This dissertation draws on organizational theory and the sociology of knowledge to explore of the politics surrounding innovations. I examine three cases of innovation within organizational fields: laboratory biology in nineteenth-century Germany, alternative medicine in the antebellum United States, and the contemporary global market for asset-backed securities. Institutionalist theories suggest that change is set in motion by exogenous shocks, whereas relational theories treat change as the product of endogenous shifts in patterns of interaction. For each case, I bring together archival sources and quantitative analysis to investigate how organizations’ environment and networks predict the emergence of new field positions. I find that exogenous shocks can disrupt existing field positions, but new positions only coalesce when innovators are linked together through shared networks. The results carry implications for organizational theory, economic sociology, and the sociology of science.

How has access to the public sphere been affected by the rise of mass media? We address this question by studying magazines in America from the eighteenth century, when all periodicals had small circulations, to the mid-nineteenth century, when many reached mass audiences. Specifically, we investigate how the social positions of those who founded new magazines changed over this period. Previous research is divided on whether the rise of mass media made it more difficult for non-elites and industry outsiders to launch new magazines by creating large and powerful publishing houses, or made it easier by fostering acceptance of magazines as legitimate cultural products and improving access to resources needed for publishing. Using Goodman’s (1972) modification of multiple regression for the analysis of categorical data, we examine whether magazine founders were increasingly drawn from social elite and from inside publishing, or from an increasingly broad swath of society. We find that magazine publishing was originally restricted to industry insiders, elite professionals, and the highly educated, but after the rise of mass media, most founders came from outside publishing and more were of middling stature – mostly small-town doctors and clergy without college degrees. We also find that magazines founded by industry insiders remained concentrated in the major publishing centers, while magazines founded by outsiders became geographically dispersed.

We trace the social positions of the men and women who found new enterprises from the earliest years of one industry’s history to a time when the industry was well established. Sociological theory suggests two opposing hypotheses. First, pioneering entrepreneurs are socially prominent individuals from fields adjacent to the new industry and later entrepreneurs are from an increasingly broad swath of society. Second, the earliest entrepreneurs come from the social periphery while later entrepreneurs include more industry insiders and members of the social elite. To test these hypotheses, we study the magazine industry in America over the first 120 years of its history, from 1741 to 1860. We find that magazine publishing was originally restricted to industry insiders, elite professionals, and the highly educated, but by the time the industry became well established, most founders came from outside publishing and more were of middling stature – mostly small-town doctors and clergy without college degrees. We also find that magazines founded by industry insiders remained concentrated in the three biggest cities, while magazines founded by outsiders became geographically dispersed. Finally, we find that entrepreneurship evolved from the pursuit of a lone individual to a more organizationally-sponsored activity; this reflects the modernization of America during this time period. Our analysis demonstrates the importance of grounding studies of entrepreneurship in historical context. Our analysis of this “old” new media industry also offers hints about how the “new” new media industries are likely to evolve.