept of the American businessman. Far from being a pedantic exercise, this controversy has at various times exerted a decisive influence on business itself. The origins, spread, and obsolescence of the concept are traced here, together with the merits and failings of currently predominant historical attitudes.
Public Accounting in the United States from 1913 to 1928
Authors: Edwards James Don
Published: April 2006

In the years between 1913 and 1928 public accounting evolved from a relatively obscure and limited practice to full maturity as a respected and flourishing profession. The present article deals with these years in some detail, expanding a shorter survey published in the Business History Review in June, 1956. The period from 1928 to 1951 is dealt with in detail in an article in the December, 1956, issue.
The Decline of the Great Lakes Package-Freight Carriers
Authors: Fletcher Daniel O.
Published: April 2006

Once a flourishing transportation agency, the Great Lakes package-freight carriers passed through a period of decay and disappeared during World War II. This article analyzes the economic factors causing the diversion of traffic that was the primary reason for the decline of the package freighters.
Steamboats on the Rocks: The North Western Union Packet Company, 1866–1873
Authors: Toole Robert C.
Published: April 2006

This study narrates the history of the largest steamboat line on the western rivers during the decade following the Civil War and assesses causes and responsibilities for its failure.
Boom Stages In American Expansion
Authors: Gates Charles M.
Published: April 2006

In the years from 1880 to 1910 the Pacfiic Northwest went through a development that appears to have been broadly typical. This boom stage, a nonrecurrent frontier phenomenon, is actually the process of integrating the developing area with the national economy. The patterns set in the pliant boom era by forceful “ground floor operators” are likely to harden into long-term permanence.
The Perfect Melodeon: The Origins of the Estey Organ Company, 1846–1866
Authors: Nadworny Milton J.
Published: April 2006

The founding of the Estey Organ Company is a case study in the precarious cut-and-try method by which, in the nineteenth century, most American firms were created. Fleeting partnerships reflected the continuous search for and exhaustion of numerous small reservoirs of capital. Survival and growth were tied to increasing entrepreneurial specialization, broadening markets, and immunity to developing geographic handicaps.
Potential Competition and the American Antitrust Legislation of 1914
Authors: Klebaner Benjamin J.
Published: April 2006

The concepts of actual and potential competition as natural checks on trusts are examined through the literature which accompanied the framing and passage of the Chyton and Federal Trade Commission acts. The contributions of professional economists to these discussions are especially significant in the evolution of the public policies ultimately adopted.
Business Investment and Social Attitudes in 16th-Century France: The Example of the Paris Grocers
Authors: Larmour Ronda
Published: April 2006

In the manner of the Creole tradesmen of Louisiana, whose lagniappe to their patrons is legendary, the Editor offers a similar bonus to readers of the Review. Instead of trifling presents added to a purchase, however, our lagniappe will be notes and documents illustrative of the evolution of business enterprise.
A Note on the Origin of the Averaging and Indexing of Stock Prices
Authors: Bishop George W.
Published: April 2006

In the manner of the Creole tradesmen of Louisiana, whose lagniappe to their patrons is legendary, the Editors offer a similar bonus to readers of the Review. Instead of trifling presents added to a purchase, however, our lagniappe will be documents illustrative of the evolution of business enterprise. It is hoped thus to provide a wider availability of the raw materials of business history to teachers and researchers.
The Introduction of Diesel Power in the United States, 1897–1912
Authors: Lytle Richard H.
Published: April 2006

The international migration of the diesel engine provides a valuable case study in the interrelationships of entrepreneurship and innovation. As Mr. Lytle demonstrates, however, the introduction of the engine into the United States was far from efficiently managed and the process of technological diffusion was much slower and strained than it might have been.
Illinois Business Incorporations, 1816–1869
Authors: Eilert John W.
Published: April 2006

Usage of the corporate business form during the frontier period of Illinois history is tabulated in this study as a basis for comparisons with incorporation movements experienced by older and more economically developed states.
Entrepreneurial Activity in New York during the American Revolution
Authors: Mason Bernard
Published: April 2006

