Business History

Under the Counter, Under the Radar? The Business and Regulation of the Pornographic Press in Sweden 1950–1971

by Klara Arnberg

published in Enterprise & Society (2012), 13 (2)

In this article, the process leading to decriminalization of pornography in Sweden in 1971 is analyzed. The interplay... more In this article, the process leading to decriminalization of pornography in Sweden in 1971 is analyzed. The interplay between the structural institutional level and company behavior is stressed, with an emphasis on business strategies. The article shows that the division between hard-core and soft-core pornographic magazines in Sweden was quite different than the development in the United Kingdom and the United States. It also shows how the business strategies used by hard-core pornographers challenged the obscenity legislation and regulation of national distribution, making them obsolete. Even though there was fierce competition between the pornography companies, producers formed joint alternative distribution channels crucial to the survival of the industry.

Dressing the Elite: Fashion, Intimacy and Business in Eighteenth-Century London and Yorkshire

by Serena Dyer

Between 1783 and 1785 Mrs Ann Charlton, a society milliner of Holles Street, London, kept up a regular and detailed... more Between 1783 and 1785 Mrs Ann Charlton, a society milliner of Holles Street, London, kept up a regular and detailed correspondence with her client, Lady Sabine Winn of Nostell Priory in Yorkshire. This abundant collection of both written passages and sumptuous fabric and ribbon samples, provides a unique and unprecedented insight into fashion dissemination amongst the provincial elite, the centrality of sociability and the season to the London fashion trade and the complex relationship between female client and supplier. The correspondence contains fashion news, pecuniary bargaining, offers of gifts, and discussion of personal health, combining intimate and personal details with the formalities of a professional relationship. These two vocabularies are continually at variance within the text of the letters, the consequence of a relationship which both transcends and abides by social boundaries. Neither friend nor servant, this singularly feminine association, maintained beyond Lady Sabine’s move north, demonstrates both the mercantile methodology of an eighteenth-century businesswoman and the continued reliance of the provincial elite on London traders. Mrs Charlton’s other clients included the infamous Countess of Strathmore, for whom she gave evidence at the trial of her husband. Her statement, which substantiated claims of domestic abuse, both physical and mental, as well as declaring the existence of unpaid bills, again merges the deeply personal with the pragmatism of business. The unrivalled depth of the previously untapped evidence provided by Mrs Ann Charlton facilitates a crucial step in developing our understanding of both women in business and networks of fashion consumption amongst the eighteenth-century elite.

Pianos for the People. From Producer to Consumer in Britain, 1851-1914

by Lucy Newton

New research methods of Business History

by AMEDEO LEPORE

Structuring information work: Ferranti and Martins Bank, 1952-1968

by Ian Martin

Forthcoming in Information and Culture 47(3)

The adoption of large-scale computers by the British retail banks in the 1960s required a first-time dislocation of... more The adoption of large-scale computers by the British retail banks in the 1960s required a first-time dislocation of customer accounting from its confines in the branches--where it had been dealt with by paper-based and mechanized information systems-- to a new collective space: the bank computer center. While historians have rightly stressed the continuities between centralized office work, punch-card tabulation, and computerization, the shift from decentralized to centralized information work by means of a computer has received little attention. In this article I examine the case of Ferranti and Martins Bank and employ elements of Anthony Giddens’s structuration theory to highlight the difficulties of transposing old information practices directly onto new computerized information work.

WHAT MAKES “INTERESTING” BUSINESS HISTORY? Evaluation of the Most Cited Recent Business History Journal Articles

by Jari Eloranta

Co-authored with Heli Valtonen and Jari Ojala.

See paper. See paper.

Dynasty building, family networks and social capital: Alcohol pachters and the development of a colonial elite at the Cape of Good Hope, c. 1760-1790

by Gerald Groenewald

New Contree 62 (2011).

Entrepreneurs and the making of a free burgher society

by Gerald Groenewald

In: Nigel Worden (ed.), Cape Town between East and West: Social Identities in a Dutch Colonial Town (Johannesburg and Hilversum, 2012).

