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Business History Resources in the National Archives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Meyer H. Fishbein
Meyer H. Fishbein
Affiliation:
The National Archives, Washington, D. C.
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Abstract

Many opportunities for fruitful research emerge from this survey of those holdings of the National Archives which are pertinent to the historical study of government-business relationships in the United States.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , Summer 1964 , pp. 232 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1964

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References

1 A cubic foot of letter-size records contains approximately 2,500 sheets of paper.

2 Oliver W. Holmes organized a committee on business records in the Society of American Archivists shortly after he joined the staff in 1936. The establishment of the Business Economics Branch as one of the operating units of the National Archives after World War II is another evidence of this concern for the preservation of records concerning business.

3 A “series,” the normal unit of identification for archival material, is a body of records Bled together by the agency that accumulated them. The records are usually arranged by some integrating scheme, such as an alphabetical, numerical, chronological, or subject-classification scheme.

4 A list of the publications of the National Archives and Records Service may be obtained without charge by writing to the Exhibits and Publications Division, National Archives, Washington, D.C., 20408.

5 In most such cases company officials may grant access to the records. References to limitations to access are omitted from this paper because they are subject to change. Out-of-town researchers should write to the National Archives before coming to Washington, to explain their projects and the date of the projected visit. In its reply the National Archives will state whether it has records pertinent to the topic, and whether they may be examined.

6 Cf. “Business Promotion and Regulation,” below.

7 Although the descriptive unit in this guide is the record group, it is not identified by formal title or serial number.

8 Most available sources were used by East, Robert A. in his Business Enterprise in the American Revolutionary Era (New York, 1938)Google Scholar.

9 Cf. “Transportation Industries,” below.

10 Cf. “Building and Related Industries,” below.

11 The author's article about “The Censuses of Manufacturers: 1810–1890,” in the June, 1963 issue of National Archives Accessions – Supplement to the National Archives Guide, describes the nineteenth-century records, reports, and census techniques.

12 Cf. Wiebe, Robert H., Businessmen and Reform: A Study of the Progressive Movement (Cambridge, Mass., 1962).Google Scholar

13 Professor W. W. Leontief of Harvard has used the records for his input-output studies.

14 Two examples of the use of these records for case studies in government-business relations are: Fishbein, Meyer H., “The Trucking Industry and the National Recovery Administration,” Social Forces, vol. XXXIV (December, 1955), pp. 171–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Fine, Sidney, The Automobile under the Blue Eagle: Labor, Management, and the Automobile Manufacturing Code (Arm Arbor, 1963)Google Scholar.

15 American Neptune, vols. XVI-XVIII (July, 1956–January, 1958). The references to ‘Official Records” in this history refer to the records of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation.

16 Cf. “Fiscal Agencies,” above.