LAUGHLIN, James Laurence, 1850-
Born in Deerfield, O., 1850; graduate of Harvard, 1873; taught in Boston five years; Instructor in Political Economy at Harvard, 1878; Assistant Professor, 1883-1888; Professor of Political Economy at Cornell; elected to the same Chair at the University of Chicago.
JAMES LAURENCE LAUGHLIN, Ph.D., Instructor and Assistant Professor of Political Economy at Harvard, was born in Deerfield, Ohio, April 2, 1850. He was one of the principal honor men in the Class of 1873 at Harvard, and a thesis on Anglo-Saxon Legal Procedure [1876] won for him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1876. For the five years succeeding his graduation he taught in a classical school in Boston. From 1878 till 1883 he occupied the post of Instructor in Political Economy at Harvard, was in the latter year advanced to the Assistant Professorship, and continued as such until 1888. He subsequently accepted the Chair of Political Economy and Finance at Cornell, and was in 1892 placed at the head of that Department in the University of Chicago. Professor Laughlin is a member of several learned bodies, including the International Institute of Statistics, and was correspondent of the Vierteljahrschrift für Volkswirthschaft of Berlin. He is the author of the Study of Political Economy [1885]; the History of Bimetalism in the United States [first edition, 1885; second edition, 1888; third edition, 1886; fourth edition, 1898]; The Elements of Political Economy, with some Application to Questions of the Day [1887]; numerous papers upon economic and political subjects, and published an abridged edition of John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy [1884]; and is editor of Journal of Political Economy (Chicago). In 1898 Professor Laughlin prepared the Report of the Indianapolis Monetary Commission, of which he was a member. In 1895, prepared a monetary system for Santo Domingo, which was that year enacted into law [Chapter VIII in Money and Prices (1920)].
Source: University and their Sons. History, Influence and Characteristics of American Universities with Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Alumni and Recipients of Honorary Degrees. Editor-in-chief, General Joshua L. Chamberlain, LL.D. Vol. II (1899), p. 527.