F ounded in 1954, the Business History Conference (BHC) is a non-pro t organization devoted to encouraging all aspects of the research, writing, and teaching of business history and of the environment in which business operates.Its membership is international and representative of economists, historians, and those in allied elds, such as history of technology, accounting, labor, transportation, and government, who focus on business history as a means of understanding their subjects.

This article analyzes the evolution of banking supervision in Spain under Franco’s regime (1939–1975), highlighting how political and economic factors shaped oversight in an authoritarian setting. Two phases emerge. In the 1940s–50s, supervision—lodged in the Ministry of Finance—was weak, poorly staffed, and focused on enforcing banks’ oligopolistic interest rate agreements, reflecting regulatory capture. Following the 1959 Stabilization Plan, rising external pressure, domestic concerns about oligopolistic practices, and the 1962 Banking Law prompted reform. Supervision shifted to the Bank of Spain with the establishment of the Private Banking Inspection Service, resulting in more frequent inspections and gradual formalization of supervision. Archival records indicate that by the 1970s, inspections had become more frequent and rigorous, signaling a cautious shift toward risk-based oversight. However, the reforms remained incomplete. Persistent systemic vulnerabilities culminated in the severe banking crisis of 1977–1982, underlining the limitations of supervisory transformation under authoritarian rule.

This article traces the origins of “big” tobacco, that is, international, multinational companies, in Cyprus during the British colonial period. It explores how the tobacco and cigarette industries developed from the 1920s until the end of colonial rule in 1960, and how “big” tobacco companies united and came to control these industries. The article shows that from the 1920s, and especially from the 1940s, the prevalence of smoking in Cyprus was exceedingly high. This corresponded to the large-scale importing of foreign-made cigarettes and the manufacture of cigarettes by local companies, before the first international company began to manufacture cigarettes in the island in 1951. The article explores how the British colonial governments and civil society did little to make the Cypriot people aware of the dangers of cigarette smoking, despite medical research linking cigarette smoking to the increase in lung cancer in 1950 and the debates and warnings in the UK. Ultimately, the origins and evolution of “big tobacco” companies in Cyprus had a profound impact on the local industry and the prevalence of cigarette smoking in Cyprus.

After World War II, Japan was severely degraded, and its people were generally devastated. For the country’s very survival, the beleaguered Japanese people sought to rebuild economically and reputationally. During this postwar period, Japanese business, union, and government leaders grappled with lagging progress and the necessary abandonment of prior transwar social and business arrangements. They sought new strategies to stimulate advancement in the wake of a governmental vacuum, labor unrest, and the threat of communism. In this context, Moral Re-Armament (MRA) took root in some areas of Japan during the period when Japan’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew from $102 billion in 1945 to $420 billion by 1961. MRA introduced Western-oriented societal values, intended to help nurture individual and societal change, including collaborative relations between unions and management. Of the first eight Japanese prime ministers after World War II, six either worked openly with or endorsed the MRA movement.

In March 1933, the United States Congress declared beer up to 3.2 percent alcohol by weight to be “non-intoxicating,” thus allowing it to be produced and sold while the nation was still under the 18th Amendment’s ban of intoxicating liquors. Brewers had long argued that beer was a temperance beverage that should be regulated with a lighter touch than harder liquor. In fact, the declaration that 3.2 beer was non-intoxicating opened several markets that would otherwise have been closed to brewers. In the decades that followed Repeal, 3.2 beer continued to be treated differently than stronger alcohol with respect to who, when, where, and how it was legally available. This paper explores the important—and continuing—role that 3.2 beer has played in the post-Prohibition United States.

This article investigates how British textile traders navigated Cuban markets when Spain, Britain, and the United States competed to maintain or gain access to Cuba’s commercial activity. Cuba was one of the largest textile consumers in the Americas and a loyal market for British textiles, a significance hitherto overlooked by existing scholarship on Anglo-Hispanic trading relations. The article fills this gap by examining the interplay between local dynamics and imperial rivalry through the case of the Manchester-based textile commission merchant, Stavert, Zigomala, & Co. Through the cross-examination of the company’s business records, visual, material, and other archival and primary printed sources this article contends that a successful engagement with the Cuban market required a nuanced approach transcending formal trading structures, challenging traditional assumptions about commercial predominance based on forms of imperialism. The article’s argument is divided into three parts: 1) it locates Stavert, Zigomala within Cuban consumer culture; 2) it examines how traders responded to Cuban demand; and 3) it situates the role of British textile merchants in the context of Cuba’s international relations between approximately 1860 until1914.

Until recently, much work on the process and impact of compensated emancipation in the British Empire tended to exclude the Cape Colony, instead focusing on Britain and the Caribbean. This analysis of the Cape Town agents who acted as intermediaries in the business of compensation reintegrates the Cape Colony into these discussions. Using Thomson, Watson & Co.’s account book, this article details how the Cape Town firm used its networks within the colony and in London to profit from the business of compensation. The firm handled over 800 claims from Cape Colony principals, purchased them on its own and others’ accounts, and remitted them to several associates in London for collection. This article contributes a new perspective to the growing literature on the process and impact of compensated emancipation and raises questions about the role of slavery and emancipation in the development of commercial and financial capitalism in South Africa.

This paper examines Britain’s process of electrification following a disruptive stock market boom and bust in 1882. This is done by noting the companies that raise finance on British stock exchanges, the amounts raised, and the returns earned on that money. It also examines the impact of the Lighting Act of 1882, finding that the Act inhibited investment, but with important exceptions. We find the Act was not a barrier to entrepreneurs alert to the possibilities of electrification. However, the limited British electrical investment after the 1882 crash was more heavily and successfully concentrated on supplying electricity to end users than on developing electrical equipment. When electrification began in earnest after 1888, upon the amendment of the 1882 Lighting Act, there existed only a very weak engineering base to support it, leading to slow, expensive, and unimaginative electrification.

Using Alabama as a case study of the beauty industry, this paper will demonstrate how licensing laws and regulations affected barbers and beauticians as they struggled to gain more clientele than their competitors.In the early twentieth century, white men dominated the market for cutting hair.Though the process started mid-century, by 1980, that relationship was inverted as women found themselves far outnumbering men.This research helps explain the gendered inversion of labor market trends while providing more general insights into the role of licensing laws in labor markets.Importantly, this work explores how race shaped labor market regulations, which affected and continue to affect labor markets and individual businesses in important ways."The goal of this paper is to explain the multivariate causes of this important labor market reversal using an analysis of race, gender, and political economy.It will argue that the advocacy for restrictive licensing laws and regulations, the failure to innovate and adapt to new styles in hair, and the racial and gendered makeup of the Barbers, Beauticians, and Allied Industries (BBAI) led to the ultimate failure of the union and the overall decrease in barbers during the latter half of the twentieth century.On the other hand, the degree to which black women were represented on licensing boards and played a role in the unique structure of cosmetology groups and unions led and contributed to the proliferation of cosmetologists during the same period.