A Century in the Comptroller's Office, State of New York, 1797 to 1897

Roberts, James A. (James Arthur), 1847-1922Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.2
Word count
91K words
Chapters
10

Tags

English Originals World History Public ServiceInstitutional ChangeGovernment AgenciesInstitutional HistoryAdministrative HistoryHistorical MaterialsArchive Research19th CenturySocial ObservationNew York State

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.A Century in the Comptroller's Office, State of New York, 1797 to 1897 by RobertsAuthor: Roberts, James A. (James Arthur), 1847-1922,Language: English, Class: HJ: Social sciences: Public finance, Release Date: Aug 18, 2012

Editor's review

This book examines the hundred years of the Comptroller's Office of the State of New York from 1797 to 1897, written by James A. Roberts, who once served in that office; it is a cross-disciplinary work of institutional history and public finance history. Its value lies in presenting, from an insider's perspective, the daily operations, institutional evolution, and personnel changes of a state-level fiscal institution, offering relatively concrete observational material for the study of early American state-level fiscal administration. The prose carries the style of late nineteenth-century official narrative, emphasizing institutional and event records rather than storytelling, yet for researchers of public finance and administrative institutional history it is a usable primary reference. It should be read as institutional source material rather than a general history, and paired with works on New York State political and fiscal history to better judge its stance and source coverage. As a public-domain e-book, it is easily accessible and suitable as supplementary material for specialized research.

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and introduction first to grasp the timeline and the main threads of institutional function changes.
  2. Build a timeline of institutional functions and key personnel while reading for later verification.
  3. Read alongside works on New York State political and fiscal history to discern the author's stance and sourcing biases.
  4. Compare the institutional descriptions with contemporary public finance concepts and make notes on conceptual translation.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

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FAQ

Which institution and time period does this book cover? It covers the roughly one-hundred-year history of the Comptroller's Office of the State of New York from 1797 to 1897, including the institution's functions, institutional evolution, and operations; it is an institutional history of state-level fiscal administration.
How does the author's identity affect the book's content? James A. Roberts once served in the Comptroller's Office, so the narrative carries an insider's perspective and offers relatively concrete observations of internal operations; at the same time it may lean toward defending the institution's stance, so it should be read against other historical sources.
Is this book suitable for writing academic papers? It can serve as supplementary material for institutional history and public finance history, especially as a primary narrative to cite; but it is not an analytical study in the modern sense, so it is best used alongside statistical data, archives, and other scholarly works.
What background knowledge is needed to read it? Some familiarity with nineteenth-century American state government structure and the basic functions of auditing and fiscal administration is helpful. Without that background, readers may first consult introductory works on American administrative history or New York State history before tackling this book.

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About the author

Roberts, James A. (James Arthur), 1847-1922 Author · American · 1847–1922

James A. Roberts (1847–1922) was an American lawyer and political figure who served as Comptroller of the State of New York. Only one work by him is known: A Century in the Comptroller's Office, State of New York, 1797 to 1897, a history of the office covering its first hundred years. Drawing on the institution's records and events, the book traces its development and operations. It belongs to the genre of institutional and public finance history and reflects the practical perspective of someone who knew the office from within. Public information about him is limited, so details of his life and the full range of his writing cannot be given, but this work remains a useful primary-style account for the study of nineteenth-century New York State fiscal administration.