Essays in Economic and Business History  

Michael V. Namorato (ed.)

Essays in Economic & Business History 2004

Antonio Calabria

Convicts made up an important segment of the labor pool in early modern Europe. This essay first focuses on a claim of compensation for the services of convict rowers on a private galley serving in the Naples fleet in the sixteenth century and follows con... see more

Alfred C. Mierzejewski

Since its inception in 1948, there has been considerable confusion about the nature of the social market economy built by Ludwig Erhard in West Germany. This article shows that Ludwig Erhard viewed the market itself as social and supported only a minimum ... see more

Sean O'Connell,Chris Reid

Historical surveys of consumer credit in the United Kingdom identify the importance of check trading without documenting its magnitude or development. Check traders provided promissory notes redeemable with local retailers, who paid discounts in return fo... see more

Wade E. Shilts

This paper looks at a particularly puzzling historical example of delay in the use of the law, the under-use by Victorian Britain of the general incorporation statutes passed between 1844 and 1862. Comparison of the rhetoric of company prospectuses of 182... see more

Roberto Mazzoleni

Early in the nineteenth century the Brazilian government supported the formation of three large iron works. Foreign technicians were recruited in order to implement techniques more advanced than those used among small local forges. While early on these pu... see more

Toby Bates

The mid 1970s and subsequent 1980s witnessed a broad reduction of governmental restraints on the American trucking industry. The reforms initiated in the United States transportation business under the administrations of presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Cart... see more

Erik Benson

During the late I920s and early 1930s, Pan American Airways became known as the U.S. “chosen instrument” for international commercial aviation. Most scholarly work about the U.S. government/Pan Am relationship presents the airline as the government’s inst... see more

Daniel C. Giedeman

Restrictions on the American banking system in the early Twentieth Century affected the ability of commercial banks to provide financing to large industrial firms. Consequently, the investment and growth of these firms may have been finance-constrained. T... see more

Michael V. Kennedy

As the need for reliable labor sources increased in British North America during the 18th century, there was a rise in the numbers of servants and slaves imported. In the Mid-Atlantic region, dependence on various types of bound labor was characteristic o... see more

Michael Mc Avoy

This essay examines the relationship between the locations bankers preferred to locate Federal Reserve banks and the locations selected by the committee charged with organizing the Federal Reserve System. Immediately following the decision locating the 12... see more

Karyn Lyn Moyer

This essay looks at the economic influences on the origins of the American Civil War. In order to go beyond purely econometric studies, an analysis of William Faulkner’s novel Absalom, Absalom! is used to introduce and expand the discussion of how the eco... see more

Charles Steven Palmer

In the summer of 1978, police officers and fire fighters in Memphis, Tennessee walked off their jobs ostensibly over a salary dispute. While economics did indeed play a crucial role in the ultimate decision to strike, the walkouts were more the result of ... see more

Robert P. Rogers

A standard folk tale is of the immigrant who rose from poverty to a place of wealth in American business by ability and hard work. Some historians have questioned this story. They have found that most notable businessmen were native born of upper-middle c... see more

Richard D. Stone,Michael Landry

The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was created in 1887 to regulate railroads. By the mid-1970’s it had grown into the premier independent agency in the federal government, regulating all domestic transport modes except air. But starting in the ‘70’s... see more

Lauren Strach

The beginning of the hospital advertising industry followed the successful Federal Trade Commission’s application of the antitrust laws to healthcare, fully opening the competitive floodgates. The 1982 Supreme Court decision, upholding the FTC petition, t... see more

Jason E. Taylor

Although the New Deal alphabet agencies are best known for their roles in combating the economic emergency of the 1930s, many of these agencies served important strategic functions during the military emergency of the 1940s. This paper examines the import... see more

Janice Traflet (ed.)

In the 1950s, the New York Stock Exchange, led by President Keith Funston, embarked on an ambitious public relations campaign christened “Own Your Share of American Business.” This paper justaposes the “Own Your Share”campaign with earlier NYSE image-maki... see more

Mary C. Swilling

The Carter-Torrijos Treaty of 1978, the initiative to relinquish controi of the Panama Canal Zone to the Republic of Panama, allowed Panama for the first time in its short history to become an autonomous nation and to take control of its destiny as a glob... see more

David O. Whitten

In 1924 Rexford Guy Tugwell edited The Trend of Economics, a volume comprising essays by Morris Copeland, Sumner Slichter, Frank Knight, AlbertWolfe, Wesley Clair Mitchell, Paul Douglas, Frederick Mills, William Weld, Raymond Bye, John Maurice Clark, Robe... see more

Thomas R, Winpenny

Richard Boyse Osborne had a sterling reputation as an Engineer who had built railroads both in Ireland and the United States. In the 1850s this visionary became the dynamic force behind the effort to link Philadelphia and Camden to the New Jersey beaches ... see more

Gregory Zieren

The Paris Exposition Universelle of 1867 was devoted to the theme, “The History of Labor,” and awarded special prizes to firms with paternalistic labor policies to promote harmony between workers and employers. The guiding spirit of the Exposition and its... see more

Jerome J. DeRidder

The Accounting Profession in the United States began with the 1896 NewYork Bill which provided for an examination to become a “Certified Public Accountant.”During this early period the professional accountant searched for the fairest presentation of finan... see more

Michael V. Namorato (ed.)

Essays in Economic & Business History 2004