Use of financial statements to legitimize a new non-profit organization during the US Civil War: The case of the Northwestern Sanitary Commission

Abstract

Research has shown that organizations historically have used accounting and financial reporting to gain needed legitimacy for their actions and existence. In the case of non-profit organizations, this legitimacy is critical for they often depend upon external contributions to survive. This article explores how the newly-formed Chicago-based philanthropic Northwestern Sanitary Commission used its financial reports to legitimize its operations as well as to respond to rumors concerning its stewardship of donated funds and supplies from 1861 to 1865 during the US Civil War. This exploration contributes to our understanding of the historical development of non-profit accounting.

Accounting for Accounting History: A topic modeling approach (1996–2015)

“…Similar to topic 17, we suggest that this topic is not about the technicalities of financial reporting, but rather about stories around financial reporting. Differently from topic 17 (‘Micro-histories’), a reading of the articles most represented by this topic reveals how these are all papers about specific groups, and, specifically, about how certain groups or communities used financial reporting for matters of legitimation: settlers in colonial New Zealand (Fowler, 2010), a non-profit organisation during US Civil War (Normand and Wootton, 2010), or a football club (Halabi et al, 2012). Because of this focus on groups of individuals, we labelled topic 18 ‘Prosopography’, in resonance with one of Carnegie and Napier’s (1996) original categories.…”

Surveying the landscape: The first 15 years of Accounting History as an international journal

“…Once comparatively neglected (see Carnegie & Napier, 1996), research on organisations in the third sector has blossomed in AH only in the last few years. While accounting and faith-based organisations is dealt with in a later section of this paper, the variety of research on third sector organisations otherwise appearing in AH has included accounting in the Girl Guides in Australia (Abraham, 2008), a school society in New Zealand (Fowler, 2010), a university tea club in Scotland (Jeacle, 2008), and a philanthropic supply organisation during the American Civil War (Normand & Wootton, 2010). The new and exiguous nature of this cluster of research, together with the limited geographic settings involved, warrants additional studies of third sector organisations in both these and other national and cultural domains.…”

“…Bocqueraz & Walton, 2006; Noke, 2007; Aisbitt, 2008) and the development and regulation of select methods of reporting and disclosure frameworks (e.g. Johnson & Potter, 1997; Pitts, 1998; Bernal Lloréns, 2000; De Beedle, 2000; Cordery & Baskerville, 2007; Noguchi & Nakajima, 2008; Virtanen, 2009b; Normand & Wootton, 2010). Finally, there is a small group of papers in which the chief focus is mendacious or creative accounting reports (e.g.…”

The first 25 years of the Queensland Rugby Football League: Claims to legitimacy in annual reports

“…There is thus a space for a closer examination of the legitimizing power of NFP annual reports, particularly a historical study of the time an organization is founded, and during its early years, when these legitimacy claims are crucial to organizational survival. With some notable exceptions (Irvine, 2002; Christensen and Mohr, 2003; Normand and Wootton, 2010), historical research on NFP annual reports, and particularly on the reports of sporting organizations (Halabi, 2007), is limited. This is surprising, given the powerful cultural impact of football in particular (Cooper and Johnstone, 2012), and indicates that an examination of the annual reports of NFP sporting organizations warrants further attention (Carnegie and Potter, 2000).…”