The ability of some New York businessmen to exploit the war economy of the Revolution is suggested in this study of their pursuits and profits.
Nuremberg in the International Economics of the Middle Ages
Authors: von Stromer Wolfgang
Published: April 2006

Little has been known of the role of Nuremberg in the international economy of the Middle Ages. In this pathbreaking study, Dr. von Stromer details the acquisition of the city's extensive trade privileges and economic influence and reveals that it came as the result of a conscious economic policy, planned and executed by the leading families of the city.
Recollections of the Banking Crisis in 1933
Authors: Awalt Francis Gloyd
Published: April 2006

According to a key participant, members of both the outgoing and incoming administrations worked side-by-side during the banking crisis of 1933. Their concern was not politics, but rather the search for a solution to the nation's financial problems — even though relations between President Herbert Hoover and President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt were not so amicable. Thus, the resultant banking holiday and Emergency Banking Act were not sole products of either the Republican or the Democratic administrations but the results of pragmatic, cooperative attempts to meet and solve the crisis.
Government and Business in Canada: An Interpretation
Authors: Aitken Hugh G. J.
Published: April 2006

Professor Aitken reveals a distinctive pattern of government-business relationships against the background of Canada's defensive economic development and its government's active role in the maintenance of national economic unity.
Southern Railroad Leaders, 1865-1893: Identities and Ideologies
Authors: Klein Maury
Published: April 2006

As the American South recovered from the Civil War, railroads and the businessmen who managed them were important ingredients in the process of economic change. But who were the railroad leaders of the first generation of the “New South” and what were their personal and corporate goals? What were the effects of their actions on the course of southern restoration? Sharply at odds with the usual “carpetbagger” demonology, Professor Klein suggests an alternative explanation and analysis.
The Growth Strategies of Southern Railroads, 1865-1893
Authors: Klein Maury , Yamamura Kozo
Published: April 2006

Railroads were unquestionably a leading sector of economic development in the American South following the Civil War. By appraising the growth strategies followed by southern roads as functions of their profitability, the authors illustrate how the supply of regional transport in the South was patterned by the decisions of competing groups of businessmen.
A “Dollar-a-Year Man” in Government: George N. Peek and the War Industries Board
Authors: Cuff Robert D.
Published: April 2006

In the rush to gear-up the American economy during World War I, what role did those business executives who were recruited into government service play? This study of a notable example of the “dollar-a-year man” suggests that a reciprocal learning experience on the part of both business and government was the result.
American War Mobilization and the Use of Small Manufacturers, 1939-1943
Authors: Heath Jim F.
Published: April 2006

Despite political pressure from their Congressional champions, small businesses were never effectively utilized in the American mobilization for World War II. The Roosevelt administration followed an ambivalent policy designed to placate the proponents of small business while giving the lion's share of contracts and scarce raw materials to big business.
Laws to Encourage Manufacturing: New York Policy and the 1811 General Incorporation Statute
Authors: Seavoy Ronald E.
Published: April 2006

Continuing a long tradition, the government of New York attempted to aid domestic manufacturing in various ways during the troubled period of the Embargo, the War of 1812, and the war's aftermath. Among the most important legislative actions was the state's general incorporation law for manufacturing, passed in 1811 on a temporary basis and enacted without time limit in 1821.
Financing Antebellum Importers: The Role of Brown Bros. & Co. in Baltimore
Authors: Perkins Edwin J.
Published: April 2006

The House of Brown was a major international banking firm during the nineteenth century. The leading banking houses such as Baring Brothers and the Browns facilitated the flow of goods throughout the world by providing a range of services vital to international commerce. Mr. Perkins examines the manner in which the firm did business in a large American port on the eve of the Civil War.
Size and Profitability of English Colliers in the Eighteenth Century
Authors: Hausman William J.
Published: April 2006

Taking a fresh look at the factors bearing on profitability of carrying coal from Newcastle to London in the eighteenth century, Professor Hausman finds that average ship loads rose and technology improved during the period. He notes that this is consistent with Adam Smith's dictum that England's effort to monopolize the colonial carrying trade, through the Navigation Acts, would divert capital from domestic to colonial shipping, thereby raising rates of return in the former and lowering them in the latter.
In Search of Jay Gould
Authors: Klein Maury
Published: April 2006

