Category: Economic History

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Columbia Economic History Race

Columbia. John W. Burgess charged with “anti-Negro thought” by W.E.B. Du Bois, 1935

 

Preparing for class tomorrow, I was reading the concluding chapter of W.E.B. Du Bois‘s book, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880, that includes the following unflattering portrait of the founder of Columbia University’s School of Political Science, John W. Burgess. Since Burgess’s School of Political Science was the home of graduate economics education at Columbia University and the boundaries between the disciplines of law, history, political science, economics, and sociology were much less well-defined then than today, I think it is worth including W.E.B. Du Bois’s observations here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. 

Image Source: W.E.B. Du Bois (ca. 1919 by C. M. Battey) in Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

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Excerpt from
Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880
by W.E.B. Du Bois.

The real frontal attack on Reconstruction, as interpreted by the leaders of national thought in 1870 and for some time thereafter, came from the universities and particularly from Columbia and Johns Hopkins.

The movement began with Columbia University and with the advent of John W. Burgess of Tennessee and William A. Dunning of New Jersey as professors of political science and history.

Burgess was an ex-Confederate soldier who started to a little Southern college with a box of books, a box of tallow candles and a Negro boy; and his attitude toward the Negro race in after years was subtly colored by this early conception of Negroes as essentially property like books and candles. Dunning was a kindly and impressive professor who was deeply influenced by a growing group of young Southern students and began with them to re-write the history of the nation from 1860 to 1880, in more or less conscious opposition to the classic interpretations of New England.

Burgess was frank and determined in his anti-Negro thought. He expounded his theory of Nordic supremacy which colored all his political theories:

“The claim that there is nothing in the color of the skin from the point of view of political ethics is a great sophism. A black skin means membership in a race of men which has never of itself succeeded in subjecting passion to reason, has never, therefore, created any civilization of any kind. To put such a race of men in possession of a ‘state’ government in a system of federal government is to trust them with the development of political and legal civilization upon the most important subjects of human life, and to do this in communities with a large white population is simply to establish barbarism in power over civilization.” [Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, p.133 ]

Burgess is a Tory and open apostle of reaction. He tells us that the nation now believes “that it is the white man’s mission, his duty and his right, to hold the reins of political power in his own hands for the civilization of the world and the welfare of mankind.”4

4 Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, pp. viii, ix.

For this reason America is following “the European idea of the duty of civilized races to impose their political sovereignty upon civilized, or half civilized, or not fully civilized, races anywhere and everywhere in the world.”5

5 Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, p. 218.

He complacently believes that “There is something natural in the subordination of an inferior race to a superior race, even to the point of the enslavement of the inferior race, but there is nothing natural in the opposite.”6 He therefore denominates Reconstruction as the rule “of the uncivilized Negroes over the whites of the South.”7 This has been the teaching of one of our greatest universities for nearly fifty years.

6 Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, pp. 244-245.
7 Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, p. 218.

Dunning was less dogmatic as a writer, and his own statements are often judicious. But even Dunning can declare that “all the forces [in the South] that made for civilization were dominated by a mass of barbarous freedmen”; and that “the antithesis and antipathy of race and color were crucial and ineradicable.”7a The work of most of the students whom he taught and encouraged has been one-sided and partisan to the last degree. Johns Hopkins University has issued a series of studies similar to Columbia’s; Southern teachers have been welcomed to many Northern universities, where often Negro students have been systematically discouraged, and thus a nation-wide university attitude has arisen by which propaganda against the Negro has been carried on unquestioned.

7a Dunning, Reconstruction, Political and Economic, pp. 212, 213.

The Columbia school of historians and social investigators have issued between 1895 and the present time sixteen studies of Reconstruction in the Southern States, all based on the same thesis and all done according to the same method: first, endless sympathy with the white South; second, ridicule, contempt or silence for the Negro; third, a judicial attitude towards the North, which concludes that the North under great misapprehension did a grievous wrong, but eventually saw its mistake and retreated.

These studies vary, of course, in their methods. Dunning’s own work is usually silent so far as the Negro is concerned. Burgess is more than fair in law but reactionary in matters of race and property, regarding the treatment of a Negro as a man as nothing less than a crime, and admitting that “the mainstay of property is the courts.”

