The failure of the Potomac Company—the first interregional internal improvement project attempted in the United States—has been largely neglected by historians. From the mid 1780s to the 1820s, this company struggled unsuccessfully to link the East Coast with the Old Northwest by enhancing the navigability of the Potomac River. In this article, Mr. Littlefield examines this little-known episode, describing how the project was overwhelmed by a combination of factors that included an unstable American economy, unreliable government aid, and interstate rivalries. He concludes that the Potomac Company's failure demonstrated how the absence of federal support could cripple a large-scale internal improvement project, and suggests that its example spurred the U.S. government to become directly involved in the economic development of the young republic.

Recent historians of the early twentieth century United States have called attention to the growing nationalization of American life, as well as to the importance of an eastern corporate elite in shaping foreign policy during that period. This study indicates the residual strength of the regional impulse and offers a counterweight to the national and eastern emphasis of those historians.

Despite a widely prevailing judicial insensitivity to corporate reform and regulation, the large insurance companies found themselves under careful, constant, and not always sympathetic legal scrutiny. This scrutiny tended to emphasize the equity rather than the letter of the law, and kept the insurance contract the flexible servant of a dynamic society and industry.

In a sketch of the activities of a Genoese public notary of the late twelfth century, which appeared in this Bulletin some time ago, it was pointed out that his records included a considerable number of partnership contracts. Such contracts were almost always concluded for the purpose of trading overseas. As we know, the Genoese merchants of the twelfth century were chiefly engaged in the trade with North Africa, Romania (the Byzantine Empire), the Levant, and also Spain, southern France, Sicily, and Sardinia.

In this issue the Business History Review inaugurates a new editorial feature. Like the financial mart from which it derives its name, OVER THE COUNTER is designed for the types of exchanges not handled elsewhere. The new feature has its origin in a demand among readers of business history for a place to compare ideas, voice comments on published articles and reviews, and publish research essays. Contributions are invited. The Editor and Advisory Board reserve the right to decide whether, on the basis of general interest, pertinence, and merit, such contributions will be published. OVER THE COUNTER will appear as often as the volume of contributions may dictate.

A leading archivist describes the nature and functions of professional records management and suggests some relationships between those activities and business history. If future historians are to have useful records for research, present-day scholars need to be informed about and interested in the work of records managers.

It has been a long time since clichés like “cotton was king” have satisfied historians as an answer to the question of why the American South did not develop a manufacturing industry at least as vigorous as that of the Midwest in the antebellum years. Professor Cohn thinks that the South may well have done just that, and presents an analysis based on location theory that supports such a conclusion.

Development of the North American continent was a halting process, characterized by use and misuse of latent opportunities. The Hudson's Bay Company, giant in fur trade and northern exploration, proved by trial and error experiments that abundant natural assets were not in themselves the magic key to wealth.

The difficult reconciliation of individualism with economic and social pressures toward cooperation is the focus of this study of French businessmen.