Jay Gould's image is stamped heavily upon the picture historians have drawn of the “Gilded Age” of American economic development. Our lack of knowledge of the man, and our meager efforts to understand him, account in large measure for the fatuous traditional interpretation of the era. Professor Klein explains how the work of recent historians has made the hackneyed view of both the man and his age obsolete. He reviews the constructive role that Gould played in the rise of modern America, and offers an explanation of why the man was singled out for extraordinary condemnation in his own time.
Textile Bleaching: A Note on the Scottish Experience
Authors: Durie Alastair J.
Published: April 2006

Professor Durie examines the significance of the “chemical revolution” of the eighteenth century in the expansion of the Scottish linen industry.
Commercial Association in Thirteenth-Century Lucca
Authors: Blomquist Thomas W.
Published: April 2006

Professor Blomquist describes and analyzes various forms of business association in an important northern Italian city during the period of economic growth in the thirteenth century. These included two basic forms of partnerships, as well as an early version of limited liability association.
Trade Associations and Economic Power: Interest Group Development in the German Iron and Steel and Machine Building Industries, 1900–1933
Authors: Feldman Gerald D. , Nocken Ulrich
Published: April 2006

This study traces the evolution of several large and powerful trade associations in early twentieth-century Germany and seeks to place them in comparative perspective.
Portfolio Management and Profitability in Early-Nineteenth-Century Banking
Authors: Adams Donald R.
Published: April 2006

Notwithstanding the importance of maintaining soundness, commercial banks in early ante-bellum America still strove to maximize profits, according to Professor Adams, who cites Stephen Girard's conservative private bank as an example. Using internal data from Girard's bank, of the kind that is seldom available for banks, he shows that a flexible policy of shifting from government and quasi-government securities, as they became scarcer, to business debt, both long- and short-term, kept bank profits from declining. So long as Girard lived, his bank remained fully competitive with the growing number of chartered institutions.
A British Business Elite: The Chief Executive Managers of the Railway Industry, 1850-1922
Authors: Gourvish Terence R.
Published: April 2006

An examination of the chief executives of leading British railways from 1850 through 1922 indicates that they emerged from predominantly upper-middle and upper class origins, and that they represented a new kind of bureaucratic business elite which enjoyed rising incomes and growing social status. In addition, available evidence reveals nothing to suggest that “executive immobility” was characteristic of British railway management, or that the railways were particularly inefficient or unprogressive in their choice of senior managers.
Trust Companies and Financial Innovation, 1897–1914
Authors: Neal Larry
Published: April 2006

Professor Neal assesses the innovative role of a key financial institution — the trust company — during the period of American economic growth after the depression of the 1890's and prior to World War I.
Structural Shifts in Southern Manufacturing, 1849–1899
Authors: Niemi Albert W.
Published: April 2006

In the decade prior to the Civil War, southern manufacturing was surprisingly similar to that of the non-South. In the latter portion of the nineteenth century, however, a wide divergence developed between that region and the rest of the nation.
The New Deal and the “Broker State:” A Review of the Recent Scholarly Literature
Authors: Braeman John
Published: April 2006

Professor Braeman evaluates historians' current assessment of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, finding a new consensus emerging among scholars of that important era in American history.
The Slave Trade and British Capital Formation in the Eighteenth Century: A Comment on the Williams Thesis
Authors: Engerman Stanley L.
Published: April 2006

Professor Engerman constructs estimates of relevant data in order to test the assertion that profits from the slave trade provided the capital which financed the Industrial Revolution in England.
Early Cost Accounting for Internal Management Control: Lyman Mills in the 1850's
Authors: Johnson H. Thomas
Published: April 2006

This study of the accounting records of a mid-nineteenth-century New England textile enterprise sheds new light on the emergence of modern cost accounting as a specialized tool of management.
Rubber in Brazil: Dominance and Collapse, 1876-1945
Authors: Resor Randolph R.
Published: April 2006