In the books on Reconstruction written by graduates of these universities and others, the studies of Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia and Louisiana are thoroughly bad, giving no complete picture of what happened during Reconstruction, written for the most part by men and women without broad historical or social background, and all designed not to seek the truth but to prove a thesis. Hamilton reaches the climax of this school when he characterizes the black codes, which even Burgess condemned, as “not only … on the whole reasonable, temperate and kindly, but, in the main, necessary.”8

8 Hamilton, “Southern Legislation in Respect to Freedmen” in Studies in Southern History and Politics, p. 156.

 

Source:   W.E. Burghardt Du Bois, Black Reconstruction. An Essay Toward a History of the Part which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880, pp. 718-720.

Image Source: John W. Burgess in Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2. Boston: R. Herndon Company, 1899,  p. 481.

 

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Economic History Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. History of Commerce to 1750. Usher, 1929-30

 

This post provides the course description, enrollment figures, reading assignments, and final examination questions for Abbott Payson Usher’s course “History of Commerce: 1450-1750” that he taught at Harvard in 1929-30.

The economic historian, Abbott Payson Usher (1883-1965), received his A.B. (1904), A.M. (1905), and Ph.D. (1910) all from Harvard. He taught ten years at Cornell and two years at Boston University before returning to his alma mater in 1922 where he remained on the faculty for the rest of his career. Usher was a visiting professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin in 1949-51 and 1955-57.

A bibliography of Usher’s writings is included in the Festschrift for him, Architects and Craftsmen in History (1956).

A memorial essay written by Thomas M. Smith was published in Technology and Culture, vol. 6, no. 4 (Autumn, 1965), pp. 630-632 [gated].

A few other Abbott Payson Usher artifacts from courses at Harvard already transcribed at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror:

Economic History to 1450 [1934]
Modern Economic History [1937-41]
European Economic History [1921]

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From Usher’s report to the Harvard Class of 1904
(15th anniversary, 1919)

ABBOT PAYSON USHER

Born: Lynn, Mass., Jan. 13, 1883. [Died: June 18, 1965]
Parents:  Edward Preston Usher, Adela Louise Payson.
School: High School, Grafton, Mass.
Years in College: 1900-1904.
Degrees:  A.B. 1904; A.M. 1905; Ph.D. 1910.
Married: Miriam Shoe, Grafton, Mass., Sept. 3, 1914.
Children: Eunice, Sept. 8, 1915.
Business: Teacher.
Address:  (home) 108 Linden Ave, Ithaca, N.Y. (business) 260 Goldwin Smith Hall, Ithaca, N.Y.

My contribution for the war was the preparation of a special report for Colonel House’s committee.

Publications: “The Technique of Medieval and Modern Produce Markets.” Journal of Political Economy, xxiii, p. 365, 1915. “Germanic Statecraft and Democracy.” Unpopular Review, vol. iv, p. 27, 1915. “Generalizations in Economic History.” Journal of Sociology, vol. xxii, p. 474, 1916. “Influence of Speculative Marketing on Prices.” Economic Review, vol. vi, p. 49, 1916. “England’s Place in the Sun.” Unpopular Review, vol. vi, p. 311, 1916. “The Parisian Bill Market in the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of Political Economy, vol. xxiv, p. 985, 1916. “The Government, the Speculators and the Food Supply.” Cornell Countryman, vol. xiv, p. 726, 1917. “The Content of the Value Concept.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. xxxi, p. 711, 1917. “The Unions and the Labor Problem.” Unpopular Review, vol. viii, p. 168, 1917. “Science and Learning in France.” Chicago: Society for American Fellowships in French Universities, 1917, p. 287-290.

[Reviews of] “Customary Acres and Their Historical Importance,” by F. Seebohm. American Acad. of Polit. and Social Science, lvii, p. 342, 1915. “Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History”; edited by P. Vinogeradoff. Vol. iv. Same, lvii, p. 343, 1915. “History of Commerce and Industry,” by C.A. Herrick. American Economic Review, vol. viii, p. 101, 1918.

Member: Ithaca Country Club.

Source:  Harvard College Class of 1904. Fifteenth Anniversary Report (1919), pp. 408-9.