Perspectives on the Popular Music Industry

by Donald Harper

Technology innovations and the internet in particular, have caused a paradigm shift in business practices for the... more Technology innovations and the internet in particular, have caused a paradigm shift in business practices for the music sector of the entertainment industry. The last several years we have seen a major reshuffling of the major actors, combined with mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies, legal wrangling and repositioning of strategies. This report offers some perspectives on the factors that gave rise to the concentration of power by the major firms in the popular music industry

Fra eccellenze e occasioni perdute: permanenze e discontinuità dell’industria italiana nel lungo periodo

by Emanuele Felice

in B. Quintieri and M. Vasta (edited by), «L’industria italiana nel contesto internazionale: 150 anni di sto-ria», Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli (CZ), 2011, pp. 41-110.

Between excellence and missed opportunities: permanence and discontinuity in the Italian industry over the long-run, in B. Quintieri and M. Vasta (edited by), «Italy’s industry in the international context: 150 years of history».


draft only, preliminary and incomplete. For the full version, see the book chapter (also for citation)

la versione caricata è solo un abbozzo, preliminare e incompleto. Per la versione compelta, si veda il capitolo del libro (anche per le citazioni)

Il capitolo ricostruisce l’evoluzione per settori dell’industria manifatturiera in Italia, approssimativamente... more Il capitolo ricostruisce l’evoluzione per settori dell’industria manifatturiera in Italia, approssimativamente dall’Unificazione ai nostri giorni, attraverso le vicende delle imprese ritenute di volta in volta più significative. I diversi regimi tecnologici e il contesto politico-economico di riferimento rappresentano le impalcature essenziali del tessuto narrativo, che vuole essere di tipo preminentemente qualitativo (per quel che concerne gli aspetti micro-economici: i casi di impresa), ma con attenzione agli aspetti quantitativi essenziali (l’evoluzione nell’aggregato dei settori). L’ambizione è riuscire a dare conto della multidimensionalità dell’eccellenza italiana, pur senza celare le aree di criticità. La linea interpretativa si incentra sul binomio «permanenze» e «discontinuità»: le prime si fondano essenzialmente sulla dotazione strutturale del Paese, mentre le discontinuità rappresentano la capacità di cogliere le opportunità offerte dal mutamento delle condizioni internazionali e dal progresso tecnico.

I musei del patrimonio industriale in Emilia-Romagna

by Matteo Troilo

Pubblished on "Storia e Futuro", February 2012.

“Winnipeg's Palliser Furniture in the Context of Mennonite Views on Industrial Relations, 1974-1996,” chapter in Prairie Metropolis: New Essays on Winnipeg Social History

by Janis Thiessen

edited by Esyllt Jones and Gerald Friesen

O grupo Randon: Estratégia e trajetória de expansão a partir do enfoque da teoria evolucionária da firma

by Elson Rodrigo Souza Santos

Co-authored: Armando Dalla Costa

The objective this paper is explorer the strategic and trajectory of expantion of the of the Randon Group. This... more The objective this paper is explorer the strategic and trajectory of expantion of the of the Randon Group. This enterprise born how garage little in city of Caxias do Sul – RS, in the south of Brazil at decade of 1940, grounded over Raul Anselmo and Hercílio Randon brothers front the need of a means of survive. In the decades of 1950 and 1960, the Randon brothers known harness the environment and create the opportunities for transformed the garage in industry, leader in the market of implements for trucks. In the decade of 1970 the enterprise transformed in S. A. with holding negotiate in stock exchange for viable itself expantion, damage for crisis of the decade of 1980 that provoked an situation hard to firm. After this fact, the Randon Group again to growth across of enterprise in the market of car spare, financial services, special vehicles and implements. Moreover, the Randon Group have vacation for be multinational not only and great export, but with industrial plants in others countries and search of investors and partner for growth.

What is Business Organizing for?–The Role of Business in Society Over Time

by Michael Pirson

An Account of the Rise and Fall of the Australian Cameleering Industry, 1830-1930

by Amer Khan

Enrico Mattei (1906-2006). A cento anni dalla nascita nuovi studi el interpretazioni

by Matteo Troilo

Published on «Clio», XLII, n. 4, 2006, pp. 687-704.

Le ricerche di idrocarburi in Italia dal secondo dopoguerra ai primi anni sessanta

by Matteo Troilo

Published on «Clio», XLI, n. 4, 2005, pp. 701-718.

