bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Prices in Russia in the Sixteenth Century
Authors: Blum Jerome
Published: August 2016

The thesis that long-term price movements in medieval and early modern periods were the results of changes in the supply of precious metals has been questioned by a number of historians who believe that fluctuations in population provide a more fundamental explanation. These men point out that if changes in the supply of money were primarily responsible, the secular rise and fall of prices would have been approximately the same for all commodities. Actually, agricultural prices rose and fell faster and more sharply than did the prices of industrial goods. It is claimed that these price changes and the lack of synchronization between them can be satisfactorily explained by changes in the size of population:
The Role of the Merchant on the Oregon Frontier: The Early Business Career of Henry W. Corbett, 1851–1869
Authors: Throckmorton Arthur L.
Published: August 2016

A Figure common to all frontiers was the businessman who made the transition from pioneer merchant to financier. This paper is an examination of the early career of one such merchant on the remote underdeveloped Oregon frontier during the 1850's and 1860's.
Reflections on the History of the French and American Labor Movements
Authors: Lorwin Val R.
Published: August 2016

Jules Michelet remarked that the forms of association “must differ … among the different countries, according to the diversity of national genius.” and Denis W. Brogan once said (he is surely one who does not merit the reproach): “Because we have studied only France, we have not understood even France.” The second remark might apply to the United States, too. There has been talk of the value of comparative study of labor movements, but comparatively little application of comparative methods to labor history. A comparison of the history of association in labor unions in France and the United States may therefore throw a little more light on the “national genius” of each country as well as on die behavior of each labor movement.
Problems of the Development of Hungarian Industry, 1900–1944
Authors: Ránki György
Published: August 2016

The revolution of 1848, by ending the system of serfdom, had created the basic conditions of Hungary's industrialization; however, since the revolution had remained incomplete and the War of Independence had been lost, the ensuing suppression by Austrian absolutism and the considerable feudal survivals proved a strong barrier to the way of social and economic progress. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy, a product of the Compromise of 1867, offered somewhat more favorable conditions for economic development. Nevertheless, the structure of the dual monarchy kept Hungary's industrialization within rather narrow limits: the absence of independent statehood and the existence of a common customs area with Austria exposed the Hungarian market to devastating competition from Austria's more advanced manufacturing industry; and since these circumstances helped to consolidate the political and economic power of the large landowners, the capital accumulating within the country served above all the capitalist development of agriculture. So towards the end of the nineteenth century, nearly half a century after the bourgeois revolution, Hungary was still a wholly agrarian country whose major exports were foodstuffs and agricultural produce. The rapid development of manufacturing industry began as late as the last decade of the nineteenth century and continued until the beginning of World War I, over a span of some twenty-five years.
American Economic Growth Before 1840: An Exploratory Essay
Authors: Taylor George Rogers
Published: August 2016

In developing the subject of this paper, “American Economic Growth before 1840,” I shall, relying for the most part on familiar materials, propose the hypothesis that economic growth per capita in the thirteen colonies of Britain in America advanced at a relatively rapid rate from about 1710 to 1775.1 shall also suggest that the level of living remained relatively low in these colonies as late as about 1710 and that for the new nation output per capita over the years 1775 to 1840 improved slowly if at all.
The Economic Growth of the Chesapeake and the European Market, 1697–1775
Authors: Price Jacob M.
Published: August 2016

The relative position of the Chesapeake in the economy of the thirteen colonies before the American Revolution is a matter of some ambiguity. On the one hand, we are traditionally taught to view Virginia and Maryland as somewhat backward compared to their northern neighbors, particularly in their lack of large towns and of those forms of a centralized market economy commonly based upon urban commercial centers. On the other hand, simple quantitative measurement seems to indicate that they were among the most highly developed of the colonies. Virginia was the most populous of all, and even Maryland had more inhabitants than New York. If between them they were to account for about 30 per cent of the population of the thirteen colonies on the eve of the Revolution, they were even more strikingly to account for close to 50 percent of colonial exports to England. If we add in oft-neglected Scotland as a recipient, then the Chesapeake's share of exports to Great Britain passes 60 per cent. If we had chosen to make our measurements as of a generation earlier, then the Chesapeake's share of colonial exports would have been even higher.
The Weaning of the American Economy: Independence, Market Changes, and Economic Development
Authors: Bjork Gordon C.
Published: August 2016

Disagreement on the state of the economic health of the new nation has persisted since contemporary observers disputed over the changes wrought by the end of the War for Inpendence. In recent years, diagnosis has ranged from the gloomy picture of commercial depression painted by Curtis Nettels to the rather different evaluation of Merrill Jensen, who found the period “one of extraordinary economic growth.”
Some Dimensions of the American Commercial Invasion of Europe, 1871–1914: An Introductory Essay
Authors: Simon Matthew , Novack David E.
Published: August 2016

