The bonanza lure of lumbering proved irresistible to many established small businessmen, who were dazzled by the prospects of cheap raw materials and simple processing, on the one hand, and by growing markets on the other. Disillusionment was frequent, but amidst crushing difficulties created by inexperience and inadequate capital the small operator proved remarkably ingenious and persistent. His often ill-rewarded and seemingly unjustified ventures contributed much to the economic growth of the nation.

Like the financial mart from which it derives its name, OVER THE COUNTER is designed for the types of exchanges not handled elsewhere. This feature has its origin in a demand among readers of business history for a place to compare ideas, voice comments on published articles and reviews, and publish research essays. Contributions are invited. The Editor and Advisory Board reserve the right to decide whether, on the basis of general interest, pertinence, and merit, such contributions will be published. OVER THE COUNTER will appear as often as the volume of contributions may dictate.

In the energetic attempt to control destructive competition through pooling, Albert Fink occupied a position of prominence analogous to that enjoyed by Morgan in the consolidation movement that was to follow. Fink's rational advocacy did much to dispel the notion that the railroads were exercising irresponsible censorship over the affairs of the business community. His rate-making ideas and techniques were a lasting contribution to scientific railroad management.

Growth is governed by a creative and dynamic interaction between a firm's productive resources and its market opportunities. Available resources limit expansion; unused resources (including technological and entrepreneurial) stimulate and largely determine the direction of expansion. While product demand may exert a predominant short-term influence, over the long term any distinction between “supply” and “demand” determinants of growth becomes arbitrary.

A major accomplishment sometimes overshadows the background that made accomplishment possible. The creator of Wall Street's most famous investment formula was, in fact, a journalist and entrepreneur of note. His total contribution to the financial community was far larger than the theory for which he is remembered today.

Some later observers, impressed perhaps by rapid progress of the art after 1900, showed disdain for nineteenth-century methods. Five principal factors, however, produced a steady evolution and made accounting an element of importance in the nineteenth-century American business world.

The transition from simple record keeping to accounting more or less in the form we know it today took many hundreds of years, though most of the basic developments had occurred by early Renaissance times. The advance of the art was intimately linked with a growing literature, the advancement of status, and other recognizable signs of maturing professionalism.

This monograph is another in a bibliographical series designed to call attention to accessible major repositories of business history source materials, describing both the basic collections and recent acquisitions.