As part of its centennial celebration, Harris commissioned a historical survey of the 1994 list of Fortune 500 companies, inquiring as to when they were founded and what their initial names, products, or services were. Harris then sent this list to several historians, including Professor Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. and the editor of this Review. We believe the Harris compilation to be a potentially valuable research tool. We are pleased to present it here, along with the following brief introduction, which is a composite of observations by the Harris researchers, Professor Chandler, and the Editor and Assistant Editor of the Review.

The career of this influential accountant illuminates, with colorful Victorian overtones, the beginnings of the investment trust movement and the heyday of British international investment.

This article rethinks the relationship between trade and industry in the development of Indian capitalism, focusing on Tata, pioneers in textile and steel production. It shows how two little-known affiliated trading companies, R.D. Tata & Co. in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Kobe, and Tata Limited in London, played a crucial intermediary role in securing financing and market access for the parent firm in Bombay while simultaneously increasing its exposure to the effects of global crises. Tata's ultimately dominant position in a protected national economy was due to the contingent failure of these trading companies rather than a foregone conclusion.

Medieval strictures against usury were a long time dying, and the dynamic society of the English Renaissance could not afford to wait. Inflation, the growth of commerce, and the increasing splendor of the royal court created a strong demand for cash, especially among the landed gentry. Professor Shipley describes how one of the greatest of the moneylenders legalized the interest rates he charged, secured his loans against default, and (with limited success) maintained his reputation for respectability while engaged in a dubious occupation. Thomas Sutton and his like filled the gap that old church doctrine made in the social fabric of sixteenth-century England and smoothed the way for their successors who, after the ethical revolution of the seventeenth century, would he legitimized as private bankers.

To what extent did the search for solutions to problems of labor management mold the development of large-scale business? The history of the Imperial Tobacco Company (ITC) is instructive, because its managerial structures have been heavily criticized. Yet many of the organizational improvements that were implemented after the company's founding in 1901 have been overlooked, particularly in the realm of labor management, which emerged as an important component of the company's increasing capabilities and growth. In contrast to U.S. tobacco firms, ITC implemented labor policies that responded to arising difficulties in size, legislation, trade unionism, and social attitudes. Its development reveals how the variety of factors influencing the management of labor stretch beyond the narrow concern for models of internal administrative structures.

The preservation and study of unpublished business records has long been one of business history's most distinctive contributions to scholarship. To provide a forum for archivists and historians to share their knowledge of specific archival collections, the Review has commissioned a series of essays on archival history and research opportunities. In this essay, the first in the series, Ms. Florence Bartoshesky, curator of manuscripts and archives at the Harvard Business School's Baker Library, reviews the history of this major collection of business records.

A distinguished British scholar and one of the Review's International Correspondents raises interesting questions concerning the writing of business and economic history.

The problems and experiences of the largest American powder producer form an interesting case study of the effects of the Civil War upon business.

When attention is shifted from individual entrepreneur to the socio-economic group of which he is a part, new historical perspectives are opened to view. This study of a group of bankers in frontier Cincinnati considerably sharpens the historical concept of the “Western Banker” and provides insight into the nature of the banking function in a developing economy. The data employed yield significant conclusions about the nature of the bankers' backgrounds and about the importance both of those backgrounds and of the frontier environment in shaping the bankers' function and role.

Most analyses of American direct investment abroad focus on the post-World War II era, and on manufacturing. Professor Kindleberger examines United States direct investment in a range of undertakings in France — finance, insurance, trade, marketing, services, and manufacturing — and concentrates on pre-1950 developments.

A great deal has been written about the perception of time before the invention of mechanical timepieces, but the nature of the evidence has led much of this literature to take on an impressionistic, even metaphysical, cast. In the following article, Professor Epstein uses specific data gleaned from the cartularies of thirteenth–century Genoese notaries to investigate more concretely the uses of time and the structure of the business day in Genoa. He concludes that, in this early center of Western commercial activity at least, an impulse toward greater precision in marking the time of day preceded the arrival of the clock.

Russell & Co., the Boston partnership which had long been prominent in the China trade, found its business as commission agent in a state of serious decline by 1861. Therefore Edward Cunningham, a junior partner resident in Shanghai, conceived the idea of founding a steamship line to operate up the Yangtze River. This venture would require a capital far exceeding that used by Russell & Co. in its commission business. The head of the firm, Paul Sieman Forbes, who lived in New York and Newport, spurned the project in favor of more lucrative and secure investments in the United States. Cunningham then showed his promotional abilities by raising the necessary capital in China. Not only was the resultant Shanghai Steam Navigation Company profitable in itself, it also brought much commission business to Russell & Co. This article, based mainly on the manuscript records of the Forbes family, contributes to a more realistic estimate of the amount of American capital in the Far Eastern trade and to a greater appreciation of the administrative problems and methods involved.

Business historians have shown the importance of industrial research in the process of innovation. Most have focused on the industrial research departments themselves. Less attention has been paid to the position of these departments within research networks outside the firm. This article explores the story of networking at the Dutch company Philips & Co. during the interwar period. Gilles Hoist, director of Philips's Research Department at the time, became involved in an agricultural research network that comprised growers, university scientists, and the Dutch government. These networks were essential for Philips's success and provided an opportunity for the company's researchers to keep in touch with scientific circles.