Written history abounds with colorful generalizations which can often be regarded as immovable and undying monuments to the truth. Stately, memorable, unself-conscious, their smooth surfaces and clean lines are unmarred by the asymmetry of qualification. Particularly impressive are those memorials which stand majestically on pedestals of aggregate quantitative evidence. Decomposition is then akin to deformation; iconoclasm becomes a species of philistinism. Nonetheless, although history may be considered a type of art, it is not pop art. The melancholy task of critical destruction is part of the historian's mandate.
Farm Construction as a Use of Farm Labor in the United States, 1850–1910
Authors: Primack Martin L.
Published: August 2016

The construction and improvement of farm buildings in the United States during the latter half of the nineteenth century was a task of farmcapital formation exceeded only by the effort to clear the land itself. As uses of the farmer's time and capital, the erection of the first crude shelters and the steady additions to the dwelling and to other farm buildings are of major interest and importance in the analysis of American agricultural development. The statistics available to measure this work are adequate to command attention; like all statistics of this period, they must, of course, be employed with caution.
The Medici Bank Organization and Management
Authors: de Roover Raymond
Published: August 2016

The organization of a commercial firm or a corporation is usually J. determined by the nature of its business. We must, therefore, know the meaning of the word “bank” which appears in the title of this study. Today this word has a variety of meanings. There are all sorts of banks: central banks, commercial banks, member banks, and so forth. In the fifteenth century, there were not so many kinds of credit institutions. But still the word “bank” had more than one meaning. What kind of a bank was the Medici bank?
Financing Industrial Expansion for War: The Origin of the Defense Plant Corporation Leases
Authors: White Gerald T.
Published: August 2016

One of the recent tendencies in the United States has been the movement away from private methods of finance to finance through government agencies, a trend that has been particularly noticeable during periods of national catastrophe such as wars and depressions. In these periods we have seen, in addition to other sources of government financing, the use of the War Finance Corporation during World War I and the use on a far larger scale of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation during the Great Depression and World War II.

During World War II two thirds of a total expenditure for industrial facilities of approximately $25 billion was directly financed by the government. In contrast, during the three-year period of 1917–1919, only about one tenth of the $6 billion in new facilities under construction was directly financed by the government.
American Evaluations of European Agriculture
Authors: Danhof Clarence H.
Published: August 2016

The development of American agricultural techniques in the period JL prior to 1800 may be thought of as occurring through the amalgamation of the techniques and resources of the Old World and the New. The first half of the nineteenth century, though dominated by the changes imposed by agricultural expansion on the frontier and by a growing urban population, featured also careful evaluation of the differences between American and European agriculture, a process that resulted in extensive but selected borrowings. The middle of the century witnessed declarations of American technical independence on the basis of equality and indeed superiority over Europe in some areas and the dominance of the idea that henceforth agricultural progress would depend on America's own exploration and experimentation.
Agenda for the Study of British Imperial Economy, 1850-1950
Authors: Hancock W. K.
Published: August 2016

“Imperialism is no word for scholars.” I quote my own printed words of ten years ago. The bewildering changes of content and color of that chameleon word throughout the brief century of its existence are. now being explored by R. F. Koebner of the University of Jerusalem. Here indeed is a fit task for scholars—to take a key word such as imperialism or despotism, to trace the history of its usage and abusage, to fit it into its true context of ideology, propaganda, and political warfare throughout successive historical phases. What a scholar can NOT do with these emotionally reverberant words is to make them reliable instruments of scientific exploration and explanation.
Langdon Cheves and Nicholas Biddle: New Data for a New Interpretation
Authors: Wright David McCord
Published: August 2016

Few men have had a worse posthumous press than Langdon Cheves of South Carolina, second president of the Second Bank of the United States. He has generally been portrayed as an able lawyer but ignorant of economics and banking—and often as a narrow deflationist who saved the Bank but ruined the country. Vexed by criticism, he is frequently supposed to have gladly bowed out in favor of the better trained Nicholas Biddle.
Capitalism and the Historians: A Contribution to the Discussion on the Industrial Revolution in England
Authors: Woodruff W.
Published: August 2016

The topic of “Capitalism and the Historians” is a subject far exceeding the limitations normally imposed by historical discipline. In fact, in a still wider context, this subject has much to do with the great ideological division of the modern world into the two vast camps of capitalist and communist countries, a most somber spectacle facing us today. The aim here is not to trace the steps by which we have reached the tragic facts of contemporary affairs, but rather to show how our beliefs concerning these matters (such as the view taken of capitalism) are influenced largely by our impression of the past.
Transportation as a Factor in Economic Growth
Authors: Healey Kent T.
Published: August 2016

