Category: Columbia

Categories
Columbia Economist Market Economists Iowa Salaries

Columbia. Hiring Albert Gailord Hart as visiting professor. Bureaucracy light, 1946

 

Up through the academic year 1945-46, Arthur F. Burns offered the first core economic theory course, Economic Analysis (Economics 153-154), in the Columbia graduate program. The following year, 1946-47, the course was taught by the visiting professor of economics (who would be offered and accepted a regular appointment that same year), Albert G. Hart.

Materials from Hart’s core economic courses in his first year at Columbia have been posted earlier.

This post provides a few brief items regarding Albert G. Hart’s initial Columbia appointment. What I was most struck with is the relative brevity of the documentation expected (demanded) by university administrators for a visiting professor appointment.

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From the budget proposals for 1946-47,
Columbia’s salary structure for economics professors

Actual professorial salary appropriations at Columbia for 1945-46
and proposed for 1946-47

Professors:

Robert M. Haig, Leo Wolman, John Maurice Clark, Harold Hotelling:  $9,000

James Waterhouse Angell, Carter Goodrich, Horace Taylor, Arthur F. Burns, Abraham Wald: $7,500

Associate Professors ranged from $4,500 to $7,500.

Assistant Professors ranged from $3, 500 to $4,000

A vacant professorship: for Hart ($7,500) and a slot proposed for a visiting professor of international economics, also budgeted at $7,500.

________________________

Columbia University
in the City of New York

[New York 27, N.Y.]

FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

March 25, 1946

Dr. Frank D. Fackenthal, Acting President,
Columbia University,
213 Low Memorial Library.

Dear Mr. President:

I am writing to advise you that Dr. Albert Gailord Hart, formerly of Iowa State College, has accepted the invitation of the Department of Economics to serve as Visiting Professor of Economics during the academic year 1946-47. Dr. Hart’s salary for the period will be $7,500, chargeable to the vacant professorship in Economics carried in our budget for the year 1946-47.

I am requesting Professor Evans, chairman of the Committee on Instruction of the faculty of Political Science, to take what steps may be necessary in order that Dr. Hart may have a seat on the Faculty of Political Science during the period of his residence.

A brief statement on Dr. Hart’s education and scholarly background is enclosed.

Sincerely,
[signed] Frederick C. Mills

________________________

ALBERT GAILORD HART

Born in 1909.

A.B., Harvard, 1930; Ph.D., Chicago, 1936.

Sheldon Traveling Fellow, 1930-31.

Spent 1934-35 in London.

Title of Doctoral dissertation: Anticipations, business planning, and the cycle.

Full professor, Iowa State College, Department of Economics, 1944-45.

At present on research staff, Committee on Economic Development.

Major interests: Economic theory, public finance, consumption, business fluctuations.

Publications:

Debts and recovery (Twentieth Century Fund, 1938)
Paying for defense (with E. D. Allen and others). 1941.
The social framework of the American economy. (with J. R. Hicks). 1945.

Lectured in California, 1936, and served at one time as Economic Analyst with the United States Department of the Treasury.

Source:  Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Archives. Central Files 1890-. Box 396, Folder “Mills, Frederick Cecil”.

Image Source:  Columbia University Record, vol. 23, no. 5 (Oct. 3, 1997).

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economists Gender Wellesley

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumna, Anna Prichitt Youngman, 1908

 

This entry in the series “Get to know an economics Ph.D. alumna/us” is dedicated to the life and professional career of Anna Prichitt Youngman, the third woman to receive a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. I have spent several hours verifying that her middle name is indeed spelled “Prichitt”, though even University of Chicago alumni publications and references have sometimes gotten it wrong as have later historians.

A timeline, a linked list of publications, and miscellaneous artifacts documenting her life, e.g. courses taught at Wellesley and salaries paid her while working at the Federal Reserve Board have been assembeled for this post.

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Barbara Libby provides a brief discussion of Youngman’s more important publications in “Anna Pritchett [sic] Youngman” in A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists, Robert W. Dimand, Mary Ann Dimand, and Evelyn L. Forget (eds.). Northampton, Mass : Edward Elgar, 2000. Pages 486-489.

________________________

Anna Prichitt Youngman.

1882, August 21. Born in Lexington, Kentucky.
1901. Graduated from Female High School in Louisville, Kentucky. Highest grade point average of her class, winning her a scholarship to University of Chicago.
1904. Ph.B. University of Chicago.
1908. Ph.D. University of Chicago.
1908-14. Instructor in economics, Wellesley College.
1911-2. Winter Semester at the University of Berlin. Later at the University of Frankfurt/Main.  August 1911 to July 1912 in Germany.
1914-20. Associate Professor, Wellesley College.
1919-20. Leave of absence from Wellesley College to work at the Federal Reserve Board.
1920-21. Lecturer in Banking, School of Business, University Extension, Columbia University.
1921-22. Research Assistant, Division of Analysis and Research, Federal Reserve Board;
1922. July 5.  Sailed from New York for a three month trip to Europe: countries listed on passport application were Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, British Isles.
1924-1933. Editorial writer, Journal of Commerce, 46 Barclay St., New York, N.Y.
1933-52. Editorial Writer, The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.
1974. February 16. Died in Silver Spring, Maryland.
1974. February 21. Buried in Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville Kentucky

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Publications of Anna Prichitt Youngman

“The Growth of Financial Banking,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 14, No. 7 (July, 1906), pp. 435-443.

“The Tendency of Modern Combination. I,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 15, No. 4 (April, 1907), pp. 193-208.

“The Tendency of Modern Combination. II,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 15, No. 5 (May, 1907), pp. 284-298.

“The Fortune of John Jacob Astor. [I],” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 16, No. 6 (June, 1908), pp. 345-368.

“The Fortune of John Jacob Astor. II. Investments in Real Estate,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 16, No. 7 (July, 1908), pp. 436-441.

“The Fortune of John Jacob Astor. III. Conclusion,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 16, No. 8 (October, 1908), pp. 514-530.

The Economic Causes of Great Fortunes [University of Chicago Ph.D. Thesis]. New York: Bankers Publishing, Co., 1909.

The New York Times Saturday Review for February 12, publishes a review of Miss Youngman’s new book which considers the source of some of our large American fortunes. We quote the first paragraph of the review:
“There is nothing feminine about the discussion of the ‘Economic Causes of Great Fortunes,’ by Anna Youngman, Ph.D., (the Bankers’ Publishing Company). She is Professor of Economics in Wellesley College for Women, but she writes as a man to men, rather than as a woman to women…”

Source: Wellesley News (February 16, 1910), p. 6.

“The Tobacco Pools of Kentucky and Tennessee,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 18, No. 1 (January, 1910), pp. 34-49.

Review of History of the Great American Fortunes by Gustavus Myers. Journal of Political Economy Vol. 18, No. 8 (October, 1910), pp. 642-643.

Review of Untersuchungen zum Maschinenproblem in der Volkswirtschaftslehre. Ruckblick und Ausblick. Eine dogmengeschichtliche Studie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der klassischen Schule by Carl Ergang. American Economic ReviewVol. 1, No. 4 (December, 1911), pp. 806-808.

“Frankfort-on-the-Main: A Study in Prussian Communal Finance Part I,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 27, No. 1 (November, 1912), pp. 150-201.

“Frankfort-on-the-Main: A Study in Prussian Communal Finance Part II,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 27, No. 2 (February, 1913), pp. 329-372.

Review of Der Wandel des Besitzes. Versuch einer Theorie des Reichtums als Organismus by Emaneul Sella (trans. by Dr. Bluwstein). American Economic ReviewVol. 3, No. 3 (September, 1913), pp. 627-629.

Review of Die Lohntheorien von Ad. Smith, Ricardo, J. St. Mill und Marx by Fredinand von Degenfeld-Schonburg. American Economic ReviewVol. 5, No. 1 (March, 1915), p. 55.

“The Revenue System of Kentucky: A Study in State Finance,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 32, No. 1 (November, 1917), pp. 142-205.

Review of The Conflict of Tax Laws by Rowland Estcourt. American Economic ReviewVol. 8, No. 4 (December, 1918), pp. 831-832.

“The Efficacy of Changes in the Discount Rates of the Federal Reserve Banks,” American Economic Review, Vol. 11, No. 3 (September 1921), pp. 466-485.

“A Popular Theory of Credit Applied to Credit Policy,” American Economic Review, Vol. 12, No. 3 (September, 1922), pp. 417-446.

Review of Money, Banking and Exchange in India by H. Stanley Jevons. American Economic ReviewVol. 13, No. 3 (September, 1923), pp. 512-513.

Participant in Discussion: Liquidating the War. Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, Vol. 14, No. 2 (January, 1931), pp. 45-50.

The Federal Reserve System in wartime. National Bureau of Economic Research Occasional Paper No. 21, Jan 1945.

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High School Class Rank

Miss Anna Prichitt Youngman, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C.A. Youngman, of 1313 Second street, received the highest average of the class of 1901 at the Female High School, and by a unanimous vote of the faculty she was awarded the scholarship at the Chicago University.

Source: The Courier-Journal of Louisville Kentucky (June 8, 1901), p. 6.

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Appointed at Wellesley to succeed Edith Abott in 1908

The fact that Dr. Edith Abbott of the Economics Department has refused reappointment in order to take up research work in Chicago is a source of sincere regret to all who have been brought into contact with her here this year. Miss Abbott will live at Hull House and work in the research department of the Chicago Institute of Social Science.