For the first few years of this century, Brazil was the major supplier of rubber to the world. However, the Amazonian wild rubber industry was unable to compete, in either price or quality, with the Asian plantation rubber that began to appear on world markets after 1906. Development of a successful plantation culture in the Amazon seemed imperative, but even with public subsidy, plantations remained an economic impossibility. By 1945 the Brazilian rubber industry, overwhelmed by Asian production, had virtually disappeared.
British and American Yarn Count Systems: An Historical Analysis
Authors: Jeremy David J.
Published: April 2006

Mr. Jeremy traces since the Middle Ages the interaction of technology and business organization in shaping the measuring systems for yarn in the British and later the American textile industries. Despite the attendant confusion and difficulties, a remarkable motley of such systems arose and has persisted.
Management Relations in a Multinational Enterprise: The Case of Canadian Industries Limited, 1928–1948
Authors: Taylor Graham D.
Published: April 2006

Historians of modern, multinational, diversified industrial economies have learned that to deduce rigid, authoritarian control of subsidiaries, especially those in foreign countries, from the fact of over-all corporate ownership from afar, often leads to very inaccurate conclusions. The case of Canadian Industries, Ltd., a diversified Canadian chemical company jointly owned by the American and British giants, Du Pont and Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., reveals that a remarkable degree of independence was retained by the Canadian subsidiary even in such globally important policy matters as diversification, entry into new geographic areas, transfer of technology, and inter-company pricing of materials. Transnational ownership of industrial facilities, in short, produced advantages that were shared by both headquarters and local enterprises, leaving most of the anti-multinational movement to be explained as simpleminded nationalism.
Thomas Midgley and the Politics of Industrial Research
Authors: Leslie Stuart W.
Published: April 2006

The conventional distinctions between “practical” and “scientific” research and development can be misleading. The experience of Thomas Midgley, Jr., at the General Motors Corporation in the three decades before World War II, and especially his critical role in the development of “antiknock” gasoline additives, freon refrigerant, and synthetic rubber, illustrate this fact. Dr. Leslie demonstrates that the management of corporate research and development, especially as that management affects uniquely talented individuals whose interests do not necessarily reflect the immediate needs of the company as seen by management, is basic to success. To solve such problems as they arose, Charles F. Kettering, himself a sympathetic scientist as well as distinguished inventor, worked closely with chief executive Alfred P. Sloan, whose genius for solving managerial problems matched the scientific genius of the most brilliant men in the General Motors laboratories.
British Investment and the Land: Nebraska, 1877–1946
Authors: McFarlane Larry A.
Published: April 2006

Though often controversial, British investment has long played an important role in American economic development. But one sector where British capital has found a home is agriculture, where such investment has taken many forms in many places. In this essay Professor McFarlane looks at various land investments that Britons made in the North Central states, particularly Nebraska, during the last decades of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth century, a time when there was a general agricultural boom in the cornhusker state, albeit one sandwiched around various business contractions. In his remarks McFarlane not only examines British strategies of investment but also quantifies its extent and its longterm return. To a degree his conclusions dispel some of the concerns and controversies that attended the flow of British capital into western lands.
The Council of Economic Advisers and the Recession of 1953–1954
Authors: Engelbourg Saul
Published: April 2006

As the American economy, for the second time since the end of World War II, seemed about to falter in late 1953, the nation watched closely to see what economic policy the first Republican administration in twenty years would adopt. A new factor was the Council of Economic Advisers, whose professional economists, mild conservatives though they were, had long since adopted Keynesian compensatory spending as the new orthodoxy. Government spending was increased very moderately and once again the severe postwar downturn that Americans had been expecting for nearly a decade failed to develop. The credit went to Keynesianism and the Council but, as Professor Engelbourg emphasizes, whether another policy or no policy at all would have produced different results, is beyond our knowing.
Debt Peonage Reconsidered: A Case Study in Nineteenth-Century Zacatecas, Mexico
Authors: Cross Harry E.
Published: April 2006

