James W Cortada
Biographic Data
| ID | 380586 |
|---|---|
| NAME | James W Cortada |
| GIVEN NAMES | James W |
| FAMILY NAME | Cortada |
| SIGNATURE | CORTADA J W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Newark, New Jersey |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1676-1969 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 59 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 58 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1969 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
A proposed framework for understanding corporate grey literature of the twentieth century
This article argues that descriptions of business grey literature are inadequate and do not take into account the vast scope of such materials, particularly those generated by large, long-established multinational corporations and government agencies. Using the IBM Corporation’s activities as a model, a broader definition is proposed with a framework that can be used by scholars, librarians, and archivists to understand this class of publications
A Seven Forces Model View of contemporary information
This essay argues that there are at least seven fundamental features – called forces here – affecting today's information and explains briefly how they function and are used. It accepts the notion that today's information has been emerging and evolving for nearly 200 years. Its arguments can be seen as a conceptual snapshot that is historically informed. It offers a historical description of the role of information in contemporary society by intr…
Information infrastructures and historical research: A framework useful for professional and amateur historians
In this article we delve into the similarities as well as differences in the research methods of professional and amateur historians via the lens of information infrastructures. We pay special attention to the methods of amateur family historians before and after the arrival of the Internet identifying what changed as well as what did not, offering historical perspective. We also compare their methods with those of professional historians. We fin…
Information: A Historical Companion edited by Ann Blair, Paul Duguid, Anja-Silvia Goeing, and Anthony Grafton
Technology and the Historian: Transformations in the Digital Age by Adam Crymble
Historians have not been immune from the incursion of computing into their lives and work, increasingly influencing questions that they ask of historical evidence, which itself is either electronic or subject to reformulations, thanks to software. These effects were barely a whisper in the 1960s, but they became obvious with the arrival of personal computers, word-processing software, and database-management tools by the 1980s. Barely had histori…
Viewing Corporations as Information Ecosystems: The Case of IBM, 1914–1980s
Corporations can be viewed as large information ecosystems, not more narrowly as corporate entities, and the author uses the example of IBM to defend this point. This essay illustrates issues and topics that can be studied to enhance understanding of corporate history, building on prior methods used by scholars. It builds on research the author performed in writing a history of IBM from the 1880s to the present
James Schwoch. Wired into Nature: The Telegraph and the North American Frontier
The history of the telegraph and, by extension, of computer networks and the internet has enjoyed a boom over the past decade. Increasingly, historians have been moving away from discussing the evolution of these technologies and more toward their business ramifications or how they were used. James Schwoch’s new book Wired into Nature: The Telegraph and the North American Frontier advances the study of how the telegraph was used in the nineteenth…
From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future by Tom Wheeler
Reviewed by: From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future by Tom Wheeler James W. Cortada (bio) From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future. By Tom Wheeler. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2019. Pp. 300. Hardcover $24.99. If the author’s name sounds vaguely familiar, it is because Tom Wheeler served as the Chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (2013–17) during the Obama Administration. During his tenur…
Revisiting “Shaping Information History as an Intellectual Discipline” / Shaping Information History as an Intellectual Discipline
Information is an emerging field of interest and concern to citizens, public officials, and scholars in many disciplines. This article acknowledges that problems exist in defining the subject of information history and argues the case that the topic can be addressed in a more coherent fashion. It then poses five questions for historians to investigate with respect to this field and proposes a sequence of three strategies and an agenda for what sc…
Longevity and corporate ecosystems: How did IBM exist for over a century
