The iron industry in New England was nearly contemporaneous with the settlement of eastern Massachusetts, but for upwards of a hundred years it was confined to the bog ore found in marshes near Lynn and a few other places. By the time of the Revolutionary War, iron foundries were firmly established in the New England States.

The names of Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton are as familiar to the lovers of old furniture as those of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Jonson are to students of English literature. The names of all these men have stood the test of years because of the real worth of their productions and of their influence on the future of their art. The former three, however, might have become a mere tradition if, like many of their contemporary fellow-craftsmen, they had failed to leave any written record of their work.

After something more than a year of existence, The Business Historical Society is practically established in its new quarters at the Baker Library, one of the fine group of buildings for the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, made possible by the gift of Mr. George F. Baker, whose name the library bears.

Demetrius Phalereus, who was library keeper to the king, was now endeavoring, if it were possible, to gather together all the books that were in the habitable earth, and buying whatsoever was anywhere valuable.… And when once Ptolemy asked him, How many ten thousands of books he had collected? He replied, that he had already about twenty times ten thousand, but that, in a little time, he should have fifty times ten thousand.

The Society's set of the Scientific American, oldest of scientific periodicals in this country, is now complete, the first three volumes, 1845-46-47, all rare, having by the generosity of Mr. Joseph P. Day, a founder member, been acquired within this last month.

On Tuesday, October 4, the Harvard Business School entertained as its guest Mr. H. Gordon Selfridge, the first man to introduce American department store methods into England. Mr. Selfridge has just deposited with the Business School Library a part of his collection of the original account books of a branch of the Medici family, covering the period from 1377 to 1597. He is a member of The Business Historical Society, and long before its foundation he was carrying on the sort of research that is the principal object of this organization. His interest is in the biographies of famous business men of the past, the Fuggers and the Medici in particular.

The Business Historical Society has recently acquired a most interesting and valuable little book, a typical page of which is reproduced in the accompanying cut illustrating the industrial life of the sixteenth century.

A source of information concerning the early economic conditions in this country, and a source which has heretofore been little employed, is the tax records of local communities. I have run across some of them in an historical study of taxation in Massachusetts in which I have tried to press back the story to as early a period as possible. Undoubtedly, somewhat similar records are available in other states, and altogether they would supply many data upon the economic life in this country during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for which other sources of realistic material are all too scanty.

The primary purpose of The Business Historical Society, Inc., is to encourage and aid the study of the evolution of business in all periods and in all countries.

The budget in all its forms is attracting so much attention at the present time that we are inclined to think of it as exclusively a twentieth century institution. A small pamphlet belonging to the Business Library, however, is evidence that it had its origin at least as long ago as 1744. This very early example of a family budget, “An Estimate of the necessary Charge of a Family in the middling Station of Life, consisting of a Man, his Wife, Four Children, and One Maid-servant,” occurs in a pamphlet interesting in itself, being “An Apology for the Business of Pawn-Broking, By a Pawn-Broker.”

The Baker Library has recently come into possession of a bit of history which should be intensely interesting to a country in which iron and steel play so large a part. Fifty-five documents have been unearthed, dated between 1650 and 1685, and relating to the Iron Works at Lynn, Massachusetts, the first in the country. Some are originals, and others are certified as true copies.

The Associated Industries of Massachusetts has recently given the Business Historical Society its endorsement, and in its weekly periodical — “Industry” — there has already appeared a two-page article descriptive of the purposes and functions of this Society.

There has recently come into the possession of the Society a valuable collection of books and pamphlets — some 200 items in all — that has been gathered together, and presented to the Society by Mr. Joseph P. Day, the well-known New York real-estate man.

Our collections are growing with amazing rapidity but there are still many things that should be contained in them.

Sir Walter Raleigh's career as a statesman, his interest in American exploration and colonization, his part in defeating the invincible Armada, and his literary talents are familiar to students of the Elizabethan Age. A small book in the possession of the Business Library shows that he also dabbled in economics, of the practical sort with which most writers in the field of economics before Adam Smith occupied themselves.

The generosity of one of our members has furnished us with the original of the interesting cut on the following page. As will be noted, it is a court declaration as to the price of fish, made at Boston in 1704. The signature is that of Edward Brattle, a member of a well-known Boston family.

The same member has also donated to the Society a number of other original pieces.