This roundtable builds on conversations begun during the mid-year conference to go beyond the more practical dimensions of using legal sources, and to consider what broader insights from legal history scholarship can be brought to bear on questions of interest to historians of business and capitalism.
The roundtable brings together historians at different stages of their careers who work at the nexus of American legal and business history. Their work examines themes such as: how law structures business contexts; how lawyers and judges operate as key players in business environments; and how law can operate as an instrument for promotion, a tool for reinvention, and a method for delay. Geneva Smith is working on a dissertation about slave courts and the market. Justin Simard is completing his first book, on the role of the legal profession in shaping American commerce in the nineteenth century. Evelyn Atkinson is working on her first book, on the history of corporate personhood in the nineteenth century. Ashton Merck is working on her first book, on business self-regulation in food and agriculture in the twentieth century. Joanna Grisinger is working on her second book, about airlines, regulation, and grassroots activism in the 1960s-1980s.
Our conversation will begin with 4 big questions:
• What is the value of legal history for business historians, (and vice versa)?
• How should we consider race and gender in business history and legal history?
• What are the best methods and sources for seeing the interrelation of business and law?
• What recent books/articles considered “business history” have we found most useful? What books/articles generally considered “legal history” would we recommend to business historians?
Panelists will talk amongst themselves, facilitated by the chair, for approximately 30 minutes, then will invite audience members into a discussion of the benefits and challenges of such interdisciplinary work.