To discuss the influence of one type of economic activity such as transportation on economic growth is a hazardous undertaking. There is the obvious temptation, which has led many astray, to magnify the importance of that which is particularized. Such a characterization as “Transportation a Measure of Civilization” or the assertion that the railway “is a revolution among nations … [a] moral revolution … affecting the diffusion of knowledge, the interchange of social relations, the perpetuation of peace, the extension of commerce; and a revolution in all the relations of property,” is hardly impartial or balanced with respect to the whole picture of economic activity. A prime objective of this paper is to avoid the dominant parochial note in appraisals of transportation's contributions to economic growth and to present instead thoroughly critical analysis.
Reform Unionism: The National Labor Union
Authors: Grob Gerald N.
Published: August 2016

The National Labor Union represented the first attempt to organize a national federation of labor in the United States. The germ of the idea for such a national federation of labor had been planted at the beginning of the Civil War, but it was not until 1866 that plans were set in motion to organize such a body. In February of that year William Harding, the president of the Coachmakers' International Union, met with Willam H. Sylvis, president of the Iron Moulders' International Union. A preliminary meeting called by these two leaders led to the convening of a national labor convention in Baltimore on August 20, 1866. From this modest beginning the National Labor Union quickly rose to a prominent position. The Chicago Tribune in 1869 estimated its membership at 800,000, and Sylvis himself put the figure at 600,000. Both estimates are undoubtedly exaggerated, but it is quite apparent that the organization represented a large proportion of the nation's laboring force and perhaps at its peak strength numbered between 200,000 and 400,000. The decline of the union was almost as spectacular as its rise, and by 1872 it was totally defunct.
An Episode in the Continental System in the Illyrian Provinces
Authors: Avakumovic Ivan
Published: August 2016

Napoleon's successful campaigns against Austria in 1805 and 1809 led to the signing of the treaties of Pressburg and Schonbrunn which placed interalia the eastern shores of the Adriatic in French hands. The entire coastline from Trieste to Cattaro became part of the Illyrian Provinces designed to act as a barrier against British trade, to provide a land route between Turkey and the French empire, and to weaken Austria.
The Sandy Hook Lighthouse Incident of 1787
Authors: Zornow William Frank
Published: August 2016

The appraisal of the period when America was governed by the Articles of Confederation as one of stagnation, peculation, and disunion so long popular with writers of the Fiske “Critical Period” school has been attacked quite successfully in recent years by such writers as Merrill Jensen. While challenging many popular, misconceptions concerning the period, he has also demonstrated that the mercantile situation was by no means a hopeless one and that long before 1789 the states were moving in the direction of an increasing co-operation on matters affecting interstate and international trade.
Factors in a British Trade Cycle
Authors: Rostow W. W.
Published: August 2016

R. C. O. Matthews' full-length study of British fluctuations in the 1830's is good history and good economic analysis. There is no equivalent book on a single cyclical passage, not even excepting the great interwar boom and slump in the United States.
The Land-Grant Colleges and Universities in Human-Resource Development
Authors: Bowman Mary Jean
Published: August 2016

Mauriac, and probably several thousand other Frenchmen, have remarked that what worried them most about the United States and Russia was not the respects in which these countries differed but rather that they were fundamentally so much alike. If Mauriac had studied the history of the land-grant colleges and universities, he might have concluded that they were both the most Russian-like and the most thoroughly American sector of our education. Where else could one find schools so materialistically oriented or so (almost) successfully Jacksonian? To look at their history and their impact on American economic life over the past century is to examine a roaringly optimistic and an almost frighteningly successful endeavor to create the men—and the women—for a mass economy.
Handicraft and Manufactured Cotton Textiles in China, 1871–1910
Authors: Feuerwerker Albert
Published: August 2016

How much of the increased consumption of machine-made cotton yarn and cloth in nineteenth- and twentieth-century China represented a net increase in the total consumption of cotton goods? What part of the increment merely denoted a shift of the source of supply from rural handicraft to factory production—in Shanghai and Tientsin and, in the form of imports, in overseas mills? These questions, of course, are only part of the more inclusive problem of the effects of expanding foreign trade and the beginnings of domestic industrialization upon the agricultural sector in modern China. The most important household handicraft in rural China was, however, the spinning and weaving of cotton. An examination of its fate, while it will not dispose entirely of the larger problem, is a critical step toward that end.
Who Should Serve: Pre-World War II Planning for Selective Service
Authors: Blum Albert A. , Smyth J. Douglas
Published: August 2016

