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.

Everybody in this group will be aware of the fact that business history is neither of American nor of recent vintage. The first full-fledged company history was published in 1825 to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the Lauchhammer Iron Works in Saxony; and Professor Herman Freudenberger has recently been able to trace the beginnings of company history to the eighteenth century. His research will be published this spring. As early as the 1900's, Professor Richard Ehrenberg of the University of Rostock was the first to see that what we call business history could be developed into an academic discipline, and his book on the enterprises of the Siemens Brothers marks the beginning of company history satisfying the most rigid modern scientific standards. In fact, Ehrenberg's work had an influence on the thinking of Professor N. S. B. Gras.

The topic for this morning — the recruitment of business history teachers and its allied problems — is an ideal one for discussion purposes. There are practically no facts to impede the free flow of ideas and the limits to the expression of opinion are almost boundless.

My function is to provide an introduction to the discussion. This will be divided into the usual three parts: how are business history teachers presently recruited? What are the strengths and weaknesses in the present arrangement? What should the process of recruiting really be? All of these questions raise a whole series of additional questions of even more fundamental importance.

In 1959 Harvard University, for the first time, appointed a woman to a full professorship at its Graduate School of Business Administration. The new Professor of Business History, Henrietta Melia Larson, was no stranger to her colleagues at the institution where she had worked since 1928 nor to the business historians of the United States. She was known as an outstanding scholar in her field and widely respected for her attainments. At this period of her semi-retirement from Harvard it seems appropriate to honor her by dedicating to her this issue of the Business History Review and by evaluating the contributions which she has already made to her profession.

Many years ago, when I was a reporter on the now defunct New York Sun, I was informed by the city editor that I had been assigned to cover the Westminster, the World Series of dogdom, at Madison Square Garden. While I liked dogs, and got along pretty well with them, I knew nothing whatever about the fine points of judging, and said so.

On October 27–28, 1961, the Harvard Business History Group sponsored a conference devoted to the theme “Business History as a Teaching Challenge.” The purpose was simple enough — get experienced, active practitioners in business history together with newcomers to the field in the expectation that interaction between the two groups would be mutually beneficial. This hope was realized, though the specific results were somewhat different — and perhaps more valuable — than those originally anticipated. The 50 participants found themselves more involved with a discussion of the appropriate subject matter of business history, past accomplishments, and future possibilities, than with current teaching problems and techniques. This development was not totally unanticipated, but the enthusiasm with which it was embraced came as a pleasant surprise. It therefore seems appropriate to precede the papers given at the conference with a brief summary of the present status and future prospects of business history in the light of the discussion and the written comments later submitted by participants.

While “higgling” always occurred to some degree in most country stores, this article establishes evidence that, for many basic commodities, a system of standard prices existed in some country stores long before the Civil War.

Once a flourishing transportation agency, the Great Lakes package-freight carriers passed through a period of decay and disappeared during World War II. This article analyzes the economic factors causing the diversion of traffic that was the primary reason for the decline of the package freighters.