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1. Gossip, Corporate Reputation, and the 1905 Life Insurance Scandal in New York

Author:
Oenone Kubie, Rebecca Orr, Mara Keire, and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
On the evening of 31 January 1905, six hundred of the richest and most powerful members of New York society descended on Sherry’s Hotel dressed in extravagant costumes designed to resemble the court of the French King, Louis XV. The wealth on display was astounding. Pearls, emeralds, turquoise, and diamonds abounded. Mrs Potter Palmer, the queen of Chicago society, appeared dressed in a diamond tiara, diamond choker, and diamond breastplates. Mrs Clarence Mackay, wife of the chairman of the Postal Telegraph Company and a suffragist, wore a gold and turquoise crown and the train of her dress was so long, that despite the help of her two pages, she was forced to sit out the dancing.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, History, Capitalism, and Multinational Corporations
Political Geography:
United States, New York, France, and Global Focus

2. Nestlé’s Corporate Reputation and the Long History of Infant Formula

Author:
Lola Wilhelm, Oenone Kubie, and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
The demand for infant formula in Australia is insatiable. Bare shelves have led supermarkets and chemists to ration sales, limiting the quantity customers can buy in a single transaction. But it’s not Australian parents fuelling the formula shortages. A high proportion, between fifty and ninety percent, of all Australian infant formula is exported to China. The situation has created tensions between the two countries. Australian shoppers complain of Chinese daigou (personal shoppers) buying formula before it is even stacked on shelves and stripping supermarkets in teams of people. In April 2019, eight people were arrested in Australia for stealing over a million dollars of infant formula in Sydney to sell in China. Two months later, Chinese military personnel were photographed loading boxes of formula onto a Chinese warship before departing Sydney Harbour.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, History, Capitalism, and Multinational Corporations
Political Geography:
China, Australia, and Global Focus

3. The Birth of the Modern Chinese Banking Industry: Ri Sheng Chang

Author:
Vivid Lam, Oenone Kubie, and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
Pingyao (平遥) is a remote place for a tourist attraction. Located in the centre of Shanxi province, it is some 380 miles from Beijing and further from Shanghai or Hong Kong where the tourists tend to congregate. Yet, despite the isolation, come they do to Pingyao. The nearest airport to Pingyao is in Tiayuan, over one hundred kilometres away, so most visitors arrive by coach or by train; along the poorly paved streets and past the decaying houses until they arrive in the middle of the city. Here the tourists disembark from their coaches and their trains and find themselves transported to the days of the Qing dynasty emperors, surrounded by imperial architecture. The tourists wander slowly towards West Street. This is the home of the most popular attraction: the headquarters of Ri Sheng Chang (日昇), a late Qing company which revolutionised Chinese banking, now a museum and an increasingly busy tourist attraction. This is the story of how it came to be and how the little city in a small province in China rose to prominence, became the financial centre of the world’s largest economy, fell to obscurity and, now, rises again.
Topic:
Development, International Trade and Finance, History, Capitalism, and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
China and Asia

4. The Hudson's Bay Company: Royal Charters, Rivalries and Luxury Hats in the North American Fur Trade

Author:
Jason Saldanha, James Haworth, and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
French fur traders Médard Chouart des Groseilliers and Pierre-Esprit Radisson sensed an opportunity in the mid-1650s. During their travels within a North American trade network stretching from Montreal to the Great Lakes, the pair had heard rumours from indigenous Cree communities of a “frozen sea”: a region rich in beaver furs further to the north. The resourceful traders, aware of the European demand for luxury felt hats made from these furs, set out to explore. The two traders were not disappointed upon their arrival at the vast inland sea of Hudson Bay, discovering an abundance of high-quality furs. They quickly identified numerous rivers running from the basin that offered valuable access to the continent’s interior: if a shipping route could be forged from these locations, across the Atlantic and finally to European markets, the Hudson Bay region could re-centre the entire North American fur trade. After failing to obtain French support to establish a trading post in the area – and getting arrested upon their return to Montreal for trading without a licence – Des Groseilliers and Radisson found themselves courting English favour for their venture.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, History, Capitalism, Commodities, and Trade Liberalization
Political Geography:
United States, New York, Canada, Quebec City, and Global Focus

