In these turbulent times when economists and business men alike find it difficult to solve the business depression which has descended on our complex civilization, it is refreshing to turn to the early economic tracts which were published in this country, and to contemplate the relatively simple panaceas which were advanced by their authors for a correction of the evils of the time. Again, it a consolation to turn the pages of history and realize that we are not suffering from any unique “disease.” In fact in 1820 the outlook was quite as dark as it is today. The productive industry of from sixty to eighty thousand people was destroyed. The cotton planters had suffered a loss of approximately eight million dollars in profits, and the merchants, eleven and a half million dollars, by the fall in cotton prices. Flour was selling at such a low figure that the farmers had but a meagre return for their efforts. The fall in tobacco prices “spread distress and desolation in the state of Virginia,” and South Carolina had lost her chief export market, that for indigo, which product had constituted about a third of her exports.

Dr. O. T. Howe has given a Record Book and copies of letters of his esteemed ancestor Captain Octavius Howe to the Business Historical Society. These letters were used by Dr. Howe in his book Argonauts of '49 — History and Adventures of the Emigrant Companies from Massachusetts 1849-1850 (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1923), and also in the unpublished biography he has prepared of Captain Howe. The letters in question deal with Captain Howe's exploits in taking the brig Tigress and her cargo around the Horn to San Francisco, and his attempts to dispose of her cargo, in the early fifties.

Material on the methods of the dry goods business prior to the Civil War is almost as scarce as the proverbial “hen's teeth.” It was undoubtedly carried on in all parts of the country and undoubtedly, also, the manner of conducting it changed from time to time, yet the methods of operation and the changes therein have left surprisingly little trace. Something of this history may be secured from the chance remarks of the commercial newspapers of the period, and probably much may be acquired (the work being almost wholly yet to be done) from the account books and letter books of country stores and other mercantile establishments of those days.

Those who have been in any way interested in the Essex Institute, or have used their already valuable collections of shipping papers, will welcome the addition of this important institution to the group of libraries and similar collecting agencies that are endeavoring to accumulate and preserve the materials for business history.

I most heartily Congratulate You on the Completion of the Middlesex Canal, the Judgment and Perseverence with which that Stupenduous work hath been Conducted will deservedly render the Name of Baldwin as Immortal as the Middlesex Canal it Self.

Thus read a letter written to Colonel Loammi Baldwin, the able engineer, by his friend and former partner, Josiah Pierce, on December 25, 1802. But today that monument is but a dry ditch and “the canal in any complete form remains principally as a faint memory in the minds of some few members of the oldest living generation.” However, another monument, which none of the available biographical accounts has mentioned, remains to remind later generations of the feats of this pioneer engineer and Revolutionary hero — the town which bears his name — Baldwin, in Cumberland County, Maine.

Last month the century-old title controversy was revived when Mrs. Pinchot, wife of the Governor of Pennsylvania, in a radio talk, made the assertion that she had always objected to the use of the expression “First Lady”; declaring that “it is a foolish, high-hat kind of a label, whether it is the first lady of a city, a state, or of the whole country — and is not especially appropriate in America.”

Ambrose Heal published in 1925 a book entitled London Tradesmen's Cards of the Eighteenth Century, and in the preface to this very fine volume he made the comment that “it is perhaps remarkable that no book has hitherto been published dealing with tradesmen's cards. … Not only has no book ever been published on the subject, but references in archaeological journals and collectors' magazines are of the scantiest nature and hard to track.” What Mr. Heal said six years ago is equally true today of American material, with one important exception. In 1927 a volume entitled Early American Trade Cards, from the collection of Bella C. Landauer, with critical notes by Adele Jenny, was published in New York. In this volume there are forty-four illustrations, taking us into the history of American trade cards from about 1730 to 1877. Recently Mrs. Bella C. Landauer made a generous gift to the George F. Baker Library of several hundred trade cards of the latter part of the nineteenth century. These cards supplemented two previous gifts, for there were some trade cards in the Trotter Collection, and Mr. Charles H. Taylor has given a number of such cards to the Business Historical Society.

During the past month both Mr. Howard Corning, Curator of the Manuscript Department of the George F. Baker Library, and Mr. Frank C. Ayres, Secretary of the Business Historical Society, spoke over stations WBZ, WBZA and WIXAZ. This broadcast was arranged through the courtesy of Mr. E. J. Rowell, Coöperative Representative of the New England Radio Market News Service.

There is an old saying that “every cloud has a silver lining,” but no doubt it must have been difficult for German business men to see any ray of hope during the dark years succeeding the war when the mark plunged down on the exchange until it was practically worthless. In fact, never in the history of the world has a currency depreciated to such a degree.

Tunnel — what imaginative pictures are conjured up in our minds on hearing this word! To most of us come visions of trains swooping through impassable mountains. Few of us would think of a tunnel as a foot-path or carriage-way under a river, but the first successful tunnel was just such a project under the Thames River.

Business depressions bring in their wake such a train of privation and misery that we are usually blinded to the fact that they occasionally produce incidental benefits. Foremost among the few good results which have flowed from the present business depression is the stimulation of research into the history of the business cycle. Economists and business men alike are attempting to learn as much as possible about similar crises of the past. They are asking themselves whether the depression of 1930 is worse than that which occurred in 1894 or 1840, in what respects it differs from or resembles those catastrophes. They are even wondering how their predecessors felt after the first stock-market crash of 1792.

In a discussion of the ever present tariff problem one often reflects on the determining factors in the tariff policy of our country. The correspondence of Justin S. Morrill, ardent protectionist and author of the Morrill Tariff Act of 1861, sheds considerable light upon this subject. The material covers the period between 1867 and 1897. It has been acquired by the Baker Library through the courtesy of John Spargo, President of the Vermont Historical Society.

The specimens of Portland Clearing House Association currency reproduced on the opposite page were issued during the panic year of 1907.

Two eighteenth century technical treatises — Mechanick Exercises: or the Doctrine of Handy-Works, 1703, by Joseph Moxon, and The Practical House Carpenter, 1796, by William Pain — have been presented to the Society by William Butler, one of our members.

At a joint session of the American Historical Association and the Business Historical Society held at Soldiers Field, Boston, December 30, 1930, business history was discussed for the first time in any comprehensive fashion under such auspices.