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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2011
George Murphy and Arnold Zellner, who admittedly “have little taste for ghosts or spirit rapping,” seem quite ready to exhume a doctrine and place it in an “up-to-date” package. We welcome historical re-evaluations; but our joys should not preclude us from challenging unwarranted conclusions. While I cannot deliver any spirits, I can at least do some spade work to turn over a few skeletons as partial refutation of the Murphy-Zellner conclusions. In particular; I wish to contest the following statements: (r) that “it [sequential growth] shortened and modulated business cycle contractions [and] contributed to shortening and alleviating critical situations for labor as a whole” (page 420); and (2) that it was largely responsible for “keeping the percentage of the labor force unionized small” (page 408).
1 Murphy, George G. S. and Zellner, Arnold, “Sequential Growth, the Labor Safety-Valve Doctrine and the Development of American Unionism,” Journal of Economic History, XIX (Sept. 1959), 402–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 The latest volume in this area is Spence, Clark C., British Investments and the American Mining Frontier, 1860–1901. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958).Google Scholar Earlier studies include Edwards, George W., The Evolution of Finance Capitalism (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1938)Google Scholar; Osgood, E. S., The Day of the Cattlemen (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1929)Google Scholar; Wolle, Muriel S., The Bonanza Trail (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1953)Google Scholar; Brayer, Herbert O., “The Influence of British Capital on the Western Range-Cattle Industry,” Journal of Economic History, IX (Tasks, 1949), 85–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Hoffman, Charles, “The Depression of the Nineties,” Journal of Economic History, XVI (June, 1956), 139.Google Scholar For additional material on these depressions see Sprague, O. M. W., History of Crises under the National Banking System (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1910)Google Scholar; Juglar, Clement, A Brief History of Panics and Their Periodical Occurrence in the United States (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1893)Google Scholar; and Fels, Rendigs, American Business Cycles, 1865–1897 (Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 1959).Google Scholar
4 U.S. Senate, Document No. 189, 58th Congress, 3rd Session, p. 175.