Harvard. Problems of Labor. William Z. Ripley, 1931

 

 

William Zebina Ripley (1867-1941) was awarded a B.S. in civil engineering from M.I.T. in 1890. With his dissertation “The Financial History of Virginia, 1607-1776”  he earned a doctorate in political economy at Columbia University in 1893. His initial reputation was based on his work The Races of Europe: A Sociological Study (1899)  that ascribed civic and moral characteristics of peoples to their racial characteristics. Like many in the populist right today who worry about the impact of immigrants on the existing domestic culture, Ripley too saw social behaviors as essentially hard-wired. He moved on from his racist social anthropology to become an expert on railroad affairs, labor market institutions and the regulation of financial markets (Main Street and Wall Street (1927)).  He ended policy-wise closer to the Occupy Wall Street movement than one might have expected from his early scholarship.

A brief biographical entry for Ripley written by Paul J. Miranti Jr.’s was published in History of Accounting: An International Encyclopedia. 1996, pp. 502-505.

The reading list in today’s post comes from a folder of economics reading lists for the Harvard economics department from the academic year 1931-32. While penciled in at the top of the page is “Econ 34”, the typed header reads “Assignments for Economics 10”. As seen from the enrollment report for Economics 34, William Z. Ripley was credited with teaching that class. The reading assignments are clearly for a course in labor economics (as opposed to the Economics 10a and 10b, economic history courses taught by Usher that year). There was no previous course numbering system in which Economics 10 was a labor economics course either. Thus, I am puzzled about the origin of this reading list. Maybe “Economics 10” was simply a secretarial typo.

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 34. Professor Ripley.—Problems of Labor.

3 Graduates, 1 Radcliffe, 1 Other: Total 5

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments, 1931-32, p. 72.

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Econ 34

Assignments for Economics 10 [sic]
1931

I. INTRODUCTION; THE WAGE SYSTEM AND DOCTRINES OF WAGES.

Final Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations, 1915, pp. 22-91; pp. 407-439. [pencil note: “either of these the 1^st day; the other the 2^nd day.”]
Bogart, Economic History of the United States, ch. 4.
Mill, Principles of Political Economy, book II, chs. 5,11.
Marshall, Principles of Economics, book VI, chs. 1-5.

II. LABOR ORGANIZATION.

1. Collective Bargaining; Employers’ Associations.

Webb, Industrial Democracy, part II, ch. 2.
Hoxie, Trade Unionism in the United States, chs. 8, 10.
Commons, Trade Unionism and Labor Problems, ch. 39.

2. Trade Union Policies and Activities

Hoxie, ch. 11.
Furniss, Labor Problems, ch. 10
Watkins, Labor Problems, ch. 20.
Estey, The Labor Problem, ch. 3.

(a) The Closed Shop.

Estey, ch. 5.
Catlin, ch. 12.

(b) The Standard Rate; Opposition to Piece Rates.

Webb, Part II, ch. 5.
Hoxie, ch. 13.

(c) The Normal Day

Webb, part II, ch. 6.

(d) Restriction of Output

Catlin, ch. 13.

(e) Union Attitude toward Machinery; Technological Unemployment.

Webb, part II, ch. 8.
Watkins, ch. 5.

(f) Mutual Assistance (Benefits)

Catlin, ch. 14.

(g) Labor Banks.

Hardman, American Labor Dynamics, ch. 28.

(h) The Closed Union.

Webb, part II, ch. 10, section (a) and part III, ch. 3, section (a).

3. Historical Background

Webb, History of Trade Unionism.
Furniss, ch. 8.
Hoxie, ch. 4.
Wolman, Growth of American Trade Unions.
Ware, The Labor Movement in the United States, 1860-1895.
Perlman, History of Trade Unionism in the United States.
Mary Beard, A Short History of the American Labor Movement.

(a) The Early Years.

(b) The Knights of Labor.

(c) The Development of Craft Unionism.

4. Trade Unionism vs. Industrial Unionism

Hoxie, ch. 6.
American Mercury, March, 1929, Earl W. Shimmons, “The Twilight of the A. F. of L.”

5. Trade-union Problems.

(a) Organization of the A. F. of L.

Hoxie, ch. 5.
Furniss, ch. 9.
Matthew Woll, The American Federation of Labor.

(b) The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and the Railroad Brotherhoods.

(c) Trade Union Organization Abroad. (Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Australasia, Canada, Latin America).