Lavoro ed imprenditoria degli italiani in Canada, tra vecchie e nuove generazioni

by Matteo Troilo

Published on «Diacronie, Studi di Storia Contemporanea», n. 5, January 2011

Il Canada per molto tempo ha costituito una delle mete preferite dell’emigrazione italiana. Nel grande paese... more Il Canada per molto tempo ha costituito una delle mete preferite dell’emigrazione italiana. Nel grande paese nordamericano i nostri connazionali hanno saputo con il tempo dare vita a grandi ed influenti comunità ancora oggi in vita. Attraverso le diverse generazioni gli italiani hanno scalato posizioni sociali e sono arrivati nel tempo a fondare imprese di varia natura. Oggi il Canada è invece meta di un numero minore di italiani ma con professionalità molto elevate, secondo una tendenza da alcuni anni viva nel nostro paese.

Dissertation: Accounting for Taste: Regulating Food Labeling in the "Affluent Society," 1945-1995

by Xaq Frohlich

Doctoral Thesis, MIT, 2011. Thesis Supervisor: Deborah K. Fitzgerald. Other Committee Members: Susan S. Silbey, David S. Jones, Heather Paxson, and Sheila Jasanoff

This dissertation traces a transformation in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's governance of food markets during... more This dissertation traces a transformation in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's governance of food markets during the second half of the 20th century. In response to new correlations between diet and risk of disease, anxieties about (over)abundant food supplies, and changing notions of personal versus collective responsibility in an affluent society, the FDA changed how it regulated food labeling. Following WWII, the agency developed a set of standard recipes with
fixed common name labels (such as "peanut butter" or "tomato soup"), or "standards of identity," for all mass-produced foods. However, the appearance of new diet foods and public health concerns undermined this system. Beginning in the 1970s, the FDA shifted its policies. Rather than rely on standardized identities, the agency required companies to provide informative labels such as the ingredients panel, nutrition labels, and various science-based health claims. Agency officials believed that such information would enable consumers to make responsible health decisions through market purchases.

Food labeling is explored as a regulatory assemblage that draws together a variety of political, legal, corporate, and technoscientific interests and practices. The five chapters are organized chronologically. The first two describe how a shift in focus among nutrition scientists from concern for the undernourished to a concern with overeating led to the introduction onto the market of engineered foods capitalizing off popular interest in diet and health. A middle chapter describes a series of institutional scandals that generated the political animus to change the FDA's system, and registered a broader "shock of recognition" that Americans' views about food and food politics had changed. The final two chapters describe the introduction of "Nutrition Information" labeling in the 1970s and the mandatory "Nutrition Facts" panel in the 1990s. By looking at the regulation of labels as a kind of public-private infrastructure for information, the turn to compositional labeling can be understood not merely as a shift in representation-from whole foods to foods as nutrients-but more broadly as a retooling of food markets to embed notions about personal responsibility for health into the ways that food was designed, marketed, and consumed.
Thesis Supervisor: Deborah K. Fitzgerald

The Sutro Tunnel Company, 1866-1878

by Chip Schroeder

The story of the Sutro Tunnel Company is one that weaves together social, economic, and political forces in the... more The story of the Sutro Tunnel Company is one that weaves together social, economic, and political forces in the Western United States in the 1860s and 1870s. Beginning in 1865, Adolph Sutro began soliciting investment in a tunnel that would drain and ventilate mines along the Comstock Lode in Nevada. In the thirteen years from 1865 to 1878, Sutro journeyed from Nevada to San Francisco to Washington DC to Europe in search of political and financial support. As the project’s feasibility and potential profitability became clear in 1866, the Bank of California tried to obstruct Sutro’s plan, which sparked a great rhetorical battle with the Sutro Tunnel Company. The debate highlights a pervasive suspicion of fraudulent business plans, profiteering and monopoly. Sutro attempted to accuse the Bank of California of monopolization of the Comstock mining industry, and portray himself as the victim of their avarice. While the Bank of California was unscrupulous in their opposition to the Sutro tunnel, Sutro was not the honest and reliable CEO that he tried to hard to portray himself as for thirteen years. Sutro’s stock liquidation in the Sutro Tunnel Company soon after the tunnel’s completion proved him to be a profiteer who reaped the benefit of the hype he created over the future profitability of the company, which never materialized.