Dr. Abbott’s successor in the department of Economics is to be Miss Anna Youngman of Louisville, Kentucky. Miss Youngman graduated from the University of Chicago in 1904 and since that time has been doing graduate work in Economics and Political Science. She has held one of the University Fellowships in Political Economy and will receive the Ph.D. degree in June. Miss Youngman’s special studies have been in the line of Trusts and Corporation Finance. During the past year she has published a series of articles in the Journal of Political Economy on “Tendencies in Modern Combination” and her doctor’s thesis on “Great Fortunes” is already in press. Miss Youngman has been assisting in editorial work on the Journal of Political Economy during the past year.

Source: [Wellesley] College News (May 13, 1908), p. 3.

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Berlin and Frankfurt a.M.
Winter Semester, 1911/12

…During her stay at Wellesley, Youngman took time off to study economics at Berlin for the Winter Semester of 1911/12. At Berlin and later at the University of Frankfurt/Main, she concentrated on taxation and banking.
In 1919 Youngman took a leave of absence from Wellesley to work as an economist for the Federal Reserve Board. Youngman then resigned from Wellesley to continue her work with the Federal Reserve Board. From 1924 to 1933 she held a position as an eidtorial writer for the Journal of Commerce in New York City. She left that position to become an editorial writer for the Washington Post, where she remained until her retirement in 1952. At the Post, she wrote columns on financial and business topics. After retiring, Youngman continued to write for the Journal of Commerce.

Source: Sandra L. Singer. Adventures Abroad: North American Women at German-speaking Universities. Contributions in Women’s Studies, Number 201 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 203) p. 141.

_______________________

Wellesley College
1912-13
ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY

Professor: Katherine Coman, Ph.B. (on leave 1912-13)
Associate Professor: Emily Greene Balch, B.A.
Instructors: Anna Youngman, Ph.D., Emilie Josephine Hutchinson, M.A.

 

  1. Elements of Economics. I

Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors, but intended primarily for sophomores. Three hours a week for the year.

Miss Youngman

An introductory course designed to give the student acquaintance with economic facts and training in economic reasoning. Illustrations will be drawn from actual observation of the conditions determining prices, land values, wages, profits, and standards of living. In the second semester, certain legislative problems relating to currency, banking, the tariff, etc., will be discussed in class.

[…]

  1. Statistical Study of Certain Economic Problems. III [not offered 1912-13]

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed two courses in Economics. Three hours a week for the first semester.

Miss Youngman

The course is introduced by lectures on the principles of statistical research. Each member of the class undertakes the investigation of a particular problem, and reports the results of her inquiry in the form of a final paper. Emphasis is placed upon the critical examination of statistical methods.

[…]

  1. The Trust Problem. III.

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed one course in Economics. Three hours a week for the second semester.

Miss Youngman

This course will deal with the various forms of monopolistic organization, the growth of the movement toward large scale production, the history of characteristic combinations, federal and state legislation and judicial decisions relating to the subject, the alleged advantages and evils of trusts, and proposed remedies for the latter.

[…]

  1. Money and Banking. III.

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed one course in Economics. Three hours a week for the first semester.

Miss Youngman

This course deals mainly with the principles of money and banking, but it is also designed to give the student some acquaintance with the history and chief characteristics of typical modern systems of banking.

[…]

  1. Conservation of our Natural Resources. III.

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed two courses in Economics. Three hours a week for the second semester.

Miss Youngman

A consideration of the wastes involved in the exploitation of forests, mineral resources, soil and water power, and the means proposed for scientific conservation. The work of the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Forestry, the Reclamation Service, the Bureau of Mines, etc., will be studied in detail.

 

  1. The Distribution of Wealth. III. [not offered 1912-13]

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed course 1 or 15. Three hours a week for the second semester.

Miss Youngman

A discussion of the principles regulating wages, interest, and rent. The course will involve a critical and comparative examination of the distributive theories of such leading exponents of the classical school, as Ricardo, Mills, and Cairnes, and of certain important economists of the present day.

Source:  Wellesley College Bulletin, Calendar 1912-13, pp. 72-77.

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Salaries of the Federal Reserve Board Employees, 1919

ANALYSIS & RESEARCH Present Basic Salary, including Extra Compensation (1919)
Olive M. Bode $1,200
Ruth Cornwall $1,800
Mary Johnson $1,320
W. H. Steiner $2,750
Anna Youngman $2,500

Source: Meeting Minutes of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, December 18, 1919, 3:30 PM, Volume 6, Part 3, page 5.

_______________________

Salaries of the Federal Reserve Board Employees, 1920

Dated June 21st [1920] recommending approval of increases in salaries of employees of the Division of Analysis and Research, as follows:

From To
W. H. Steiner $3,500 $4,000
Miss Anna Youngman $2,750 $3,000
Miss Katherine Snodgrass $2,000 $2,750
F. W. Jones $2,400 $2,750
Miss Ruth Cornwall $2,000 $2,400
Miss Faith Williams $1,800 $2,250
J. M. Chapman $1,200 $1,500 ($750 half time)
M. R. Adams $1,500 $1,560
Miss Alice Ross $1,500 $1,560
Miss Rose Heller $1,080 $1,440
Miss Mary Johnson $1,440 $1,560
Miss Helen S. Grant — $1,440
Miss Olive M. Bode — $1,500

Approved.

Source: Meeting Minutes of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, June 22, 1920, 11:00 AM, Volume 7, Part 2, page 7.

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Anna Youngman’s (final) annual salary, 1922

“Letter dated May 8th, from the Director of the Division of Analysis and Research, requesting approval of the appointment of Mr. Woodlief Thomas as an employee in that Division at annual salary of $2600, said authority being requested in view of the retirement of Miss Anna Youngman, who has previously been employed in the Division of Analysis & Research, at annual salary of $3500.”

Source: Meeting Minutes of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, May 10, 1922, Volume 9, Part 1, page 1.

________________________

From Passport Application.
Sworn May 3, 1922

Permanent residence 35 Schermerhorn St., Brooklyn, New York.
Occupation: research assistant.
Height: 5 feet 7 ½ inches

July 5, 1922 to sail from New York on the “Mongolia” to Europe: Germany, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, British Isles (“intend to return to the United States within 3 months”)

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Internal Memorandum

February 18, 1954
Washington, D.C.

Interview with Miss Anna Youngman at her new
residence in the Marlyn Apartments

Miss Youngman worked with Parker Willis on the Journal of Commerce. She was an editorial writer but the rumor that she wrote some of the Willis editorials is something which she denies. She says she did not agree with Mr. Willis on banking policies and would not have written editorials attributed to him. She has kept no files and was by no means as useful in connection with the Willis papers as I had had reason to think she would be.

Miss Youngman confirmed what I had heard from other sources that Mr. Willis headed the first Research Division of the Federal Reserve Board and that on being asked to teach at Columbia he took the Division to New York and kept it there for three years. During this time a running fight went on with Mr. Jacobson (now deceased) and Mr. Goldenweiser and Mr. Adolf Miller.

Obviously the distance between the Research Division and the Board for which research was being done caused a great deal of the difficulty and at the end of three years the division was restored to Washington and put into other hands.

When Mr. Eugene Meyer bought the Washington Post he took Miss Anna Youngman with him to write editorials there. She did financial editorials for the Post for many years. Her last job at the Post was the classification of Mr. Myer’s own papers. Miss Youngman says that these papers have now been brought from New York and the summer place belonging to Mr. Meyer at White Plains and are in Washington. She says that they include seven or eight volumes of diaries carefully typed and indexed.

Obviously some of these diaries which, according to Miss Youngman, are better in the earlier period than the later ones will have material which is important to this project. Miss Youngman says that Mr. Floyd Harrison, who is Mr. Meyer’s right hand man in New York, is the person who can give further information about the papers and who will know if any provision has been made for their disposal after Mr. Meyer’s death.

Miss Youngman lives alone with her sister. Both ladies are far from young and any information which is needed from Miss Youngman should be gained as soon as possible.

Concerning Mr. Willis she said that he was not a difficult man to work with because he protected the people who worked with him. Assumed responsibility for the things they did and gave them credit when he thought they deserved it. He was on the other hand a man of lively mind and extremely fond of argument. She suggested that Mr. Jules Bogen, Mr. John M. Chapman of the school of business at Columbia University, who was at one time assistant to Mr. Williams and Mr. W. H. Stiner (correction that might be Steiner but I am not sure [Note: “W. H. Steiner” is correct spelling). At 328 Riverside Drive, New York[.] Might at all of them have further information about Mr. Willis.

Source: Committee on the History of the Federal Reserve System. Interview with Miss Anna Youngman at her new residence in the Marlyn Apartments, Washington, D.C. (February 18, 1954). Entry 167, Box 2, Folder 1, Item 42.

Image Source: Passport application of Anna Youngman (May 3, 1922).

 

 

 

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economists Gender Minnesota Social Work

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus Max Ira West, 1893.

 

 

Max Ira West (b. Nov. 11, 1870 in St. Cloud, MN; d. Jan 7, 1909 in Washington, D.C.) entered government service relatively soon after being awarded his Ph.D. in economics at Columbia University with a dissertation on the inheritance tax. He was a student of E.R.A. Seligman. West died at age 38, leaving a wife and five children. 

Max West and his future wife Mary Mills were fellow officers of the University of Minnesota’s Class of 1890. She was the designated class “prophet” and he served as the class “statistician”. Max was a professional economist of the family and rightly the main subject of this post. Max’s widow deserves some mention in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror for her later work. Mary attained great prominence for her pamphlets on pre-natal and infant care for the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor that were analogous to Dr. Benjamin Spock’s Baby and Child Care for later generations of parents. The Children’s Bureau was an absorbing state for the careers of many a professional woman economist of the time.

