One of the recurring problems in the study of management theory concerns the authority relationships between stockholders, officers, and directors of corporations. The power centers in the corporate form of enterprise are quite different from those that obtain in an individual proprietorship and in a partnership. In addition, many differences between these types of legal organizations may be noted as one considers them from the point of view of the source of executive authority or from the viewpoint of statute law and its interpretations.

By far the most swashbuckling figure in the history of the Mexican mining industry was “Colonel” William C. Greene. While the Guggenheims built an empire founded on financial acumen and sound metallurgical practice, Greene built an empire founded on prospectuses and sheer bluff. Greene, in his time, controlled the largest copper ore body in all Mexico, yet he drove his company into bankruptcy. The story of his opening of the Cananea copper deposit is fantastic—stranger than fiction.

From time to time historians and other recorders pursue a practice, not discouraged by business historians, of pointing out that for every Napoleon and Wellington there existed a Rothschild and Baring, and for every American Revolution—whether in the 1770's or 1860's— there lived a Robert Morris or Jay Cooke, some one person or group of persons who could supply the economic and business administrative sagacity required to keep the financial arteries of war flowing successfully. When in the 1830's the people of Texas ended their political subordination to Mexico by military revolution, the thread of this business-makes-it-possible pattern can be found to be running true. In Texas two men, unsung for military exploits, in large measure made possible the financial continuance of the Texas government and its army during a period when the stage was being set for the eventual annexation to the United States of an area roughly the size of France. Without these two men, Thomas F. McKinney and Samuel May Williams, the disputed genius of Sam Houston might not have won a decisive victory at San Jacinto, terminating the Mexican hold on Texas, for without their aid Houston's army conceivably would have lacked clothes, provisions, and most especially, arms.

By the time a business society is labeled “materialist,” the battle slogan has already rallied what must once have been mere squads of private frustrations. To begin with, somebody's conscience must have been upset by the great business mastery of circumstance, or there would be no need to complain about “materialism” or anything else. Since a case of upset conscience can cover a variety of aches and pains, it might be worth investigating some of the particular frustrations before we draw conclusions about business in general. Fortunately, we have data that isolate some aspects of the problem where we can observe and enjoy it—in the roots of an occurrence, with real people living the issues.

Hersey, Staples and Company was organized by eastern men in 1854 to carry on a business in Stillwater, leading lumber town in Minnesota Territory. Bringing to this business venture on the energy, experience lumbering acquired in Maine, knowledge of the mercantile trade, and capital from Maine and Massachusetts, the four partners of Hersey, Staples and Company initiated an enterprise that gained the attention of businessmen throughout the Territory. The firm became the largest owner of pinelands in the St. Croix Delta, a leading producer of logs and lumber in an area that ranked first in lumber exportation in Minnesota, operator of the finest mill in the Territory, wholesaler and retailer of logs and lumber, part owner in boom companies, dam companies, and a general store, and later, promoter of railroads and banks. Although only one partner became a resident of Minnesota, the others were favorably known in the community in which their business was located. Few of the records of the company are extant, but the history of operations that can be discovered illuminate the general problems of running a lumber business in the West in the 'fifties.

When the Williams brothers migrated from Connecticut to New York State in 1825 they established themselves as country merchants, yet their activities bore a distinct resemblance to those of the seaboard merchants of the late eighteenth century. Although divorced from international trade, the Williamses exhibited the same dependence on country produce, the same need to exchange produce for specie and specie for manufactured goods as did the House of Hancock.

In contrast to the practice followed in most corporate business enterprises, the position of president in a textile company is generally of secondary importance. The treasurer is usually the chief executive officer. It is he who makes the managerial decisions, and it is he who is responsible only to the board of directors. In the nineteenth century, all the mills established by the Boston capitalists adopted this nomenclature for their leading officers; curiously enough, the mills at Lowell continue this practice today. The treasurer of each company directs its operation from his office in Boston while the agent supervises production from his counting room at Lowell; very much in the background is the president. It is the purpose of the present study to investigate the origin of this usage and to discover what were some of the functions and characteristics of the presidents of these textile companies in the nineteenth century.

Business history has proved an attraction to German businessmen and German scholars over a considerable period of time—to the former as promoters of anniversary volumes or Festschriften, and to the latter occasionally as authors of such volumes but especially as investigators with broader interests. Why such has been the case, in comparison for example with the weaker attraction to corresponding groups in other European countries, is not easily explained. Perhaps it stemmed originally from the businessman's desire to achieve greater acceptance in a society in which inherited landownership and service in government and army had a conspicuous influence. At all events, one must take the length and breadth of German business history as facts.