ONE of the more perplexing problems facing the United States in the twentieth century has been that of selecting fairly which citizens shall serve in the armed forces. Today controversy surrounds the application of the Selective Service System to them raising of troops for the Vietnam War. Thus far, however, the hostilities in Vietnam have not posed one difficulty for the Selective Service System that existed during World War II, namely, the necessity of granting substantial numbers of industrial and occupational deferments, except insofar as educational deferments are a form of industrial ones. Such deferments have grown more important during the world wars of the twentieth century as nations engaged in full-scale hostilities have been forced to rely heavily on them in order to maintain the industrial and economic strength of the nation.
The Decline of Rural Industry Under Export Expansion: A Comparison among Burma, Philippines, and Thailand, 1870–1938 and Economic Forms in Pre-Colonial Ghana: Comments
Authors: Morgan Theodore
Published: August 2016

The Resnick paper is a report on the working out of comparative advantage in the three countries over nearly seventy years. It starts out with a model based on production possibilities curve analysis, terms of trade shifts, and income and substitution effects. An offer curve results that implies that, at least within a range, labor and other resources shift from cottage and craft production (Z goods) to farm production (F) in which there is comparative advantage and which is exported in exchange for increased imports (M). In each of the three countries statistics and descriptive material are interpreted in terms of the model.
Labor Inputs and Productivity in American Dairy Agriculture, 1850–1910
Authors: Bateman Fred
Published: August 2016

Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century and into the early part of the twentieth, American agriculture was expanding and improving under the influence of growing demand, the westward movement, mechanization of farm operations, and scientific farming developments. Under these influences, yields and labor productivity in field crops generally increased. Until recently, however, little has been known about the course of productivity change in specific agricultural activities during the nineteenth century. Dairy production was an important component of the American farm economy, accounting for about 16 percent of U.S. farm output at the beginning of the twentieth century and approximately 14 percent of gross income from farm production in 1910. Changes in dairy yields during the period 1850–1910 have been analyzed previously. The purpose of this article is to estimate labor input time, to measure the change in average labor productivity in U.S. dairy farming, and to examine the economic implications of this change, thus extending the analysis to another component of the dairy production function. The necessary data were estimated with techniques that utilized available fragmentary data in conjunction with information in literary material.
The Mythology of the Old Poor Law
Authors: Taylor James Stephen
Published: August 2016

The Old Poor Law has recently found a forceful defender in Mark Blaug, who in two articles has challenged the critics of England's first public welfare system and displayed the clay feet of that towering structure of words, the evidence for the 1834 Report. This is a notable achievement, but Mr. Blaug's case should not be accepted in toto: indeed, that it has survived so long without criticism is surprising. G. R. Elton felicitously referred to one of his critics as a “self-appointed hound of heaven,” but scholars who propound provocative theses are likely to provoke responses. Mr. Blaug's interpretation of the Old Poor Law is, to at least one “selfappointed hound,” eminently provocative.
Soll und Haben: Recent German Economic History and the Problem of Economic Development
Authors: Tilly Richard
Published: August 2016

It is one of the ironies of economic historiography that the country which gave birth to the Historical School of Economics should have come to play such a relatively minor role in the field of modern economic history. The irony lies in the fact that the Historical School, although it emphasized historical studies at the expense of theory, did see economic history as an integral part of economics. Its founders recognized that the main purpose of economic history is to elucidate the problem of economic development, to search for “development laws,” and in attempting to accomplish that mission, they made use of economic theory. From around the 1870's, however, interest in these ties to mainstream economics began to recede; emphasis on institutional and legal studies, collection of sources, and sheer antiquarianism grew ever more important. Since then, German economic historians, increasingly producing economic history without economics, have been playing Hamlet without the Prince. The present character of the field in Germany is reflected in the fact that German economic historians are de facto and de jure social historians as well. Indeed, many university chairs, the principal West German journal(Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte—hereafter cited asVSWG),and the German counterpart to our Economic History Association(Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte)do grant formal priority to social history.
Economic Management in a Free-Trade Empire: The Work of the Crown Agents for the Colonies in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
Authors: Ponko Vincent
Published: August 2016

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries British overseas territories under control of the Colonial Office were required to place all business affairs which could not be handled within their own boundaries or those of an adjacent British area in the hands of an office in London known as the Crown Agents for the Colonies.
Colonial Tonnage Measurements: A Comment
Authors: Walton Gary M.
Published: August 2016

Shipping tonnages have been frequently used as a basis for inquiries covering a wide and increasing range of topics in economic history. For example, industry studies, descriptions of shipping routes and trade flows, colonial balance of payments estimates, and an analysis of the sources of productivity change in shipping have all been based–at least in part–on tonnage figures. A major problem in using tonnages as a means of historical quantification is that the term “ton” (either a shipping ton or a commodity ton) has varied substantially over time. This is especially true for the Colonial Period, when it was defined differently depending on its usage or the agent or the country reporting it. Fortunately, several recent research efforts have greatly improved our understanding of the meaning and limitations of historical tonnages.
The Effect of the American Export Invasion on the British Boot and Shoe Industry 1885–1914
Authors: Church R. A.
Published: August 2016

Recent articles have drawn attention to the general significance of the American export “invasion” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Novack and Simon have concentrated on the origins of the invasion and on the attitudes of American businessmen, and to a lesser extent of others, to it. Elsewhere, Saul has considered the impact of intensified American competition upon British industry, underlining the need to reexamine the process of industrial transformation particularly during the two decades pre-ceding World War I. In the latter connection, the fundamental changes that occurred in the British boot and shoe industry, both in terms of rapidity and extent, make a case study of its history during this period especially rewarding, culminating, as it did, in a “Victory for British Boots”—the title of an article inThe Economistin 1913. While the fact of successful response on the part of the industry is well known, the circumstances under which the trans-formation took place and the various elements which together produced the effective industrial counterattack have received less attention. In this article an attempt is made to remedy these deficiencies, to explain why the industry responded so successfully, and in particular to examine the role of American shoe machinery makers in this process, for in terms of control they virtually monopolized the supply of boot and shoe machinery in Britain toward the end of our period.
Harold Adams Innis 1894–1952
Authors: Kirkland Edward C.
Published: August 2016

In a long list of publications since 1923 Harold Innis with industry and insight set a pattern for the study and interpretation of Canadian economic history. The University of Toronto, the Dominion Government, and Canadian learned societies in their various fashions paid tribute to the high quality of this achievement. His career, moreover, was a refutation of his own generalization, perhaps playfully formulated, that no Canadian scholar could secure recognition in the United States. He was a charter member of the Committee on Research in Economic History, the second president of the Economic History Association, and at the time of his death president of the American Economic Association.
American Business and the Approach of War 1935–1941
Authors: Stromberg Roland N.
Published: August 2016

The question whether business, or capitalism, has been a force for peace or for war has been one of some historical interest. Before 1914 there were few to challenge the thesis of the great liberal-capitalist ideologists—Comte, Spencer, Fiske, to name only outstanding specimens —that the triumph of free enterprise meant the end of war, or its progressive decline; that the businessman would make a world in which the arts of peace permanently displaced those of war. But after the World War there naturally arose schools which sought to establish that capitalism carried within itself the seeds of ferocious wars. The thinking of a disillusioned generation was powerfully influenced in this direction. The loosely drawn but vehement indictment of capitalism as partner of Mars can be read in such typical pieces of the ʼ30s as H. N. Brailsford's Property or Peace (New York: Covici, Friede, 1934) and C. H. Grattan's Preface to Chaos (New York: Dodge Publishing Co., 1936). But these Marxist theories have been subjected to devastating criticism.
Wage Kates in Philadelphia, 1790-1830
Authors: Adams Donald R.
Published: August 2016

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate more thoroughly the experience of the urban and agricultural wage earner during the first four decades of American history by focusing on one major city and its environs. While the majority of Americans were engaged in independent agricultural pursuits during this period, the proportion of wage earners to total population was much greater in urban areas. Artisans, laborers, domestics, and mariners were among the largest of wage-earning groups.
The Yeoman Farmer and Westward Expansion of U.S. Cotton Production
Authors: Foust James D.
Published: August 2016

In spite of the recognized difficulties of dividing the white population of the antebellum South into two distinct classes—slaveowners and poor whites—historians have persisted in differentiating the roles of the small slaveholder and nonslaveholder vis-à-vis that of the large slaveholder or plantation owner. It is the purpose of this dissertation to evaluate the roles of the nonslaveholding and small slaveholding farmer in comparison with that of the large slaveholder in the westward expansion of the antebellum cotton economy.
The Service Sector in the United States, 1839 to 1899
Authors: Weiss Thomas
Published: August 2016

The dissertation is a study of the service industries in the United States during the period 1839 through 1899. The primary purpose of the study is to provide three series relating to the quantitative development of the sector. These series—value-added, gainful workers, and capital stock—provide benchmark estimates at decade intervals centered on census years. Series are presented for the aggregate sector; the major components, final and intermediate services; and eight industries. These eight industries, defined as the service sector, are trade, transportation and public utilities, finance and insurance, professional services, personal services, government, education, and the independent hand trades.
Wage Rates in the Early National Period: Philadelphia, 1785–1830
Authors: Adams Donald R.
Published: August 2016