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Announcement of death of Max Ira West

The following communication with reference to the unfortunate death of Dr. Max West is printed at the request of the committee whose names appear below:

The members of the Association have no doubt read of the recent death, under most unfortunate circumstances, of Dr. Max West, of the Bureau of Corporations, Department of Labor, Washington, D. C.

Dr. West died after a short illness, a slight cold developing into pneumonia. He has left a wife and five children, ranging from thirteen years to only nine months, with no visible means of support, save a very small annuity terminable in ten years. Friends in Washington have contributed a considerable sum for immediate needs, including the expenses pertaining to Dr. West’s sickness and death, and have secured for Mrs. West a temporary position in the Government, which we hope will become a permanent position. This, with the closest economy, will enable Mrs. West to look after the bare physical needs of her five little children, but will leave no margin at all either for education or for contingencies.

It has therefore occurred to us and to some of the other friends of Dr. West that it might be possible to solicit and collect a fund for such a purpose. It is hoped to raise a fund of at least $5000. The suggestion is to be sent to all those who may be supposed to have known Dr. West personally, or to be in sympathy with the scholarly work for which he stood, and the committee will be very glad to receive any subscriptions that you may deem fit to make.

Checks may be sent to Mr. Edwin R. A. Seligman, at No. 324 West 86th street, New York, who has consented to act as treasurer for the committee.

Respectfully yours,

EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN, Columbia University.

JACOB H. HOLLANDER, Johns Hopkins University.

E. DANA DURAND, Dept. of Commerce and Labor, Washington.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Dr. Max West died of pneumonia at his home in Washington, D. C., on January 7, 1909.

Dr. West was born at St. Cloud, Minnesota, in November, 1870. He was graduated from the University of Minnesota at nineteen, and went at first into newspaper work. In 1891 he went to Columbia University as a fellow in economics. There he received his master’s degree the next year, and his doctorate the year following. From 1893 to 1895 he was connected with the University of Chicago, first as an honorary fellow and then as a docent. The great railroad strike of 1894 drew him again into newspaper work; he reported it for the Chicago Herald. In 1895 he was an editorial writer for the Chicago Record. During the academic year 1895-1896 he lectured at Columbia.

In 1896 he entered the government service, to which the rest of his life was chiefly devoted. For four years he was connected with the Division of Statistics of the Department of Agriculture, and for nearly two years with the Industrial Commission. During the latter part of this period, from 1900 to 1902, he was also associate professor of economics in Columbian University, Washington, and in 1902 he again lectured at Columbia. In that year he became assistant registrar of the Tenement House Department of New York City. In 1903 he went to Porto Rico as chief of the island Bureau of Internal Revenue. His health did not permit him to continue there, and in 1904 he returned to Washington as a special examiner of the Bureau of Corporations. Here he remained until his death.

Dr. West’s chief published work was The Inheritance Tax, which appeared in 1893, was translated into French in 1895, and was republished in a revised and enlarged edition in 1907. A projected work, entitled Principles of Taxation, is left unfinished. He wrote many articles for periodicals, dealing oftenest with taxation, but sometimes with sociological subjects, questions of constitutional law, and other topics.

More of Dr. West’s scanty strength than he could well spare was devoted to the promotion of public well-being. During his two years in Chicago he was a resident successively of Hull House, the University of Chicago Settlement, and the Chicago Commons. At Washington he was warmly interested in social settlement work and in the Associated Charities, and he was the most active and efficient member of the Civic Center.

Source: American Economic Association, The Economic Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Apr., 1909), pp. 12-14.

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Mary Mills West, ca. 1926

The following photograph was from a short alumna feature in the University of Minnesota yearbook The Gopher (1926). It is noted there that she was a member of the class of 1890, an editor of that year’s Gopher, and a member of the Delta Sigma literary society. The entry adds:

In 1909, she entered the Government service and filled various offices for the following ten years. She took a great interest in the newly created Children’s Bureau, and while there wrote three pamphlets regarding the health and care of mothers and babies which are widely distributed throughout the United States.

Mrs. West resigned her position with the Children’s Bureau in 1919, and moved to Berkeley where she engaged in newspaper syndicate work and other writings. She is, at present, an instructor in short-story writing for the University of California, and is gaining a considerable foothold in fiction writing for herself. She recently submitted a story to the Forum short story contest of 1924 and was awarded second place by a jury of noted writers and critics.

Image Source: University of Minnesota, The Gopher, 1926, p. 181.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Production of Mary Mills West’s pamphlets

West’s publications became the best-selling pamphlets of the Government Printing Office in the 1910s. The first edition of West’s pamphlet, Prenatal Care, sold out in two months. Only six months later, the Bureau had distributed 30,000 coopies and could have sent out twice that number but for the inability of the printeres to keep up with the demand. …Nearly a million and a half copies of West’s second pamphlet, Infant Care, were disseminated between 1914 and 1921.

Source:  Robyn Muncy. Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935 (Oxford University Press, 1991) p. 55.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Children’s Bureau Publications of Mary Mills West

(with Nettie McGill) Child-Welfare Programs: Study Outlines for the Use of Clubs and Classes. U.S. Department of Labor, Children’s Bureau. Bureau Publication No. 73, Children’s Year Follow-up Series, No. 7. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1920.

Prenatal Care. Care of Children Series, No. 1 Children’s Bureau Publication No. 4. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913.

Infant Care. Care of Children Series, No. 2 Children’s Bureau Publication No. 8 (Revised) Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1921. (first published in 1914)

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Mary Mills West’s obituary

Mrs. Mary West, Writer, Dies at 88

BERKELEY, Aug. 13. Mrs. Mary Mills West, whose pamphlets’ on infants and children’s care have been distributed by the United States Children’s Bureau to millions of American homes, died here yesterday. Her home was at 549 Santa Barbara Road.

Mrs. West, 88, was the widow of Dr. Max West, an economic consultant for the U.S. Departments of Labor and Commerce. She became associated with the Children’s Bureau when it was organized in 1915. After moving to Berkeley 30 years ago, she was associated with the University of California Extension Division as a writing instructor.

Surviving Mrs. West are two daughters, Mrs. W. R. Lorimer of Honolulu and Mrs. Charles Manson of Wausau, Wis., and a son, Philip S. West of Berkeley. Three grandchildren also survive.

Funeral services will be held at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow; in the Berkeley Hills Chapel, Shattuck Ave. and Cedar St .The Rev. Ray L. Wells, assistant pastor of the First Congregational Church, will officiate.

Source: Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California), August 3, 1955, p. 30.

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Image Source: Alumnus feature on Max West published in University of Minnesota, The Gopher, 1896, p. 133.

 

 

Categories
Columbia Economists Statistics

Columbia. Promotions and Memorial Minute for Abraham Wald

 

 

Abraham Wald (1902-1950) got his foot into the Columbia economics department door thanks to a grant from the Carnegie Foundation arranged for him by Harold Hotelling in 1938. In this post we follow Wald’s Columbia career up through the faculty memorial minute that followed his tragic, untimely death in an airplane accident during a lecture tour in India in December 1950.

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Promotion to Assistant Professor

From the November 26, 1941 letter to President Nicholas Murray Butler from Robert M. Haig, Chairman of the department of economics (pp. 3-5 and supporting annex B).

“…We feel that it is important, if at all possible, that the following action be taken.

  1. Appoint Abraham Wald to an assistant professorship at $3,600 (Wald is now a lecturer at $3,000, of which $2,400 is financed by a special grant, the continuance of which is not assured.
    (See Annex B)

A recent development in the case of Wald is an offer of a permanent post (presumably an assistant professorship) at Queens College. This post will be open to him in case it proves impossible for us to give him the status recommended. Our enthusiasm for him has increased since last year when I wrote as follows:—

“The position of this recommendation at the very head of our list is attributable primarily to a conviction that Abraham Wald is an unusually interesting gamble. By risking a moderate stake, the University can put itself in a position where it may (and in our judgment probably will) be rewarded a hundred-fold. For Wald is not only a young scholar whose attainments are of a high order of merit, but one whose potentialities are obviously large.

“When Wald came to us two years ago, as a lecturer whose stipend was supplied by a special and presumably temporary grant, we were frankly apprehensive lest we should presently find ourselves indirectly committed, without adequate consideration, to a permanent addition to our staff concerning whom we might not be enthusiastic. Consequently care was exercised to make it clear to all concerned that his appointment as a lecturer supported by a special grant carried with it no future obligation. Fortunately then, we are able to approach the consideration of his case at this juncture free from any pressure of old commitments, express or implied.

“Our recommendation of Wald should be interpreted then as a free and fresh expression of our admiration for his accomplishments and of our faith in his future. As a result of our contacts with him and with his work, we are convinced that here is a man whose contributions are reasonably certain to continue to break new ground on a section of the frontier of knowledge where notable progress seems imminent.

“We recognize that Wald’s field is one that is of interest and significance to several departments of the University and that there are unsettled questions as to whether ultimately it should be attached to our own or to some other department or whether it should constitute a separate department in its own right. Irrespective of the answers that may ultimately be given to such questions of structural organization, we, in the Department of Economics, desire to express the hope that it will prove possible for the University to provide for the further development of teaching and research in statistics on a high level and we wish to take this opportunity to make it clear that, pending a final decision as to organization, we should consider it an honor to be permitted to shelter and to stand sponsor for scientific work such as that of Wald.”

[…]

ANNEX B.
BIOGRAPHIC MEMORANDUM OF ABRAHAM WALD

I was born in Cluj, October 31, 1902. I studied at the University in Cluj and at the University of Vienna, and obtained my doctor’s degree in mathematics at the University of Vienna in 1930. The subject of my doctor’s thesis was the Hilbert system of axioms of Geometry.

