Richard C. Overton

Last updated February 18, 2019

Richard "Dick" Cleghorn Overton (November 9, 1907 – September 30, 1988) was an American railroad historian, a founding member and first secretary of the Lexington Group in Transportation History, and a founding member and the first president of the Business History Conference.

The Business History Conference (BHC) is a scholarly organization devoted to encouraging all aspects of research, writing, and teaching about business history and about the environment in which businesses operate. Founded in 1954, the organization is now international in scope, with approximately 30 percent of its membership residing outside North America. The BHC is based at the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Library and relies on Center Director Roger Horowitz and Center Coordinator Carol Lockman to manage the BHC's annual meetings, finances, membership, and other business. Horowitz also serves as the BHC's Secretary-Treasurer and Lockman as Managing Editor of the quarterly journal Enterprise & Society. In addition, the BHC publishes an online collection of abstracts and selected papers from its annual meeting, BEH On-Line. The organization also operates H-Business, one of the earliest H-Net discussion lists, and maintains an on-line full-text archives of its print proceedings journal, Business and Economic History. It also publishes The Exchange, a blog devoted to news of interest to business and economic historians. The BHC holds an annual meeting that provides a forum for discussing current research in business history and related fields and offers an opportunity for people with similar interests to meet and exchange ideas. Participation from overseas scholars is especially encouraged, and joint meetings with the European Business History Association are held regularly. The BHC sponsors a number of awards and prizes, including the Hagley Prize in Business History and the Cambridge Journals Article Prize; it endeavors to support scholars entering the field through its travel-to-meeting grants, its Doctoral Dissertation Colloquium, and its Krooss Dissertation Prize. Sub-groups within the organization promote the interests of women in business history, business historians teaching at business schools, and emerging scholars.

Early life and education

Overton earned his BA in History in 1929, and his MA in Economics in 1934 at Williams College. He completed his MA and PhD in History at Harvard University in 1944.^[1]

Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was killed in the French and Indian War in 1755. The college was ranked first in 2017 in the U.S. News & World Report's liberal arts ranking for the 15th consecutive year, and first among liberal arts colleges in the 2018 Forbes magazine ranking of America's Top Colleges.

Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with about 6,700 undergraduate students and about 15,250 post graduate students. Established in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, clergyman John Harvard, Harvard is the United States' oldest institution of higher learning, and its history, influence, and wealth have made it one of the world's most prestigious universities.

Career

Overton taught French at the Hotchkiss School, economics at Williams College, and history at North Adams State College, Amherst College, Harvard University, Northwestern University, the University of Western Ontario, and at Burr and Burton Academy. He worked as a research consultant and assistant to the President of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, and was also a research consultant for the Association of American Railroads as well as several regional railroad companies. He served as a Director of the Central Vermont Railway.

Hotchkiss School school in Lakeville, Connecticut

The Hotchkiss School is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational, college preparatory boarding school in Lakeville, Connecticut, founded in 1891. The school offers a classical education with grades 9–12 and a postgraduate (PG) option, attracting students across the United States and 34 foreign countries.

Amherst College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher education in Massachusetts. The institution was named after the town, which in turn had been named after Lord Jeffery Amherst. It was originally established as a men's college but became coeducational in 1975.

Northwestern University (NU) is a private research university based in Evanston, Illinois, United States, with other campuses located in Chicago and Doha, Qatar, and academic programs and facilities in Miami, Florida; Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco, California. Along with its undergraduate programs, Northwestern is known for its Kellogg School of Management, Pritzker School of Law, Feinberg School of Medicine, Bienen School of Music, Medill School of Journalism, and McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Railway history

Overton wrote several books on railroad history, and more than 100 articles and book reviews on the subject.^[2] Joe W. Kizzia in "Richard C. Overton Railroad Historian. - book reviews", summed up Overton's view on railroad history: "...railroads had so much to do with making the United States into 'us'."^[3] Overton wrote in an article that appeared in Railway Age in February 1948:

"It is superfluous to recall that railways have been an essential prerequisite to the development of American industry, commerce, and agriculture. They opened the great West, built cities, enabled us to fight our wars effectively, and have been one of the greatest forces toward nationalism in our history."

Overton received the Railroad History Senior Achievement award For a Lifetime of Significant Contribution to the Writing, Preservation, and Interpretation of North America's Railroading History from the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society on May 8, 1982.

Selected works

Perkins/Budd: Railway Statesmen of the Burlington (Contributions in Economics and Economic History) (Greenwood, 1982)
Burlington Route: A History of the Burlington Lines (Knopf, 1965)^[4]^[5]
Gulf to Rockies: The Heritage of the Fort Worth and Denver-Colorado and Southern Railways, 1861-1898 (University of Texas Press, 1953)^[6]
Burlington West: A colonization history of the Burlington Railroad (Harvard University Press, 1941)^[7]^[8]
Over My Shoulder: A Memoir, privately printed

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References

↑ Michael W. Sedlak; Harold Francis Williamson (1 November 1983). The evolution of management education: a history of the Northwestern University J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, 1908-1983. Published for Northwestern University by the University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-01087-3.
↑ Eric Rauchway (15 April 2007). Blessed Among Nations: How the World Made America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 199–. ISBN 978-0-374-70735-4.
↑ Kizzia, Joe W. "Richard C. Overton Railroad Historian. - book reviews". (Railway Age;Apr98, Vol. 199 Issue 4, p89)
↑ John Lauritz Larson (13 September 2010). Bonds of Enterprise: John Murray Forbes and Western Development in America's Railway Age. University of Iowa Press. pp. 238–. ISBN 978-1-60938-000-7.
↑ Neil L. Shumsky (1996). American Cities: A Collection of Essays. Taylor & Francis. pp. 390–. ISBN 978-0-8153-2186-6.
↑ John F. Stover (15 April 2008). American Railroads. University of Chicago Press. pp. 277–. ISBN 978-0-226-77660-6.
↑ James C. Olson (1997). History of Nebraska. U of Nebraska Press. pp. 461–. ISBN 0-8032-8605-8.
↑ Richard O. Davies; David R. Pichaske; Joseph Anthony Amato (2003). A Place Called Home: Writings on the Midwestern Small Town. Minnesota Historical Society Press. pp. 48–. ISBN 978-0-87351-451-4.

Hausman, William J. Business and Economic History, College of William and Mary, Second Series Volume 16, 1989