Recent scholarly work in the economic history of the precivil War United States has produced an impressive array of statistical data. Estimates of income, output, capital stock, and population growth and distribution have been generated utilizing a variety of empirical sources and statistical techniques. But, despite these welcome advances in our knowledge and understanding of the early American economy, a number of important statistical records continue to elude scholars of the period. Information concerning immigration before 1820, the occupational distribution of the labor force, employment statistics, the cost of living, and the level and movement of retail prices and wages would, if available, prove valuable additions to our growing knowledge of the United States economy before 1860.
Public Services and Regional Development in Canada
Authors: Shoyama T. K.
Published: August 2016

Throughout the first hundred years of Canadian Confederation, an underlying problem in the struggle to “unite and integrate the separate regions” in a viable national economy has been the continuing interaction between disparate rates of regional economic growth and unequal levels of regional public services. This paper is an attempt to set out in a general way the extent and significance of differences in regional expenditures by government in Canada and to inquire into their possible relationships with variations in rates of growth and levels of regional per capita incomes. It also indicates a spatial distribution of public expenditures at all three levels of government and notes some implications for national and regional development policy currently in the forefront of public debate in Canada.
Financing the British War Effort
Authors: Hughes J. R. T.
Published: August 2016

War is a drain on resources, both of manpower and of materials. The object of government financial policy in time of war is primarily to ease the real drain by making its monetary counterpart work as smoodily as possible. In a long and brilliantly written book R. S. Sayers has provided a meaty account of Britain's financial policy during World War II. Any serious study of the problems of war finance or the financial history of World War II would do well to begin with this volume.
Creative Destruction and Partial Obsolescence in American Economic Development
Authors: Strassmann W. Paul
Published: August 2016

With the growing emphasis on structural change and Schumpeterian innovation in economic development, the paradoxical concept “creative destruction” has come into wide use among economists and economic historians. It is an appealing concept because it recalls the death and birth cycles of nature and various tribal myths of gods shuttling between ferocity and compassion. But the concept has been applied to economic situations rather casually. This paper suggests that “creative destruction” is not an apt description of the way dominant production methods succeeded one another in the United States from 1850 to 1914, even though the term is applled to this era more than to any other. Data are presented to show that apparently obsolete methods survived and grew in the face of novel competition. An explanation of the staying power of partially outdated production methods is attempted.
A Word from the Program Committee
Authors: Parker William N.
Published: August 2016

Program committees, like the parents of adolescents, must at last stand aside, overcome by a sense of powerless responsibility, as their creation begins to speak, act and sin for itself.

The program for the Twenty-ninth Meeting of the Economic History Association, held August 28–30, 1969, at Rrandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, was generated under the title: The Organizational Forms of Economic Life and Their Evolution. The first two sessions bore the subtitle: Precapitalist Forms, and the second two sessions, the subtitle: Capitalism Revisited.
Patterns of Business Growth and Survival in a Medium-Sized Community
Authors: Goldstein Sidney , Mayer Kurt
Published: August 2016

Since 1951 the population, social structure, and economy of Norristown, Pennsylvania, have been the focus of study of an interdisciplinary research seminar at the University of Pennsylvania. Under the over-all theme of technological change and social adjustment, a variety of investigations have been conducted to discover the ways in which the processes of industrialization and urbanization in the twentieth century have operated dynamically to bring about changes in the social and economic structure of the Norristown community.
Location Theory and the Cotton Industry
Authors: Hammond Seth
Published: August 2016

The body of thought on location is composed of several contributory JL streams. The best known of these, that associated with the name of Alfred Weber, has concerned itself with the explanation of the choice of production sites by manufacturing industries, and is consequently the stream most closely related to my inquiry.1 However, the Weber school typically pays very little attention to the historical aspects of its subjects; this neglect is apparent both in the nature of the data employed and in the selection of scope, and the placing of emphasis. In the first part of this paper I shall offer an example of a Weber-like analysis or evaluation of the location factors involved in the cotton industry of this country during the past sixty years, as adapted to the purposes of historical inquiry and to the use of historical data; in the second part, I shall apply to some specific historical situations the results of the analysis presented in the first part.
The American Workingman and the Antislavery Crusade
Authors: Rayback Joseph G.
Published: August 2016

