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Economic History and the New Business History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Herman E. Krooss
Herman E. Krooss
Affiliation:
New York University
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Extract

During the last twenty years Business History has become one of Economic History's most important subdivisions. This has been partly, but certainly not altogether, the result of prosperity. With highlevel employment and income the general attitude toward the businessman has changed. He is no longer popularly regarded as the personification of viliainy. In the “new Business History” he has fared very well indeed. He has not been restored to a place among the saints, but he certainly is back among the choir boys. There are two points of view on this whole development. One is to condemn the new Business History as a sinister plot on the part of Big Business to bamboozle the American public. The other is to regard the new Business History as the most promising of the three major developments that have taken place in Economic History during the last thirty years.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , December 1958 , pp. 467 - 480
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1958

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References

1 Tarbell, Ida M., All in the Day's Work. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1939), pp. 293–96Google Scholar.

2 The usual exceptions to the generalization include Thornton, Harrison, The History of the Quaker Oats Company (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1933) and VirginiaGoogle ScholarHarrington, D., The New York. Merchants on the Eve of the Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935)Google Scholar.

3 See, for example, Holbrook, Stewart Hall, The Age of the Moguls (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1953)Google Scholar.

4 Again there are exceptions. Specialists in management are much more likely to generalize than are business historians. Compare, for example, the writings of Ernest Dale and Peter Drucker with the studies in the “Harvard Business History” series.

5 N. S. B. Gras, who, by encouraging the narrow one-firm approach dug much of the gap that now exists between Economic and Business History, was a prolific and most provocative generalizer.

6 At least I get this impression from a great many business histories, especially Hidy, Ralph W. and Hidy, Muriel E., Pioneering in Big Business, History of The Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) 1882–1911 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955),Google ScholarCochran, Thomas C., The Pabst Brewing Company (New York: New York University Press, 1948),Google ScholarHutchinson, William T., Cyrus Hall McCormick (New York: Century Co., 1930–1935),Google ScholarPowell, Horace B., The Original Has This Signature (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1956)Google Scholar.

7 But the opposite is certainly not true. Some theorists have dipped into Business History with considerable success.

8 A notable exception has been Arthur H. Cole's constant and forceful criticism of the profit maximization premise. Most business histories contain precious little on profit maximization, or on businessman's motives or price policy, both of which are closely connected with the profit-maximization premise.

9 Yet, as two recent reviews in the Business History Review have demonstrated, economic theorists have a very confused idea of what Business History is all about.

10 Including Miller, Mills, Neu, Newcomer, Taussig, and Warner.

11 The findings might have been entirely different if the research had been confined to the very top business leaders instead of all business leaders. An examination of the careers of Forbes' famous fifty, for example, makes a better case for the “farm-to-executive” story.

12 See, for example, Maurer, Herrymon, Great Enterprise: Growth and Behavior of the Big Corporation (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1955)Google Scholar.

13 There is voluminous evidence to support this inference, but I offer only three examples: the patronizing contempt with which contemporary literature treats Henry Ford; the recent pontifical statement widely printed in the nation's press that “judged by today's standards, Goldfine is a sloppy businessman”; and the following: “The story of General Mills is, in part, the story of a steady and sturdy growth in a sense of social responsibility. The old time miller who earned a fortune in a year or two and then retired because he could not make a dollar on a barrel has had no counterpart for many years.” Gray, James, Business Without a Boundary (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1954), p. 256Google Scholar.

14 N. S. B. Gras, Business and Capitalism: An Introduction to Business History (New York: F. S. Crofts and Co., 1939)Google Scholar; N. S. B. Gras and Larson, Henrietta M., Casebook, in American Business History (New York: F. S. Crofts and Co., 1939)Google Scholar; Cole, Arthur H., “An Approach to the Study of Entrepreneurship,” The Journal of Economic History, VI, Supplement, 1946Google Scholar.

15 Cole, Arthur H., “The Research Program Sponsored by the Committee on Research in Economic History,” The Journal of Economic History, IV (05 1944)Google Scholar.