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A quick search of the JSTOR journals before 1910 yields 10 entries for "recession" -- all
referring to a series or development moving backward from a peak, but none referring
explicitly to a business cycle.  The closest refers to a recession in the stock market:
 
The United States Treasury and the Money Market. The Partial Responsibility of Secretaries
Gage and Shaw for the Crisis of 1907
A. Piatt Andrew  American Economic Association Quarterly, 3rd Series, Vol. 9, No. 1,
Papers and Discussions of the Twentieth Annual Meeting, Madison, Wis., December 28-30,
1907. (Apr., 1908), pp. 218-231.  See p. 228.
 
Kevin Hoover 
 
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