This account of the activities of an energetic, highly diversified mercantile capitalist illustrates in some detail the world-wide flow of commodities and capital in the early nineteenth century. Aggressive merchandising and sophisticated administration were involved, and one by-product was a rich reservoir of investment capital for developing American industries.

Even in laissez-faire days there was a “corporate conscience,” well defined and with active, if limited, manifestations. Over the course of years not only criticism but changing social forces and modifications of the economic system itself exerted a broadening influence on the attitude of American business toward its public responsibilities.

Teapot Dome has long stood in the public mind as a conspicuous symbol not only of political corruption but of degenerate business morality as well. An examination of the charges against Albert B. Fall, therefore, though necessarily concerned with political and personal rather than business data, touches the interest of students of business history, whose natural concern lies in identifying the factual basis for incidents which have become part of the folklore of American business.

In the 1890–1907 period Populist-Progressive protests, public ignorance of the economic functions involved, and obvious abuses in the performance of those functions combined to produce a major peak of adverse opinion. Public protest shaped the course of stock exchange history through subsequent decades and yielded operator prototypes that have become classic Americana.

Neither cash sale nor barter were adequate means for bringing a growing number of high-priced durable goods to the American consumer. The employment of installment credit facilitated the growth of a mass market for such products and provides an example of the utilization of an old commercial technique for a new purpose.

Although the Vatican Film Library at Saint Louis University has been described recently in such diverse publications as the London Times, Osservatore Romano, Time, The American Historical Review, the Saturday Review and the National Geographic, it has never been explored fully by the scholarly world. The object of this article is to describe the extent of the microfilm collection at Saint Louis University, to provide some guides to the use of the manuscripts, and to indicate some possible areas of fruitful research in business and economic history.