House of Brown;Brown Brothers and Company;Banks and Banking -- Accounting
This article focuses on the contents of two nineteenth-century letters which discuss the allocation of income among the partners of a leading Anglo-American merchant banking firm, the House of Brown. The writers debate alternative methods of...
The paper investigates the Bonsignori accounts that are in the archives of the University of Kansas, Spencer Research Library. The file contains 133 documents and bound books relating to the affairs of the Filippo Bonsignori family between 1455 and...
Boston Manufacturing Company;Lawrence Manufacturing Company;Textile Industry -- Accounting;Cost accounting -- History;Waltham System
This study of the original accounting records of a pioneering American industrial enterprise narrows by one half the time lag between the earliest known English and American applications of industrial cost accounting. The research indicates that...
Auditing -- United States -- History;Railroads -- Accounting -- History
The paper explores the origins of the auditing profession in the United States. It is suggested that the development of the audit function in this country can be traced to reporting by internal and shareholder auditors in the American railroads...
The common abbreviation for the accounting term debit is a puzzling one—Dr. Today, particularly with our depersonalized treatment of the accounting or bookkeeping debit, there is no obvious clue as to why there is an r in debit at all. An...
Inquiry into the origin of double entry accounting has typically focused on form as the causal factor. In the present article the arguments supporting this view are reviewed and challenged by developing the substantive framework of double entry...
Japan’s rise from a feudalistic economy to a position as a leading industrial power is a result, in part, of two revolutionary changes in its accounting structure. The first change came during the latter part of the nineteenth century as part of...
This article is concerned with the problems of nineteenth century railroad asset valuation. The article presents some legal reasons for the early use of depreciation and continues with specific illustrations of railroad financial statements in the...
Accounting -- Japan -- History
Bookkeeping -- Japan -- History
Double-entry bookkeeping is believed to have originated in mediveal Italy and, as it developed, writers on the subject such as Luca Pacioli helped spread the system to the rest of Europe in the paths of Italian trade. In those countries there were...
East India Company;Financial statements -- England -- History
A recent investigation into the archives of the English East India Company has produced the earliest known classified balance of accounts. Dated May 1, 1782, this statement predates the model balance sheet prescribed by the Companies Act of 1856 by...
Kuhn, Thomas S. Structure of Scientific Revolutions;Paradigms (Social sciences);Accounting -- History
Distinct parallels exist between the historical evolution of scientific disciplines, as explained in Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and the historical evolution of the accounting discipline. These parallels become apparent...