In the annals of American labor the deeds of the carpet weavers are writ large. Their experiences are significant not only for the labor movement; they have permanently left their mark on the business institutions which were involved. In no case is this more true than in that of the Bigelow-Sanford Carpet Company. A study of the history of this company is under way at the Harvard Business School. This paper is drawn mainly from the records of the two largest and most important of Bigelow-Sanford's six ante-bellum predecessors: the Lowell Manufacturing Company and the Thompsonville Carpet Manufacturing Company.

Jonathan Ware, an ironmaster from Lynn, Massachusetts, settled in central Alabama in 1825 and was for some years active in the iron business. In the 1840's his son, Horace Ware, established the Shelby Iron Company and with the financial help of a friendly planter erected a blast furnace at the village of Shelby, in Shelby County. The furnace was put in blast late in the decade and operated for a number of years without benefit of rail transportation.

Business history, as the study of the history of the administration and operation of business, is a relatively new discipline. As a separate academic field of study, research, and instruction, it is only about twenty-five years old and still in the stage of formulation and definition. Business history has been a peculiarly American development; the name itself was first used in the United States in 1925 to designate this special interest. But no scholar or generation of scholars begins de novo; each builds on foundations laid by earlier workers. Certainly, this is true of business history as we know it today; it owes a great deal to many individuals and to many disciplines. A number of historians and economists in the latter part of the nineteenth century and in the early part of the twentieth century made material contributions toward the development of this field. One of the most important of these was Werner Sombart. It is the purpose of this paper to indicate Sombart's role in this evolution.

Many American historians have stressed the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 as a turning point in the expansion of commerce across the Appalachian barrier from the seaports of the Atlantic coast. Less attention has been paid to the Erie's competitors, perhaps because they were uniformly less successful than their prototype. Yet they have a certain interest. In this article we shall be dealing with only one of these competing projects—the Welland Canal in Upper Canada, the by-pass for Niagara—and with only one aspect, namely the financial. Nevertheless, we shall perhaps be able to draw some general conclusions as to the reasons why the Erie Canal succeeded so brilliantly, while other projects, at least in a relative sense, failed.

The Kress Room of Baker Library recently acquired the Latin and German editions of a book which must be considered one of the first, if not the first, guide for investors published in Germany. According to the custom of the times, the titles are cumbersome indeed. The earlier Latin edition's title reads: Commentatio juris praesertim Germanici tam consonarais quam dissonantis de pecunia mutuaticia tuto collocanda. An wen, wie, und wo die Capitalien am sichersten auszulehnen (Goettingae, 1761); while the German edition is entitled Der Kluge Capitalist, oder politisch redlicher Unterricht, wie Gelder am sichersten zu benutzen und anzulegen (Nürnberg, 1766; 2d ed., 1786).

It would be impossible within the brief compass of this paper to give even a fraction of the chronological developments in the complicated story of the close inter-relationships of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad with the mining and manufacturing interests of northern Alabama in the formative years of the 1870's and 1880's. Instead, this paper is intended to show in somewhat broader outline how that railroad entered the Birmingham region after the Civil War and something of the scope of information relative to that region's development that can be obtained from the business records of this railroad. It is also the intention of this paper to give some insight into the importance of the role of the railroad outside of its usual part as a carrier only. In the encouragement of traffic peculiar to its own region it was expedient for a railroad to favor some industries over others, some areas over others, some businessmen over others. It was important for the flow of traffic that certain communities be encouraged at the expense of others. Although the physical presence of the railroad itself may account for some alteration in the established patterns of regional economy, the conscious, active, and deliberate attempts of the railroad management to influence the direction of regional growth may well be considered as determining factors.

Although the Beverly Cotton Manufactory and its records disappeared without a trace more than a century ago, it has received an honored place in almost all the subsequent histories of manufacturing. The reason for this interest is suggested by the title of the most complete account of the Manufactory, Robert S. Rantoul's “The First Cotton Mill in America.” The present writer is more interested in how the mill came into being and how it functioned, than in the controversy as to whether Beverly, or Worcester, or Philadelphia, or South Carolina is entitled to claim the earliest cotton mill; however, as a native of Beverly he will have something to say on this subject at the end of the article. Recent discoveries at the Rhode Island Historical Society, the Massachusetts State Archives, and the Beverly City Hall help to fill out the basic documents used by Rantoul and all subsequent writers. The most significant of these basic documents relates to the incorporation of the Manufactory in 1789 and the succeeding petitions to the State Legislature for aid.