Each year, the Hagley Center organizes a conference around a theme in business history. We issue a thematic call for papers in the spring, and the resulting fall conference consists of academic presentations based on original research. Many conferences form the basis for edited volumes published through the University of Pennsylvania Press series, Hagley Perspectives on Business and Culture.
Fall 2024 Conference
Real Estate Development and the Built Environment, A Conference at the Hagley Library in Wilmington DE, November 1, 2024
Past Hagley Conferences
Building Ecosystems/Selling Natures: At the Edge of Environments and Economies, October 28, 2022
Reach Out and Touch Someone: A Conference on Commercial Intimacy and Personalization, November 5, 2021
Avon: An International Forum on its Archive, May 7, 2021.
Capitalism and the Senses, November 5, 2020.
Commercial Pictures and the Arts and Technics of Visual Persuasion, November 8, 2019
Seeing Like a Capitalist: Histories of Commercial Surveillance in America, November 8–9, 2018
Hidden Capitalism: Beyond, Below and Outside the Visible Market, November 10, 2017
Making Modern Disabilities: Histories of Disability, Design, and Technology, October 2016
Doing Business Across Borders, November 2015
Green Capitalism? At the Crossroads of Environmental and Business History. October 2014
Business and Politics in Twentieth-Century America, November 8, 2013
Historicizing Intellectual Property: A symposium, May 16, 2013.
Talking Business: Oral History and the History of Enterprises, November 2, 2012.
POSTER & SCHEDULE
The Life of New Materials. November 17-18, 2011
Crisis and Consequence. Conference at the Hagley Museum and Library November 5, 2010
Understanding Markets: Information, Institutions and History. Sponsored by the Hagley Museum and Library and German Historical Institute. October 30 and 31, 2009
Fashions: Business Perspectives in Historical Perspective. Business History Conference. June 11-13 2009
Unintended Consequences. A conference sponsored by the Hagley Fellows of the University of Delaware. April 4, 2009
Automobility: A Conference on the 100th anniversary of the Model T. November 6-7, 2008
Commonplace Yet Extraordinary: Design Histories of Everyday Objects. Friday, May 16, 2008
Sound in the Era of Mechanical Reproduction. November 29-30, 2007
Technological Innovation and the Cold War. March 9, 2007
Food Chains: Provisioning, Technology, and Science. November 2 to 4, 2006
How Business Users Shaped Modern Technologies...and Vice Versa. March 10, 2006
Producing Fashion. October 28-29, 2005
Utopian Visions and World's Fairs. April 15, 2005
Tourism Conference: Consuming Experiences. November 12-13, 2004
The Pennsylvania Railroad and its Archives: Their History and Legacy. December 5, 2003
The Ambiguities of Work: Knowledge, Power, and Culture. November 7, 2003
Reinventing the Factory. Hagley Fellows Conference, March 28, 2003
The Technological Fix. October 4-5, 2002
Commodifying Everything: Consumption and the Capitalist Enterprise. October 12-13, 2001
Consumption and the Environment. Hagley Fellows Conference. March 9, 2001
Kitchens: Design, Technologies, and Work. November 10, 2000
Food and Drink in Consumer Societies. November 12-13, 1999
Beauty & Business. March 26-27, 1999
Private Time, Private Space, Private Parts: Negotiating the Boundaries of Private and Public in History. Hagley Fellows Conference, February 26, 1999
Technology and Artistic Practice. October 30, 1998
Women and Historic Preservation. May 28 & 29, 1998
Boys and Their Toys? Masculinity, Technology, and Work. October 3, 1997
The Future of Business History. April 4 & 5, 1997
Modernism and Technology, 1900-1945. Hagley Fellows Conference, March 7, 1997