The Past Speaks

The 2011 meeting of the BHC will take place in St. Louis, Missouri 31 March–2 April 2011. The theme of this year’s conference is “Knowledge”.

The BHC is one of my annual conferences, but I was unable to present this year because I started a new job in January! I really regret that I won’t be going to the BHC,as there are some interesting-sounding presentations on the program.

My early research was on the 1860s. I was, therefore, really interested to see this paper:

Sean Patrick Adams, University of Florida “Unanticipated Casualties: The Institutional Rebirth of Coal and Oil during the American Civil War” [Abstract]

I should also point out that the panel that I helped to organize is going ahead.

A.2 Banking in Nineteenth-Century North American Regions

Chair: Edwin J. Perkins, University of Southern California
Discussant: Richard Sylla, New York University

Sharon Ann Murphy, Providence College, “Banking on the Public’s Trust: The Image of Commercial Banks in Kentucky, 1816-1820” [Abstract]

Robert E. Wright, Augustana College and New York University “Not All Banks Are Bad: The Merchants Bank of New Bedford and Community Banking in America” [Abstract]     [Paper]

Mark Stickle, The Ohio State University,  “New Gowns, Morocco Shoes, and Little Monsters: Eastern Capital and Mortgage Credit in Ohio, 1835-1850” [Abstract]

There are also some promising-looking papers on Canadian topics planned. They include:

Matthew J. Bellamy, Carleton University, “The Guardians of True Temperance”: The Brewers’ Campaign to End Prohibition in Canada, 1916-1930″ [Abstract]

M. Stephen Salmon, Library and Archives Canada “Transacting a Successful Business”: Knowledge, Informal Empire, and Canadian Life Insurance Companies in China, 1892-1941″

The methodology/theory session looks really interesting as well.

E.1 Method or Madness: Does Business History Have a Methodology?

Co-Chairs: R. Daniel Wadhwani, University of the Pacific and Marcelo Bucheli, University of Illinois Discussant: The Audience

David Kirsch, University of Maryland, “Between the Humanities and Management Science: The Epistemology of Business History”

JoAnne Yates, Massachusetts Institute of Technology “Historical and Qualitative Methods for Studying Organizations”
[Abstract]

Matthias Kipping, York University, and R. Daniel Wadhwani, University of the Pacific “The “Holy Trinity” of the Historical Method: Source Critique, Triangulation, and the Hermeneutic Circle”

Roy Suddaby, University of Alberta “The Use of Historical Methods in Organizational and Institutional Theory”

The full program is available here. The members of the program committee for the 2011 meeting were Mark R. Wilson (chair), Teresa da Silva Lopes, Matthias Kipping, Jocelyn Wills, and Richard R. John (BHC President).