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The purpose of this paper is to provide an historical analysis of an important early contribution to the history of marketing thought literature – the six-book series titled The Knack of Selling – which was published in 1913 and intended as an early training course for salesmanship.

This research utilized a close, systematic reading of The Knack of Selling series and places it in the professional and intellectual context of the early twentieth century. Books published about marketing are primary source materials for any study of the history of marketing thought. In this case, The Knack series constitutes significant primary source material for a study of early thinking about personal selling.

Echoing A.W. Shaw, Watson offers a more sophisticated interpretation of the “one best way” approach associated with Frederick Taylor. Watson’s advice did not entail the repetition of canned sales talks to each customer. His vision of practice was more complicated. Sales presentations were temporally and locationally relative. They were subject to ongoing evolution. As the marketplace changed, as customer needs and interests shifted, so did organizational and salesperson performances. To keep sales talks relevant to the consumer, personnel were encouraged to undertake rudimentary ethnographic research and interviews. Unusually, there is oscillation in the way power relations between marketer and customer were described. While relational themes are present, so are military metaphors.

This is the first systematic reading of The Knack of Selling that has been produced. It is an important contribution to the literature inasmuch as this book set is not in wide circulation. The material itself was significant as an input into scholarship subsequently hailed as seminal within sales management.

The aim of this study is to explore the attempts by early twentieth century cyclecar manufacturers in the UK and USA to segment the personal transportation market and to position early cyclecars through the development of unique product attributes and advertising. More specifically, the authors speculate about early twentieth century British cyclecar marketing strategies that implicitly recognized a sports car segment and positioned cyclecar brands to meet the needs of that segment.

The primary source material for this research is a sample of 205 print ads and articles from the early twentieth century (1912-1921) specialty magazines devoted to cyclecars in the UK and USA. We combine the content analysis of the sample of ads with a critical reading and interpretation of a sub-sample of those same ads.

Between 1910 and 1921, a new form of personal transportation was developed that combined the technology of motorcycles with the utility of automobiles. Known as “cyclecars”, these vehicles were typically constructed from off-the-shelf motorcycle parts and assembled in small batches by a myriad of manufacturers. Current scholarship suggests that the cyclecar craze of the 1910s ended with the introduction of low cost “real” automobiles such as the Ford Model T, Austin 7 and Morris Oxford. We use the content analysis of cyclecar advertisements to construct a brand-positioning map of this emerging segment of the transportation market. We argue that while the core cyclecar positioning was in direct competition with small economically positioned cars such as the Ford Model T, a significant part of the market, primarily centered in the UK, could be considered as for sports cars. That segment of the cyclecar market, along with the development of cyclecars into urban delivery vehicles, continued over time and has re-emerged today in a range of three-wheeled sports cars, including the updating and continuation of the British Morgan 3 Wheeler model which was launched during the heyday of cyclecars.

The authors can only speculate about the impact of the Ford Model T in this study. Further research on that issue is needed.

This is the first historical study of cyclecar marketing. Most of what little has been published about cyclecars focuses on their design and technology.

This paper aims to introduce a special issue of the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing which includes autobiographical sketches by leading scholars in the history of marketing and consumer research.

A brief review of the (auto)biographical tradition in marketing scholarship leads to a commentary on the four accounts in this issue.

Highlights of the four portraits are presented and insights into their authors’ lives and careers are offered.

The authors hope this introductory article whets readers’ appetites to learn more about the four contributors whose careers and personal lives are explicated for their consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the history of the Conferences on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing (CHARM) from their inception in 1983 through 2007 focusing on the influence of Stanley C. Hollander, who co‐founded the CHARM conference and whose drive and determination fueled its growth for the first 20 years.

This study uses traditional historical narrative based on personal interviews, archival research, and content analysis of CHARM Proceedings.

The history of CHARM is described and Hollander's role in developing the conference is highlighted.

There is no written history of CHARM. This story is a major part of Hollander's legacy.

The purpose of this paper is to present a biographical sketch of David D. Monieson whose academic career in marketing included time spent at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Toronto, and over 30 years at Queen's University. It is focussed on Monieson's contributions to the history and philosophy of marketing thought, especially with respect to what Monieson called “usable knowledge” in marketing.

This paper uses a traditional historical narrative based on extensive personal interviews with Monieson and with some of his students and colleagues as well as archival research including personal correspondence, course notes, research notes, and other unpublished documents.

Monieson made important contributions to the thinking about history and philosophy of marketing thought. Some of his ideas, such as the intellectualization and re‐enchantment of marketing, have found a following among marketing academics; others, such as complexity, have not.

There is no published biographical study of Monieson and no detailed analysis of his contributions to marketing thought. This biographical sketch provides insights into several significant marketing ideas and tells the life story of an important marketing scholar.

Mead was one of the first university professors of Finance in North America. The purpose of this article ia to document his career at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania from 1900 to 1944.

This research used traditional historical interpretation of rare archival documents, drew from the autobiography of Mead's more famous daughter, Margaret Mead, and includes an analysis of Mead's published work in Finance.

The findings are reported as an intellectual biography. The paper reports on Mead's life and career as a pioneer Finance scholar.

There has been almost nothing published about the history of the Finance discipline and nothing published about the contributions of Edward Sherwood Mead.