Catlin, The Labor Problem, ch. 10.
Raynor, Trade Unionism.
Dunn, Soviet Trade Unions.
Beals, Rome or Death, ch. 10.
Logan, Trade-union Organization in Canada, ch. 4.
Journal of Political Economy, June 1930, M. R. Clark, “French Syndicalism of the Present.”

(d) Problems of Organization.

Hoxie, ch. 7.
Hardman, American Labor Dynamics, chs. 6,7.

(e) Unionism in the South.

Hardman, ch. 18.
Wm. Green, Labor’s Message to the South.
American Mercury, Feb. 1930, W. J. Cash, “The War in the South.”

(f) Violence in Labor Disputes.

United States Commission on Industrial Relations, 1915.
Helen Marot, American Labor Unions.

6. Organized Labor and the Courts.

Hoxie, ch. 9.
Furniss, ch. 12.
Commons and Andrews, Principles of Labor Legislation, ch. 3, section 1.
Blum, Labor Economics, chs. 4, 5.
Sayre, Cases on Labor Law.

(a) The Strike and the Boycott.

Catlin, ch. 15.
Groat, Organized Labor in America, chs. 10, 11, 14, 15.

(b) Picketing

(c) The Injunction.

(d) Legal Status of Trade Unions.

7. Labor and Politics: Policy of the A. F. of L.

Furniss, ch. 11.
Hardman, ch. 22.
Samuel Gompers, Should a Political Labor Party be Formed?

8. Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration.

Webb, part II, ch. 3.
Furniss, ch. 13.
Blum, pp. 248-291.
Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 31, M. B. Hammond, “The Regulation of Wages in New Zealand.”

(a) Compulsory Mediation; The Lemieux Act (Canada).

(b) Compulsory Arbitration in New Zealand and Germany.

[handwritten addition in pen: Pol. Sci. Quarterly, Sept. ’29, H. B. Davis, “The German Labor Courts”)]

9. Industrial Relations.

Gemmill, Present Day Labor Relations.
Furniss, chs. 14, 15.
Hardman, chs. 19, 20, 21.

(a) The Company Union; Employee Representation; Attitude of Organized Labor.

(b) Trade-union Management.

(c) Profit-sharing and Ownership-sharing.

III. UNEMPLOYMENT.

1. The Problem of Unemployment

Fairchild, Furniss, and Buck, Elementary Economics, ch. 48.
Furniss, Labor Problems, ch. 2.
Blum, Labor Economics, ch. 8.
Cassel, Theory of Social Economy, ch. 15.

2. Remedies for Unemployment.

Furniss, ch. 3.
Blum, chs. 9, 10.

IV. SOCIAL LEGISLATION.

Webb, part II, ch. 4.
Sayre, Cases on Labor Law.

1. Industrial Accidents; Workmen’s Compensation Acts.

Furniss, ch. 7.
Commons and Andrews, pp. 434-453.

2. The Minimum Wage.

Furniss, ch. 4.
Journal of Political Economy, Dec. 1912, Webb, “Theory of the Legal Minimum Wage.”
Commons, Trade Unionism and Labor Problems. ch. 42.

3. Hours of Labor.

Furniss, ch. 5.

4. Unemployment and Sickness Insurance.

Commons, Trade Unionism and Labor Problems, chs. 3, 4.

5. Old-age Pensions.

6. Child and Woman Labor.

Furniss, ch. 6.

V. SCHEMES OF SOCIAL REFORM.

Hoxie, ch. 14.
Manifesto of the Communist Party.
Lindsay, Karl Marx’s Capital.

1. The Co-operative Movement.

Catlin, ch. 22.

2. Communism, Anarchism and Socialism.

Lorwin, Labor and Internationalism, chs. 16, 17, 21, 22

2. The Single Tax.

3. Socialist Parties in the United States.

VI. MISCELLANEOUS PROBLEMS OF LABOR.

1. The International Labor Organization of the League of Nations.

2. The Labor Turnover.

Estey, ch. 10.
Commons, Trade Unionism and Labor Problems, ch. 12.

3. Immigration.

Watkins, ch. 35.

4. Credit Unions as a Factor in Improving Living Conditions among the Working Classes.

American Federationist, Jan. 1930, Roy F. Bergengren, “The Credit Union.”
Edson L. Whitney, Co-operative Credit Societies (Credit Unions) in America and in Foreign Countries.

5. Recent Trend of Real Wages.

VII. CONCLUSION.

Hamilton and May, Control of Wages

 

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1931-1932”.