Winthrop Group Participates in The Hundred Year Association's Panel Discussion on Documenting Corporate History

On February 24th, Winthrop’s George David Smith and Janine St.Germain participated in a panel discussion in New York hosted by the Hundred Year Association, an alliance of businesses that have been in existence for at least a century. The evening’s discussion focused on strategies for producing a corporate history. Smith, a founding director of the Winthrop Group, explained how documenting and learning from corporate history can support an organization’s marketing and strategic planning efforts as well as help it manage organizational change.

Other panelists included Amy Oshinsky of Guardian Life Insurance Co., Brian Anderson, Commissioner of the New York City's Municipal Archives, and Peter Savigny, a producer of historical documentaries. Guardian Life recently produced a historical publication using material culled from its archives. In 2004, Winthrop used those same archives to research and write a history of the company, Mutually Beneficial: the Guardian and Life Insurance in America (New York University Press).
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Robert Kushner's Food Fashion Show, 2010
Artist Robert Kushner recently created a revival of his noted 1972 performance piece, "Robert Kushner and Friends Eat Their Clothes." Planned in collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, the food fashion show was held at New York City’s Astor Center for Food and Wine. Mr. Kushner narrated the show and participated in the following panel discussion which addressed the use of food in art, photography, and fashion. Elegant black and white prints of the costumes, photographed by Stanley Stellar, were selected from the Kushner Archive and served as a point of reference for the evening’s performance.

The collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate Gallery in London, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and many other museums include works by Mr. Kushner. His mural installations can be seen in locations as diverse as the Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina and the Gramercy Tavern in New York City.

Winthrop+St.Germain provides archival services to artists, collectors, and artists’ estates and foundations. More information can be found at www.winthropstgermain.com
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Paul Taylor Dance Company Celebrates Founder’s 80th Birthday
For more than 55 of his 80 years Paul Taylor has been making dances, the first of them in 1954. This year, while his dancers receive high praise for performances at New York’s City Center, Mr. Taylor’s company and the public are celebrating the choreographer’s 80th birthday. The wide scope of Taylor’s choreography is evident at City Center where the 18 dances being performed include classics such as ‘Esplanade’, ‘Brandenburgs’, and ‘Piazzolla Caldera’ along with this year’s premieres of ‘Brief Encounters’ and ‘Also Playing’.

The New York Times dance critic Alastair Macaulay states that the current City Center season, which runs through March 14th, demonstrates again that Paul Taylor is “one of the most singular and searching imaginations of our time.” Undeterred by even the most difficult of subjects or complex of relationships, Taylor continues to create dances that engage, startle, and make his audiences think. Macaulay cannot help but refer to the choreographer as the ‘Beloved Renegade’, a title Mr. Taylor gave to a dance that had its City Center premiere in 2009.

While Mr. Taylor and the dancers are focused on the City Center performances, the company’s staff is preparing to move into its new location on Grand Street in lower Manhattan. The newly renovated space will house rehearsal studios, the school, Taylor 2, offices, costume and production support, and the Archives.

The Company’s commitment to maintaining a documentary record of Mr. Taylor’s work first bloomed in 1993, the year he made his 100th dance. The Repertory Preservation Project, as it was called, has resulted in the Paul Taylor Dance Archives, a collection that now includes paper, photographic, moving image, and digital documentation. Seventeen years after conducting the initial archives assessment and implementing a plan for the Archives, the Winthrop Group continues to provide the Paul Taylor Dance Company with archival processing and reference services on a retainer basis.
back to top A Guide To The Archives Of The Visiting Nurse Service Of New York Is Available On-line
The Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY) transferred its Archives to Columbia University’s Medical Center for deposit in the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library during the Fall of 2008. The new Guide, written by Stephen E. Novak, Head of Archives & Special Collections at the Health Sciences Library, is based on a finding aid prepared by the Winthrop Group in 1995.

