Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History

This prize consists of a $500 award (endowed) and a plaque. Only dissertations written in English will be considered. The Secretary-Treasurer will post notices about the prize in suitable newsletters, journals, guides, electronic media, and in the BHC's call for conference papers. Any dissertation in business history completed in the three calendar years immediately prior to the annual meeting can be nominated or considered, but may be submitted only once for the committee's consideration.

The deadline for proposals for the Krooss prize is November 14. Nominations (or self-nominations) are to consist of a cover letter, the dissertation abstract, and the author's c.v. and are to be uploaded using this form: https://thebhc.org/krooss-prize-nomination.

The prize committee is to consist of three members, one of whom will be the chair. Each member serves a three-year term, rotating onto the committee as junior member, then becoming chair, and then exiting after serving a final year as senior member. The Chair of the Krooss Prize Committee shall preside over the entire process and chair the plenary dissertation session at the BHC annual meeting. The committee will screen the materials from the nomination process and from these nominations draw up a short list of dissertations (roughly, 8 to 10) that the committee will consider as semifinalists. Authors will be notified and asked to send each committee member a copy of his or her dissertation. From these the committee will narrow the candidates down to no more than five finalists, who are to present their dissertations at the annual meeting. Selection of the winner is to be determined by the committee either prior to or following the presentations by finalists selected by the committee, depending on the committee's preference.

Herman Krooss

2024 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Ellen Nye
Harvard University

2023 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Adam Frost
Postdoctoral Fellow Copenhagen Business School

"Speculation and Profiteering: The Entrepreneurial Transformation of Socialist China"

Harvard University, 2020
Ph.D. Supervisor:

2022 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Bench Ansfield
Harvard University

Born in Flames: Arson, Racial Capitalism, and the Reinsuring of the Bronx in the Late Twentieth Century”

2021
Ph.D. Supervisor:

List of Finalists

2021 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Dylan Gottlieb
Assistant Professor, History, Bentley University

"Yuppies: Young Urban Professionals and the Making of Postindustrial New York"

Princeton University, 2020
Ph.D. Supervisor:

2020 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Jessica Levy
Assistant Professor, Purchase College, SUNY

"Black Power, Inc: Global American Business and the Post-Apartheid City"

Johns Hopkins University, 2018
Ph.D. Supervisor: N.D.B. Connolly and Angus Burgin

2019 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Ghassan Moazzin
Assistant Professor, University of Hong Kong

"Networks of Capital: German Bankers and the Financial Internationalisation of China (1885-1919)"

University of Cambridge, 2017
Ph.D. Supervisor: Hans van de Ven

2018 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Rachel Gross
University of Colorado Denver

“From Buckskin to Gore-Tex: Consumption as a Path to Mastery in Twentieth-Century American Wilderness Recreation".

University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2017
Ph.D. Supervisor: William Cronon

2017 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Gerardo Con Diaz
Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies

"Intangible Inventions: A History of Software Patenting in the United States, 1945-1985"

Yale University, 2016
Ph.D. Supervisor: Daniel J. Kevles

2016 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Anne Fleming
(1980-2020)

"City of Debtors: Law, Loan Sharks, and the Shadow Economy of Urban Poverty, 1900-1970"

University of Pennsylvania, 2014
Ph.D. Supervisor: Sarah Barringer Gordon

2015 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


David Singerman
University of Virginia

"Inventing Purity in the Atlantic Sugar World, 1860-1930"

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014
Ph.D. Supervisor: David Kaiser

2014 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Heidi Tworek
University of British Columbia

"Magic Connections: German News Agencies and Global News Networks, 1905-1945"

Harvard University
Ph.D. Supervisor: Charles Maier

2013 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Caitlin Rosenthal
University of California-Berkeley

"From Memory to Mastery: Accounting for Control in America, 1740-1880"

Harvard University, 2012
Ph.D. Supervisor: Sven Beckert and Claudia Goldin

2012 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Alexia Yates
University of Manchester

"Selling Paris: Real Estate and Commercial Culture in the Fin-de-Siècle Capital

University of Chicago, 2010
Ph.D. Supervisor: Leora Auslander

2011 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient

"The Science of Difference: Developing Tools for Discrimination in the American Life Insurance Industry, 1830-1930"

Princeton University, 2009
Ph.D. Supervisor: Daniel T. Rodgers

2010 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Josh Lauer
University of New Hampshire

"The Good Consumer: Credit Reporting and the Invention of Financial Identity in the United States, 1840-1940"

University of Pennsylvania, 2008
Ph.D. Supervisor: Carolyn Marvin

2009 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Michael Easterly
University of California, Los Angeles

"Your Job is Your Credit: Creating a Market for Loans to Salaried Employees in New York City, 1885-1920"

University of California, Los Angeles, 2008
Ph.D. Supervisor: Naomi Lamoreaux

2008 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Louis Hyman
Cornell University

"Debtor Nation: How Consumer Credit Built Postwar America"

Harvard University, 2007
Ph.D. Supervisor: Lizabeth Cohen

2007 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Bethany Moreton
Dartmouth College

"The Soul of the Service Economy: Wal-Mart and the Making of Christian Free Enterprise, 1929-1994"

