The Importance of Farm and General Store Account Books in Business History

Extract

Business depressions bring in their wake such a train of privation and misery that we are usually blinded to the fact that they occasionally produce incidental benefits. Foremost among the few good results which have flowed from the present business depression is the stimulation of research into the history of the business cycle. Economists and business men alike are attempting to learn as much as possible about similar crises of the past. They are asking themselves whether the depression of 1930 is worse than that which occurred in 1894 or 1840, in what respects it differs from or resembles those catastrophes. They are even wondering how their predecessors felt after the first stock-market crash of 1792.