Thursday 21 September
14.00-14.15 Welcome
14.15-14.30 Introduction
14.30-16.00 Session 1: Innovative Port Barons
- Hilde Sennema (Rotterdam), Paul van Laar (Rotterdam), Who runs the port city? Entrepreneurs as innovation intermediaries in the Rotterdam governance system, 1870-1970
- Marten Boon (Trondheim), Terminals, tankers and traders – oil entrepreneurship in the Port of Rotterdam since the late 19th Century
- Comment: Michael Schneider (Düsseldorf)
17.00-18.00 Keynote:
- Dan Wadhwani (Sacramento), Reinventing Entrepreneurial History
Friday 22 September
9.00-10.30 Session 3: Entrepreneurship as a Resource: The Rhenish Case
- Ariette Dekkers (Amsterdam), Anton Kröller, “first mover” in the German transit port of Rotterdam
- Werner Plumpe (Frankfurt), Carl Duisberg. A Rhenish entrepreneur? (Frankfurt)
- Comment: Eva Roelevink (Bochum/Mainz)
11.00-13:00 Session 3 The River as a Resource: The Rhine as Locational Factor for the Chemical Industry
- Frederic Steinfeld (Frankfurt am Main), The Rhine’s relevance for Bayer’s strategic decisions in the 19th and early 20th century
- Carla Thiel (Frankfurt am Main), The Rhine as BASF’s gateway to the world
- Christian Marx (Trier), Between Scheldt, Rhine and Elbe. International site selection and business policy at Akzo and Bayer from the 1960s to the 1980s
- Comment: Ernst Homburg (Maastricht)
14.00-15.00 Presentation of a Frankfurt Research Project
- Ralf Banken (Frankfurt am Main), The Capitalist Gateway: Trade between Western German Provinces and the Netherlands, 1740-1806
15.00-19.00 Social Programme
Saturday 23. September
9.00-10.30 Session 4 The Bergisches Land: Amsterdam’s Industrious Hinterland
- Stefan Gorissen (Bielefeld), The Rhine ports and the sales strategies of merchants from the right-bank in the 17th and 18th centuries
- Anne Sophie Overkamp (Bayreuth), Elberfeld – Amsterdam – the world: How the merchant-manufacturer Abraham Frowein engaged in transatlantic trade
- Comment: Jan Willem Veluwenkamp (Groningen)
10.00-12.30 Session 5: Economic transitions: institutions and (proto-) industrialization in the Rhineland
- Mark Spaulding (Wilmington), Who Makes the Rules? Entrepreneurs and the Evolution of the Commercial Regime of the Rhine, 1650-1850"
- Michael Kopsidis (Halle), Agricultural growth during proto-industrialization and industrialization: Sharecropping in Western Westphalia and the Lower Rhineland, c. 1740-1860
- Comment: Magnus Ressel (Frankfurt)
12.30-13.00 General and Project Discussion
13.00-14.00 End of the conference