Corporate history culture and useful industrial past: A case study on history management in finnish cotton company Porin Puuvilla Oy

Abstract

Histories are used and produced for several reasons and purposes. History culture consists of the entirety of generations, modifications, transformations and utilisations of the images of the past. This article is concerned with corporate history culture that is manifested in commissioned company histories and other representations of company history. History culture is always oriented to the future. Corporate history culture developed out of the demand in companies, not within universities. I clarify, in the light of a microhistorical case of Porin Puuvilla Oy, how and why different actors select one past to be historicised and leave another to be obsolete. I open my contribution with an introduction to the concepts and practices of corporate history culture and history management. Then I move on to the case study and analyse the way that practice and representations of corporate history culture changed between 1948 and 1973. As my methodological contribution, I introduce the analytical four-field of the internal and external dimensions of history management. I conclude the article with a discussion of the corporate history culture in the context of the concepts of retro and nostalgia.