History and Facilities of the Bureau of Business Research. School of Commerce and Business Administration at the University of Alabama, 1941.
Found in the Hoole library archive of Mary Harmon Bryant Hall, The History and Facilities of the Bureau of Business Research is a 111-page book published by the University of Alabama`s School of Commerce and Business Administration in 1941 and is composed of three parts: “Review of the First
Decade of Business Research,” “Publications,” and “Research Resources.” In part one, the Bureau lists its “Purposes and General Objectives” in its opening pages. It states its main purposes “have been to collect information concerning business and economic subjects and to carry on studies of the problems which confront the business men of the country.” Through the accumulation of such data, the school was able participate in and publish an array of studies. In part two, brief summaries of these studies are available. One listed is the “Compilation of Social and Economic Data on Alabama and the South, 1934.” In it, the Bureau compiled data in order to stop the economic crisis which faced the South due to the Great Depression. Further, the book includes an extensive list of U.S. government agencies that required the Bureau`s research, such as The National Emergency Council, The U.S. Department of Labor, and The U.S. Department of War. In part three, the Bureau lists their research resources, including periodicals, reviews, bulletins, documents, reports and yearbooks all from accredited government agencies, universities and research corporations. In summary, The History and Facilities of the Bureau of Business Research is an accumulative publication of the Bureau’s research, their resources for their research, as well as a brief explanation of the purposes of the Bureau.
Overall, the publication exercises credibility through documenting their resources, as well as asserting their intent. This information is especially useful to me because my great grandfather, Raymond Hoadley, was the president of the Wharton School of Business and Finance at the University of Pennsylvania. He then went on to be the financial editor of the Herald Tribune during and after the Great Depression, so he would have been interested in a publication of this kind. It might not be useful to others due to its dense structure and language, which would not interest someone outside of the subject of business.