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What Is Business History?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Arthur H. Cole
Arthur H. Cole
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Emeritus
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Extract

As one grows old, he becomes increasingly annoyed at confusion of almost any variety; and that which continues to surround the concept of “business history” chances to impinge frequently enough upon my attention to impel me to try to reduce the disparities in concepts still existent among individuals interested in the field. Diversity of concepts was evident even among men interested enough in the area to come – in some cases, goodly distances – to attend a two-day meeting at the Harvard Business School on the teaching of the subject.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 36 , Issue 1: Business History Conference Issue Dedicated to Henrietta M. Larson , Spring 1962 , pp. 98 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1962

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References

1 Fabricant, Solomon, “An Economist's View of Philanthropy,” in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 105 (April 21, 1961), p. 163.Google Scholar

2 Penrose, Edith T., The Theory of the Growth of the Firm (New York and Oxford, 1959), p. 53.Google Scholar

3 In reality, of course, the domain of business has really quite ragged edges. For example, there are cooperative enterprises; there are central banks, sometimes privately owned but devoted to a public function; there are stock, bond, and commodity exchanges; there are professions not much removed from businesses; there are privately endowed colleges and universities — with Harvard College the American business institution with the record of longest continuous existence; and there are business functions evident in governmental agen cies, e.g., budgeting, accounting control, purchasing, etc. “Business” trails off into foundations, hospitals, and other eleemosynary institutions.

4 Cole, Arthur H., Business Enterprise in its Social Setting (Cambridge, 1959).Google Scholar

5 Conrad, Alfred H., “Income Growth and Structural Change,” in American Economic History, edited by Harris, Seymour E. (New York, 1961), pp. 46–54.Google Scholar