The role of the small shareholder has been largely ignored in the literature, which has tended to concentrate on controlling shareholders and family ownership. Yet, focus on the importance of small shareholders can capture significant aspects of financial development. Pre-1970 debates and policy conflicts linked to stock exchange development concentrated on shareholder democracy and diffusion as key indicators. This article explores the so-called democratization of investment and the factors behind it through the lens of trends in estimates of the UK and U.S. shareholding populations between 1895 and 1970. It covers three key periods: before World War I, before and after the stock market crash of 1929, and post-World War II. It identifies three periods in the United States when shareholder numbers were paramount: in the boom years of the 1920s, as part of the inquest into the 1929 crash, and post-World War II in an attempt to boost stock market activity. In the United Kingdom, although some concern was expressed during the 1920s and 1930s at the passive nature of small investors, who held diversified portfolios with small amounts in each holding, it was the fear of nationalization after World War II that led to more in-depth shareholder estimates.

The cantilever chair is both a modern classic and a tradable commodity. Iconic designs, such as those by Marcel Breuer, are part of museum collections and are being produced for the contemporary furniture market. Moreover, there are countless other variations of the cantilever principle on the market. This article explains the emergence of the upmarket segment for iconic designs through historical sources. The focus is on the role of intellectual property rights and their interaction with management, branding, and pricing activities in the early 1930s. The article establishes that legal and perceived authenticity of cantilever designs were necessary but not sufficient to establish the upmarket segment. A substantial premium could only be charged once customers revealed that they had a high willingness to pay for authentic furniture that was chrome-plated.

Historians are increasingly using networks as an analytical framework. However, recent research has stressed the inherent problems with networks, including networking institutions. Historians therefore have to consider why and in what ways actors do, or did, engage with networks. This article posits a novel interdisciplinary methodology by bringing together regression analysis, visual analytics, and history to analyze actors’ relationships with an institution rather than with one another. This methodology, illustrated by the case study of the Liverpool African Committee, from 1750 to 1810, demonstrates that actors’ relationships with an institution may be affective or instrumental, reflecting different relationships with and uses of the network. Moreover, actors’ relationships with an institution are not static and change over time. The methodology and case study presented in this article suggest a reassessment of the understanding of metropolitan business networking institutions to reflect the complexity of their use.

The Manchester Chamber of Commerce established the Manchester Testing House in 1895, and introduced uniform yarn contracting rules in 1897. The chamber made these institutional “innovations” to deal with the nefarious practice of “short-reeling.” This case study explains how and why merchants were crucial to undoing weaknesses in domestic —and to some extent foreign—legislation to overcome this fraudulent activity. We argue that the Testing House and uniform contract were tantamount to developing a quasi-legal system such that private standards established through cooperative agreements had legal sanction. Our study shows how institutions evolved to improve governance along the supply chain for this highly specialized export-orientated industry. This article contributes to the growing literature on historical markets, institutions, and standards. Based on extensive archival sources, we show how specific and complementary commercial institutions developed within grounded notions of governance rather than abstracted spaces of market exchange.

Since the 1970s, a stretch of Broadway Avenue in Wichita, Kansas, has seen the growth of both Latino and Asian businesses. Using mapping, data analysis, and historical research, this study compares the growth of ethnic entrepreneurship between both populations. The results not only reveal similarities but also illustrate the degree to which ethnic entrepreneurship varies, depending on a population’s situation in a given location.

This article considers how the joint-stock banks established trust within the local marketplace. We undertake a new investigation of pictures of senior bank management. Building on the expansion of the art market in the nineteenth century, joint-stock banks used portraits as a public and visual mechanism to commemorate their successes and accomplishments. Portraiture, as a well-established art form, provided enterprises with a historical legacy that for many did not, as yet, exist. Through the use of portraiture, banks attempted to solidify their identity and add to the sitter’s social standing, as well as signal the new organization’s reputation for high culture, prestige, and professionalism to those who viewed these artworks. These illustrations personified the company and gave a human face to the early joint-stock economy.