The bibliography of this subject is the subject, and the enormous filescourse of over three centuries are formidability itself. To reduce the element of formidability it is necessary to turn to studies of the newspaper in terms of countries, regions, owners, editors and journalists. But again the bibliography reflects the character of the press. Newspapermen have contributed notably, but unfortunately the training in newspaper work is not ideal for an economic interpretation of the subject. The increasing participation of university graduates in journalism provides a basis for more objective studies, but even here the training.exercises a subtle influence and weakens the possibility of a sustained and effective interpretation. Throughout the history of the newspaper industry, studies reflect the dominant influence of the moment, or perhaps it is safer to say, represent the dominant influence of the tradition of the industry; hence they show a perceptible lag between the newspaper as it is and the newspaper as it was. In the main they are obsessed with the role of the press in relation to political opinion, the importance of freedom of the press, the fourth estate and so on; they are suffused with innumerable cliches1 constantly bubbling up from the effervescence of writing.

In New Mexico Spanish civilization left a deep imprint. There the economic and social institutions which established themselves firmly in the Spanish colonial period profoundly influenced the course of subsequent economic development, and are a vital force today. Human problems in contemporary New Mexico cannot be understood, nor can plans for the use of her human and physical resources be made, without understanding the colonial institutions, their strong resistance to change, and the mutual adjustments between them and Anglo-American institutions.

In any economic system, whether medieval or modern, “money, banking, and credit,” are so closely connected and interwoven that they cannot be separated. Banking involves the extension of credit, and credit leads to the creation of additional purchasing power or, to use a different phrase, of money substitutes. The importance of credit and banking in medieval times should not be underrated, as is sometimes done by placing undue emphasis on later developments in England. Professor Usher is preparing a treatise on the early history of banking in Italy and Spain. This paper, which summarizes the results of a similar investigation into the origins of banking in Bruges, will therefore supplement Professor Usher's work, as far as the development of banking in the Low Countries is concerned.

The most interesting and distinctive feature of the first Bank of the United States was its nation-wide operation through a system of branches. It is difficult to present an even reasonably definitive analysis of that system. The records available, although more adequate than formerly, are still sadly incomplete. Enough is known, however, to reveal many complexities, political, entrepreneurial and administrative. This paper is designed to offer only a rather sketchy treatment of the following phases or aspects of the subject: prototypes and predecessors of the Bank with special reference to branch-banking; the establishment of the eight branches of the Bank; the actual operation of the branches; and the relative measure of their liquidity when the Bank was subjected to the acid test of winding up its affairs.

The body of thought on location is composed of several contributory JL streams. The best known of these, that associated with the name of Alfred Weber, has concerned itself with the explanation of the choice of production sites by manufacturing industries, and is consequently the stream most closely related to my inquiry.1 However, the Weber school typically pays very little attention to the historical aspects of its subjects; this neglect is apparent both in the nature of the data employed and in the selection of scope, and the placing of emphasis. In the first part of this paper I shall offer an example of a Weber-like analysis or evaluation of the location factors involved in the cotton industry of this country during the past sixty years, as adapted to the purposes of historical inquiry and to the use of historical data; in the second part, I shall apply to some specific historical situations the results of the analysis presented in the first part.

In his recently published volume on American economic history, Chester W. Wright says, in substance, that whereas he can give some account of the vicissitudes experienced by the several distributive factors of land, labor, and capital, he will have to deal in a very cursory fashion with the entrepreneur and with entrepreneurial gains since so little is known about them. I, for one, welcomed this statement of so eminent a student of American economic history since it gave such forthright support to ideas which I was at the time presenting to the recently organized Committee on Research in Economic History (ideas by no means wholly or even chiefly my own) relative to the desirability of research in the history of American entrepreneurship.

In so far as the term “profit” has any fairly concrete and generally understood meaning, it designates the income accruing to the owner of a business or productive “enterprise,” through the operations of that business or enterprise. The owner may be an individual or a group, organized in some way as a legal entity; most typically, it is a “corporation,” particularly under American conditions. In either case, this owner, who normally hires productive services from others for a fixed compensation, uses them to make a product and sells the product for what he can get, is what is meant by an entrepreneur. He (or it) is the responsible controller or manager of the business in relation to market conditions, regardless of whomever he may consult or whatever functions he may delegate to others or on whatever terms. In business usage, profit is the entrepreneur's net income, what remains out of the gross proceeds of the business after paying the hired labor and capital at the agreed rates, determined by market competition (and after deducting costs of materials and “products” bought from others). It is thus a “residual” income, what is left after other distributive shares are removed, and may be positive or negative. But profit, so defined—when there is a positive profit, and not a loss—evidently consists to a greater or less extent of the remuneration for services furnished to the business by the entrepreneur himself—labor or capital services, or both. For analytical purposes, the economic theorist must define profit more narrowly, as what is or would be left (“residual”) after deducting wages and/or interest at the “going rates” for the entrepreneur's own services.

Most economic theorists nowadays appreciate that particular theories are peculiarly relevant to particular historical situations, and gain their chief importance from this relevance. In place of one absolute set of propositions, economists are becoming accustomed to the idea that their theoretical arsenal needs to include, for example, weapons suited to conditions of approximately full employment, and different weapons suited to conditions of depression. The dependence of theory on conditions properly goes further than this. We need to ask whether our fundamental concepts are appropriate to the historical conditions of the time to which they are to be applied.

While definitions of terms must vary with the purposes of their use, several studies of American entrepreneurship might be started with the word entrepreneur confined to those business executives who are associated with (a) the organization of new business units, (b) substantial expansions of established units, and (c) strenuous efforts to adapt established units to a changing environment. Such a conception, which uses terms that would obviously have to be made more precise as a study progressed, excludes from the term entrepreneur those business executives who carry on more or less routine operations, and it directs attention to the dynamic activities of businessmen. It is a little broader than a strict interpretation of the term innovator and fits fairly well the idea implicit in many definitions of the term entrepreneur, namely, that the entrepreneur is the businessman who introduces new ideas and changes the rate at which the wheels of enterprise go ‘round. Moreover, it utilizes three types of business activity concerning which there are data available for studies of the policy-determining executive. I should perhaps add that those who attempt to organize, expand, or adapt business units should be called entrepreneurs as well as those who achieve these goals. Attempts often reveal new ideas that successors are able to put into operation.