Women as bosses (Fortune, 1956)

Editor's note: Every week, Fortune.com publishes a favorite story from our magazine archives. This week, Fortune launched the 2012 edition of its annual Most Powerful Women list, a ranking of the women who are shaping the future of technology, defense, and media. This piece from 1956 looks at the progress women were making in the workplace -- as well as major obstacles.

By Katharine Hamill

FORTUNE -- There are MORE

Street crimes on Wall Street

In a new novel, a former trader dramatizes Wall Street skullduggery. A review of Black Fridays, by Michael Sears.

By Lawrence A. Armour, contributor

FORTUNE -- For those of us who still read newspapers, the last few days have brought useful insights into how Wall Street really works. We learned, for instance, that the SEC fined the New York Stock Exchange a token $5 million over charges that certain NYSE customers MORE

The Fast and Furious gun walking scandal

The Government weighed in Wednesday. How does its report differ from Fortune's June Investigation?

By Katherine Eban

FORTUNE -- In a long-awaited report released Wednesday, the Justice Department's Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz spread blame widely for a now notorious gun-trafficking investigation, Fast and Furious, run jointly by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Arizona U.S. Attorney's office.

In the case, agents monitored the voluminous purchase of MORE

Ford unveils its (unlikely) masterpiece

No, it's not a steroidal muscle car or rough-neck truck. It's a mid-size sedan. And it shows just how far the company has come under CEO Alan Mulally.

Please see correction below.

By Doron Levin, contributor

FORTUNE -- Ford Motor Co.'s restyled Fusion midsize family sedan clearly departs from the model it replaces in the looks department. The old one was utilitarian and sensible; the new one borders on racy, like a chorus MORE

David Boies on how to get a headstrong CEO to listen

America's preeminent corporate lawyer, David Boies, and mass-tort defense mastermind David Bernick, discuss what both business people and the man on the street want to know about corporate litigation today.

By Roger Parloff, senior editor

FORTUNE -- David Boies is the most celebrated litigator in America. In the 1980s he defended CBS's 60 Minutes in an era-defining defamation suit by General William Westmoreland. In the 1990s he led the government's landmark antitrust MORE

Bad to the bone: A medical horror story

When medical device company Synthes decided to illegally test a bone cement on people, the results were disastrous. A disturbing tale of corporate crime and punishment.

By Mina Kimes, writer

FORTUNE -- On Nov. 16, 2011, Georgia Baddley, a 70-year-old woman living near Salt Lake City, received a shocking call from a special agent at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The agent told her that the government had MORE

Ding Dong vs the Ho Ho: Hostess labor fight continues

Think the labor dispute with the Chicago teachers is bad? Think again. Hostess Brands' fight with its labor force keeps getting uglier and uglier.

By David A. Kaplan, contributor

FORTUNE -- Twinkies might now be better shaped like pretzels. That's because of all the corporate twists their owner, Hostess Brands, has been going through in its current bankruptcy. In the last few days, the twists have been head-spinning. And the fate MORE

Is this man ready to run Ford?

Ford is understandably getting a CEO succession plan in place. Is Mark Fields the right man for the job?

FORTUNE -- Ford is undertaking leadership succession that could be tricky, fraught with drama and ultimately decisive as to Ford's competitiveness.

The company's board is reportedly considering Mark Fields, 51, to succeed Alan Mulally as the automaker's next chief executive officer. Fields's main task will be to prove he can perpetuate the change in MORE