In his autobiography, Cheerful Yesterdays, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, looking back on the long crusade that ended with the abolition of Negro bondage in the United States, declared: “The anti-slavery movement was not strongest in the educated classes, but was primarily a people's movement, based on the simplest human instincts and far stronger … in the factories and shoe-shops than in the pulpits and colleges.” Few people have challenged this statement, which Higginson made in 1898; probably because the scarcity of material on the subject has prevented a thorough examination of all its implications, and especially of the main argument that the laboring man was the real force behind the antislavery crusade.Yet there is sufficient evidence to throw serious doubt upon the accuracy of Higginson's statement, evidence which reveals that workers in shops and factories often exhibited an almost callous unconcern for the entire crusade.
European Merchants in the Medieval Indies: The Evidence of Commercial Documents
Authors: Lopez Robert Sabatino
Published: August 2016

Strangely enough, up to the present day, commercial documents have contributed almost nothing to our knowledge of trade between Europe and India or China in the Middle Ages. The actual management of a voyage to “the Indies,” as India and China were designated in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, has remained obscure because our evidence about commerce has come from sources mainly concerned with other matters.
In Brass Manufacturing During the 1830's
Authors: Marburg Theodore F.
Published: August 2016

Two propositions are suggested by a preliminary examination of the marketing of brass and brass products a century ago: first, that the manufacturer's quest for a near-monopoly market through product differentiation is not a new development; second, that this very quest of the manufacturer for near-monopoly has been the life blood of manufacturing progress.
An Overdose of Slavery
Authors: Starr Chester G.
Published: August 2016

When one compares ancient and modern economic institutions, the differences are many and deep. One of the most obvious is the appearance of slavery virtually everywhere among those societies that rose from simple village life to civilization. Social and economic specialization, the resulting necessity for interchange of goods, and a higher political organization in a firm, consciously organized state—these are aspects of the appearance of civilization, and with them one usually finds a spectrum of social classes from aristrocrats to slaves.
Charts of Public Land Sales and Entries
Authors: Gates Paul W.
Published: August 2016

Critical readers of The Public Lands. Studies in the History of the Public Domain, edited by Vernon Carstensen, whatever the merits of its other features, cannot but be struck by the fact that separate charts showing interest in the public lands—as evidenced first by income from sales and second by the total of land entries in acreage—differ so widely. One explanation for some of the difference is that Arthur H. Cole, in compiling the data for the charts showing income from sales, seems to have used the calendar year, whereas the chart showing original land entries is based on the data for the government fiscal year. Another difficulty is that the Cole chart is prepared from manuscript schedules in the old General Land Office and they do not coincide with the published data in the Annual Reports of that office.
Economic Discontent in Medieval Western Europe
Authors: Turner Ralph E.
Published: August 2016

When a given population is able to produce more goods and more services than are required for its subsistence, the concentration of an economic surplus becomes possible. Such concentration has always involved the formation of a class structure. Part of the population performs the physical labor of economic production; it becomes the working class. Other segments of the population performing services other than physical labor receive portions of the economic surplus. They become the possessing and, usually, the ruling classes.
Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire
Authors: Inalcik Halil
Published: August 2016

The economic system of the Ottoman Empire and its basic economic principles derived from a traditional view of state and society which had prevailed since antiquity in the empires of the Near East. This theory, since it determined the attitude and policy of the administrators, was of considerable practical importance.
United States Transport Advance and Externalities: A Reply
Authors: Lebergott Stanley
Published: August 2016

Is a railroad like a toy wind-up set, the locomotive moving endlessly, stupefyingly around a single circle of track? Or, as I believe, is it more like a fancy set, with various sidings, and connecting routes? Professor Weiss assumes that the carrying capacity of a railroad is bounded by its ability to store all its freight cars on the main line. And the view he (somewhat incorrectly) attributes to me—that “for every starting point there are 10 miles of clear road ahead”—is nothing more than the belief that a real railroad is not a simple circle. For railroad sidings do exist for inventorying cars. And connecting railroads that move cars out of a particular system do exist. Economists who contrast the productive capacity of Ford and GM rarely worry about whether a week's production can be stored within the factory. Entrepreneurs envisaged slack variables before they were baptised as such. (If sidings did not exist, or were a significant portion of the cost of one transport system but not another, matters might be quite different.)
The Economic Expansion of Lombardy, 1300–1500: A Study in Political Stimuli to Economic Change
Authors: Dowd Douglas F.
Published: August 2016

Lombardy underwent an agricultural revolution (and a connected process of general economic growth) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The basis for this transformation was a series of fundamental institutional changes. These latter—consisting most importantly of the transfer of control over the land into new hands—must in turn be attributed essentially to the policies of the Visconti and Sforza dukes who, through direct or indirect means, encouraged, initiated, facilitated, and acquiesced in the processes by which the change took place.
Components of Labor Force Growth
Authors: Miller Ann Ratner
Published: August 2016

