The Harvard Research Center in Entrepreneurial History and the Daimonic Entrepreneur

Abstract

This paper sketches the intellectual history of the Research Center in Entrepreneurial History, founded at Harvard in 1948, which helped established the contours of business history as a discipline. This history was shaped by the rivalry between N. S. B. Gras, the “father of business history,” and Arthur H. Cole, which defined still extant polarities in the field of business history. It provides context for the emergence of the figure of the “entrepreneur,” conceived of as an ambiguous and potent force of creative destruction, and of entrepreneurship as business history's preeminent and vital dynamic. The paper focuses on German émigré Fritz L. Redlich, who was central to the Center's work, and whose “creative entrepreneur” was conceived in explicit relation to the daimon, the godlike, frighteningly ambiguous, and often destructive power of inspiration and creativity.

Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism

“…N.S.B. Gras, the "father" of business history and holder of the first chair in the discipline at Harvard Business School (Boothman 2001;Fredona and Reinert 2017), fruitfully encouraged business historical work on premodern merchants and mercantile firms both in the U.S. and in Europe (Ferguson 1960: 13-17). Gras believed he had discovered, in the rise of what he called the "sedentary merchant" (understood in contrast to the earlier "traveling merchant" who accompanied his own goods to market or trade fairs), the crucial moment in the development of "mercantile capitalism" in Europe, the stage of economic development in which Europe first rose to undisputed economic prominence on the global stage (Gras 1939).…”