5. The “A1” Reputation of the Lloyd’s Register of Shipping

Author:
Charlie Harris and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
For over two hundred years, Lloyd’s Register has surveyed and classified ships. Founded in 1760 in a coffeehouse on London’s busy Lombard Street, the company then known as the Society for the Registry of Shipping, surveyed and classified the seaworthiness of ships. For the first time, underwriters and merchants could gain an idea of the condition of the vessels they insured and chartered while ship builders and shipowners could demonstrate seaworthiness. Lloyd’s classified the best as “A1.” This term would become the Register’s greatest contribution to the popular lexicon and, ever since, the phrase “A1 at Lloyd’s” connotes the highest quality.
Topic:
History, Capitalism, and Business
Political Geography:
London and England

6. The Boom and the Busts: Mendocino County's Agricultural Revolution

Author:
Charlie Harris and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
California’s Mendocino County is a single-industry economy. Arriving in the sixties, marijuana cultivation gained a momentum in Mendocino that local government eventually began perceive as unstoppable, filling an economic void once occupied by lumber and fishing. Remote, permissive, boasting near-perfect outdoor growing conditions and conveniently situated between San Francisco and Portland, Oregon – two cities with something of a reputation for the consumption (and nationwide distribution) of marijuana. This convergence of assets, along with the benefit of timing, have led Mendocino County to draw growers – whether seasoned professionals or hopeful amateurs – from all over the world.
Topic:
Economics, History, Capitalism, Economic growth, and Economic Policy
Political Geography:
United States and California

7. Union Cold Storage and the Birth of Multinational Tax Planning, 1897-1922

Author:
James Hollis and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
Today’s corporate managers know that while tax planning may improve the bottom line, it also carries a downside in terms of reputational risk. The past decade has seen the rise of a phenomenon dubbed “tax shaming,” with legislators, activists and the popular press condemning multinationals for participating in “aggressive” or “unethical” tax avoidance. This campaign has occasionally been associated with dramatic changes in corporate policy. In 2012, for example, the global coffee chain Starbucks announced that it was voluntarily increasing its tax payments in the United Kingdom. And the following year, one of Britain’s leading banks, Barclays, closed down its profitable tax structuring division, citing the hostile political climate. Advocates of corporate social responsibility (CSR) promote the idea of a moral dimension to tax compliance, although it remains to be seen whether firms that consciously adopt an ethical approach to tax obligations will outperform their rivals. Some skeptics dismiss the CSR agenda as a public relations exercise; others regard it as a potential threat to legal certainty or economic competitiveness. A few practitioners even claim that “tax shaming” is a dangerous step towards “taxation by mob rule.”
Topic:
History, Capitalism, Ethics, Business, Multinational Corporations, and Risk
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8. Shipping Migrants in the Age of Steam: The Rise and Rise of the Messageries Maritimes c. 1870-1914

Author:
Riccardo Liberatore and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
Around the middle of the nineteenth century the full effects of steam technology were starting to be felt in western industry and transport. The steam engine had been patented by a Scottish engineer named James Watt in 1781 but the first experiments in steam powered trains and ships occurred towards the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Atlantic Ocean became a laboratory for maritime engineers. Its first crossing entirely by steam was achieved in 1838 by the SS Great Western, a wooden-hulled paddlewheel steamer designed by the celebrated English engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It wasn’t until the final decades of the nineteenth century, however, that steam engines came to replace sails entirely. The obstacles remained many and the new technology was adopted with some apprehension due to the spectacular explosions, collisions and shipwrecks that littered its early history (the sinking of the SS Titanic in 1912, property of the White Star Line from Liverpool, is the most well known). Nonetheless, its effects rippled across international commerce and global politics. Spearheading the change were mostly European shipping companies that, with the support of their imperial backers, exploited the decline in American shipping and the technological inferiority of Asian competitors, and rushed forwards. One of these companies was the French Messageries Maritimes. In its heyday it was known as France’s postman in the Mediterranean. In 1851 it had been awarded a substantial government subsidy to deliver post and carry government personnel across the Mediterranean, subsequently renewed at regular intervals for almost a century. At the time Algeria was France’s only colonial possession in the region (it added Tunisia in 1881 and Morocco in 1912), but its commercial interests in the area were many (for instance the Suez Canal, completed in 1869, was constructed by a French company under the stewardship of Ferdinand de Lesseps, a French engineer) and the communities of French men and women living on its shores were numerous. Despite the continued reliance on government contracts, the Messageries Maritimes still had to navigate its way skilfully in a global industry characterized by large costs, high order logistical challenges and intense international competition. How it managed to do so and why it chose to enter the migrant shipping market is the subject of this case-study.
Topic:
Migration, Science and Technology, History, Capitalism, and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
Europe, France, Spain, England, and Scotland