Between 1890 and 1950 the labor force of the United States creased by some 37.3 million workers. decade-by-decade States in-increments fluctuated widely, roughly half of the sixty-year increase (18.9 million) occurred over the first thirty years, and half (18.4 million) over the second.
The Specie Standard and Central Banking in the United States Before 1860
Authors: Timberlake Richard H.
Published: August 2016

Central banking institutions during the past quarter-century have been almost free of the constraints that inhibited their actions during the nineteenth century. The special conditions under which earlier central banking institutions were formed and operated frequently have been lost to view; and while contemporary observers have come to regard the first two Banks of the United States sympathetically, the functional evolution of these institutions within the framework of specie standards has been largely neglected. The period between the end of the Second Bank and the organization of the Federal Reserve System is subsequently treated as the Dark Ages of monetary policy, better forgotten than deplored.
The Development of a Credit System in Seventeenth-Century Japan
Authors: Crawcour Sydney
Published: August 2016

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Japan was just emerging from a long period of internal strife and was beginning to settle down under a centralized feudal system introduced by the newly established Tokugawa government. In the following period of peace, economic development was very rapid. Along with commercial development and the monetization of important sections of the economy, a system of credit institutions evolved, notably in Osaka, which by the end of the century was not inferior to those existing in Europe at that time. The financial innovations and developments of the first half of the century were systematized in the latter half, and the resulting credit system became an indispensable part of Japan's economic life. In particular it played an important part in facilitating the spurt in Japan's economic development which occurred roughly between 1690 and 1740.
International Trade and United States Economic Development Revisited
Authors: Macesich George
Published: August 2016

Mr. Williamson's comments on my article leave the issue between us ambiguous. I welcome this opportunity further to develop my own views regarding the turbulent period of the 1830's and early 1840's.

First of all, I believe that Williamson has overstated his case in attributing to me disregard of the importance of internal events in the United States. I advanced the hypothesis that the primary disturbing factor in the period 1834–1845 was an increase, and then a decrease, in the flow of funds into the United States, and the problem I wished to examine was the response in the American economy to this initial disturbance. As indicated in my article, the emphasis placed on external factors does not mean that internal events in the United States were negligible.
Some Business Partnerships at Lyon, 1785–1793
Authors: Taylor George V.
Published: August 2016

The Archives du Rhone at Lyon contain a unique collection of eighteenth-century business records—partnership agreements, merchandise inventories, financial statements, and depositions concerning a variety of commercial houses. Working in these papers, one begins to acquire a clear and detailed idea of the character of French business enterprise, of how business was organized and carried on and commercial capital mobilized at the end of the old regime.
Sir Ambrose Crowley and the South Sea Scheme of 1711
Authors: Flinn Michael W.
Published: August 2016

Sir Ambrose Crowley is well known as one of the greatest of early English industrialists. His claim to distinction rests on the immense scale of his operations and on his imaginative approach to the problems of industrial organization. The group of factories he established in County Durham, near Gateshead, constituted what was believed to be the largest ironworks in Europe and was probably the largest industrial unit in the England of his day outside the naval dockyards. Sir Ambrose, whose manufacturing career began in 1682, was an iron manufacturer, converting bar iron into the end products of the iron industry—steel, steelware, nails, and a wide range of iron components and implements. He had entered this branch of the industry as a nailmaker, and nailmaking remained the mainstay of his business.
The Committee on Research in Economic History: An Historical Sketch
Authors: Cole Arthur H.
Published: August 2016

The Committee on Research in Economic History was established in 1940, more than a generation ago. Most of those who were active in its creation and administration have died or retired from active academic life; and surely a fresh direction of internal evolution has altered, at least in important ways, the objectives of the discipline. Accordingly, it appears appropriate to set down here an account of what were the hopes and intentions of those especially active in its initiation and early planning, and to record its more obvious achievements. Members of ensuing generations will have time in their later lives to pass judgment on the intellectual value of this particular effort at academic improvement and intellectual growth. Indeed, I propose to close my survey with the transmogrification of the Committee into the Council—an event of the mid-1950's, at a point in time already far enough removed to offer a considerable perspective.
The Concept of the Just Price: Theory and Economic Policy
Authors: de Roover Raymond
Published: August 2016

In The concept view of many economists the just price is a nebulous concept invented by pious monks who knew nothing of business or economics and were blissfully unaware of market mechanisms. It is true that certain writers, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, have done their best to accredit this fairy tale and to propagate the notion that the just price, instead of being set by the allegedly blind and unconscionable forces of the market, was determined by criteria of fairness without regard to the elements of supply and demand or at least with the purpose of eliminating the evils of unrestrained competition.