For the next four years I did mathematical research at the University of Vienna and collaborated with Professor Karl Menger. I was co-editor with him of “Ergebnisse eines mathematischen Kolloquiums.” During this time my interests were chiefly in general abstract and metric geometry, theory of probability, and mathematical economics, in which fields my papers were written.

In 1934 I became in addition a research associate of the Institute for Business Cycle Research in Vienna and published several papers in mathematical economics. My interest in statistics and its application in economics dates from this time, when I became the statistical expert of the Institute.

After the annexation of Austria, I came to the United States and was for several months a fellow of the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics. Thereafter I became a lecturer at Columbia University which is the position I hold at present. Since my arrival in the United States I have been interested chiefly in statistics and mathematical economics and have published a series of papers in these fields. I have been elected a fellow of both the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Econometric Society.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

  1. Abstract and metric geometry
    1. Über den allgemeinen Raumbegriff, Ergebnisse eines math. Kolloquiums, Heft 3, Vienna. [1931]
    2. Axiomatik des Zwischenbegriffes in metrischen Räumen, Mathematische Annalen, Vol. 104. [1931]
    3. Der komplexe euklidische Raum [Komplexe und indefinite Räume], Erg. eines mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    4. Indefinite euklidischen Räume, Erg. eines mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    5. Vereinfachter Beweis des Steinitzschen Satzes, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    6. Bedingt konvergente Reihen von Vektoren, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    7. Riehen in topologischen Gruppen, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    8. Eine neue Definition der Flächenkrümmung, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 6, Vienna
    9. Sur la courbure des surfaces, C. R. [Acad. Sci.] Paris, 1935.
    10. Aufbau [Begründung] einer kooridinatenlosen Differentialgeometrie der Flächen, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 7, Vienna.
    11. Eine Characterisierung des Lebesgueschen Masses, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 7, Vienna.
  1. Probability, Statistics and Mathematical Economics.
    1. Sur la notion de collectif dans le calcul des probabilités, C.R. [Acad. Sci.] Paris, 1936.
    2. Die Widerspruchsfreiheit des Kollektivbegriffes, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 8, Vienna.
    3. Die Widerspruchsfreiheit des Kollektivbegriffes, Actualités Scientifiques, 1938, Paris.
    4. Berechnung und Ausschaltung von Saisonschwankungen, Julius Springer, Vienna, 1936.
    5. Zur Theorie der Preis Indexziffern, Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, Vienna, 1937.
    6. Über die Produktionsgleichungen der ökonomischen Wertlehre, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 6, Vienna.
    7. Über die Produktionsgleichungen der ökonomischen Wertlehre, zweite Mitteilung, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 7, Vienna.
    8. Über einige Gleichungssysteme der mathematischen Ökonomie, Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, Vienna, 1936. [translated into English by Otto Eckstein, Econometrica, 1951, pp. 368-403]
    9. Extrapolation des gleitenden 12-Monatsdurchschnittes, Beilage zu den Berichten des Öster. Institutes für Konjunkturforschung, Vienna, 1937.
    10. Grundsaetzliches zur Berechnung des Produktionsindex, Beilage zu den Berichten des Öster. Institutes für Konjunkturforschung, Vienna, 1937.
    11. Generalization of the inequality of Markoff, The Annals of Math. Statistics, December, 1938.
    12. Long Cycles as a result of repeated integration, American Mathem. Monthly, March, 1939.
    13. Confidence limit for continuous distribution functions (co-author J. Wolfowitz), The Annals of Math. Statistics, June, 1939.
    14. Limits of a distribution function determined by absolute moments, Transact. of the Amer. Mathem. Society, September, 1939.
    15. A new formula for the index of cost of living, Econometrica, October, 1939.
    16. Contributions to the theory of statistical estimation, The Annals of Mathem. Statistics, December, 1939.
    17. A note on the analysis of variance with unequal class frequencies, The Annals of Mathem. Statistics, March, 1940.
    18. The approximate determination of indifference surfaces, Econometrica, April, 1940.
    19. On a test whether two samples are from the same population (with J. Wolfowitz), The Annals of Mathem. Statistics, June, 1940.
    20. Fitting of straight lines when both variables are subject to error, The Annals of Mathem. Statistics, September, 1940.
    21. Asymptotically most powerful tests of statistical hypotheses, Annals of Mathem. Statistics, March, 1941.
    22. Some examples of asymptotically most powerful tests will appear in the December, 1941 issue of the Annals of Mathem. Statistics.
    23. Asymptotically shortest confidence intervals paper presented at the meeting of the Amer. Math. Soc., September, 1940. Accepted for publication in the Annals of Mathem. Statistics.
    24. On the distribution of Wilks’ statistic for testing the independence of several groups of variates (in collaboration with R. Brookner), Annals of Mathem. Statistics, June, 1941.
    25. The large sample distribution of the likelihood ratio statistics, paper presented at the meeting of the Institute of Mathem. Statistics, September, 1941, Chicago. It will be published in the Annals of Mathem. Statistics.
    26. On testing statistical hypotheses concerning several unknown parameters, paper presented at the meeting of Amer. Mathem. Society, February, 1941, New York City. It will be published in the Annals of Mathem. Statistics.
    27. On the analysis of variance in case of multiple classifications with unequal class frequencies, Annals of Mathem. Statistics, September, 1941.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Central Files 1890—Box 386, Folder “Haig, Robert Murray 7/1941-6/1942”

Cf: “The Publications of Abraham Wald” [1931-1952] was published in The Annals of Mathematical Statistics 23:1 (March 1952, pp. 29-33.

___________________

Aliens in the Department of Economics

December 19, 1941

Mr. Philip M. Hayden, Secretary,
213 Low Memorial Library.

Dear Mr. Hayden:

In reply to the request contained in your recent Memorandum to executive officers, I report the following aliens from the Department of Economics:

Harold Barger

29 West 8th Street, New York City

Nationality: British
Age: 34
Alien Registration No.: 3239174

 

Donald Bailey Marsh

106 Morningside Drive, New York City

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 30
Alien Registration No.: 1152252

 

Robert Valeur

40 Barrow Street, New York City

Nationality: French
Age: 38
Alien Registration No.: 5061531

 

Abraham Wald

241 West 108th Street, New York City

Nationality: born in Kolozsvar [Note: Hungarian spelling of Cluj-Napoca], Transylvania, Alien Registration officials were in doubt how to describe nationality.
Age: 39
Alien Registration No.: 4506027

Very truly yours,
Chairman, Department of Economics

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collections, Faculty. Box 2, Folder “Faculty Beginning Jan 1, 1944 [sic]”.

___________________

Promotion to Associate Professor

February 7, 1944

Professor Abraham Wald,
608 Fayerweather.

Dear Professor Wald:

I am authorized by the Provost of the University to inform you that in the provisional budget for the academic year 1944-45 you are designated associate professor of Statistics at an annual stipend of $5,000. This provisional budget goes to the Trustees with the approval of the Committee on Educational Policy. While your promotion is not final until it is adopted by the Trustees at their meeting on the first Monday in April, the Provost and I agree that there is no reason whatsoever to doubt that the recommendation for your advancement will be approved, and that you run hardly an risk in declining the offer of an associate professorship at the University of Chicago.

As an associate professor you would hold your position at the pleasure of the Trustees, i.e., you would no longer be subject to year-to-year appointment and would, in effect, have continuing tenure. The position of associate professor in this respect is the same as that of a full professor.

I should like to add my personal assurance that the Department and the Administration stand behind the recommendation for your advancement. The reputation that you have won for yourself at Columbia is a very high one indeed. You have the friendship and warm support of all of your associates in the graduate faculties. I believe that you will have here a rich and promising career of creative scholarship.

Sincerely yours,

[copy unsigned, Frederick C. Mills?]

Source Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Box 3 Budget, 1915-1946-47, Folder “Budget Material 1944-1945”.

___________________

Promotion to Professor

April 23, 1945

President Nicholas Murray Butler,
Columbia University.

Dear Mr. President:

A recent development makes it necessary for me to supplement my letter of November 30th, 1944, in which I submitted to you a provisional budget for the Department of Economics for the year 1945-46. Professor Abraham Wald, who occupies a place of strategic importance in our work in Mathematical Statistics, has received a very attractive offer from another institution. If we are to hold him at Columbia we must give him some advancement here. Although I am reluctant to approach you at this time, to request that you re-open the Department budget for next year, it is my strong opinion that this should be done. This opinion is shared by my colleagues who are interested in Columbia’s past and prospective accomplishments in Mathematical Statistics.

Work in Mathematical Statistics in American universities is in a pioneering stage. The fundamental bases of statistics, in mathematics and logic, have recently been materially extended. New horizons have been opened. We may expect in the next several decades further fruitful advances bearing upon the whole range of inquiry in the social and the natural sciences and in the arts of production and administration. In this field Columbia has already, through the work of Hotelling and Wald, achieved a leading position, one that is recognized throughout the world. Some indication of Columbia’s standing, and of the scientific and practical fruitfulness of our work in this field, I given by the accomplishments of the Statistical Research Group now serving the Army and the Navy as part of Columbia’s contribution to the war effort.

Columbia must hold and extend the position of preeminence we have won. We believe that in Hotelling and Wald we have men of intellectual vigor and established scientific competence who will be in the forefront of future advances in Mathematical Statistics. Their work will supplement and strengthen that of the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory, in which Columbia will cooperate with the International Business Machines Corporation, as the work of that Laboratory will enhance the effectiveness of our efforts in Mathematical Statistics.

