An error was made in printing Figures 1 and 2 of The Nature and Function of Cost Keeping in a Late Nineteenth-Century Small Business. The front page of the article and the corrected figures are printed on the following pages. The editors regret any inconvenience caused by the error

Previts, Gary John

Tyson, Thomas N.

English

eGrove (Univ. of Mississippi)

Accounting Historians Journal Volume 15 Issue 2 Fall 1988 Article 10 1988 Editors correction to volume 15, no. 1, spring, 1988; Nature and function of cost keeping in a late nineteenth-century small business Gary John Previts Thomas N. Tyson Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_journal  Part of the Accounting Commons, and the Taxation Commons Recommended Citation Previts, Gary John and Tyson, Thomas N. (1988) "Editors correction to volume 15, no. 1, spring, 1988; Nature and function of cost keeping in a late nineteenth-century small business," Accounting Historians Journal: Vol. 15 : Iss. 2 , Article 10. Available at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_journal/vol15/iss2/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Archival Digital Accounting Collection at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Accounting Historians Journal by an authorized editor of eGrove. For more information, please contact egrove@olemiss.edu. The Accounting Historians Journal Vol. 15, No. 1 Spring 1988 EDITOR'S CORRECTION TO VOLUME 15, NO. 1, SPRING, 1988 An error was made in printing Figures 1 and 2 of "The Nature and Function of Cost Keeping in a Late Nineteenth-Century Small Business." The front page of the article and the corrected figures are printed on the following pages. The editors regret any inconvenience caused by the error. 1Previts and Tyson: Editors correction to volume 15, no. 1, spring, 1988; Nature and function of cost keeping in a late nineteenth-century small businessPublished by eGrove, 1988The Accounting Historians Journal Vol. 15, No. 1 Spring 1988 Thomas Tyson CLARKSON UNIVERSITY THE NATURE AND FUNCTION OF COST KEEPING IN A LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY SMALL BUSINESS Abstract: J. Henry Rushton was the preeminent American builder of canoes and small pleasure boats in the late nineteenth-century. Beginning in the mid 1890s, Rushton personally maintained books of cost records and cost finding rules for his boat-building opera-tions. In conjunction with the company's product catalogs and Rushton's personal letters, these books reveal the nature and function of cost keeping for this enterprise. They also suggest that pressures from increased competition and an economic depression may have stimulated Rushton to undertake detailed costing pro-cedures. J. Henry Rushton built canoes and other small pleasure boats in Canton, St. Lawrence County, New York between 1874 and 1906. Through a combination of high quality workmanship and aggressive catalog marketing, Rushton successfully ex-panded his business and attained international recognition. Rushton's detailed cost records and cost-finding rules reveal his concerns for the cost side of the enterprise. This case study of the Rushton boat building business describes cost accounting practices of a late nineteenth century small business. As discussed by Chandler [1977] and Solomons [1968], costing methods such as used by Rushton were not standard management practice at the time. The archival re-cords for the case study suggest business conditions that may have stimulated Rushton to undertake such formal costing procedures as a basis for rational managerial decision making. These conditions include increased competitive pressures, market development strategies, catalog and special order pricing decisions, and profitability concerns. Rushton's cost accounting records were maintained in two volumes he kept himself, in a labor operations record book kept Dedicated to the memory of Norman X. Dressel, a devoted accounting historian. I would also like to thank Robert Colson and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments and suggestions. 2Accounting Historians Journal, Vol. 15 [1988], Iss. 2, Art. 10https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_journal/vol15/iss2/10223 The Accounting Historians Journal, Fall, 1988 FIGURE 1 Photo of material housed in the Adirondack Museum Library between 1885 and 1895.9 It is unclear if the costs for compo-nent parts represent an average based on a sample of boats or are the result of an "engineering" analysis of one boat in each grade. In any case, product costs were computed on a systema-9Though undated. Kip's book associates labor costs with models that appear in Rushton's 1893 catalog. This book is housed in the Atwood Manley Collection at the St. Lawrence County Historical Association in Canton, New York. It is a marble-covered ruled account book, approximately 8" high by 9 1/2" wide and over 100 pages in length. 3Previts and Tyson: Editors correction to volume 15, no. 1, spring, 1988; Nature and function of cost keeping in a late nineteenth-century small businessPublished by eGrove, 1988224 The Accounting Historians Journal, Fall, 1988 prime costs and running expenses for grades A, B, C, D, and E, respectively. Other catalog models show even more divergence among markup percentages across grades. Given that prices for #105 boats had not changed between 1885 and 1893, these varying percentages may indicate that detailed product costs were computed to identify the level of price cutting that could be tolerted, as well as justify Rushton's consistent promotion FIGURE 2 Photo of material housed in the Adirondack Museum Library 4Accounting Historians Journal, Vol. 15 [1988], Iss. 2, Art. 10https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_journal/vol15/iss2/10

Editors correction to volume 15, no. 1, spring, 1988; Nature and function of cost keeping in a late nineteenth-century small business

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Editors correction to volume 15, no. 1, spring, 1988; Nature and function of cost keeping in a late nineteenth-century small business

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