Business History

Business History at Harvard Business School

Fellowships

Fellowships and research grants are awarded by the business history group. The Harvard-Newcomen Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Business History has been given annually since 1966. The winner spends a year in residence working on his or her research project and participating in the School's various activities in business history. Many scholars who now rank among the world's leading business historians have held this fellowship. Since 1991 the Alfred D. Chandler Jr. Travel Fellowships have been offered to enable graduate students in history or related disciplines to come to Harvard—and Harvard students to go elsewhere—for research in business history or institutional economic history. The Alfred D. Chandler Jr. International Visiting Scholar Program in Business History was established in 2005 to enable established scholars based outside the United States to spend several months at Harvard Business School.

Business History Review Awards

  • The Alfred and Fay Chandler Book Award
    This book award is given once every three years to the best work in the field of business history published in the United States. The winner is determined by a vote of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Business History Review.

  • The Henrietta Larson Article Award
    This article award is given every volume year to the best article published in the Business History Review.The winner is determined by a vote of the journal's Editorial Advisory Board.

Harvard Business School Fellowships in History

  • Harvard-Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellowship
    The Harvard Business School and the Newcomen Society of the United States support a postdoctoral fellowship in business history for twelve months of residence and research at the Harvard Business School. Fellowships normally run for the academic year, July 1 to June 30.

    The purpose of the fellowship is to enable scholars who have received a Ph.D. in history, economics, or a related discipline within the past ten years to improve their professional acquaintance with business and economic history, to increase their skills as they relate to this field, and to engage in research that will benefit from the resources of the Harvard Business School and the Boston-area scholarly community. The successful applicant will participate in the school's business history courses, seminars, and case development activities.

    The annual application deadline is October 1 of the year preceding the fellowship. For additional information, write to Walter A. Friedman, Rock Center 104, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA 02163. Email wfriedman@hbs.edu.

    Applications can be downloaded and printed out by clicking this link:

    Harvard-Newcomen Application

    The application is in Adobe pdf format, which can be opened by the Adobe Acrobat Reader, available at www.adobe.com.

    Harvard-Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellowship in Business History

    Recent Recipients:

    Year Recipient Degree
    2008 Véronique Pouillard Ph.D., University of Brussels
    2007 Stephanie Decker Ph.D., University of Liverpool
    2006 Andrea Lluch Ph.D., Universidad Nacional del Centro de Buenos Aires
    2005 Michelle MacDonald Ph.D., Michigan
    2004 Marcelo Bucheli Ph.D., Stanford
    2003 Stephen Mihm Ph.D., New York University
    2002 Rohit Daniel Wadhwani Ph.D., Pennsylvania
    2001 Jason Scott Smith Ph.D., Berkeley
    2000 Paul Sabin Ph.D., Berkeley
    1999 Meg Jacobs Ph.D., Virginia
    1998 Richard Sicotte Ph.D., Illinois
    1997 Walter Friedman Ph.D., Columbia
    1996 Wyatt Wells Ph.D., North Carolina
    1995 Sven Beckert Ph.D., Columbia
    1994 Donna Rilling Ph.D, Pennsylvania
    1993 Jeffrey Fear Ph.D., Stanford
    1992 William Mass Ph.D., Boston College
    1991 Kenneth Lipartito Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University

  • The Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., Travel Fellowships
    The purpose of this fellowship is to facilitate library and archival research in business or institutional economic history, broadly defined. The program will encourage research concerned to relate historical reality to underlying economic theories of business development. Individual grants range from $1,000 to $3,000, with a total fund of $15,000.

    Three categories of applicants will be eligible for grants:

    • Harvard University graduate students in history, economics, business administration, or a related discipline, such as sociology, government, or law, whose research requires travel to distant archives or repositories;

    • Graduate students or nontenured faculty in those fields from other universities, in the US and abroad, whose research requires travel to the Boston-Cambridge area (to study, for example, in the collections of the Baker, Widener, McKay, Langdell, Kress, or Houghton libraries);

    • and Harvard College undergraduates writing senior theses in these fields, whose research requires travel away from Cambridge.

    The deadline for receipt of applications is November 1 of the calendar year preceding that in which the fellowship is to be used. For additional information, write to Walter A. Friedman, Rock Center 104, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA 02163. Email wfriedman@hbs.edu.

    Applications can be downloaded and printed out by clicking this link:

    Alfred Chandler Jr. Travel Fellowship Application

    The application is in Adobe pdf format, which can be opened by the Adobe Acrobat Reader, available at www.adobe.com.

  • The Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., International Visiting Scholars in Business History Program
    The Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., International Visiting Scholar in Business History Program invites established scholars in business history based outside the United States to spend a period of time in residence at Harvard Business School. The primary activities of Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., International Visiting Scholars will be to interact with faculty and researchers, present work at research seminars, and conduct business history research. The program will encourage research concerned to relate historical reality to underlying economic theories of business development. Each year, $14,000 will be available to support two visiting scholars (at $7,000 each). Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., International Visiting Scholars will get office space, an email account, phone, computer, ID card, and access to the University's libraries and the HBS Intranet. The program requires a two month minimum length of stay. Scholars may stay up to a maximum of six months. It is expected that the Scholars will be in residence at the School for the duration of their appointment and that they will be actively engaged in the intellectual life of the business history group.

    Applications for the 2009 fellowships should arrive no later than September 1, 2008. Please send (by post or by email) a cover letter, CV, and a description of the research you would like to undertake to the address below. Two letters of reference should be sent separately.

    Geoffrey Jones
    Baker Library 175
    Harvard Business School
    Soldiers Field
    Boston, MA 02163
    United States

    Email: gjones@hbs.edu

    Grants will be announced by the end of October 2008.