Whatever Happened to

(American) Economic History

And Could the History of Capitalism
Become the Newer Economic History?
Colleen A. Dunlavy, UW-Madison

THIRTY YEARS OF NORTH AMERICAN STUDIES IN FRANCE AND EUROPE
State of the Art and Future Prospects
June 4-6, 2014
cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales
Paris, France

The puzzle
A great economic transformation since
the 1970s
On a par with changes ca. 1900
Yet economic history disappeared in
history departments
The conventional explanation
Economic historians cliometric turn
An alternative reading
Economic history defined
As it was before the cliometric turn
The history of an economy
Rather than the economics of a history
Follow the money
Sources of research funding
Economic history, 1902-1940s
Carnegie Institution, 1902
Project on American economic history


$30,000 per year
$19.4 million as a share of 2013 US GDP
Economic history, 1902-1940s
Carnegie Institution, 1902
Project on American economic history
Expansive conception


Material basis of social existence
Production of necessities and conveniences
Organization of labor
Distribution of commodities
Institutions
Technological change
Trends over time
Economic history, 1902-1940s
Carnegie Institution, 1902
Project on American economic history
Expansive conception
Extraordinary outpouring of literature


By 1908 204 collaborators
By 1914
14-vol. index to state documents
64 monographs
Plus 112 unpub.
72 journal articles
Economic history, 1902-1940s
Carnegie Institution, 1902
Project on American economic history
Expansive conception
Extraordinary outpouring of literature
Embraced by historians from 1910s
As economics turned toward scientism
The new history life of the masses
By the 1930s, widely available in history
departments



High point
Economic History of the United States
book series
8 volumes, published 1945-1962

Nettels, The Emergence of a National Economy, 1775-1815 (1962)
Gates, The Farmers Age: Agriculture, 1815-1860 (1960)
Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860 (1951)
Shannon, The Farmers Last Frontier: Agriculture, 1860-1897 (1945)
Kirkland, Industry Comes of Age: Business, Labor, and Public Policy,
1860-1897 (1961)
Faulkner, The Decline of Laissez-Faire, 1897-1917 (1951)
Soule, Prosperity Decade: From War to Depression, 1917-1929 (1947)
Mitchell, Depression Decade: From New Era through New Deal
(1947)
Environmental history
Legal history
History of technology
Business history
Economic history
Labor history
History of education; social/cultural history
First volume:
Shannon, The
Farmers Last
Frontier (1945)
The fragmentation of
economic history
Proliferation of specialized societies

1919 Agricultural History Society
Late 1930s Industrial History Society
1940 Economic History Association
1954 Business History Conference
1958 Society for the History of Technology
Rockefeller Foundation funding
Committee on Research in Economic History
$300,000 for 1941-1945
$40.8 million as share of 2013 US GDP
For entrepreneurial history
The fragmentation of
economic history
Proliferation of specialized societies
McCarthyism of the 1950s
Post WWII social science funding
scientism
Consensus history
Influence of structural-functionalism
Economy as exogenous
Division of labor
Historians explore social/cultural response to economic change
Someone else explores origins and dynamics of economic change
Not the new economic history
Could the history of capitalism
become the newer economic history?
Rapidly emerging field of history
Focuses on the social and cultural
experience of capitalism
Capitalism as an autonomous force
Yes, if it makes capitalism an
endogenous variable
If it explores the origins and dynamics of
economic change