Comment des firmes ont pu durer pendant des décennies constitue un sujet de controverses. Cet article étudie les circonstances qui ont permis à IBM d’exister pendant plus d’un siècle. Il suggère qu’une culture d’entreprise mise en place très tôt dans la vie de la firme a conduit à des comportements rendant possible cette longévité : un flux continu de nouveaux produits, un développement de produits et des initiatives marketing s’appuyant sur les …
Longevity and corporate ecosystems: How did IBM exist for over a century
Exploring How ICTs and Administration Are Entwined: The Promise of Information Ecosystems
This essay discusses the interrelationship among administrative practices, use of information and computing technologies (ICTs) in public and private organizations, and the role of information. This provides a historical overview of trends in all three areas, arguing that they were entwined, largely in the post–World War II era. The essay suggests how information exists in organizations, posing historical research questions undertaken by historia…
Change and Continuity at IBM: Key Themes in Histories of IBM
IBM has been the subject of considerable study by historians, economists, business management professors, and journalists. This essay surveys the various writings on the company, placing their contributions in a roughly chronological account of the company's history, from its early days in tabulating through to its dominance of global markets in computing. The essay includes well-known studies of IBM in addition to more obscure accounts. It empha…
A History of Information in the United States since 1870
This article summarizes the findings of a book-length study of how Americans have used information since the 1700s, with a primary emphasis on the post-1870 period. The author argues that residents of North America were extensive users of information in their work and in their public and private lives. Reasons are offered for that dependence on information: high levels of literacy, economic prosperity, open political system, and considerable pers…
Ronald R. Kline. The Cybernetics Moment: Or Why We Call Our Age the Information Age
In The Cybernetics Moment: Or Why We Call Our Age the Information Age, Ronald R. Kline describes the evolution of cybernetics between the late 1940s and the 1990s. By tracing the work, thinking, and academic meetings of computer scientists, mathematicians, anthropologists, and biologists, among others, he narrates the emergence of cybernetics and the origins of the notion of the Information Age in the U.S. and to a lesser extent in Great Britain …
A Framework for Understanding Information Ecosystems in Firms and Industries
Information is the glue that holds together organizations and their industries. Thus understanding the information ecosystems and their infrastructures is essential if we are to appreciate how companies, government agencies, and entire industries function. Yet the role of information in companies and industries remains understudied. This article defines concepts historians should understand, discusses challenges faced in the study of business inf…
From Mainframes to Smartphones: A History of the International Computer Industry by Martin Campbell-Kelly and Daniel D. Garcia-Swartz
Reviewed by: From Mainframes to Smartphones: A History of the International Computer Industry by Martin Campbell-Kelly and Daniel D. Garcia-Swartz James W. Cortada (bio) From Mainframes to Smartphones: A History of the International Computer Industry. By Martin Campbell-Kelly and Daniel D. Garcia-Swartz. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. 248. $45. The authors have written a short, well-informed history of how computing became a b…
Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and Remington Rand and the Industry They Created, 1865-1956
Andrew L. Russell. Open Standards and the Digital Age: History, Ideology, and Networks
Historians have paid increased attention to the role of technical and operational standards over the past decade, recognizing that such codifications of practices in the development and deployment of technologies and other activities shaped the form of what was implemented and sped up appropriation. Andrew L. Russell's book explores the historical forces that shaped today's concept of “open world,” an approach to technical standards, most often a…
The Information Ecosystems of National Diplomacy: The Case of Spain, 1815-1936
Workers in information-intensive professions live in an information ecosystem in which they create, analyze, store, and communicate information as their core activities. This article illustrates how that happens through the historical case study of Spanish diplomats over the course of more than a century. Their information ecosystem proved extensive, encompassing institutions, bodies of tacit and explicit knowledge, and routine and ad hoc collect…
When Knowledge Transfer Goes Global: How People and Organizations Learned About Information Technology, 1945–1970
This article argues that an information ecosystem emerged rapidly after World War II that made possible the movement of knowledge about computing and its uses around the world. Participants included engineers, scientists, government officials, business management, and users of the technology. Vendors, government agencies, the military, and professors participated regardless of such barriers as languages, cold war politics, or varying levels of na…
