In connection with some research on the beginnings of German business history the author of this paper has drawn attention to what is probably the earliest firm history ever written. This history of an iron works, entitled Geschichte und Feyer des Ersten Jahrhunderts des Eisenwerks Lauchhammer, was compiled by the Works' general manager, Johann Friedrich Trautscholdt, and privately printed in Dresden in 1825. Of the literally thousands of firm histories which have been issued in Europe and America since that time, only a few can bear comparison with this very first one, a truly remarkable performance. It is typically what the Germans call a Festschrift, i.e., a publication to celebrate an anniversary. This article, based thereon, will show what a mine of information that early firm history is; but hard work was necessary to bring the gold to the surface.

Where did the owners of early Illinois industries get the capital and the funds to start their factories? What was the background of these early manufacturers? The evidence that will be presented here suggests that the typical Illinois manufacturer of the nineteenth century was a self-financed man who was born and raised in Europe or on the eastern seaboard.

Let us begin with the basic thesis of Frederick Jackson Turner, Wisconsin and Harvard historian of the last generation, who reinterpreted the history of this country. Turner's thesis, enunciated at the Chicago meeting of the American Historical Association in 1893, was that society was reborn on every new frontier. Its character was influenced not only by heredity but even more by its new environment. Thus the American economy reflected not only European, especially Anglo-Saxon customs and institutions brought across the Atlantic, but it also reflected the pioneer's adaptation to primitive frontier conditions. By the second, third, and fourth generation, Americans had forgotten or abandoned certain European ways because these were not adapted to survival in the New World.

A recent survey by the U. S. Chamber of Commerce reported that so-called “fringe benefits” are now taking 16.4 per cent of the payrolls of American industry as a whole. Probably the best-known of these welfare programs is the United Mine Workers Welfare and Retirement Fund, which was started in May, 1946, by agreement between the union and the Department of the Interior, then operating the mines, and which was accepted by the operators when the industry returned to private hands. The Fund is financed by a royalty on every ton of coal produced. The royalty was originally 5 cents a ton, but it has risen every year until it is now 50 cents a ton. The revenues of the Fund up to June 30, 1952, were $476,000,000; its expenditures in the same period were $387,000,000. These disbursements went to finance several different types of benefits—pensions for retired miners, hospital and medical care, rehabilitation of the disabled, maintenance of men who were permanently and totally disabled, and death benefits and maintenance aid for miners' families. The Fund is administered by three trustees: one named by the United Mine Workers, one by the operators, and one designated jointly.

In many small New England towns during the nineteenth century, and even into the twentieth, all the business activities, centered usually about the general store, would be carried on by members of one family. Such a situation may be studied by means of a collection, comprising the records of the W. G. Sargent Co., of Sargentville, Maine, recently received by the Manuscript Division, Baker Library. The village of Sargentville, a part of the town of Sedgwick, is on the coast, east of Bucksport, and separated by a channel (now spanned by a bridge) from Deer Isle. Once there was a flourishing wharf (now demolished), where bait, fish, lime, ice, and granite were shipped up and down the coast, in return for products handled by the country stores in the vicinity. The Sargents, who seem to have given their name to the community about 1879, were at the center of this activity, building ships, arranging for their loads, and distributing the return goods, either as wholesalers or through stores they controlled.

The dedication of the Ford Motor Company Archives on May 7, 1953, marks a milestone in research in the history of business in the United States. As far as the Editor of the Bulletin knows, this is the first time a large American corporation has established a separate organization not only to preserve and handle its historical records but also to make them available to scholars for research. To one whose memory goes back to the days when it was nearly impossible to gain access even to old records of business concerns, this event has a very special significance.

Access by scholars to company records is, of course, not uncommon today Several companies have deposited their historical records in public depositories, a notable example being the records of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad in the Newberry Library in Chicago. Others have admitted scholars to their offices for research in their records. The Ford Motor Company has gone still further in that it has established a central depository, with a trained archival staff, which is open to accredited scholars.