HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL'S BAKER LIBRARY PRESENTS IN-DEPTH VIEW OF BUSINESS HISTORY WITH NEW SERIES
First Installment Chronicles Life in a Financial Bubble
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BOSTON - Since it opened in 1927, Harvard Business School’s Baker Library has collected rare and unique materials that focus on the evolution of business and industry. To bring the stories and lessons of these materials to life, the Library’s Historical Collections has announced a series of short web-delivered media experiences that compare historical events and ideas with their modern counterparts.
The series, called “Historical Returns”, is a selection of original short films, followed by resources for further investigation, including web links, books, articles, digital content, and a closer look at some of the historical documents from Baker Library. Developed for a general audience, Historical Returns aims to stimulate thought and discussion by bringing the relevance of history to bear in contemporary thought and action. Historical Returns can be viewed online here: www.library.hbs.edu/hc/historicalreturns/.
The first installment – or capsule – of the series, “Financial Bubbles,” depicts the similarities between the Dotcom Boom of the 1990s and a similar financial crisis in eighteenth-century England known as the South Sea Bubble. As happened during the Internet craze, the years leading up to the South Sea Bubble were a time of financial promise and an early version of “irrational exuberance” until a complex network of intersecting financial, legal, political, and cultural factors led to economic ruin with the collapse of the South Sea Company in 1720.
“This dynamic new series from Baker Library highlights the relevance of historical knowledge by connecting past and present business events,” said Mary Lee Kennedy, Baker Library Executive Director. “Created for a general audience, each Historical Returns capsule provides relevant material from our Historical Collections, research tools, and a Flash movie to frame and contextualize a specific business climate.”
A gift from the de Gaspé Beaubien Family Foundation supports the activities, projects, and programs of the HBS Historical Collections, which includes all HBS archival material and houses one of the most extensive business history resources for scholars, researchers, students, and other interested audiences around the world. It is composed of the Kress Collection of Business and Economics, widely recognized as one of the world's premier rare book collections; the Business Manuscript Collection, with approximately 1,400 sets of original business manuscripts from the fifteenth through twentieth centuries; and a collection of original company documents and reports dating from the early 1800s to the present.
In addition, the Historical Collections houses the Baker Old Class Collection, a unique assemblage of books, pamphlets, and periodicals that trace the development and growth of American business and industry from the late 1800s to the first decades of the twentieth century. Another important resource is the R.G. Dun & Co. Collection of more than two thousand volumes of handwritten credit reports, dating from 1841 to 1892, on individuals and firms in the United States.
About Harvard Business School
Founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University, Harvard Business School (www.hbs.edu), is located on a 40-acre campus in Boston. Its faculty of more than 200 offers full-time programs leading to the MBA and doctoral degrees, as well as more than 40 Executive Education programs. For almost a century, HBS faculty have drawn on their research, their experience in working with organizations worldwide, and their passion for teaching to educate leaders who have shaped the practice of business around the globe