EH.N: Call for papers

[Mark Geiger]

Dear colleagues:

I am soliciting paper proposals for a panel for the upcoming Business 
History Conference (Sacramento 4/10 – 4/12/2008) on entrepreneurial 
zones and swarming. Places or regions can become zones of innovation 
(e.g., British Midlands, Silicon Valley), which attract certain kinds of 
people and expertise – entrepreneurs, patent attorneys, venture 
capitalists, engineers. The results, as we know, can be dramatic.

My paper will be on a cohort of mid-19th century entrepreneurs: 
Missouri bankers in the years immediately preceding the Civil War. A law 
passed by the Missouri legislature in 1857 to encourage the formation of 
new banks attracted a group of men who, within a few years, created a 
network of banks that extended over much of the state. The state had 
almost no banks prior to this time, and few of the new bankers had any 
previous experience in banking. Most of these men came from modest rural 
origins and had already moved geographically, occupationally, and 
socially multiple times.

Anyone interested in participating in this panel should contact me. 
Suitable paper topics could be other case studies; psychological and 
demographic profiles of people attracted to such places; factors of 
geography, technological breakthrough, legal climate, etc. that foster 
new zones; government attempts to encourage such development; and 
historical instances of technology transfer.

Mark Geiger
Postdoctoral Fellow
Minnesota Population Center
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities