Month: February 2017

In an earlier post Economics in the Rear-view Mirror provided the syllabus and readings for the Harvard course Economics 18b “Economic Aspects of War” offered in the Spring term of 1940. Today’s post provides information about course changes and faculty leaves that were early parts of “broad plans to orient its [i.e., the Department of Economics] program to the nation’s wartime needs” two years later.

Marking the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Harvard Gazette (Nov 10, 2011) posted a bullet point list “to recount Harvard’s role in World War II“.

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Harvard Crimson
March 18, 1942

Training for War Work Offered by Economics
By J. ROBERT MOSKIN

This is the sixth in a series of articles to appear during the coming weeks discussing the effects of the present war on the departments of concentration, their courses, enrollment, and Faculties.

Pointing directly at the preparation of undergraduates for war work in Washington and in the quartermaster corps of the armed services, the Economics Department has developed broad plans to orient its program to the nation’s wartime needs. Although in the blueprint stage now, concrete advancements will be made this summer and next fall.

Economics, of all the non-scientific fields, has organized most fully to adapt its students to the emergency. Upon receiving their bachelor degree, students will be ready to take Civil Service examinations for such positions as junior economist, which pays $2,000 annually, or to complete further graduate work and then enter the supply division of the armed services. There is a large demand for college trained men in both these fields.

Prepared for Peace

Students in the war preparation course for government jobs, the department insists, will not be unfit for peacetime work. They will receive the usual foundation in economics but on a more concentrated and demanding scale with added emphasis on techniques. All students studying for government work, for example, will probably be required to take Math A and courses in Statistics and Accounting. At the present time, these courses are entirely voluntary.

Under the proposed plan, concentrators who wish to prepare along pre-war lines will find the field little altered and a full opportunity to study as in the past. The demands of the current crisis, however, have thrown business as usual into the background and opened the way for the development of an objective service branch in Economics.

Students in this latter portion of the field will also be required to take more economics courses. Now they must have History I, Government I, and four Economics courses including Ec A. While retention of the History and Government requisites is being debated, this minimum will surely be raised.

Two New Courses Planned

Two new courses, bearing directly on war problems, are already scheduled for next fall under the direction of Professor Abbott P. Usher. Bracketing Economic History 1750-1914, 36, Professor Usher will offer two half courses in successive semesters: Location of Economic Activity, General Principles and Current Problems, 65a, and Economic Imperialism and Allied Problems, 44b. Moreover, the contents of current courses will be supplemented to answer questions arising from the war.

The 12-week summer program presents the department with a more complicated situation. Under serious consideration both here and in Washington is a plan to extend instruction in Economics to government workers during the summer term. Courses for these men will be open to undergraduates and in fact will be very often the usual department subjects. The program will probably feature such courses as Money and Banking, Economics of War, and a new course in Commodity Consumption, Distribution and Prices.

Changes Few So Far

But all the planning is still “on order.” While the Economics Department has developed a more revolutionary and extensive war program than many others, its adjustments already in effect are much less extensive.

In the past three years there has been a violent reduction in the number of concentrators in Economics with the 372 of November 1939 down to 267 last November. The department attributes the drop, in the main, to the parallel decline of long terms for younger staff members. This rapid turnover has made for a less experienced Faculty and a slackening of student interest.

This year the department has suffered the loss of two important professors to the war effort. Professor William L. Crum is now working for the Navy and the Treasury and Professor Edward S. Mason is in the Office of the Coordinator of Information in Washington. To replace Mason, who has been absent the entire year, Corwin D. Edwards of the Department of Justice and now visiting lecturer on Economics is giving graduate Instruction in Industrial Organization and Price Policies.

Neither graduate nor undergraduate Instruction has as yet been radically affected by the war, but drastic reductions in graduate enrollment are predicted by the department. Among undergraduate courses, Economics of Agriculture, 71, has been dropped from the roster because Visiting Instructor Albert A. Thornbrough was called to Washington last September. Instructor Lloyd A. Metzler is replacing Professor Mason in Industrial Organization and Control, 62b, while Economic Aspects of War and Defense, 18b, offered in the first half year, has been extended to this semester as 18c and made available to men whether or not they have completed the previous half year’s work.

Image Source.“Harvard goes to war, University’s key role in World War II helped the Allies to triumph” Harvard University Archives, Harvard’s 1943 Commencement. Included in: Corydon Ireland,  Harvard Gazette, November 10, 2011.