Against the widely accepted view of the nineteenth-century Mexican peon as a hapless individual caught in perpetual debt bondage to the “company store” of the hacienda on which he spent his short life of drudgery, Dr. Cross places some unique hard evidence drawn from the account books of one such hacienda. He finds that, in this case at least, the number of peons in debt at any one time was very small and the debt well within their ability to repay, thanks in no small part to a system of payment of a large part of their wages in kind. The exceptions reflected in most cases debts incurred either to pay the local priest's stiff fees for administering such sacraments as baptism and marriage, or for funds to invest in the peasant's own agricultural enterprises.
Giant of the West: Henry J. Kaiser and Regional Industrialization, 1930–1950
Authors: Foster Mark S.
Published: April 2006

Many entrepreneurs have contributed to the economic growth of the Far West, from the railroad builders of the nineteenth century to the modern day pioneers in Silicon Valley. In this article, Professor Foster focuses on the career of Henry J. Kaiser—an entrepreneur who was unquestionably one of the key figures in the modernization of the region. Though Foster does not slight the economic and political factors that made possible Kaiser's achievement he stresses that Kaiser's imagination, energy, and personal commitment were key elements in the maturation of the region's industrial economy.
The Great Western Railway Under the British Railways Act of 1921
Authors: Channon Geoffrey
Published: April 2006

American railroad executives since the end of World War II have learned — the hard way, as usual — how little real salvation there is in the expedient of the massive merger. They might have studied to good purpose the experiences of the English railways, which were forced to consolidate into four great systems under legislation passed in 1921. Dr. Channon has done so, and tells a dreary story that scouts the idea that great cost savings flow all but automatically from consolidations. His discussion of the Great Western's failure to introduce railway cars capable of carrying 20 tons of coal, at a time when the typical American coal car carried a payload of more than twice that amount, will be variously interpreted by both sides in the controversy over the decline in British entrepreneurship since 1870. Dr. Channon throws much light, moreover, on the problems of managerial organization, a subject that claims considerable attention in current business history.
Control by Coercion: Employers' Associations and the Establishment of Industrial Order in the Building Industry of England and Wales, 1860–1914
Authors: McKenna J. A. , Rodger Richard G.
Published: April 2006

The history of management-labor relations has in recent years become a central concern for business historians. In this article, Dr, Rodger and Mr. McKenna consider management-labor relations in the British building industry in the years preceding the First World War. They demonstrate that a variety of factors—not the least of which being the industry's notorious volatility—constrained management's ability to discipline the work force, and conclude that whatever success it attained proved transitory, accompanied as it was by the advent of government-financed municipal housing.
Management's Crisis of Confidence and the Origin of the National Industrial Conference Board, 1914–1916
Authors: Gitelman H.M.
Published: April 2006

In this essay, Professor Gitelman draws upon new primary source materials to help clarify the outlook of American business leaders in the years immediately preceding U.S. entry into World War I. He shows how business leaders brooded, at periodic private conferences, over the profound loss in public esteem they believed business had suffered. This “crisis of confidence,” he concludes, precipitated defensive associational efforts. The creation of conference boards—the brainchild of Magnus W. Alexander—provided an institutional base for these efforts, and pointed the way to the creation of the National Industrial Conference Board.
Entrepreneurship as Diplomacy: Nelson Rockefeller and the Development of the Brazilian Capital Market
Authors: Cobbs Elizabeth A.
Published: April 2006

This article analyzes the creation of the Fundo Crescinco, a mutual fund that Nelson Rockefeller started in Brazil in the 1950s as part of a larger effort to continue, using private means, the Good Neighbor policy of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Fundo Crescinco reflected both the liberal assumptions of many academicians of that era about the importance of the middle class to economic development and the concerns of business people about placating Latin American nationalism. The fund's history provides insight into the complex and often contradictory nature of U.S.-Latin American relations following the Second World War, and it demonstrates the limits of entrepreneurship as an extension of diplomacy.
Scale and Scope: A Review Colloquium - Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism. By Alfred D. ChandlerJr., with Takashi Hikino · Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990. xix + 860 pp. Charts, figures, tables, appendixes, notes, and index. $35.00.
Authors: Chandler Alfred D.
Published: April 2006

