Overall, this first volume in the series should render business research in manufacturing a good deal easier by bringing together insightful industry histories and detailed critical bibliographies. This series has much to recommend it. Future volumes will be eagerly awaited. "Reference Books Bulletin"

This historical and bibliographical reference work is the first volume of Greenwood Press's "Handbook of American Business History," a series intended to supplement current bibliographic materials pertaining to business history. Devoted to manufacturing, this work uses the Enterprise...

The second volume in the "Handbook of American Business History" series, this book offers concise histories of extractive, manufacturing, and service industries as well as extensive bibliographic essays pointing to the leading sources on each industry and bibliographic checklists. Supplementing other bibliographic materials in business history, this volume provides researchers with a much needed path through the vast array of material available in the library and on the Internet. Indicating which resources to check and which to bypass, the book is a guide to a sometimes overwhelming amount...

The Panic of 1893 and the depression it triggered mark one of the decisive crises in American history. Devastating broad sections of the country like a tidal wave, the depression forced the nation to change its way of life and altered the pattern and pace of national development ever after. The depression served as the setting for the transformation from an agricultural to an industrial society, exposed grave economic and social problems, sharply tested the country's resourcefulness, reshaped popular thought, and changed the direction of foreign policy. It was a crucible in which the...

The economic and cultural roots of contemporary American business can be traced directly to developments in the era between the Civil War and World War I. The physical expansion of the country combined with development of transportation and communication infrastructures to create a free market of vast proportion and businesses capable of capitalizing on the accompanying economies of scale, through higher productivity, lower costs, and broader distribution. "The Birth of Big Business in the United States" illuminates the conditions that changed the face of American business and the national...

With rapidly expanding information sources available in libraries and on the internet, researchers delving into business history need to know what is useful and what is not. Together with the first two volumes of the Handbook of American Business History, this third volume book provides a guide to business history and to the overwhelming amount of information on the subject. In twenty-one entries on specific industries, contributors offer concise histories of infrastructure, including electricity, gas, and communications, as well as service industries, such as banking, medical insurance,...

Originating as a silver-mining camp and marketed today as a silver-mining ghost town, Calico, CA outlived the silver era when borax was discovered in its hills. Supplying Borax worldwide--employing the twenty mule teams still associated with Twenty-Mule Team Borax--the Calico mines played a pivotal role in the evolution of the less glamorous industry, borax mining. Correcting the image sold to tourists, Steeples provides a tight geographic, economic, social, political, and business history of Calico, a once thriving community struggling to survive in primitive conditions. He tells the tale...