Noticing Material Culture

Material culture can offer profitable primary sources for business historians, as several scholars have shown. This essay builds from a workshop held during the 2022 Business History Conference Mid-Year meeting, intended to challenge participants to rethink traditional sources through material culture methodologies. Broadly, the workshop asked participants to consider how material culture methods might amplify the use of 'traditional' business history sources (such as account books and advertisements). Here, the author offers a methodological framework for analyzing material culture in order to illustrate the utility of an object-centered approach when writing business history.