ABSTRACT

Material culture can offer profitable primary sources for business historians, as several scholars have shown. This essay builds from a workshop held during the 2022 Business History Conference Mid-Year meeting, intended to challenge participants to rethink traditional sources through material culture methodologies. Broadly, the workshop asked participants to consider how material culture methods might amplify the use of ‘traditional’ business history sources (such as account books and advertisements). Here, the author offers a methodological framework for analyzing material culture in order to illustrate the utility of an object-centered approach when writing business history.

摘要

正如几位学者所表明的那样，物质文化可以为商业历史学家提供有利可图的主要来源。本文基于 2022 年商业历史大会年中会议期间举行的研讨会，旨在挑战参与者通过物质文化方法重新思考传统来源。总的来说，研讨会要求参与者考虑物质文化方法如何扩大“传统”商业历史来源（例如账簿和广告）的使用。在这里，作者提供了一个分析物质文化的方法框架，以说明以对象为中心的方法在撰写商业史时的实用性。