The scholarly record of Professor Wald is set forth in an attached statement. I need only add here that Wald’s researches in statistical theory have been fundamental in character and seminal in their influence. A recent outstanding example of the fertility of his thought is provided by his contribution of a new mathematical basis for techniques of quality control in manufacturing production, techniques that have been widely adopted in the control of war production. The sequential methods utilized in Dr. Wald’s procedures are capable of application in scientific experiments, and in a wide variety of other fields.

In the conviction that Columbia should reinforce success, in planning for the future, and should build where firm foundations have already been laid, I urge that the position of the University in the field of Mathematical Statistics be maintained, and strengthened. Dr. Abraham Wald’s continuance here is crucial in such a program. I recommend, therefore, that Dr. Wald, who is now Associate Professor of Statistics at an annual salary of $5,000, be appointed Professor of Mathematical Statistics, at a salary of $7,500 a year, the appointment to be effective July 1, 1945.

Respectfully submitted,

FREDERICK C. MILLS

Source Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Box 3 Budget, 1915-1946-47, Folder “Budget Material 1944-1945”.

___________________

April 27, 1951

Memorial Minute for Professor A. Wald

Professor Wolfowitz then presented a minute memorializing the late Professor Abraham Wald. It was adopted by a rising vote, and a copy was ordered sent to Professor Wald’s family.

ABRAHAM WALD

Abraham Wald, Professor of Mathematical Statistics and a distinguished member of this Faculty, was killed in an airplane accident in India on December 13, 1950. He had been on a lecture tour of Indian universities and research centers. Mrs. Wald was killed in the same accident.

Dr. Wald arrived in the United States in the summer of 1938, a refugee from Nazi persecution. In the fall of 1938 he came to Columbia as a fellow of the Carnegie Corporation. He became a member of this Faculty in 1942 and professor of Mathematical Statistics in 1945. Much of his statistical work was done here. It shed luster on Columbia and largely helped to make Columbia an important center of mathematical statistics. His work changed the whole course and emphasis of modern mathematical statistics. In addition to many other contributions the theory of statistical decision functions and the theory of sequential analysis were founded by him. He also made important contributions to mathematical economics, the theory of probability, and metric geometry.

He was a good friend to many, a genial colleague, and an inspiring teacher. By his death the University and science have sustained a grievous loss.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science, 1950-1962.

Image Source: Naval Ordnance Test Station, Inyokern, California from the obituary by J. Wolfowitz published in The Annals of Mathematical Statistics 23:1 (March, 1952), pp. 1-13.

 

Categories
Columbia Economists Pennsylvania Statistics

Columbia. Statistics PhD alumnus. Robert E. Chaddock, 1908

 

The post provides another life/career overview of a Ph.D. alum. Today’s Ph.D. went on to become professor of sociology and statistics at Columbia University, Robert Emmet Chaddock.

__________________________

Previous posts at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror
with Chaddock content…

Request for funding for his statistical laboratory in 1911 (with a newspaper account of his 1940 suicide).

E.R.A. Seligman’s recommendation for Chaddock’s promotion to Associate Professor in 1912.

__________________________

Chaddock obituaries by…

Frederick E. Croxton in Journal of the American Statistical Association 36:213 (March, 1941), pp. 116-119.

William F. Ogburn in American Journal of Sociology 46:4 (January, 1941), p. 595.

__________________________

Robert E. Chaddock (1879-1940)

1879 born April 16, in Minerva, Ohio

1900 A.B. Wooster College

1900-05. Taught at Wooster College

1906 M.A., Columbia University

1906-08. University Fellow in Sociology, Columbia University

1908 Worked with the boy’s club of the Union Settlement (New York City)

1907-09. Instructor, Columbia University

1908 Ph.D. Columbia University.

1909-11. Assistant Professor of Economics and Statistics. Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

1911-12. Assistant Professor of Statistics, Columbia University

1912-22. Associate Professor of Statistics, Columbia University

1917-24. Secretary-Treasurer of the American Statistical Association

1925 Publication of Principles and Methods of Statistics.

1922-40. Professor of Sociology and Statistics.

1925 President of the American Statistical Association

1925-1940. Member of the Joint Advisory Committee to the Director of the Census.

1928 Represented the Social Science Research Council as delegate to the International Conference on Population in Paris (July).

1929 LL.D. awarded by Wooster College

1933-36. Member of the Committee on Government Statistics and Informational Services (jointly established by the American Statistical Association and the Social Science Research Council)

1937 Chairman of the Joint Advisory Committee to the Director of the Census

1940 October 21. Death by suicide.

Other memberships

Member of the American Committee of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population Problems.

Chairman of the Research Committee, member of the Executive Committee of the Research Bureau of the Welfare Council of New York City.

Consultant statistician of the Commonwealth Fund

Member of the Advisory Council of the Milbank memorial Fund.

Member and Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Research in Medical Economics. Member of the editorial board of the quarterly journal Medical Care.

Fellow of the American Public Health Association

Member of the International Statistical Institute

Member of the American Sociological Society

Member of the Century Club (New York)

Phi Beta Kappa.

__________________________

Political Science Faculty Memorial Minute
Columbia University

Dec. 13, 1940

Robert Emmet Chaddock

Professor Robert Emmet Chaddock served his University for over thirty years. Born at Minerva, Ohio, 1879, he took his A.B. at Wooster College in 1900. From the time he first came to Columbia as a graduate student in 1905, his association with the University was broken only for two years, during which he was Assistant Professor of Economics and Statistics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. At Columbia he was in turn University Fellow in Sociology, Instructor in Economics, Assistant Professor of Statistics, Associate Professor, and from 1922 until his death Professor of Sociology and Statistics. In these various capacities he fulfilled his duties with unsparing devotion, giving attention to his students, whole-heartedly cooperating with his colleagues, freely participating in various organizations for the advancement of public welfare, and contributing always to the improvement of statistical application to social problems, especially those connected with population and public health. He was the author of numerous articles and reports on these and other subjects, and his work on Principles and Methods of Statistics has given guidance to a large number of students throughout the country. His recognition as a leader in this field was shown by the many calls made upon his services, from the Bureau of the Census, the Milbank Foundation, the Welfare Council of New York City, the Cities Census Committee, and the International Statistical Institute, and other bodies. To these calls Professor Chaddock never failed to respond. He won the regard of all who knew him. His death removes a man who gave himself without limit and without afterthought, to his University, to his family, to the community. His colleagues tender their respectful sympathy to those who intimately mourn for him, his wife and daughter.

Robert M. MacIver
Carlton J. H. Hayes
Roswell C. McCrea

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science, 1940-1949, p. 881.

Image Source: Robert Emmet Chaddock from Barnard College, Mortarboard, 1919.

 

Categories
Columbia History of Economics

Columbia. Reading List. Economic Thought Before Adam Smith. Dorfman, ca 1947

 

The following course reading list was included with other history of economics reading lists in Joseph Dorfman’s papers at Columbia University. Course catalogues from 1945-46 through 1957-58 were examined and they confirm that this course was indeed taught by Joseph Dorfman. While listed as offered during the 1947-48 and 1948-49 academic years, the course was explicitly bracketed as not offered from 1949-50 through 1957-58. The course was not offered before 1947-48.

____________________

Course Announcement 1947-1948
[also 1948-49]

Economics 111—History of economic doctrine to Adam Smith. 3 points Winter Session. Professor Dorfman.

Tu.Th. 1:10. 310 Fayerweather.

Various systems of economics with especial attention paid to the wider aspects of connection between theories and organization of industrial society at the time. Antiquity; Middle Ages; mercantilists; Physiocrats; and English precursors of Adam Smith.

Source: Columbia University. Bulletin of Information. Forty-seventh Series, No. 38 (September 13, 1947). Announcement of the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions 1947-1948, p. 46.

____________________

ECONOMICS 111

Ashley, W. J. An Introduction to English Economic history and Theory, Chapter VI

Beer, M. An Inquiry into Physiocracy

Beer, M. Early British Economics

Bonar, James Philosophy and Political Economy

Bonar, James Theories of Population

Dempsey, Bernard W. Interest and Usury, Chap. 4-7

Heckscher, Eli Mercantilism

Higgs, Henry The Physiocrats

Johnson, E. A. J. Predecessors of Adam Smith

Laistner, L. M. Greek Economics

Monroe, Arthur Eli Early Economic Thought

Monroe, Arthur Eli Monetary Theory Before Adam Smith

O’Brien, G. An Essay on Medieval Economic Thinking

Somerville, et al. “Interest and Usury,” The Economic Journal, vol. 41, pp. 646-49; vol. 42, pp. 123-37, 3112-23

Viner, Jacob Studies in the Theory of international Trade, Chapters 1 and 2.

Ware, Norman J. “The Physiocrats”, The American Economic Review, XXI, pp. 607-19

Mitchell, The Background of Greek Economics (pp. 24-37)

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries. Manuscript Collections. Joseph Dorfman Collection. Box 13, Folder “College Bound Reports. Examination questions”.

Image Source: From Joseph Dorfman’s 1973 Columbia University picture Identification Card in Joseph Dorfman Collection, Box 13, Unlabelled Folder.

