Since Freeman's seminal text of 1984, corporate stakeholders have not only progressively become a main topic in management sciences but also a benchmark in large firms' discourses about their activities. The end effect has been to make people almost forgot that up until recently companies were able to exist without any reference being made to the possibility that entities lying outside of their legal borders could be invited to wield some influence over their management. A historical example can elucidate how far we have come in this respect.