Yale University, 2006
Ph.D. Supervisor: Glenda Gilmore

2006 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Shane Hamilton
University of York

"Trucking Country: Food Politics and the Transformation of Rural Life in Postwar America"

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2005
Ph.D. Supervisor: Deborah K. Fitzgerald

2005 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Co-recipient


Anna Spadavecchia
University of Strathclyde

"State Subsidies and the Sources of Company Finance in Italian Industrial Districts, 1951-1991"

London School of Economics
Ph.D. Supervisor: Max-Stephan Schulze

2005 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Co-recipient


Dalit Baranoff
Business History Group

"Shaped by Risk: The American Fire Insurance Industry, 1790-1920"

Johns Hopkins University, 2004
Ph.D. Supervisor: Louis Galambos

2004 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Tiffany Gill
Department of History, University of Delaware

"Civic Beauty: Beauty Culturists and the Politics of African American Female Entrepreneurship, 1900-1965"

Rutgers University
Ph.D. Supervisor: Deborah Gray White

2003 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Gerben Bakker
Lecturer in Economic History and Management, London School of Economics

"Entertainment Industrialized: The Emergence of the International Film Industry, 1890-1940"

European University Institute, 2001
Ph.D. Supervisor: Jaime Reis

2002 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Jeffrey Hornstein
Economy League of Greater Philadelphia

"A Nation of Realtors: The Professionalization of Real Estate Brokerage and the Construction of a New Middle Class"

University of Maryland, 2001
Ph.D. Supervisor:

2001 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Christopher McKenna
Reader in Business History & Strategy, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

"The World's Newest Profession: Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century"

Johns Hopkins University, 2000
Ph.D. Supervisor: Louis Galambos

2000 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Marina Moskowitz
Lynn and Gary Mecklenburg Chair in Textiles, Material Culture, and Design, Professor Design Studies Department, University of Wisconsin

"Standard Bearers: Material Culture and Middle-Class Communities at the Turn of the Twentieth Century"

Yale University, 1999
Ph.D. Supervisor: Jean-Christophe Agnew

1999 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Lisa A. Marovich
University of California, Los Angeles

"Fueling the Fires of Genius: Women's Inventive Activities in American War Eras"

University of California, Los Angeles, 1998
Ph.D. Supervisor: Mary Yeager

1998 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Ross Bassett
North Carolina State University

"New Technology, New People, New Organizations: The Rise of the MOS Transistor, 1945-1975"

Princeton University, 1998
Ph.D. Supervisor: Michael S. Mahoney

1997 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Kolleen Guy
University of Texas, San Antonio

"Wine, Work, and Wealth: Class Relations and Modernization in the Champagne Wine Industry, 1870-1914"

Indiana University, 1996
Ph.D. Supervisor: William Cohen

1996 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Regina Lee Blaszczyk
Leadership Chair in the History of Business and Society

"Imagining Consumers: Manufacturers and Markets in Ceramics and Glass, 1865-1965"

University of Delaware, 1995
Ph.D. Supervisor: David A. Hounshell and Anne M. Boylan

1995 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Jonathan Bean
Southern Illinois University-Carbondale

"Beyond the Broker State: A History of the Federal Government's Policies toward Small Business, 1936-61"

The Ohio State University, 1994
Ph.D. Supervisor: Mansel Blackford, K. Austin Kerr, and William Childs

1994 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Rosalind Remer
University of California, Los Angeles

"Building an American Book Trade: Philadelphia Publishing in the New Republic"

University of California, Los Angeles, 1991
Ph.D. Supervisor: Joyce Appleby

1993 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Victoria Woeste
Research Professor Emerita, American Bar Foundation

"Cooperatives and Corporations: The Sun-Maid Antitrust Case and the Legal Status of Agricultural Cooperatives, 1890-1943"

University of California at Berkeley, 1990
Ph.D. Supervisor: Harry N. Scheiber and Morton Rothstein

1992 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Margaret Levenstein
Michigan Census Research Data Center and Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

"Information Systems and Internal Organization: A Study of the Dow Chemical Company, 1890-1914"

Yale University, 1991
Ph.D. Supervisor: William N. Parker and David F. Weiman

1991 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


David Sicilia
University of Maryland, College Park

"Selling Power: Marketing and Monopoly at Boston Edison, 1886-1926"

Brandeis University
Ph.D. Supervisor: Morton Keller and Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.

1990 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Richard John
Columbia University

"Spreading the Word: The Postal System and the Creation of American Society"

Harvard University, 1989
Ph.D. Supervisor: Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., and David Herbert Donald

1989 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Helen Shapiro
University of California Washington Center

"State Intervention and Industrialization: The Origins of the Brazilian Automotive Industry"

Yale University, 1988
Ph.D. Supervisor: William N. Parker and Albert Fishlow

1988 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient


Sally Clarke
University of Texas at Austin (retired)

"Farmers as Entrepreneurs: Regulation and Innovation in American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century"

Brown University, 1987
Ph.D. Supervisor: Naomi Lamoreaux

1986 Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History Recipient

"From Conflict to Consensus: The American Institute of Accountants and the Professionalization of Public Accountancy, 1886-1940"

Johns Hopkins University, 1985
Ph.D. Supervisor: Louis Galambos