Doctoral research [1984, Vol. 11, no. 1]

              The Accounting Historians Journal Vol. 11, No. 1 Spring 1984
DOCTORAL RESEARCH
Maureen H. Berry, Editor UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
Studies seeking historical explanation for past or present phe-nomena rely as much on the availability of evidence as on the in-genuity of the researcher in both seeking it out, in new places or forms, and recognizing it for what it is. This point is illustrated in many of the dissertations included in the current selection, by the researchers' efforts to use new tools, or bring new perspectives, to familiar but still fruitful research areas.
Szaivert's work on the Roman minting system in the first century A.D. provides the first example of searching through non-literature sources for events in economic history. This study in numismatics is part of a large-scale research-program, involving the ancient Roman coinage plans, currently being conducted by the Numismatic Institute of the University of Vienna. Kehoe was also interested in the economic history of the Roman Empire. He moved one century later in time to the North African provinces, and made use of a series of inscriptions, already discovered in Tunisia, to build an economic model of food production.
Bringing an imaginative focus to bear on a recognized problem area, St. George integrated data developed from two artifacts: hous-ing and furniture, with documentary sources in his study of social change in early New England. Floystad's research into the house-hold economies of the labor force in an eighteenth century Norwe-gian ironworks is the first of our dissertations involving early indus-trial working conditions. Most of his information came from the firm's accounting records, which were very comprehensive because of the multiple economic ties between employer and employees.
Rollison's study of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Glouces-tershire, to evaluate the nature of industrial evolution, again illus-trates shift in research focus. This shift had two dimensions: geo-graphical and temporal. The selected county was somewhat distant from the industrializing areas, and the study was longitudinal to allow for trend recognition. Shelton adopted similar focus strate-