Collection Highlight | Meddlesome Practices in the Black Journalists Oral History Collection

  by Kae Bara Kratcha, Entrepreneurship and Social Science Librarian The Black Journalists Oral History Collection meddles with the definition of “business oral history” by presenting business practices that center community care and activism rather than profit and providing narratives that show the success of the Black press as dependent on a network rather than […]

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Collection Highlight | Meddlesome Practices: Carnegie Corporation of New York Oral History Collection

  by Karen Wang, Columbia University Libraries Intern What does philanthropy have to do with business? Andrew Carnegie, magnate of the U.S. steel industry, built his empire from humble beginnings with business acumen and insider trading (commonplace and legal at the time). Carnegie is also known for his philanthropy and his philosophy “The Gospel of […]

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Collection Highlight | Meddlesome Practices in the Federated Department Stores Project

  by Kae Bara Kratcha, Entrepreneurship and Social Science Librarian The catalog summary of the Federated Department Stores Project begins, “This project comprises a series of interviews with those who built the largest department store organization in the United States, Federated Department Stores.” Scholars interested in the history of retail business, business organizational structure, consumer […]

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Collection Highlight | Meddlesome Practices in the Continental Group Project

  by Kimberly Springer, Curator for Oral History Spanning seventy years of the Continental Can Company, oral histories with 226 employees illustrate the type of research and practice the Oral History Research Office (OHRO) conducted for many of its own formative years. Major companies would contract with the OHRO to conduct interviews about its history […]

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Collection Highlight | Meddlesome Practices: Oral Histories of Good Troublemaking in Business

A decade earlier, in his book The Gateway to History (1962), Nevins proposed reinvigorating historical study by making, To this end, Nevins conducted scores of interviews. A particularly illuminating example of both the oral history process and historical sources created would be the experience he and Frank Ernest Hill had creating an oral history project […]

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