History of HR
I am working on a new book project on the history of HR departments, including both their successes and failures in creating more equitable workplaces, preventing sexual harassment, and promoting diversity and inclusion. Still in early stages, but I’m conducting oral histories and would love to hear from you if you have ideas to share.
Image: Harris & Ewing, photographer. Sec. Stenographic Pool. , ca. 1937. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016871323/
Articles and essays.
"Capitalism Where Labor Was Capital: Slavery, Power, and Price in Antebellum America" Capitalism, a Journal of History and Economics (2020)
"Balancing the Books: Convergence and Diversity of Accounting in Massachusetts, 1875–1895," Journal of Economic History (2020)
"Numbers for the Innumerate: Everyday Arithmetic and Atlantic Capitalism," Technology & Culture (April 2017)
"Seeking a Quantitative Middle Ground: Reflections on Methods and Opportunities in Economic History," Journal of the Early Republic (Winter 2016)
“Slavery’s Scientific Management: Accounting for Mastery.” Slavery's Capitalism. Eds. Seth Rockman, S. Beckert, and D. Waldstreicher. University of Pennsylvania Press
"In the Money: Finance, Freedom, and American Capitalism," American Quarterly (March 2016)
"From Memory to Mastery: Accounting for Control in America, 1750-1880," Enterprise & Society (December 2013)
“Storybook-keepers: Numbers and Narratives in Nineteenth-Century America,” Common-Place (April 2012)
“Fundamental Freedom or Fringe Benefit: Rice University and the Evolution of Academic Tenure, 1935-1963,” Journal of Academic Freedom (2011)
Other writing.
"Abolition as Market Regulation," reply to Walter Johnson in the Boston Review (2017)
“Big Data in the Age of the Telegraph,” McKinsey Quarterly (Q1 2013)
“The long, controversial history of for-profit education,” Bloomberg Echoes (October 2012)
C.V.
You can find a more complete list of publications and my C.V. on my department website.