VNSNY turned to Winthrop Group in 2008 for assistance with identifying an institution where they could deposit their Archives. VNSNY planned to renovate its Upper East Side headquarters and appropriate storage space was needed for the Archives while the construction was in progress. Winthrop Group undertook research on potential repositories, and prepared a report and a comparison chart to assist VNSNY with its decision. In addition, the Winthrop team assisted with the transfer by refiling borrowed archival materials, reviewing new documents that had been placed in the Archives, weeding duplicates, and boxing loose papers.

We also prepared an overview of the archival collection and a list of the new materials. Columbia’s Health Sciences Library’s Archives staff continued work on the VNSNY Archives in 2009 and now, a new finding aid is available at http://library.cpmc.columbia.edu/sl/archives/findingaids/VNSNY.html.

We were familiar with the VNSNY archival collections. In the mid-1990s, VNSNY contracted with Winthrop Group to evaluate its historic documentation and photographs and prepare recommendations and a work plan for organizing and preserving them. VNSNY subsequently hired the Winthrop Group to set up an archives and arrange and describe the historic documents and photographs. The initial hands-on work was completed in 1995.
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Archives Of The American Stock Exchange Moves To NYSE Euronext
As NYSE Euronext completed its acquisition of the American Stock Exchange (the Amex) in October 2008, NYSE Archivists already were working on plans to identify and review the important archival documentation of the Amex. Their plans, carried out with the assistance of The Winthrop Group, Inc., helped to ensure that the lively history and the archival records of the American Stock Exchange are preserved for ongoing business and scholarly purposes.

Known during the 19th century as the “curbstone brokers,” the Amex’s reputation was built on the fact that its members took on the challenges of trading securities of unseasoned, smaller, and/or innovative companies and weathered the elements while trading outdoors year round. A vigorous effort by its leaders brought regulation, a 1921 move indoors, and improved credibility for what had become the New York Curb Market. Through bull and bear markets, the Curb Market’s influence grew and in 1953 its members adopted the American Stock Exchange name.

The NYSE Archivists are proceeding with integration of the Amex documentation into their Archives, and the work of arranging and describing an estimated 140 cubic feet of historical records, photographs, printed materials and publications commenced in the summer. From early 20th century photographs of the curbstone brokers, ticker notices and published constitutions and rules, to Securities and Exchange Commission testimony, the introduction of options and derivatives and late 20th century images of the trading floor, the papers reveal the evolution and progress of the marketplace.
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New Winthrop Book: Venture Capitalist Peter A. Brooke
Winthrop is pleased to announce the publication of A Vision for Venture Capital: Realizing the Promise of Global Venture Capital & Private Equity (New Ventures Press/University Press of New England), by Peter A. Brooke, with Daniel Penrice.

A Vision for Venture Capital chronicles the distinguished career of Peter Brooke, one of the world's pioneering venture capitalists. Nicknamed "the Johnny Appleseed of venture capital" for his role in the industry's spectacular growth, Brooke argues that private equity is an essential element of economic growth and development. At a time when some believe that venture capital's best days are behind it, and private equity has come under renewed criticism, A Vision for Venture Capital, written with Winthrop's Daniel Penrice, offers a fresh look at the industry's history, and how it can fulfill its potential in the 21st century.

"Venture capital today is at last emerging as a truly global industry," writes Josh Learner, Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Investment Banking at Harvard Business School. "This evolution validates Peter Brooke's vision of many decades ago, and his pioneering efforts in this arena. This book provides a fascinating retrospective of Peter's career, as well as a variety of insights about the likely evolution of the global venture industry."
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New Winthrop Book: Biography of Inventor Frank J. Sprague
Winthrop is pleased to announce the publication of Engineering Invention: Frank J. Sprague and the U. S. Electrical Industry, 1880-1900 (MIT Press), by Frederick Dalzell.

In just 20 years, inventor Frank J. Sprague (1857-1934) achieved an astonishing series of technological breakthroughs, from pioneering work in self-governing motors to the first full-scale operational electric railway system. A shrewd businessman, he also commercialized his inventions and promoted them to financial backers and the public.

