A History of Accountancy in the United States

The Cultural Significance of Accounting
Revised Edition

Gary John Previts and Barbara Dubis Merino

The only comprehensive chronicle of American accountancy from the colonial period to the present, this completely revised edition provides practicing accountants and professional accounting students with a thorough knowledge of the origins of the profession.

Gary John Previts and Barbara Dubis Merino address the evolution of accounting in social, political, and economic terms and discuss the major figures in each historical period. They consider the development of accounting in all of its major institutional domains, including public practice, financial reporting, business management, government, and education.

The authors bring readers up to date by capturing the research done during the fifteen years since the book's initial publication. They have also reconsidered their earlier material—for which they won the Hourglass Award of the Academy of Accounting Historians—especially their discussion of the relationship between developments in accounting and developments in society at large. The publication of this revised and expanded edition of A History of Accountancy in the United States makes available once again an essential text.

Gary John Previts is a professor of accountancy at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, and a C.P.A. The first elected president of the Academy of Accounting Historians, he is the author of several books on accounting, including Historical Perspectives of Selected Financial Accounting Topics and The Scope of C.P.A. Services. He recently received the American Institute of CPA’s Lifetime Achievement in Accounting Education Award. Barbara Dubis Merino is Horace Brock Professor of Accounting and Regents’ Professor at the University of North Texas. She has published several articles in Accounting Review and the Journal of Business, Finance, and Accounting.