Theme

Business, Trade, and Economic History

Featured Items

Detail of a printed book shows text in Spanish reading "Los oficios de secretario, Contador, tesorero" and so on.

Ereccion del consulado de Montevideo

1827
Detail of a printed book shows a page with text in French and an illustration on the opposite page.

Code Noir: ou Recueil d’edits, déclarations et arrets concernant les Esclaves Nègres de l’Amérique

1743
Detail of an engraved map shows mountainous topography and text in Italian.

Descrittione di tutto il Peru

Paulo di Forlani
circa 1564-1572
Detail of calf-bound book shows worn spine, embossed detail, and stamped title.

Secrete resolutien van de edele groot mog...

Johan de Witt
1717
stained title page of a printed pamphlet with a blue cover

Calendrier pour l’année 1807

1806-1807
Detail of a printed book shows a full-page illustration on the frontispiece showing a child carrying the world on their shoulders.

Atlas des Enfans, ou nouvelle methode pour apprendre la geographie,...

1784
Detail from a weathered printed document, that includes manuscript inscriptions, shows text in English from the president of the united states.

Sea letter, Brigantine Neptune, July 26, 1793

1793
Detail of a printed book shows a circular illustration and text in Spanish.

Suma de geographia...

Martin Fernandez de Enciso
1546

Related

Engraving showing whale fishery
Fellow's Talk

Baleação e Escravidão: Conexões Atlânticas entre New England, África e Brasil. Séculos XVIII e XIX (in Portuguese)

An eighteenth-century hand colored, engraved image of a ship unloading cargo and men from a boat, surrounded by other ships and backgrounded by a fortification, dwellings, churches, and a harbor.
Fellow's Talk

"To cease and yield the continual pretensions of the French:" The Spanish Establishment of Monte Cristi as a Free Port, 1750-1763

Image of Guaman Poma de Ayala scribe
In House

Recent Acquisition on Commercial Bureaucracy in the Spanish Empire

June 29, 2019
text and diagrams related to early printing

The Illustrated Colonial Printer: An Exhibition to Accompany The Colonial Printer by Lawrence Wroth

Winter 2012
handwriting sample with scrawls in the shape of a bird

Mind Your Business: Records of Early American Commerce at the John Carter Brown Library

Fall 2012
A view of the Strait of Magellan from the Agnese Atlas

Gateway to a New World

July-October 2019
worn, yellow-tinted pages of a 19th century almanac
In House

An almanac well-worn through regular use

July 27, 2018
photograph of dr. Christy clark-pujara at the John Carter brown library during a presentation

Watch "Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island"

May 1, 2017

See Also

Black History

Urbanism