Caitlin C. Rosenthal

Caitlin Rosenthal is the Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellow in Business History. Her current book project, From Slavery to Scientific Management, explores the transformation of quantitative business practices during the long nineteenth century. The traditional story of modern management begins in the factories of England and New England, extending only much later to the American South. From Slavery to Scientific Management argues that many sophisticated techniques developed first on southern and West Indian slave plantations, disseminating among elite planters many decades before they were adopted in northern factories. The manuscript stretches from the sugar plantations of the late eighteenth century Atlantic world through the rise of cotton, textiles, and the railroads, concluding in the early twentieth century with Frederick Winslow Taylor’s scientific management movement. Caitlin is also in early stages of two new projects, one on the impact of accounting practices on firm performance, and the other on the history of information technologies and big data. Her other research interests include the political economy of knowledge production, the business history of fine art, the history of the book, and corporate social responsibility.

Caitlin completed her doctorate at Harvard in 2012, where she was awarded a Presidential Scholarship. At Harvard she organized numerous conferences, and helped to launch the Program on the Study of Capitalism. She has received numerous fellowships in support of her research, including from the Economic History Association, the American Antiquarian Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the John Carter Brown Library, and the Charles Warren Center for American History. Before graduate school, Caitlin worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company, and her experience there spurred her interest in business history. She also holds an AM in History from Harvard and a BA in Political Science from Rice University.