In Scale and Scope, Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., sets out a complex and sustained interpretation of “the dynamics of industrial capitalism.” His work, the culmination of decades of study, spanning three major economies (the United States, Great Britain, and Germany) from the 1880s to the 1940s, will undoubtedly be a central point of reference for all business historians for a very long time to come. More than that, it also makes contributions to, and has wide implications for, a great variety of fields of scholarship, research, and debate. It is hard to imagine any single book review that could do justice to the scale and the scope of Chandler's work.
Kennedy, Oil Imports, and the Fair Trade Doctrine
Authors: Zeiler Thomas W.
Published: April 2006

In his efforts to secure passage of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, John F. Kennedy had to placate not only oil and coal interests at home, but also traditional trade partners like Venezuela abroad, and he also had to foster the broad national security aim of retaining domestic oil reserves. This article argues that Kennedy was able to utilize a fair trade doctrine to gain enactment of legislation that would both lower trade barriers and assist domestic producers hurt by increased imports.
Terminating Building Societies in Quebec City, 1850–1864
Authors: Paterson Donald G. , Shearer Ronald A.
Published: April 2006

In discussions of the history of real estate markets a key role clearly must be assigned to financial institutions, yet our knowledge of their various structures, particularly before the late nineteenth century, remains sketchy. One organization created to facilitate real estate purchases in the absence of other institutional sources of mortgage loans was the building society, either permanent or terminating. This article gathers together the information available about terminating building societies in mid-nineteenth century Quebec City. After an explanation of the societies' objectives and regulations, the article examines the difficulties that these societies faced as a result of general economic fluctuations and of the changing desires of members, who often wished to use the societies to place savings at interest rather than for home purchase.
The Rise and Fall of Ace Records: A Case Study in the Independent Record Business
Authors: Mabry Donald J.
Published: April 2006

The record industry in the United States was controlled until the 1950s by a half dozen major companies, which produced music directed primarily toward the white middle class. The following article uses the history of Ace Records, a small, regional, independent company, to examine the nature of the record industry in the 1950s and 1960s. The article explains the shifts in demography and technology that made possible the growth of the independents, as well as the obstacles and events that made their demise more likely. It also traces the changes that such companies, by recording and promoting rhythm and blues and early rock ‘n’ roll, introduced to the cultural mainstream.
Corporate Liberalism and Electric Power System Planning in the 1920s
Authors: DeGraaf Leonard
Published: April 2006

Examining the efforts to restructure the electric power industry during the early 1920s, this article challenges the view that proponents of corporate liberalism shared a belief in the legitimacy of corporate capitalism and that conflicts among them involved only technical and managerial issues. It argues, rather, that corporate liberals could disagree about the goals of economic planning as well as about tactics and strategy and that they often held conflicting perceptions of the nature of corporate capitalism in American society.
Contrived Competition: Airline Regulation and Deregulation, 1925–1988
Authors: Vietor Richard H. K.
Published: April 2006

Although many have studied regulatory policy in the United States, few have viewed it as a process, shaping markets and industries and, in turn, being affected by the structures it helped to create. By looking at the forty-year history of airline regulation and then focusing on one company's adaptations to deregulation, this article demonstrates that monocausal explanations fail to capture the complex and dynamic nature of the interaction between regulation and competition in America.
Racism, Slavery, and Free Enterprise: Black Entrepreneurship in the United States before the Civil War
Authors: Walker Juliet E. K.
Published: April 2006

In reconstructing the early business history of black America, Professor Walker emphasizes the diversity and complexity of antebellum black entrepreneurship, both slave and free. With few exceptions, prevailing historical assessments have confined their analyses of pre-Civil War black business participation to marginal enterprises, concentrated primarily in craft and service industries. In America's preindustrial mercantile business community, however, blacks established a wide variety of enterprises, some of them remarkably successful. The business activities of antebellum blacks not only offer insights into the multiplicity of responses to the constraints of racism and slavery, but also highlight relatively unexplored areas in the historical development of the free enterprise system in the United States.
“Old Homes, in a City of Perpetual Change”: Women's Magazines, 1890–1916
Authors: Waller-Zuckerman Mary Ellen
Published: April 2006