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Announcement of Usher joining Harvard Faculty in 1922 as Assistant Professor in economics

Abbott Payson Usher ’04, Professor of Economics at Boston University, has accepted an appointment at the University as Assistant professor of Economics and tutor in the Division of History, Government, and Economics.

Professor Usher took the degree of A.M. at the University in 1905, served as assistant and instructor in Economics until 1910, and in the latter year took the higher degree of Ph.D. For the next ten years he taught at Cornell, first as instructor in Economics and later as Assistant Professor. In 1920 he has called to Boston University as a full Professor and this year he is serving also as lecturer in Economics at Harvard.

Source: The Harvard Crimson, June 10, 1922 .

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Course Description
1929-30

[Economics] 10a 1hf. The History of Commerce, 1450-1750

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 12. Associate Professor Usher.

A study of the expansion of Europe approached as a consequence of the great discoveries. The age of discovery is studied with special regard to the influence of improvements in the technique of ship-building and navigation. Changes in the physical volume of commerce and consumption will be studied by quantitative methods. The commercial policies and colonial systems of the leading countries will be studied.

Source:  Division of History, Government and Economics, 1929-30. Official Register of Harvard University, vol. 26, No. 36 (June 27, 1929), p. 70.

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Course Enrollment
1929-30

[Economics] 10a1hf. Associate Professor Usher.—History of Commerce, 1450-1750.

Total 5:  4 Graduates, 1 Junior, 2 Others.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1929-30, p. 78.

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Course Readings

Economics 10a.
1929-30
History of commerce: 1450-1750.

  1. The great discoveries. To be completed, Oct. 21.

Beazley, C.R. Prince Henry the Navigator, pp. 1-123, 138-46, 160-78.
Olivera Martins, J.P. The golden age of Prince Henry the Navigator, pp. 61-84, 169-231.
Nunn, G.E. The geographical conceptions of Columbus, pp. 31-53.
Vignaud, H. Toscanelli and Columbus, pp. 52-74, 243-73.

  1. Portugal, Spain, and Holland. To be completed, Nov. 15.

Whiteway, R.S. The rise of Portugese power in India, pp. 1-57, 128-79.
Haring, C.H. Trade and navigation between Spain and the Indies, pp. 3-45, 96-200.
Day, C. The policy and administration of the Dutch in Java, pp. 39-82.
Moreland, W.H. From Akbar to Arungzeb. pp. 1-188.

  1. England and France. To be completed, Dec. 23

Thomas, P.J. Mercantilism and the East India Company. pp. 1-47, 67-166.
Scott, W.R. The history of the Joint Stock companies, vol. I, pp. 1-15, 105-28, 326-52, 439-73.
Unwin, George. Studies in economic history, pp. 133-220.
Weber, Max. General economic history, pp. 275-301, 315-51. pp. 275-301, 315-51.

  1. Reading period.

Lyall, A. History of British India, chapters 2-11.
or
Dodwell, Henry Dupleix and Clive. pp. 3-269.

 

Source:Harvard University Archives.Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1929-1930”.

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Final Examination, 1930

1929-30
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 10a1

Answer SIX questions.

  1. Sketch the history of geographical science from the death of Prince Henry the Navigator to the death of Mercator.
  2. Describe the place of the “Mesta” in the economic life of Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
  3. What were the distinctive features of Dutch colonial policy in Java?
  4. Describe and discuss the status and obligations of the natives to the government and to the Spanish settlers in the Spanish possessions in the New World in the sixteenth century.
  5. Sketch the development of the free trade policy in England in the seventeenth century, with special reference to the relation of the arguments of the Free Traders to analysis of international trade.
  6. What were the characteristic differences between the Regulated Company and the Corporation?
  7. What influence was exerted upon economic policy by Machiavelli’s treatise “The Prince”?
  8. Sketch the career of Dupleix or Clive.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers—Finals, 1930(vol. 72). Papers Printed for Final Examinations, History, New Testament,…Economics, …,Military Science, Naval Science (January-June, 1930).

Image Source: Harvard Class Album, 1934.

