Bessie E. Whitten - Böcker

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 BulletinThis 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 Standard Industrial Classification (ESIC) to divide the subject into distinct segments, from which contributors have developed histories and bibliographies of the different types of manufacturing. Though authors were given sets of guidelines to follow, they were also allowed the flexibility to work in a format that best suited the material.Each contribution in this volume contains three important elements: a concise history of the manufacturing sector, a bibliographic essay, and a bibliography. Some contributions appear in three distinct parts, while others are combined into one or two segments; all build on currently available material for students and scholars doing research on business and industry. The contributors, who include business, economic, and social historians, as well as engineers and lawyers, have covered such topics as bakery products, industrial chemicals and synthetics, engines and turbines, and household appliances. Also included are an introductory essay that covers general works and a comprehensive index. This book should be a useful tool for courses in business and industry, and a valuable resource for college, university, and public libraries.

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 of information.Each of the book's chapters provides a concise industry history, beginning with the industry's rise to importance in the U.S. and continuing to the present. The bibliographic essays provide a narrative outline of the leading sources published or made available in archives, libraries, or museum collections since 1971, when Lovett's American Economic and Business History Information Sources was published. Each discussion concludes with a bibliographic checklist of the titles mentioned in the essay as well as other titles. In a rapidly expanding information society, researchers, teachers, and students may be easily overwhelmed by the exhaustive material available in print and electronically. What is useful and what can be ignored is a strategic question, and few know where to begin. This book provides a guide.

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, mortuary, advertising, and education. Bibliographic essays, supplemented with bibliographic lists, point to the most important sources on each industry.Written during the most rapidly changing decade in American business history, the Handbook is a consolidated business history of the United States. Volume III addresses basic industries such as mining, electricity, and natural gas trade; services such as financial, health, educational, and social-business organizations; and public administration. The histories of the industries begin with the industries' rise to importance in the United States and continue to the present. The bibliographic essays discuss the leading sources since Robert Lovett's American Economic and Business History Information Sources (1971) and Henrietta Larson's Guide to Business History (1948). This volume and the two companion volumes provide a useful resource for the researcher, teacher, and student.