Although the growth of inexpensive, widely distributed magazines that began in the United States in the 1890s has been noted, the role played by magazines directed specifically toward female readers has received little scholarly attention. The following article examines contents, personnel, and readership and advertising, pricing, production, and distribution techniques to demonstrate that the women's magazines were pioneers in many of these areas.
R&D and Competition in England and the United States: The Case of the Aluminum Dirigible
Authors: Graham Margaret B. W.
Published: April 2006

This historical comparison of the Vickers and Alcoa experiences with “borrowed” German airship technology highlights the importance of studying the way industrial R&D has been organized, both within industries and inside individual companies. Professor Graham shows that Alcoa's move in 1919 to organize its corporate Technical Department to include balanced research and development capabilities allowed it not only to appropriate Duralumin technology, but also to build on that technology so that it could be used to supply the infant U.S. airframe industry. Lacking such integrated R&D at the corporate level, Vickers obtained only short–term financial returns on its investment in Duralumin expertise. This article suggests that the differences in exploitation of high–strength aluminum derived partly from different national climates for R&D in the United States and England after the First World War.
The Mind's Eye of Reform: The ICC's Bureau of Statistics and Accounts and a Vision of Regulation, 1887–1940
Authors: Miranti Paul J.
Published: April 2006

By examining the relationship between measurement and regulation at the Interstate Commerce Commission between 1887 and 1940, the following article sheds light on a little-studied component of the commission's work. It argues that the nature of the accounting and statistical tools used by the ICC had an impact on the regulatory process, specifically that the difficulties encountered in the development of accurate and relevant railroad statistics often undermined the agency's ability to achieve its regulatory goals. At the same time, a changing economic, political, and social environment affected the regulators' perception of the type of data necessary to gain control of the industry's structure.
A Ready-Made Business: The Birth of the Clothing Industry in America
Authors: Zakim Michael
Published: April 2006

This article recounts the birth of the clothing industry in the United States after 1815. It contends, in contrast to recent historical literature, that the clothing business was at the center of the American experience of industrialization. This was not because ready-made clothing was a novel commodity. Nor was it because of new production technologies, social innovations, or legal structures adopted by the industry. Rather, clothing entrepreneurs were significant because they integrated several important markets—a trans-Atlantic trade in cloth, an urban trade in labor, and a market for manufactured goods in the interior regions of the United States. This helped to make the ready-made clothing business among the country's largest industries by 1850.
Bürgerliche Gesellschaftand Consumer Interests: The Berlin Public Market Hall Reform, 1867–1891
Authors: Lohmeier Andrew
Published: April 2006

By building retail and wholesale market halls in the 1880s, the city of Berlin rationalized the distribution of food while maintaining public control of commerce. In designing the market hall system, technological improvement and public orderliness emerged as top priorities, while the interests of consumers and small retail dealers who had relied on the traditional outdoor public markets remained secondary. The emphasis on order reflected the interests of the city's economic and cultural elite, theBürgertum, who sought to make Berlin fit their image of a world-class city.
Efficiency, Environmental Quality, and Oil Field Brines: The Success and Failure of Pollution Control by Self-Regulation
Authors: Gorman Hugh S.
Published: April 2006

In the first half of the twentieth century, most firms sought to reduce emissions, effluents, and other pollution-causing discharges only when it resulted in the recovery of valuable material or decreased the amount of money spent on damage and nuisance suits. However, this did not necessarily mean that engineers and technical managers saw themselves—or the firms that employed them—as polluters. Rather, they assumed that as they made industrial operations more efficient, they would also address pollution concerns. This article illustrates the initial success and ultimate failure of this efficiency-based ethic of self-regulation by examining efforts to eliminate the pollution associated with the disposal of oil field brines. Until the 1950s, it argues, efforts to address problems associated with the disposal of oil field brines reinforced the notion that economic incentives to increase the efficiency of industrial operations overlapped with efforts to fight pollution. However, by the late 1950s, economic incentives proved incapable of encouraging further reductions in brine contamination. Yet pollution concerns remained. Since then, the efficiency-based ethic of self-regulation has gradually been replaced by an ethic that most people—and most firms—now treat as legitimate: reaching consensus on environmental objectives and then regulating pollution-causing discharges to meet those objectives.
Global Perspectives and British Paradoxes
Authors: Jones Geoffrey
Published: April 2006

For Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., inScale and Scope, “the British story provides a counterpoint, an antitheses, to the American experience.” Chandler shows that fewer of the largest firms appeared in Britain. British companies preferred to retain family or family-like control and management; he terms this “personal capitalism.” Firms were reluctant to recruit professional managers, and if they did so, they did not like them to have received much formal education. There were no business schools in the pre-1945 U.K. These personal capitalists on the whole preferred personal income to making the 3-pronged investments in manufacturing, marketing and management in the capitalintensive industries of the Second Industrial Revolution. The more complex the technical and managerial skills required in an industry, the worse these personal capitalists performed and the greater the missed opportunities. For Chandler, Britain stands as a warning of the unpleasant consequences of not adopting managerial capitalism.
The Development of Modern Business in Japan
Authors: Abe Etsuo
Published: April 2006

Although it has not been recognized very clearly, Alfred Chandler offers a dual definition of modern business. One definition focuses on the formation of “managerial hierarchies;” this refers to the rise of professional managers, a development that eventually leads to the separation of management and ownership. The advent of the managerial firm, or managerial capitalism, symbolizes modern business. Chandlers other definition focuses on management structure and emphasizes the U-form (Unitary-form) or M-form (Multi-divisionalform), both of which are organizational types closely associated with the development of modern, large-scale firms. The modern firm usually has the characteristics of a managerial organization and employs either the U-form or M-form (typically the latter) structure.
Henry Heinz and Brand Creation in the Late Nineteenth Century: Making Markets for Processed Food
Authors: Koehn Nancy F.
Published: April 2006

This article assesses the brand-building strategies of Henry Heinz. Heinz began selling bottled horseradish to Pittsburgh residents in 1869. When he died in 1919, his company, H.J. Heinz, was one of the largest food processors in the world. Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., and other scholars have pointed to Heinz's ability to make use of supply-side innovations such as improved transportation and continuous canning technology. But Heinz also paid attention to economic and social changes that were altering the demand side of the economy. Between 1860 and 1920, rising incomes, population growth, and urbanization helped shape the wants and needs of consumers. Heinz understood that shifting household priorities represented an important strategic opportunity. Acting on input from consumers and his own intuitions about the demand side, he created quality products and a meaningful brand. The entrepreneur also invested in a range of organizational capabilities that would support his products and corporate identity. Heinz's success in manufacturing, branding, and distributing condiments and other foods, many of which had previously been prepared at home, helped create a mass market for additional foodstuffs and eventually other consumer products.
The Struggle over Management Rights at US Steel, 1946-1960: A Reassessment of Section 2-B of the Collective Bargaining Contract
Authors: Rose James D.
Published: April 2006

The steel industry has been criticized for unnecessarily provoking the lengthy 1959 strike that allowed steel imports to penetrate the United States market. The industry demanded from the union the revision of a collective bargaining clause that protected local working practices. Historians have viewed the clause as inconsequential and the industry's demand for revision unnecessary. This article explores the US Steel Corporation's history of cost reductions and modernization during the 1950s in relation to this contract clause. It argues that the corporation's 1959 bargaining stance, although tactically flawed, made strategic sense given US Steel's decision to cut costs through crew reductions and incremental technological changes at its older mills.
Locating Australian Corporate Memory
Authors: Ville Simon , Fleming Grant
Published: April 2006

This research note reports on the quantity of business records available in Australia as indicated by a recent survey of the top one hundred firms operating during the twentieth century. The archival work was undertaken as part of a large study investigating aspects of corporate leadership in Australia, conducted Jointly at the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne. We found that the surviving records of Australian businesses cover a wide selection of firm types, and that the comprehensiveness of many archives places business history on a sound foundation for the future.