Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on the labour contract system (LCS) established by the Freedmen’s Bureau after the American Civil War to normalise relations between freed-slaves and their former masters and to uphold their rights as free citizens. In particular, it explains the...

In a series of related articles, several authors argue that the establishment of military superintendency at the US Armories in 1841 enabled Daniel Tyler′s “pathbreaking inspection” in 1832 to exert disciplinary power over labour and stimulate subsequent productivity improvements. In...

Accounting historians continue to debate the development of cost accounting procedures in late nineteenth‐century US mass‐production industries. While conventional historians (economic rationalists) emphasize efficiency and co‐ordination, labour process and other “critical” scholars...