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...

Both the US and UK governments attempted desperate measures during World War I in an effort to maintain wartime production levels of necessary commodities and to allow for their economical purchase by the military. Loft (1986a, 1986b, 1990) has studied the British experience in depth, concluding...

The passage in June 1933 of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) heralded an opportunity for the cost-accounting branch of the profession in the US to play a prominent role in the endeavour to revitalize the national economy. This early New Deal legislation sought to end unfair and...

Relatively little has been written about co-authorship in accounting and even less specific to accounting history. This paper endeavours to track co-authorship patterns in the discipline, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The three specialist accounting history journals provide the data to...

This paper condenses 17 personal interviews that were conducted with top executives, middle managers, and union officials in the U.S. men's tailored clothing industry. Each of the interviewees had participatory knowledge about procedures that impact standard cost numbers: piece rates, time...