Categories
Amherst Barnard Berkeley Brown Chicago Colorado Columbia Cornell Dartmouth Duke Harvard Illinois Indiana Iowa Johns Hopkins Kansas M.I.T. Michigan Michigan State Minnesota Missouri Nebraska North Carolina Northwestern NYU Ohio State Pennsylvania Princeton Radcliffe Rochester Stanford Swarthmore Texas Tufts UCLA Vassar Virginia Washington University Wellesley Williams Wisconsin Yale

U.S. Bureau of Education. Contributions to American Educational History, Herbert B. Adams (ed.), 1887-1903

 

I stumbled across this series while I was preparing the previous post on the political economy questions for the Harvard Examination for Women (1874). I figured it would be handy for me to keep a list of links to the monographs on the history of higher education in 35 of the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. Maybe this collection will help you too.

Contributions to American Educational History, edited by Herbert B. Adams

  1. The College of William and Mary. Herbert B. Adams (1887)
  2. Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia. Herbert B. Adams (1888)
  3. History of Education in North Carolina. Charles L. Smith (1888)
  4. History of Higher Education in South Carolina. C. Meriwether (1889)
  5. Education in Georgia. Charles Edgeworth Jones (1889)
  6. Education in Florida. George Gary Bush (1889)
  7. Higher Education in Wisconsin. William F. Allen and David E. Spencer (1889)
  8. History of Education in Alabama. Willis G. Clark (1890).
  9. History of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education. Frank W. Blackmar (1890)
  10. Higher Education in Indiana. James Albert Woodburn (1891).
  11. Higher Education in Michigan. Andrew C. McLaughlin. (1891)
  12. History of Higher Education in Ohio. George W. Knight and John R. Commons (1891)
  13. History of Higher Education in Massachusetts. George Gary Bush (1891)
  14. The History of Education in Connecticut. Bernard C. Steiner (1893)
  15. The History of Education in Delaware. Lyman P. Powell (1893)
  16. Higher Education in Tennessee. Lucius Salisbury Merriam (1893)
  17. Higher Education in Iowa. Leonard F. Parker (1893)
  18. History of Higher Education in Rhode Island. William Howe Tolman (1894)
  19. History of Education in Maryland. Bernard C. Steiner (1894).
  20. History of Education in Lousiana. Edwin Whitfield Fay (1898).
  21. Higher Education in Missouri. Marshall S. Snow (1898)
  22. History of Education in New Hampshire. George Gary Bush (1898)
  23. History of Education in New Jersey. David Murray (1899).
  24. History of Education in Mississippi. Edward Mayes (1899)
  25. History of Higher Education in Kentucky. Alvin Fayette Lewis (1899)
  26. History of Education in Arkansas. Josiah H. Shinn (1900)
  27. Higher Education in Kansas. Frank W. Blackmar (1900)
  28. The University of the State of New York. History of Higher Education in the State of New York. Sidney Sherwood (1900)
  29. History of Education in Vermont. George Gary Bush (1900)
  30. History of Education in West Virginia. A. R. Whitehill (1902)
  31. The History of Education in Minnesota. John N. Greer (1902)
  32. Education in Nebraska. Howard W. Caldwell (1902)
  33. A History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania. Charles H. Haskins and William I. Hull (1902)
  34. History of Higher Education in Colorado. James Edward Le Rossignol (1903)
  35. History of Higher Education in Texas. J. J. Lane (1903)
  36. History of Higher Education in Maine. Edward W. Hall (1903)

Image Source: Cropped from portrait of Herbert Baxter Adams ca. 1890s. Johns Hopkins University graphic and pictorial collection.

Categories
Columbia Regulations

Columbia. Faculty of political science’s discussion of Ph.D. requirements, 1905

Welcome to a 1905 discussion about the requirements for a Ph.D. in American History, Economics or Sociology from the Columbia University Faculty of Political Science. Should sufficient knowledge of Latin (repeat, Latin) be the subject of examination for those fields. From the minutes of the meeting transcribed below we learn that a no-brainer motion to dismiss the Latin language examination was postponed, pending inquiries about the Latin language requirements at other universities. 

Can a I hear a Gloria in excelsis Deo?

______________________

Discussion Questions Regarding Revision of Ph.D. Requirements
Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University (1905)

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

January 25, 1905

President Butler
Columbia University

Dear Sir:

It gives me pleasure to advise you that the Faculty of Political Science decided at its last meeting to hold a special meeting on Friday, January 27, at 3:30 p.m. For the informal and preliminary discussion of the questions submitted by its committee on the Revision of Requirements for the Ph.D. degree, of which I enclose a copy.

Respectfully yours
[signed] Henry R. Seager
Secretary

 

  1. Is it desirable to distinguish the candidates for the doctorate from the rest of the student body and to prescribe preliminary tests or examinations for admission to such candidacy?
  2. Should proficiency in the required languages be treated as such a preliminary requirement?
  3. Should candidates with a major in (a) Economics, (b) Sociology or (c) American History be excused from examination in Latin?
  4. If so, should a third modern language be required of those candidates who do not offer Latin?
  5. How early in his period of residence, or how long before admission to the candidacy for the doctorate, should a student select the subject of his dissertation?
  6. Is it desirable that seminar work should be so organized as to encourage preliminary studies by the candidate in the field of his dissertation?
  7. When the subject selected as a major is one in which relatively few courses (less than eight hours) are offered, should attendance upon other courses, in addition to those now required in the minor subjects, be made compulsory? If this is desirable, should the end be attained by increasing in such cases the requirements in the minor subjects?
  8. When the subjects selected as a major subject is one in which more than eight hours of lectures are offered, should be existing requirements as regards attendance be decreased?
  9. Should it be required, before any candidate is admitted to the general examination on his subjects, that he be recommended by the professors in charge of his major and minor subjects?
  10. Is it desirable that the professor in charge of his major subject should refuse such recommendation unless the work of the candidate upon his dissertation has been carried to such a point as to render it probable that a satisfactory dissertation will be produced within the legal term?
  11. If any of the above changes seem desirable, shall your committee prepared, for submission to the faculty, rules adopted to realize said changes? Or shall say, where ever it seems practicable, draft resolutions which, if adopted, will merely express the general policy of the Faculty, to be made effective in practice by the action of his several members?

Source:  Columbia University Archives. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Central Files 1890-. Box 338, Folder “11. Seager, Henry R.”

______________________

Minutes of Special Meeting
Jan. 27, 1905

In the absence of the President, the meeting was called to order by the Dean.

Present: Professors Burgess, Munroe Smith, Goodnow, Seligman, Osgood, Dunning, Giddings, Robinson, Sloane, Moore, H.L., and Seager.

Excused: Professors J.B.Moore and Clark

The reading of the minutes of the last meeting was passed over.

On motion, the Chairman of the Committee on the Revision of the Requirements for the Ph.D. degree was requested to read abstracts of the replies received from the different members of the Faculty to the questions propounded by that Committee. On further consideration this action was, on motion, revoked.

The Faculty then proceeded to the consideration of the questions submitted seriatim.

On motion it was

Resolved: That the sentiment of the Faculty is adverse to the plan of distinguishing candidates for the doctorate from the rest of the student body.

On motion, it was decided in connection with the second question, that any candidate for the Ph.D. degree may take the required examination in the languages one year in advance of the examination on his subjects. After some further discussion the Faculty adjourned to meet as a committee of the whole on Friday, February 3rd at 3:30 P.M.

[signed] Henry R. Seager.
Secretary

 

Minutes of Special Meeting
Feb. 3, 1905

In the absence of the President the meeting of the Committee of the Whole was called to order by the Dean.

Present: Professors Burgess, Munroe Smith, Seligman, Dunning, Moore, J.B., Giddings, Robinson, Moore, H.L., and Seager.

On motion it was

Resolved: That the following motion be substituted for that passed at the close of the last meeting: Resolved that it is the sense of the Committee of the Whole that it is desirable to permit and encourage students to take the examination on their languages in advance of the examination on their subjects.

The following resolution was then proposed: Resolved that it is the sense of the Committee of the Whole that it is desirable to excuse candidates for the Ph.D. degree in Economics, Sociology and American History from the examination in Latin, provided that the professors in charge of their major studies certify that that language will not be necessary in connection with the preparation of their theses. After some discussion a substitute motion was passed instructing the Secretary to make inquiry as to the practice of other universities in reference to requiring Latin in connection with the Ph.D. degree.

On motion, Question 4 was passed over for later consideration.

On motion, Questions 5, 9 and 10 were taken up together. After some discussion it was on motion

Resolved: That it is the sense of the Committee of the Whole that a recommendation from one or more professors be pre-requisite to admission to examination for the Ph.D. degree.

On motion it was

Resolved: That it is the sense of the Committee of the Whole that no candidate shall be admitted to examination on his subjects until recommended by the professors in charge of his major and minor subjects, and that in case of disagreement among the latter the decision of the professor in charge of the major subject shall prevail.

After some discussion it was decided that the point covered by Question 10 was sufficiently provided for by the resolution adopted by the Faculty at its regular meeting in May, 1904. [*See below]

On motion, Questions 5 and 6 were laid on the table.

On motion, Questions 7 and 8 were taken up together.

On motion it was resolved, in answer to 8, that it is the sense of the Committee of the Whole that when more than eight hours of lectures are offered in the major subject, the existing requirements in reference to attendance should be decreased.

No action was taken in reference to Question 7.

On motion, the Committee adjourned.

[signed] Henry R. Seager.
Secretary

*From the Minutes of the Regular Meeting
May 20, 1904

…The following resolution was offered by the Secretary:

RESOLVED that it is the sense of this Faculty that no candidate shall be admitted to examination on his major and minor subjects for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy until the professor in charge of the major subject certifies that such progress has been made by the candidate in the investigation of the subject selected by him for his dissertation, as to render it probable that a satisfactory dissertation will be produced.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science, 1897-1919, Minutes of The Faculty of Political Science (October 22, 1897 to May 9, 1913), pp. 133-134, 144-148.