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Columbia Economic History Economists Germany Illinois Indiana Princeton

Halle (Germany). 1897 economics PhD alumnus and later Illinois professor, Ernest L. Bogart

 

Today’s post provides some biographical information about the American economic historian and long-time University of Illinois economics professor, Ernest L. Bogart. I might have begun my search beginning from the fact that Bogart was the 1931 President of the American Economic Association, but no, I stumbled across his name during an examination of the Columbia University Quarterly of March, 1899 where I read “Mr. E. L. Bogart, graduate student in 1897-98, has been appointed Professor of Political Economy at Indiana University”.  I could find no record of Bogart actually completing a degree at Columbia, so I slipped on my gum shoes and proceeded to do a background check. It wasn’t hard and again found an example of an economist who had lived a very successful academic life but has become dependent on the helping hand of a historian of economics to be dusted off, properly preserved, and displayed in a collection of artifacts. 

Ernest L. Bogart began his academic life as a Princeton man (A.B., 1890; A.M.,1896) and went on to the Johannes Conrad Seminar in Halle Germany to write a doctoral dissertation published as Die Finanzverhältnisse der Einzelstaaten der Nordamerikanischen Union [in Sammlung nationalökonomischer und statistischer Abhandlungen des staatswissenschaftlichen Seminars zu Halle a.d.S. herausgegeben von Johannes Conrad. Vol. 14. Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1897]. He passed through Columbia University for one year in what we would today call a post-doc, then on to appointments at Smith College (probably filling in for Henry L. Moore on leave), then University of Indiana, Oberlin College, back to Princeton, and then to the University of Illinois in 1909.

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MEET THE FACULTY: ERNEST L. BOGART

After serving the University and his country—and even acting in an international capacity—for nearly a third of a century, Ernest L. Bogart, head of the department of economics from 1920 until the beginning of the current school year, and now professor of economics, emeritus, has retired, and, with Mrs. Bogart, is residing temporarily in New York City.

Mr. Bogart, whose notable, writings in the field of economics, are numerous and whose service to the nation has been wide and varied, assisted the Persian government in 1922-23. He was adviser on banking and currency to that Government and is credited with having aided materially in Persian monetary matters.

Born March 16, 1870 in Yonkers, N.Y., Mr. Bogart received his A.B. degree in 1890 and his A.M. degree in 1896, both from Princeton University. In 1897 he obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Halle, German.

Two years as an assistant professor of economic and social science at Indiana University were followed by five years service—1900-05—at Oberlin College. He then returned to his alma mater and for four years was assistant professor of economics. In 1909, he came to the University as professor of economics, a position he held until this year.

In addition to his service here, Mr. Bogart was professor of banking and finance, Georgetown School of Foreign Service, 1919-20, professor of economics, Claremont College, 1929-30 professor of economics during the summer sessions at Columbia University, University of California, University of Texas, and Southern California.

Mr. Bogart’s government service includes membership on the committee of public information, 1918, in charge of commodity studies bureau of research, War Trade Board, 1918, regional economist, foreign trade advisor, State Department, 1919-20, advisory committee, National Economic League since 1920, delegate of State Department to convention of foreign trade council, 1920, advisory committee, Stable Money Association since 1924, committee on monetary policy of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, 1933, government’s commission on unemployment, 1933, and economists’ national monetary commission since 1934.

The economist is a member of the National Park Association, Econometric Society (British), Foreign Policy Association, Persian-American Association, American Economic Association, Phi Beta Kappa, Beta Gamma Sigma, Delta Sigma Pi, and Phi Kappa Epsilon.

Source: From the Daily Illini, November 29, 1938, p. 3. Transcription also found at: University of Illinois. Conference on Iran’s Economy, December 11-13, 2008.

Image Source: Ernest L. Bogart, Historical faculty, department of economics, University of Illinois.

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Economic History Exam Questions Harvard Yale

Harvard. Final Examination, U.S. Economic History. Callender, 1899-1900

 

This post is a cross between “get to know an economics Ph.D. alumnus (Harvard)” and a deposit into the data bank of old exams. For three years at the end of the 19th century Guy Stevens Callender taught U.S. economic history at Harvard where he received a Ph.D. in 1897.  He ultimately went on to a professorship at Yale. One of the connections that I discovered in preparing the post is that Guy Stevens Callender and John R. Commons were undergraduate classmates at Oberlin.

