Business History Conference


The Business History Conference is an academic organization that supports all aspects of research, writing, and teaching about business history and about the environment in which businesses operate. Founded in 1954, the BHC supports ongoing research among its members and holds conferences to bring together business and economic historians. It also publishes a quarterly academic journal, Enterprise & Society, along with selected papers from its annual meetings via .

History

The BHC was founded in 1954 as a series of meetings held at Northwestern University. Richard C. Overton, an American railroad historian, was the first president of the BHC. As cliometricians began dominating economic historian with quantitative methods, other scholars sought to retain the atheoretical, qualitative take on scholarship. The group of economic and business historians met again in 1956, 1958, and 1971, transforming itself into a full professional organization. According to Naomi Lamoreaux of Yale University, the BHC today is composed mainly of historians, while the Economic History Association of economists.
Today, approximately 30 percent of its membership resides outside North America. This reflects the increasingly global nature of the work of business history.
Former presidents of the BHC include:
The BHC is a member of the International Economic History Association and an affiliated organization of the American Historical Association and of H-Net.
The organization also operates , one of the earliest H-Net discussion lists, and maintains an on-line full-text archives of its print proceedings journal, . It also publishes , a blog devoted to news of interest to business and economic historians. The BHC holds an that provides a forum for discussing current research in business history and related fields and offers an opportunity for people with similar interests to meet and exchange ideas. Participation from overseas scholars is especially encouraged, and joint meetings with the European Business History Association are held regularly. The BHC sponsors a number of awards and prizes, including the Hagley Prize in Business History and the Cambridge Journals Article Prize; it endeavors to support scholars entering the field through its travel-to-meeting grants, its Doctoral Dissertation Colloquium, and its Krooss Dissertation Prize. Sub-groups within the organization promote the interests of women in business history, business historians teaching at business schools, and emerging scholars.