Business history as a separate field of academic study and research came into being twenty years ago this autumn. At its beginning it was little more than a name, but in those twenty years notable progress has been made in the development of research and teaching in the history of business. Basic research in business records has created a considerable fund of information. Wide preliminary explorations of the field have been made and a systematic concept of business genesis and evolution has been formulated. Courses of instruction in business history, whether nominal or real, have been established in several American universities. And increasingly over the years business men have been taking an interest in the subject.