BUSINESS is the work of the world. In peace or in war, it is
humanity's chiefest task. It touches all our lives at myriad
points. We cannot escape its influence by sitting on the side-
lines and merely watching the world plunge by. Its reach ex-
tends into our holiest cloisters and our most easeful retreats.

The history of American business, in a very real sense, is the
basic history of these United States. Yet, until recent years, it
has been largely neglected. Politicians, generals, clergymen, and
"intellectuals" of established professional status have claimed
and won the spotlight in much or most of the historical writ-
ings to the exclusion of the less articulate but equally important
men of business.

To some extent this phenomenon has been the result of the
prestige of the military, priestly, and political orders--a prestige
inherited from feudal Europe and from our own colonial past.
Undoubtedly, too, it has been in part the result of the pre-
occupation of our economic historians with broad over-all
trends that lend themselves in sweep and scope to classification
or generalization. But more than a little it is the direct result of
the fact that historical business records have not been easy to
find and to use.

Business records, of course, are formidable in bulk. More-
over, they are seldom stored and preserved with any thought of
scholarly use. And all too frequently business managements, in
a generally unjustifiable fear of "airing the past," are prone to
refuse to open their business records for historical appraisal.

Happily, modern business is saying goodbye to all that. As
business enterprises come of age and grow old they begin to see
the value in a true historical picture of their past activities.
They recognize the importance of acquainting their newer
executives with the policies and practices that in earlier days
made for successes or for mistakes. They come to realize that

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