Business History Review

Victorian Pioneers of Corporate Sustainability

Historical scholarship on business-environment interactions has largely sidestepped the study of corporate innovations that had both economic and environmental benefits. This issue is examined through late-nineteenth-century initiatives sponsored by the British Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, whose aim was to document and promote the creation of profitable by-products out of polluting industrial waste and emissions. A case is made that the individuals involve...

To the Tap: Public Versus Private Water Provision at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

This paper uses the examples of three nineteenth-century cities-London, Philadelphia, and New York-to explore both what is permanent about the problem of water provision (that consumers want it clean, accessible, and free) and what is mediated by the forces of government policy and economic constraints. In some cases, municipal authorities first claimed control over water supplies before figuring out how to pay for their works. In others, they calculated that such arrangements were both too e...

Concessions As a Modernizing Strategy in the Dominican Republic

In the late 1800s, Latin American modernizers faced major obstacles to economic growth. In the Dominican Republic, elites embraced concessions as a policy to attract foreign capital to infrastructure, industry, and cash-crop agriculture. In contrast to Mexico, where concessions were public and impersonal but failed to create viable firms, Dominican concessions were public, yet corrupt, formally opposed to monopoly, yet prone to convey exclusive privileges. Dominican modernizers recognized tha...

The Structure of the News Market in Britain, 1870-1914

In this essay, I grapple with three main questions: What effect did the nationalization of telegraphy in 1868-70 have on the structure of the news market in Britain? How did this market structure affect the pricing and supply of news? What effects did subsequent technological change have on the structure of the news market? I show that nationalization resulted in a tripartite market arrangement characterized by collusion that benefited the provincial press over the London press, but retarded ...

Ford's Investment in Colonial Malaya, 1926-1957

The corporate history of Ford in Malaya from 1926 to 1957 reveals Ford Canada's global strategy to tap new British colonial markets. A combination of factors motivated Ford Canada to set up a subsidiary in Malaya, whose subsequent domestic sales and marketing success depended on maintaining mutually beneficial relations with the local merchant firms and Chinese entrepreneurs. After it was directed by the parent company to restructure its operations, Ford Canada imposed tight control on its ow...

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Abstracts From Articles in International Business History Journals

Taxation in Colonial America

Taxation in Colonial America, by Alvin Rabushka, is reviewed.

Bethlehem Steel: Builder and Arsenal of America

Bethlehem Steel: Builder and Arsenal of America, by Kenneth Warren, is reviewed.

Power Struggles: Scientific Authority and the Creation of Practical Electricity Before Edison

Power Struggles: Scientific Authority and the Creation of Practical Electricity Before Edison, by Michael Brian Schiffer, is reviewed.

Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War

Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War, by Thomas G. Andrews, is reviewed.

Workers and the Wild: Conservation, Consumerism, and Labor in Oregon, 1910-30

Workers and the Wild: Conservation, Consumerism, and Labor in Oregon, 1910-30, by Lawrence M. Lipin, is reviewed.

Nexus: Strategic Communications and American Security in World War I

Nexus: Strategic Communications and American Security in World War I, by Jonathan Reed Winkler, is reviewed.

Union-Free America: Workers and Antiunion Culture

Union-Free America: Workers and Antiunion Culture, by Lawrence Richards, is reviewed.

Unexceptional Women: Female Proprietors in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Albany, New York, 1830-1885

Unexceptional Women: Female Proprietors in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Albany, New York, 1830-1885, by Susan Ingalls Lewis, is reviewed.

Crosley: Two Brothers and a Business Empire That Transformed the Nation

Crosley: Two Brothers and a Business Empire That Transformed the Nation, by Rusty McClure, with David Stern and Michael A. Banks, is reviewed.

The Big Tent: The Traveling Circus in Georgia, 1820-1930

The Big Tent: The Traveling Circus in Georgia, 1820-1930, by Gregory J. Renoff, is reviewed.

The Mouse Machine: Disney and Technology

The Mouse Machine: Disney and Technology, by J. P. Telote, is reviewed.

Happy Pills in America: From Miltown to Prozac

Happy Pills in America: From Miltown to Prozac, by David Herzberg, is reviewed.

American Consumer Society, 1865-2005: From Hearth to Hdtv

American Consumer Society, 1865-2005: From Hearth to HDTV, by Regina Lee Blaszczyk, is reviewed.

Capitalizing On Change: A Social History of American Business

Capitalizing on Change: A Social History of American Business, by Stanley Buder, is reviewed.

Corrupt Circles: A History of Unbound Graft in Peru

Corrupt Circles: A History of Unbound Graft in Peru, by Alfonso W. Quiroz, is reviewed.

Healing Traditions: African Medicine, Cultural Exchange, and Competition in South Africa, 1820-1948

Healing Traditions: African Medicine, Cultural Exchange, and Competition in South Africa, 1820-1948, by Karen E. Flint, is reviewed.

East Meets West-Banking, Commerce and Investment in the Ottoman Empire

East Meets West -- Banking, Commerce and Investment in the Ottoman Empire, edited by Philip L. Cottrell, Ian L. Fraser, and Monika Pohle Fraser, is reviewed.

History of Insolvency and Bankruptcy From an International Perspective

History of Insolvency and Bankruptcy from an International Perspective, edited by Karl Gratzer and Dieter Stiefel, is reviewed.

Historical Perspectives On Corporate Governance

Historical Perspectives on Corporate Governance, edited by Susanna Fellman, Antti Kuustera, and Eero Vaara, is reviewed.

Corporate Ownership and Control: British Business Transformed

Corporate Ownership and Control: British Business Transformed, by Brian R. Cheffins, is reviewed.

The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in an Age of Expansion, 1560-1660

The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in an Age of Expansion, 1560-1660, by Alison Games, is reviewed.

Guilty Money: The City of London in Victorian and Edwardian Culture, 1815-1914

Guilty Money: The City of London in Victorian and Edwardian Culture, 1815-1914, by Ronald C. Michie, is reviewed.

Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop Inside Out

Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop Inside Out, by Gordon Thompson, is reviewed.