As Spanish mercantilism sagged in the late eighteenth century, a host of “foreign” traders probed her colonies. This account of one North American group is illustrative of the process of change.

From its beginnings as a supplier of lamps for bicycles in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Professor Church follows Joseph Lucas Ltd., through three generations of management and several revolutions in the character of its trade, to its emergence as the largest supplier of components to British automobile manufacturers. Shrewd but rigidly upstanding business policies, a clear-headed view to the future, and conservative financing methods gave Lucas's the strength and flexibility to survive and eventually dominate a field that was constantly changing, and in which both domestic and foreign competition was an important factor. Lucas's management, watching the rise and fall of firms that were, as Professor Church says, “young, inventive, and financially weak,” might have agreed with Andrew Carnegie that “pioneering don't pay.” But Lucas's, like Carnegie, pioneered with great success where increased productivity, lower prices, and growth were the rewards.

Professor Scott illustrates how railroads came to undertake the furtherance of agricultural education as a part of their business activities and, in some instances, pioneered projects that subsequently became widely copied models in the field.

Among the close associates of Piero di Cosimo de' Medici and his illustrious son, Lorenzo de' Medici, no one was more trusted by both father and son than Francesco Sassetti, their business partner and general manager. Yet Sassetti is virtually unknown to English readers. Like the Medici, he belonged to a noble Florentine family whose wealth originated in trade and was later re-invested in landed property in the city of Florence and the surrounding country.

Professor Filante examines data on the patterns of trade and revenues on the Erie Canal during its first thirty-five years of operation.

This paper will take the following form:

a) a brief discussion of Erie Canal operations in the period 1825–1835, when neither rails nor other canals were competitors.

b) a discussion of the period 1835–1860 with specific attention turned to the sources and destinations of freight shipments, the composition of those shipments, and changes in the canal itself.

c) a discussion of rail-canal competition centering on the division of the market between the two along value of product and length of shipment criteria.

Many Hawaiians viewed the great irrigation project and its vigorous promoter with enthusiasm and awe. Unfortunately, not all aspects of American entrepreneurship were palatable to the Islanders.