Image Source: From archive.org:  Xenophontis Socratici liber, qui Oeconomicus inscribitur. Bernardinus Donatus Veronensis vertit, 1539. Repository: National Central Library of Rome.

Categories
Columbia Economists Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania. Economics Ph.D. alumnus. Columbia professor Henry R. Seager, 1894

Another post in the irregular series “Meet an economics Ph.D.” Henry Rogers Seager’s education and career took him from Ann Arbor (University of Michigan) through Baltimore (Johns Hopkins University), Germany/Austria (Halle, Berlin, Vienna), and Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania before ending up in New York City (Columbia). 

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Earlier posts for Henry Rogers Seager
at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror:

List of papers published as of Seager’s appointment by Columbia in 1902.

Syllabus for “The Trust Problem”, 1907.

Published Lecture on Economics, 1907-08.

Memorial minute, 1930

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Seager, Henry Rogers (July 21, 1870-Aug. 23, 1930), economist, was born in Lansing, Michigan, the son of Schuyler Fiske Seager, a lawyer, and Alice (Berry) Seager. Graduating at the University of Michigan in 1890, he did further work during the succeeding years at the Johns Hopkins University, at the Universities of Halle, Berlin, and Vienna, and at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received the Ph.D. degree in 1894. That year he was appointed instructor in economics in the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, and in 1896 he was made an assistant professor; in 1902 he became adjunct professor and in 1905, professor, in Columbia University, where he served till death. On June 5, 1899, he was married to Harriet Henderson of Philadelphia who died in 1928; their son survived him.

Seager’s training as an economist was in English classicism, in the German historical method and in the peculiar Austrian approach. His published work shows clearly the influence of each. His greatest admiration was for Simon N. Patten (q.v.), with whom he served at the University of Pennsylvania but whose influence on his thought was slight. Seager’s mind was orderly and compressive rather than brilliant and generalizing; conservatism was perhaps its distinguishing characteristic. He was solid and patient, slow to conclude, and even slower to write his conclusions. One result of this was that he was less a writing scholar than one who worked with students. Literally hundreds of dissertations passed through his careful hands at Columbia and many generations of students heard his lectures on labor and on corporation problems. Always active in meliorative activities, he assisted materially in the establishment of a system of workmen’s compensation in New York; he was a supporter of the Survey (formerly Charities and the Commons) and for many years a member of its board of directors. During the war he served as secretary of the Shipbuilding Labor Adjustment Board, and in 1919-20, he was executive secretary of the President’s Second Industrial Conference. He was one of the founders and three times president of the American Association for Labor Legislation. He was frequently consulted by philanthropists, legislators and publicists; he was a member of the editorial board) of The Political Science Quarterly, and in 1922 was president of the American Economic Association. In all these varied activities he had one purpose: to better social conditions within the framework of laissez-faire. He possessed a determined faith that this could be done and worked constantly to show the way. Melioration consisted in making changes here and there, which while not disturbing fundamental arrangements, reduced their burden on less favored individuals. Improvement consisted in legal change and a large part of his effort was always directed toward reform by legislation.

His most considerable work is Principles of Economics, first published under this title in 1913, which grew out of his Introduction to Economics (1904 and later editions [3rd edition, 1910]) and appeared in its final form [3rd edition] in 1923. The most important of his other writings are Trust and Corporation Problems (1929), with C.A. Gulick, Jr. and the posthumous volume, Labor and Other Economic Essays (1931), to which is attached his complete bibliography. Somewhat more than the final half of the Principles of Economics is devoted to essays on important problems: banking, the tariff, railroads, trusts, taxation, labor and social insurance. The theoretical section begins with a consideration of consumption, progresses through value and production, and ends with distribution. There were many books published during this period with much the same outline; but Seager’s was characterized by emphasis on all that pertained to human welfare. This led to stress on consumption and on the demand side of the value equilibrium, as well as to extra consideration of monopoly gains. The discussion of distribution was carried out within the framework of the “specific productivity” analysis but with more than usual weight given to such subjective influences as the balancing, in consumers’ and producers’ minds, of marginal disutilities over against marginal utilities. The conclusions were usually optimistic. Seager believed in progress and believed that, under the going system, it was being achieved. He felt, for instance, that capital goods were multiplying more rapidly than population and that this would tend to raise standards of living. He did not believe, however, that the possibilities of progress which inhere in the system insure automatic betterment. Groups of interested people, with journals and propaganda, need to be vigilant in the public interest. This duty of the good citizen, as Seager saw it, was best exemplified in his own career. He never became aware of a duty that he did not forthwith perform. In his posthumous Labor and Other Economic Essays his program is outlined: “The two great objects to be aimed at are: 1. To protect wage-earners in the continued enjoyment of standards of living to which they are already accustomed. II. To assist them to attain to higher standards of living” (p.131). The contingencies which were the principal threats to existing standards were “(1) industrial accidents, (2) illness, (3) invalidity and old age, (4) premature death, (5) unemployment” (ibid.) All these, Seager felt, were legitimate objects of collective action. As for raising standards, this was largely dependent on industrial advance and on better education.

To all persons of Seager’s generation the rather the sudden rise of a complete alternative system in Russia offered a shock to which adjustment was necessarily slow. Because everything there was so antithetical to the system to which so many theoretical hostages had been given, the immediate impulse was to belittle Soviet accomplishments. Seager was exposed to the full force of the new ideas. Gradually they gained weight in his mind until at last his essential honesty compelled, not acceptance, but exploration. In 1930, with a group of companions, he undertook a journey to the scene of these new economic adventures, in the midst of which he was taken ill. He died in Kiev of pneumonia, August 23, 1930. He was thus lost to the world at the close of an old period and the beginning of a new one. His identification with economy of the opening decades of the nineteenth century was a fortuitous one, but his progress into the new years cannot be said to have fairly started. He remains an economist of laissez-faire, of more than usual significance in foreshadowing the ameliorative program which so soon became a center of Interest.

Source: Cornell University Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives. Henry R. Seager Research Notes and Monographs (Collection Number: 5249).

Image Source: From a 1915 portrait of Henry Rogers Seager at Wikiwand. Includes a survey of his books.

Categories
Columbia Economist Market Race

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, Brailsford Reese Brazeal, 1942

Brazeal01

 

Two quick quotes from the brief biographical articles below about Brailsford R. Brazeal, an African American economics Ph.D. (Columbia, 1942), as amuse-bouche for this post.

“Dr. Brazeal conducted some of the research for his dissertation [on the Pullman sleeping car porters] by working as an assistant cook in the trains’ kitchens on the New York City line that traveled south.”

“It was Dr. Brazeal, who first recommended the young minister [Martin Luther King!] for acceptance at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.  Dr.  Brazeal wrote that King would mix well with the white race.” [The letter of recommendation]

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BRAILSFORD REESE BRAZEAL
b. Mar 8, 1903; d. Apr 22 1981

Ph.D., Columbia University, 1942.

TITLE OF DISSERTATION: “The Origin and Development of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.” (published: New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946.

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BRAILSFORD BRAZEAL
A Man of Morehouse

Posted by Scott B. Thompsons, Sr.

When you think of Morehouse College, you think of tradition — a tradition of higher learning for African-American college students.  When you go back seventy-five years, you think of a day unlike today when a mere few, the lucky few, had the opportunity to attend an institution of higher learning, much less one with the honorable tradition as Morehouse.  For nearly four decades, one Laurens County native helped the school rise to the prominence it still retains today.

Brailsford Reese Brazeal was born in Dublin, Georgia on March 8, 1903.  The son of the Rev. George Reese Brazeal and Walton Troup Brazeal, young Brailsford attended Georgia State College and Ballard Normal School in Macon.    Late in his life Dr. Brazeal recalled that it was his Baptist preacher father’s guidance and teachings that kindled his imagination as to what was beyond his neighborhood.  Brazeal recalled that his mother and his oldest aunt, Flora L. Troup pushed him to leave Dublin because he wouldn’t be able to obtain anything but an elementary education in Dublin.  His uncle and namesake Brailsford Troup gave him a job during summers as a carpenter’s helper.  Brazeal realized that the life of a laborer is not what he wanted and promised himself that he would do all that he could to break the barriers of race and segregation.

He completed his studies  at Morehouse Academy, a high school, in 1923.  While at Morehouse College, Brazeal came to know Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, who served as his debate coach in college and would later serve as President of Morehouse.   After graduating from Morehouse in 1927, Brazeal continued his studies and obtained a master’s degree in Economics  from the ultimately prestigious Columbia University in 1928.

Brazeal was immediately hired as a Professor of Economics by Dr. John Hope, his alma mater’s first black president.    By 1934, Brazeal was chosen to chair the Department of Economics and Business.  He was also selected to serve as the Dean of Men, a post which he held until 1936.

In his early years at Morehouse, Brailsford met and married Ernestine Erskine of Jackson, Mississippi.  Mrs. Brazeal was a graduate of Spellman College in Atlanta.  An educator in her own right, Mrs. Brazeal held a Master’s Degree in American History from the University of Chicago.  She taught at Spelman and served for many years as the Alumni Secretary.  To those who knew and loved her, Mrs. Brazeal was known to the be the superlative historian of Spelman History, though she never published the culmination of  her vast knowledge.

The Brazeals were the parents of two daughters.  Aurelia Brazeal is a career diplomat and has recently served as the United States Ambassador to Ethopia, Kenya and Micronesia.  Ernestine Brazeal has long been an advocate for the Headstart Program.

