ANALYSIS OF BOOKKEEPING AS A BRANCH OF GENERAL EDUCATION (1842)

^*Thomas Jones (1804–1889) was a pioneer American accounting teacher and text writer. He has been noted for being an early advocate of the need to view the accounting process as directed toward the production of financial reports - an emphasis which has caused him to be identified as the first “modern” American accounting writer.

This article appeared in Hunt's Merchant's Magazine, (December, 1842, pp. 513–526) a monthly business periodical published in New York City. It is one of the earliest known accounting articles found in American business literature. For a study of Jones' works see “The Contributions of Thomas Jones and Benjamin Franklin Foster” by H. P. Hughes, in the Bicentennial Edition of Collected Papers, American Accounting Association Southeast-Regional Group, 1976, pp. 93–98.