In Engineering Invention, Winthrop's Frederick Dalzell sets Sprague's story against the backdrop of one of the most dynamic periods in the history of technology. In a burst of innovation during these years, Sprague and his contemporaries-Thomas Edison, Nicolas Tesla, George Westinghouse, and others-transformed the technologies of electricity and reshaped urban life. Dalzell reminds us that even as large corporations became the driving force of technological change, the independent inventor continued to play a vital role in promoting innovation.

"A study of Frank Sprague's important contributions to electrical history is long overdue," writes Paul Israel, Director and General Editor of the Thomas A. Edison Papers Project at Rutgers University. "Frederick Dalzell does this in impressive fashion while using Sprague's life and career to inquire into the nature of technological innovation and the role of the heroic inventor in American industry."
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Benjamin Z. Brown Joins Winthrop Group
Benjamin Z. Brown has accepted an Archivist position with Winthrop Group in New York City. Prior to joining Winthrop Group, he worked at the Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives processing the institutional papers of the office of the Handbook of North American Indians, among other projects. He also interned with the National Archives and Records Administration. Benjamin holds an MLS with a focus on archives and records Management from the University of Maryland and is a member of the Society of American Archivists.
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Cleveland Clinic Is In The News
Winthrop client, Cleveland Clinic, is front and center in the news at present because of the appealing model it presents with respect to health care reform options in the US. Like several other hospitals, including the Mayo Clinic and the much smaller Bassett Healthcare in Cooperstown, New York, Cleveland Clinic has distinguished itself by achieving better patient outcomes while paying doctors salaries rather than fees for service. (See www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/health/policy/25doctors.html.)

Even before the public debate about healthcare heated up, Cleveland Clinic was recognized for its accomplishments. These and the history behind them are examined in the the video “All for One: The Story of the Cleveland Clinic” which won a Silver Telly Award in 2008. Produced by Telos Productions of Cleveland, Ohio, the script was co-authored by Winthrop’s Davis Dyer and Tom Ball of Telos Productions. An excerpt of the film is featured on Winthrop Group’s website: Video, Multimedia, & the Web.

The Telly Awards were established in 1978 to showcase the very best local, regional, and national television commercials, programming, and other film and video productions by the most respected advertising agencies, production companies, television stations, and corporate video departments around the world.

“All for One” was the third Telly Award winner for the Winthrop-Telos partnership, which previously received Bronze Tellys for “Fred Crawford: Celebrating 100 Years” and “Everybody Wins, A History of the Progressive Corporation, 1937-1983”.
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Margaret B.W. Graham Contributes To New Publication
The Winthrop Group’s Margaret B.W. Graham has contributed to a new publication from the Stanford University Press.

The Challenge of Remaining Innovative: Insights from Twentieth Century American Business, edited by Sally H. Clarke, Naomi R. Lamoreaux, and Steven W. Usselman, examines innovation as a complex phenomenon. The contributors explore two main themes: the challenge of remaining innovative and the necessity of managing institutional boundaries in doing so. Graham provides an interesting look at innovation in her article, “Corning as Creative Responder: A Schumpterian Interpretation of Disruptive Innovation”, found in Chapter Two of the book.

Richard N. Langlois of The University of Connecticut writes, "In The Challenge of Remaining Innovative, a stellar group of authors asks anew the Schumpeterian questions of innovation, the corporation, and the state. The result is a sophisticated and nuanced volume that will find itself at the center of future scholarship in this area."

Please visit the Stanford University Press to read more reviews or to purchase the book: http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=11605
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Sales Push LePatner Book Into Paperback
The success of Barry B. LePatner's Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets, written with Winthrop's Timothy Jacobson, has led University of Chicago Press to release the book in paperback. An in-depth study of the U.S. construction industry,

Broken Buildings examines the causes of inordinate cost overruns in everything from residential home-building and commercial construction to home renovations. LePatner, a New York lawyer specializing in the construction industry, explains how business, government, and the individual consumer fall prey to the inefficient practices of all parties involved in a major construction project, from contractors, designers, and suppliers to workers and labor unions. LePatner provides a blueprint for tackling this problem, including tougher contracts, background checks, and hiring experts to monitor builders.

To read the original review in the Wall Street Journal, click here: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119681431154013727.html.
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