HIST 615: description
Every day Americans enter into dozens of business transactions, and every day, they are surrounded by business phenomena: Federal Reserve data, trade deficit statements, earnings reports, references to regulatory law, advertising of all kinds, and corporate scandals, among others. Historians have, by and large, left discussions of the history of business to economists. But as one business historian opines, leaving business to the economists and finance MBAs is a mistake; a historical perspective on business is both useful Download
HIST 615 Syllabus PDFand enriching. (Besides there is something satisfying about "following the money.") Because the field of business history is a broad one, the course with two exceptions will concentrate on manufacturers, individuals and firms who made things, and on the evolution of their particular entrepreneurial activity, manufacturing and the marketing of their wares. In this particular iteration of the course, well begin with a tour through the development of corporate America and finish by concentrating on two special topics: the popular culture of business and the current economic crisis, particularly the role of banks. This course, in short, is designed as an intensive reading and thinking course to acquaint you with the major themes in the development of corporate America that will emphasize discussion and the exchange of ideas.
books
The following books are required for the course. They are available in the Campus Bookstore and from various online vendors.
- Richard S. Tedlow,
Giants of Enterprise: Seven Business Innovators and the Empires They Built - Alfred D. Chandler Jr.,
The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business - Elsbeth Brown,
he Corporate Eye: Photography and the Rationalization of American Culture - Susan Strasser,
Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market - Philip Scranton,
Endless Novelty - Walter A. Friedman
Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America - Regina Lee Blaszczyk,
Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning - Roland Marchand,
Creating the Corporate Soul - Liaquat Ahamed,
The Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World - John Kenneth Galbraith,
The Great Crash of 1929 - David Liss,
The Whiskey Rebels: A Novel - Theodore Drieser,
The Financier - Douglas Brinkley,
Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress
blog
Blogs have become an important element on the web and something that you’ve already probably done in other classes. Rather than have a group blog or design a blog from the ground up, you’ll be doing something a bit different. Because you’ll need a blog that has a photo album, I’ll recommend two options. (Why not one of the free services? Because I have experienced enormous problems with downtime, trolls, and spam in previous semesters.) You can obtain a Plus-level subscription to Typepad, a blog. the cost is $8.95 per month or roughly $27.00 for the semester (the cost of a modest textbook). You can also sign up on Wordpress for $30.00/year or another blog service. One strategy is sign up for a TypePad free trial; this will furnish you with two week’s free service. The others have some or no deals. The advantages of TypePad and Wordpress are ease of use and the option to customize your design with a minimum of fuss.
You can also use free or open source blog applications and mount your blog on your university or private account. Be aware, however, that the installation of the software is challenging, and you will need to contact your ISP or make arrangements with the university to ensure that the necessary software is in place and that you have permission. At the end of the semester, you can cancel your subscription or ditch your university blog. Or, you may discover that you like blogging so much that you retain your subscription. The key requirement for any blog is that must have a strong spam filter system and no advertisements. Both of these are irritating and distracting.