S. Paul Garner
THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA (EMERITUS)

REFLECTIONS ON THE USES OF ACCOUNTING HISTORY

As our new organization of accounting historians begins its endeavors, we might pause for a moment and reflect on just what uses might be accomplished by efforts to attract more interest in accounting history. Each new member of The Academy, in his natural enthusiasm for the subject area, could easily outline several responses to the editorial question raised by this introductory note, would like to offer the following suggestive views on this matter.

1. Every profession should take modest pride in its background and development. In fact, one of the attributes of any recognized profession is relative concern for, and its energy in, ferreting out items concerning its origin and evolution. Accounting should be no exception to this general prospective.

2. Study and research in accounting history are open to almost everyone having an accounting bent. The eagle eyes and ears of accounting historians will find few limits to possible surprise findings and important discoveries. In other words, everyone has an opportunity to make a contribution to the filling in of unknown details. Accounting history research is somewhat similar to the search for oil, that is, information regarding accounting history is
where one finds it.

3. Many newcomers to the profession of accounting and corporate reporting, when they read the frequent comments in the literature of today concerning accounting problems and challenges, may not be aware that the current situation is so much better than the “old days” as to be almost shocking. Therefore, the study of accounting history should tend to overcome the discouragement with the present status of this field of endeavor. Analogies from the
past might even assist in curing some of the present imponderables.

4. Still another important advantage of an interest in accounting history is that one soon broadens his or her understanding of several other disciplines, if the enthusiastic accounting historian has not already become familiar with these related study areas. The broadly defined student of accounting history will soon find his paths leading to topics and materials in economic history, social and cultural development, semantics, literature, fiction, development of religions and related literature, politics, and perhaps even space travel in the future. (A secondary, but not to be overlooked advantage, is that a professional interest in accounting history may even give one good excuse for traveling widely throughout the world in pursuit of the keys which may unlock some of the long-time mysteries associated with the evolution of accounting.)

5. As brought out in recent items in The Accounting Review the cultivation of accounting history may be very useful in advancing the understanding of accounting by beginning accounting students. This is an almost overwhelming opportunity for accounting historians, since perhaps as many as four hundred thousand people of the world begin their study of accounting each year. Many of these newcomers are not planning to be accountants, but if their understanding of accounting is made easier or improved in quality and quantity, through the introduction of accounting history in various stages of the study, the usefulness feature of accounting history would cease to be a novelty.

In summary, the opportunities afforded through participation in The Academy of Accounting Historians are virtually unlimited today and as the decades march on through the twenty-first century, many other uses of accounting history will likely appear.

(Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 1, 1974)