Reviewed by Gary John Previts Case Western Reserve University
These volumes fill a major void in archival material for those researchers interested in late nineteenth-century professional accounting developments in the United States.
The Book-keeper, while somewhat mistitled in our contem-porary meaning of the term, is a combination of correspondence, book reviews, notices, professional news, legal decision notices, classified advertisements, with many scholarly and practical papers included, if not dominant.
Vol 1, No. 1 (July 20, 1880) contains the first of several continuing essays which introduce the forming profession to C.E. Sprogue’s seminal thought and process, entitled “The Algebra of Accounts.” The latter significantly influenced many early twentieth-century writers, including Hatfield and Paton.
The practical papers cover a range of topics such as foundry accounts (October 26, 1880); compulsory book-keeping (standard setting) (October 26, 1880); detection of errors (March 15, 1881); speculation, balance sheets, treatment of discounts (October 1881); joint-stock records (December 20, 1881); education (January 3, 1881); professional status (February 14, 1882) and organization (May 9 and September 12, 1882) history (Jones English Book-keeping) (September 12, 1882); theory (Is the Capital Account a Liability?) (December 19, 1882); biography (January 30, 1883); changing from partnership to corporation (June 5, 1883); technology (August 1883); poetry (November 1883); scope of service (March 1881 and January 1884); and others.
The helpful indexes placed in the front of each of the four reprint volumes eliminates the need to turn pages extensively in search of key topics. However, if one wishes to use those vol-umes to their fullest, I would recommend a thoughtful, chrono-logically sequenced perusal. Such an effort will likely reward one with a sense of time and a further appreciation for the depth of subject, treatment and sophistication of our forebears.
The American Accounting Room volumes, which run from July 1883 through June 1884, are quite different in focus and content when compared with the Book-keeper. Perhaps the most interesting feature is an organized section of correspondence, “Counting-Room Chats.”
The reprint title page of Volume 4 is in error — referring to a period January 1884 to December 1884; whereas the publica-tion ceases in June 1884. It was also noted that the reprints should be based upon the “2nd printing” of some Book-keeper numbers and not the original number. Whether or not these “2nd versions” were identical to the original printings is an open question.
The Book-keeper title was subsequently resurrected for use by an association based in Detroit, suggesting that the market for professional publications continued to develop before the Journal of Accountancy appeared in 1905. The interim was filled by such publications as Accountics, which itself existed through only a half-dozen or so volumes. Perhaps, as the reprinted stepping stones into our past are recovered in these Garland series, Accountics would be a good choice as a reprint.