How New Technologies Spread: Lessons from Computing Technologies
This paper describes how information technology (IT) spread around the world, discussing the research and historiographical challenges for historians looking at this topic. It discusses patterns of adoption, spread of knowledge about IT, expanding modes of use, and implications for study of the diffusion of technologies
How it makes industries so important
Au cours du XX e siècle, les technologies de l’information (TI) ont été de plus en plus utilisées par les entreprises et dans des branches de plus en plus variées à travers le monde. Beaucoup des usages à l’intérieur d’une branche ont été similaires. L’informatisation a fait évoluer le travail des managers, les firmes et les branches. La thèse de cet article est qu’une approche par les branches industrielles du travail des managers et des entrepr…
Public Policies and the Development of National Computer Industries in Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, 1940—80
France, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union implemented various public policies designed to promote the development of local computer industries, beginning in the late 1940s, that had mixed results but were part of a larger pan-European interest in promoting national economic development through the use of technologies
Do We Live in the Information Age: Insights from Historiographical Methods
The author argues that giving a name to any period of history is a complicated process for historians, requiring careful consideration of many factors. Applying the extensive presence and use of computers as an example of the process at work, he suggests that it may be too early to name our time the information age
When Knowledge Transfer Goes Global: How People and Organizations Learned About Information Technology, 1945–1970
This article argues that an information ecosystem emerged rapidly after World War II that made possible the movement of knowledge about computing and its uses around the world. Participants included engineers, scientists, government officials, business management, and users of the technology. Vendors, government agencies, the military, and professors participated regardless of such barriers as languages, cold war politics, or varying levels of na…
Change and Continuity at IBM: Key Themes in Histories of IBM
IBM has been the subject of considerable study by historians, economists, business management professors, and journalists. This essay surveys the various writings on the company, placing their contributions in a roughly chronological account of the company's history, from its early days in tabulating through to its dominance of global markets in computing. The essay includes well-known studies of IBM in addition to more obscure accounts. It empha…
Public Policies and the Development of National Computer Industries in Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, 1940—80
France, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union implemented various public policies designed to promote the development of local computer industries, beginning in the late 1940s, that had mixed results but were part of a larger pan-European interest in promoting national economic development through the use of technologies
Information infrastructures and historical research: A framework useful for professional and amateur historians
In this article we delve into the similarities as well as differences in the research methods of professional and amateur historians via the lens of information infrastructures. We pay special attention to the methods of amateur family historians before and after the arrival of the Internet identifying what changed as well as what did not, offering historical perspective. We also compare their methods with those of professional historians. We fin…
Longevity and corporate ecosystems: How did IBM exist for over a century
Comment des firmes ont pu durer pendant des décennies constitue un sujet de controverses. Cet article étudie les circonstances qui ont permis à IBM d’exister pendant plus d’un siècle. Il suggère qu’une culture d’entreprise mise en place très tôt dans la vie de la firme a conduit à des comportements rendant possible cette longévité : un flux continu de nouveaux produits, un développement de produits et des initiatives marketing s’appuyant sur les …
Exploring How ICTs and Administration Are Entwined: The Promise of Information Ecosystems
This essay discusses the interrelationship among administrative practices, use of information and computing technologies (ICTs) in public and private organizations, and the role of information. This provides a historical overview of trends in all three areas, arguing that they were entwined, largely in the post–World War II era. The essay suggests how information exists in organizations, posing historical research questions undertaken by historia…
Who Was Christopher Columbus
Myths, Facts, and Debates: Christopher Columbus and the New World before 1492
Christopher Columbus had long attracted the interest of scholars before mass
Spain and the Second World War
