Hagley History Hangout Hagley Museum and Library

In the United States, courts make policy through their interpretation of law and regulations. Through litigation, policy decisions are given the force of law. When litigation fails, then the object of regulation is often lost. This applies to the world of digital technologies, where corporate consolidation and the churn of ever-evolving technology makes anti-trust action both essential and difficult.

In her latest research, Dr. Andrea Matwyshyn, professor of law and innovation studies at Pennsylvania State University, delves into the U.S. vs IBM trial which pitted anti-trust regulators against the emergent champion firm of American computing. At issue in the trial were the anti-competitive actions taken by IBM, and the impacts they would have on the American economy, and more significantly, the American society more broadly. When the Reagan administration dropped the case, it cut off a possible future of increased competition.

In support of her research Dr. Matwyshyn received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information on our funding opportunities, and more Hagley History Hangouts, please visit hagley.org.

The Channel Islands lie between Britain and France, and historically occupied a space between Europe and the Americas within circuits of movement around the Atlantic world of the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. This position as a place in-between gave the Channel Islands special significance to migrants, refugees, smugglers, and pirates.

In her latest book project, Dr. Sydney Watts, associate professor of history at the University of Richmond, uncovers the story of the Channel Islands as a locus of trade and migration. Her particular focus is on French refugees and migrants who left France during the Revolution and Napoleonic Wars for political and economic reasons. Among this group were the du Ponts, an aristocratic French family who fled an inhospitable environment in France in favor of entrepreneurial adventures in the new United States. Watts uses the du Pont family records held at the Hagley Library for her research.

In support of her research, Dr. Watts received funding from the Hagley Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society. For more information on our funding opportunities, and more Hagley History Hangouts, please visit us online at hagley.org.

The organization “Junior Achievement” was first conceived in 1916 when three wealthy, influential men decided that American youth needed to be educated on the values of hard work, thrift, and the developing hierarchy of corporate management. From that beginning, however, the organization’s purpose evolved to promote the American system of free enterprise and eventually entrepreneurialism to the youth of the United States and several other countries.

In his dissertation project Maxwell Greenberg, PhD student in history and educational policy at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, charts the history of Junior Achievement from its inception to 1998, when it had successfully exported its model and values to the former Soviet bloc. Greenberg’s work demonstrates how the history of education must look beyond the school as an institution to gain a broader understanding of the diverse locations and organizations involved in the education of every individual and every generation.

In support of his work, Greenberg received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.

The “attention economy” has gotten lots of press in recent years as tech companies and advertising firms have begun to perceive human attention as a limited resource and to fight for their share of the potential revenue to be generated by it. However, the concept of human attention as an economically valuable resource goes back well beyond digital technologies at least to the early years of mass media and motivational psychology.

In his dissertation project, Jacob Saindon, PhD candidate in geography at the University of Kentucky, explores the historical and spatial aspects of the American attention economy in its present digital form and its analog predecessors. Using historical collections held in the Hagley Library, including the Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn (BBD&O) collection, Saindon illuminates the relationships between digital “spaces,” human perception, and the material world.

In support of his work, Saindon received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information on our funding opportunities, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.

While it is often assumed that early industrialization was a spatially and socially concentrated phenomenon, associated primarily with white capitalists in the northwestern and northeastern corners of Europe and North America respectively, the historical reality was much more complex, and more interesting. While Britain and New England played significant roles in the global textile industry, they did so within the context of a wider world of rapidly circulating ideas, people, and technologies.

As part of his dissertation research, Hunter Moskowitz, PhD candidate at Northeastern University, adds to the richness and texture of our understanding of industrialization in general and the textile industry in particular. Moskowitz takes a comparative, transnational approach, using case studies of Lowell, Massachusetts, Concord, North Carolina, and Monterrey, Mexico to uncover the circulation and contestation of techniques, personnel, and social attitudes around the world.

In support of his research, Moskowitz received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more Hagley History Hangouts, and more information on our funding opportunities, visit us online at hagley.org.

In this episode, Ben Spohn Interviews Kevin Kenny on his book Making Sense of the Molly Maguires which recently had a special 25th anniversary release. The Molly Maguires were a secret organization operating in Pennsylvania’s Coal Region during a period of labor unrest in the 1860s and 1870s. This period culminated in the execution of twenty suspected members of the Molly Maguires executed for the murder of sixteen men during this period. Since then there has been disagreement, over who the Molly Maguire’s were, what they did, and their motivations. Kenny argues that this is an inadequate understanding of the Molly Maguires and points out that most of the histories describing the Molly Maguires in this light, as some sort of sinister, secret organization were written by their detractors.

Kenny’s work offers a new explanation of the Molly Maguires drawing from American and Irish sources and traces the labor unrest in the pattern of the Molly Maguires back to similar groups in Ireland that operated during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Keeping that in mind, Kenny’s work is a history of labor and immigration in America. While there is no denying the Molly Maguire’s involvement in violent labor unrest, this adds context to their motivations and provides an explanation for why they embraced the methods of protest that they did.

Kevin Kenny is the Glucksman Professor of History and Director of Glucksman Ireland House at NYU. For some of his research Kenny consulted the Reading Company records at Hagley, which included material related to James McParland’s investigation of the Molly Maguires and other materials related to the Molly Maguire trials.

In support of his work, Kenny received funding from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum and Library. For more information on our funding opportunities, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.