Business History Review articles from March 1995

Business History Review archives from March 1995

Crossed wires and missing connections: Valdemar Poulsen, the American Telegraphone Company, and the failure to commercialize magnetic recording.
March 22, 1995... In the summer of 1898, the Danish telephone technician Valdemar Poulsen invented the telegraphone, the world's first functional magnetic recorder.(1) Aided by the Danish businessman Soren Lemvig Fog, Poulsen set up a research laboratory and a...

Strategy and structure in the textile industry: Spencer Love and Burlington Mills, 1923-1962.
March 22, 1995... As some of America's largest companies lose their identity in mergers, find themselves overcome by foreign competition, or close their doors, it is useful to remember that there are industries in which prolonged instability has been the norm. The...

Contrived Competition: Regulation and Deregulation in America.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by Viv Nelles Had this book been titled Regulation and Structure, its genealogy, organization, methodology, and its importance would have been immediately obvious to readers of this journal. Although the shadow of influence is so long...

Public Finance and Financial Services.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by Mary M. Schweitzer This pathbreaking book should have a significant impact on the historiography of American economic and institutional development. The convincing portrait clearly establishes the critical role of...

Engendering Business: Men and Women in the Corporate Office, 1870-1930.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by Cindy S. Aron Angel Kwolek-Folland's intriguing new book, Engendering Business, offers a cultural history of office work. Her subject is the financial services industry. She analyzes insurance companies and banks during the late...

Producers, Proletarians and Politicians: Workers and Party Politics in Evansville and New Albany, Indiana, 1850-87.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by Paul G. Faler Class tensions and politics are the subjects of this narrow but solid study of two Indiana manufacturing towns on the Ohio river over a period of nearly half a century. Although rooted in local history, the study...

Magazines for the Millions: Gender and Commerce in the Ladies Home Journal and the Saturday Evening Post, 1880-1910.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by Mary Ellen Zuckerman In 1883 Cyrus Curtis and Louisa Knapp Curtis began The Ladies' Home Journal, a monthly magazine targeted at female readers. Knapp's editorial direction and Curtis' promotional efforts proved a winning...

Making Arms in the Machine Age: Philadelphia's Frankford Arsenal, 1816-1870.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by David R. Meyer Until it closed in 1976, the Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia played a distinguished part in producing ammunition for the United States Army. James Farley traces the first half century of the arsenal from a halting...

Dimensions of Law in the Service of Order: Origins of the Federal Income Tax, 1861-1913.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by Randolph Bergstrom In a new wrinkle to the old adage, "nothing is certain but death and taxes," Robert Stanley argues that more than the mere existence of taxes has verged on certainty. The purpose and pattern of national income...

Science on the Run: Information Management and Industrial Geophysics at Schlumberger, 1920-1940.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by James H. Bamberg This book is part of the series Inside Technology, edited by Wiebe E. Bijker, W. Bernard Carlson and Trevor Pinch. It is in essence a case study in the history of technology, to which Geoffrey C. Bowker brings a...

The Origins of Railway Enterprise: The Stockton and Darlington Railway, 1821-1863.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by Cecil O. Smith "Thou art a bold man," wrote Edward Pease to Thomas Richardson in 1825, "to venture so deep in an untried speculation - tis like these American mines - all promise" (p. 56). In fact Edward Pease himself was the...

Business, Politics and International Relations: Steel, Cotton and International Cartels in British Politics, 1924-1993.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by Alice Teichova This is a scholarly, painstakingly researched study about the undeservedly neglected role of cartels in British foreign and economic policy - the author cites 12 national and business archives, the literary estate of...

Telecommunications and Politics: The Decentralized Alternative.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by Kenneth Lipartito This is not a work of history, but a work that uses history to address contemporary issues. Andrew Davies follows the development of telecommunications in North America, Europe and Japan to conclude that politics,...

Planning the French Canals: Bureaucracy, Politics and Enterprise Under the Restoration.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by Rick Szostak In 1818 Francois Becquey, the new general director of the Bureau des ponts et chaussees, unveiled a plan for a 25,718 kilometer network of canals, which he hoped private entrepreneurs would fund. In 1821 and 1822, he...

Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900-1500.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by David S. H. Abulafia Hitherto, there has simply not existed an adequate account of the trade of Muslim Spain to set aside the many studies of trade in other parts of the medieval Mediterranean. The history of al-Andalus, Moorish...

A Mediterranean Emporium: The Catalan Kingdom of Majorca.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by Paul Freedman The Balearic Islands were an important trading center in the Middle Ages. Seized from the Muslims by the King of Aragon in 1229, Majorca (the principal island) became an entrepot for goods exchanged between Islamic...

Pacific Banking, 1859-1959: East Meets West.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by Mira Wilkins In September 1993 a pre-conference for the Milan International Economic History Congress was held in Tokyo. The papers presented there - by participants from Britain, France, Japan, and Australia - are assembled in...

"Rich Nation, Strong Army": National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by Michael A. Barnhart Like its subject country, this study is at once penetrating and puzzling. On the one hand, it contains an immense wealth of detail on the Japanese government's role in promoting technological development in...

The Japanese Enterprise System: Competitive Strategies and Cooperative Structures.
March 22, 1995... Reviewed by Hiroaki Yamazaki The aim of this book is to identify special characteristics of the Japanese enterprise system from an international and historical perspective, using Professor Alfred D. Chandler's model of the development of modem...