The Brazeal home in Atlanta was often a home away from home for Morehouse students.  Especially present were the freshmen who inhabited the home on weekends and after supper for the fellowship and guidance from the Brazeals.  Among these students were the nation’s greatest civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Maynard Jackson, the first black mayor of Atlanta.   It was Dr. Brazeal, who first recommended the young minister for acceptance at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.  Dr.  Brazeal wrote that King would mix well with the white race. The Brazeal’s bought the four square home near Morehouse in 1940.  Today, the home at 193 Ashby Street (now Joseph Lowery Boulevard) was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

Through scholarships, Brailsford Brazeal was named a Julius Rosenwald Fellow and in 1942, obtained his Ph. D. from Columbia University in economics.  As a part of his doctoral dissertation, Dr. Brazeal wrote about the formation of the of one of the first labor unions for black workers.  In 1946, Brazeal published his signature work The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.    For decades, labor researchers often cited Brazeal’s writings  in his landmark work and other papers and journal articles.

During the 1950s, Brazeal worked in voter registration movements.  He wrote extensively about racial discrimination in voting, especially in his native state. He detailed many of the activities in his home county of Laurens. In his Studies of Negro Voting in Eight Rural Counties in Georgia and One in South Carolina, Brazeal examined and wrote of the  efforts of H.H. Dudley and C.H. Harris to promote more black participation in voting in Laurens County.  He chronicled the wars between the well entrenched county sheriff Carlus Gay and State Representative Herschel Lovett and their desire and competition for the black vote.   He wrote of fair employment practices, desegregation of higher education, voter disfranchisement of black voters, voter registration, and many other civil rights matters.

The members of the National Association of College Deans elected Dr. Brazeal as their president in 1947. Brazeal a member of the Executive Committee of the American Conference of Academic Deans and as a vice-president of the American Baptist Educational Institutions.

During his career Dr. Brazeal was a member of the American Economic Association, the Academy of Political Science, the Southern Sociological Society, the Advisory Council of Academic Freedom Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union, the N.A.A.C.P., the Twenty Seven Club, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Sigma Pi Phil, Delta Sigma Rho and the Friendship Baptist Church.

In 1967, Dr. Brazeal was inducted into the prestigious national honor society, Phi Beta Kappa as an alumni member of Delta Chapter  of Columbia University.  He organized a chapter at Morehouse, known to many as one of the “Ivy League” schools for African Americans.

Dr. Brazeal retired in 1972 after a career of more than forty years, many of which he served as Dean of the College.  At the age of seventy eight he died in Atlanta on April 22, 1981. His body lies next to that of his wife, who died in 2002, in Southview Cemetery in Atlanta.

Source:  Laurens County African American History (blog). Monday, February 3, 2014

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HE WAS A MOREHOUSE MAN:
THE LEGACY OF BRAILSFORD REESE BRAZEAL

Jeanne Cyriaque, African American Programs Coordinator
Historic Preservation Division

Brailsford Reese Brazeal was an African American economist and Dean of Academics at Morehouse College. From the late 1920s until he retired from Morehouse College in 1972, Dr. Brazeal’s leadership in research, publications, and academic standards helped Morehouse College achieve national significance as an institution of higher learning. Brazeal was a native of Dublin (Laurens County). He attended Macon’s Ballard Normal School until his family moved to Atlanta, where Brazeal completed high school at Morehouse Academy in 1923. Brazeal received his bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College in 1927, and completed his master’s degree in economics at Columbia University in 1928.

Dr. John Hope, who was Morehouse College’s first African American president, hired Brazeal as an economics instructor in 1928. By 1934, Brazeal was a professor of economics, head of the Department of Economics and Business Administration, and Dean of Men. Brailsford Brazeal was the recipient of two fellowships from the Julius Rosenwald Fund to pursue advanced studies in economics. While the history of the Rosenwald Fund community school building program is widely known, the fund also provided fellowships to many African American scholars. With this assistance and aid from Morehouse College, Brazeal received his Ph.D. in economics and political science from Columbia University in 1942.

Brailsford Brazeal published The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1946. This book was based upon his dissertation research on the Pullman train-car porters and their successful efforts to form America’s first African American labor union. This book remains a standard reference in labor history, American economic history and race relations. Brazeal subsequently wrote an unpublished biography about the Brotherhood’s union leader, A. Philip Randolph.

When George Pullman first arrived in Chicago in 1859, he had learned the art of moving buildings from his father, Lewis Pullman, who had patented a device to roll huge edifices away from the banks of the Erie Canal. After successfully applying this skill in a number of public works projects in Chicago, George Pullman envisioned a hotel on wheels with his luxurious, “palace” sleeping cars. To provide overnight accommodations and dining to the emerging middle class traveler, Pullman needed a workforce to provide personal services. This workforce who provided the necessary work of bellhop, cook, dining car attendant, maid and janitor were called Pullman porters, and they were African American men. Dr. Brazeal conducted some of the research for his dissertation by working as an assistant cook in the trains’ kitchens on the New York City line that traveled south.

Pullman porters worked longer hours and made considerably lower wages than whites, as they monopolized other positions such as conductors on the Pullman sleeping cars. Yet, a porter job provided unique employment opportunities that encouraged the Great Migration of thousands of African Americans from the segregated south. The Pullman porters relied on tips from their expert personal services, and were discouraged from forming unions.

By 1925, the Pullman Company was the nation’s largest private employer of African Americans, and the company used intimidation tactics, company spies, and harassment to deny the porters’ pensions and company benefits. Dr. Brazeal’s book discussed how A. Philip Randolph and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters organized an eleven-year effort to eventually be presented an international charter by the American Federation of Labor in 1936.

In 1962, Cornelius V. Troup published Distinguished Negro Georgians. Brailsford Brazeal wrote the introduction to this book while he was Academic Dean at Morehouse College. “Although I am a native Georgian and have lived and worked in Georgia virtually all of my life, I have learned for the first time that many distinguished persons whom I know or have read about are also natives of this state. Many of them were born in remote places in the state and had to obtain their education in vicarious ways which were enough to baffle and discourage persons of even extra-ordinary ability.” Brazeal’s comments on African American education in Georgia pointed out the fact that “without private, church-supported schools many of the persons mentioned in this book would never have attained an education which proved to be the key to their achievements.”

In 1933, Brailsford Reese Brazeal married Ernestine Erskine of Jackson, Mississippi. Ernestine Brazeal was a graduate of Spelman College. She received her master’s degree in American history at the University of Chicago. Mrs. Brazeal taught at Spelman and served as the college’s alumnae secretary. In 2003, the Spelman College Messenger featured an article about Mrs. Ernestine Erksine Brazeal that was written by one of her former students, Taronda Spencer. She is the Spelman College archivist and historian. “I learned how to be a Spelman woman from her example. Because of Mrs. Brazeal’s foresight, scholars and researchers are documenting the importance of Spelman’s place in the history of women’s education nationally and internationally. Her legacy and her spirit will forever be an integral part of the essence of Spelman.”

In 1940, Brailsford Reese Brazeal purchased an American Foursquare-type house that is located just west of Morehouse College. Brazeal made few changes to this house during his lifetime. In 1962, a rear addition was added that reflected mid-20th- century ranch house influences, such as built-in bookcases and a stone fireplace.

The home, now on Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard (formerly 193 Ashby Street), was constructed in 1927 by the Adair Construction Company. It was occupied by members of the Adair family until 1939. Charles Hubert, acting president of Morehouse College, leased the home prior to the Brazeal purchase (1940). The home was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on April 8, 2005.

Soon, the Brazeals had two daughters: Ernestine and Aurelia. Though the Brazeals lived in a segregated south, Ernestine Brazeal did not want her children to be born in segregated hospitals, and traveled to Chicago to have both of her daughters. Ernestine and Aurelia Brazeal attended a private girls’ school in Massachusetts, and both are Spelman alumnae.

Aurelia Brazeal is a diplomat in residence at Howard University. She is a former Ambassador to Ethiopia, Kenya, and the Federated States of Micronesia. She promotes job opportunities for the Department of State to students who are pursuing Foreign Service careers. Ernestine Brazeal recently retired from her advocacy career at Head Start in the greater Atlanta area. She lives in the Brazeal home. Ernestine Brazeal supports the work and ideas of the Spelman College Women’s Research and Resource Center. The center ensures a feminist environment for scholarship, activism, leadership and change.

The Brazeal House was always a place where students could gather for mentoring sessions with Dr. Brazeal in a family atmosphere. One Morehouse tradition that Dr. Brazeal particularly liked was to invite freshmen students to his home during their first week at Morehouse College. The students would have a chance to socialize with distinguished faculty and alumni. Maynard Jackson,Martin Luther King, Jr. and Warner Meadows were guests at these sessions in the Brazeal House during their college careers at Morehouse.

The Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa elected Brailsford Brazeal for alumnus membership at Columbia University. Brazeal envisioned a Phi Beta Kappa chapter at his institution, and by 1967, it was approved for Morehouse College. In 1961, while serving as the advisor for the honors program at Morehouse College, Brazeal achieved additional support from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Under his guidance, Morehouse College was second among Georgia institutions in the number of students receiving Woodrow Wilson fellowships.

Brailsford Reese Brazeal was an active participant in voter education and registration drives throughout Georgia in the 1960s. He retired from the faculty of Morehouse College in 1972, after a career that spanned over 40 years. He died in his home in 1981. Brailsford and Ernestine Brazeal are buried at South View Cemetery, an African American cemetery that was established in 1886 by nine Atlanta black businessmen.

Source: Reflections: Georgia African American Historic Preservation Network. Vol. VI, No. 1 (April, 2006).