One area of the diplomatic history of the second world war that has only recently come under examination is the role played by Spain. Within this field, work is now slowly starting on Spain's relations with the United States.1 During the years 1943-4 the United States and Great Britain were conducting negotiations with Madrid in an attempt to have Franco impose an embargo on the sale of tungsten ore (wolfram) to the Germans for use in their balli…
United States-Spanish Relations, Wolfram and World War II
Journal Article United States-Spanish Relations, Wolfram and World War II. By James W. Cortada. (Barcelona: Manuel Pareja [Distributed by International Scholarly Book Services, Portland, Ore.], 1971. 134 pp. Illustrations, table, appendixes, notes, bibliography, and index. $6.00.) Get access Raymond L. Proctor Raymond L. Proctor University of Idaho Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American Histor…
Spain and the French Invasion of Cochinchina
Francisco Cambo and the Modernization of Spain: The Technocratic Possibilities of Fascism
Spain entered the twentieth century as a relatively underdeveloped nation still deeply rooted in her traditional past. Spanish life had barely begun to experience the stresses of social and economic transformation that recent scholars have identified with the modernization process. Toward the end of the last century, Spanish industry grew at a rapid pace, particularly in the Basque and Catalan regions, but the nation as a whole continued to lag b…
Historia del autonomismo puertorriqueño: El ensayo de la autonomía
Workers' Struggle in Puerto Rico: A Documentary History
Workers’ Struggle in Puerto Rico: A Documentary History
Our America: Writings on Latin America and the Struggle for Cuban Independence
Our America: Writings on Latin America and the Struggle for Cuban IndependenceAntonio Maceo: The "Bronze Titan" of Cuba's Struggle for Independence
Two Nations over Time: Spain and the United States, 1776-1977
Journal Article Two Nations over Time: Spain and the United States, 1776–1977. By James W. Cortada. (Westport: Greenwood, 1978. xi + 305 pp. Table, appendixes, notes, bibliographic essay, and index. $22.95.) Get access Philip Wayne Powell Philip Wayne Powell University of California, Santa Barbara Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 66, Issue 2, September 1979, Page 362, htt…
Spain and the American Civil War: Relations at Mid-Century, 1855-1868
Two Nations over Time: Spain and the United States, 1776-1977
The War with Spain in 1898
Esclavos rebeldes: Conspiraciones y sublevaciones de esclavos en Puerto Rico (1795-1873)
U.S. Foreign Policy in the Caribbean, Cuba, and Central America
Historical Dictionary of Data Processing: Organizations
Journal Article Historical Dictionary of Data Processing: Organizations. By James W. Cortada. (Westport: Greenwood, 1987. xiii + 309 pp. $45.00.) Get access Walter M. Mathews Walter M. Mathews Long Island University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 75, Issue 4, March 1989, Page 1416, https://doi.org/10.2307/1908799 Published: 01 March 1989
Who Initiated the Computer Age
Histories of computer age usually trace its origins to massive military data processing requirements that arose during World War II. The same histories also maintain that electronic digital computer represented product of unique alliance between universities and military in which former supplied brainpower and latter specifications and, significantly, capital to produce what arguably became most important technology to emerge in industrial West s…
Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and Remington Rand and the Industry They Created, 1865-1956
Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and Remington Rand and the Industry They Created, 1865-1956
Journal Article Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and Remington Rand and the Industry They Created, 1865–1956. By James W. Cortada. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. xxii, 344 pp. $55.00, ISBN 0-691-04807-X.) Get access Paul E. Ceruzzi Paul E. Ceruzzi Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 80, Issue 4, March 1994, Pa…
Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and Remington Rand and the Industry They Created, 1865-1956
Spain in the Nineteenth-Century World: Essays on Spanish Diplomacy, 1789-1898
an introduction and an epilogue in which he wrestles simultaneously with two intractable issues: the Malvinas/Falldands dispute and the links between culture and diplomacy.The former is further summarized in clear if somewhat pessimistic fashion by Walter Little.Of greatest value in the book, in this reviewer's opinion, are five separate, esoteric jewels: Simon Collier's delightful essay on the English tango craze of 1913-14; Glyn Williams' sensi…
Spain in the Nineteenth-Century World: Essays on Spanish Dimplomacy, 1789-1898
The Computer in the United States: From Laboratory to Market, 1930 to 1960
Political science (33 works) · Computer Science (30 works) · History (29 works) · Law (21 works) · History of Computing Technologies (19 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Library science (12 works) · Art (11 works) · Economic history (11 works) · Engineering (11 works)