For an article about Callender’s contributions:

Engelbourg, Saul. Guy Stevens Callender: A Founding Father of American Economic History. Explorations in Economic History. Vol. 9, 1971-72, pp. 255-267.

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Biographical note:

Guy Stevens Callender was born on 9 November 1865 in Hartsgrove, Ohio, the son of Robert Foster Callender and Lois Winslow Callender.  The family moved from Massachusetts to the Western Reserve when Callender was a child.  At an early age he demonstrated that he had an active mind, intellectual curiosity, and a strong physical constitution; these attributes, along with his being an avid reader of books, led him at the age of fifteen to teach in the district schools of Ashtabula County.  Using his savings from several winters of teaching and his summer earnings made working on the family farm, Callender succeeded in paying for college preparatory courses at New Lyme Institute, South New Lyme, Ohio.

In 1886, at the age of twenty-one, Callender enrolled at Oberlin College where he took the classical course.  There he was influenced by James Monroe, professor of political science and modern history, who taught courses in political economy and sponsored Callender’s volunteer work in the Political Economy Club.  Callender also was an active participant in extracurricular organizations, including the Oberlin Glee Club, Oratorical Association, Phi Delta Society, The Review (student newspaper), and the Traveling Men’s Association.  In these groups, some of Callender’s affinity for leadership and exactness became evident (i.e., service as the financial manager and secretary).  He graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in June, 1891, counting among his classmates John R. Commons and Robert A. Millikan.

After a year spent traveling and working in the business departments of newspapers in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Chicago, enrolled (1892) for graduate study at Harvard University from which he received a B.A. (1893), an M.A. (1894), and a Ph.D. in political science (1897).  During his graduate studies at Harvard he served for some time as instructor in economics at Wellesley College, and he was considered an “outstanding man among our graduate students” by Frank W. Taussig and other members of the teaching faculty.  Following the award of his Ph.D., Callender held an appointment as instructor in economics at Harvard from 1897 to 1900.  There he conducted a course in American economic history, which he personally created.  In 1900 he was appointed professor of political economy at Bowdoin College; in 1903 he accepted an appointment as professor in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, where he continued to teach and engage in scholarly research until 1915.  He also served as a member of the Governing Board of the Sheffield Scientific School. In 1904 Callender married Harriet Belle Rice; they had one son (Everett, b. 1905).

Callender published his only book, Selections from the Economic History of the United States, 1765-1860 in 1909.  In it he revealed his entire theory of the progress of the United States from the beginning of colonization until the Civil War.  Callender’s most important contributions are to be found in his condensed, precisely written introductory essays that precede each chapter. His article “The Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises of the States in Relation to the Growth of Corporations,” in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (November 1902) was also well recognized and consulted by scholars.

Callender was as a member of the American Historical Association and the American Economic Association, and he was a frequent contributor as a book reviewer, essayist, and speaker.  Callender’s contribution to scholarship is probably best summed up in his “The Position of American Economic History,” American Historical Review 19 (October, 1913).  Therein he argued that American economic history should “be pursued as a separate subject of study” and that economic historians must be prepared to interpret facts.  For Callender economic history was more than the chronological recital of events of commercial and industrial significance.  He sought historical explanations by applying the principles of economic science to the economic and social development of communities.  His published studies included an analysis of the part played by economic factors in the adoption of the Federal Constitution and in the debate over the economic basis of slavery in the South.

Prior to his death, Callender worked on several writing projects, including a comprehensive, multivolume economic history of the United States, but poor health prohibited him from completing this project.  Another work in progress was a critical essay of Arthur Young’s Political Essays Concerning the British Empire (1772), which focused on the history of British colonies in America.  Until then, Young’s essays had not been generally appreciated or known by American scholars.  Callender was also at work on an introduction for a new edition in two volumes of American Husbandry, which was first published in London in 1775.  Callender’s review of Cyclopedia of American Government (edited by A.S. McLaughlin and Albert Bushnell Hart) appeared in the Yale Reviewshortly after his death.  According to commentator Co Wo Mixter, this highly critical review showed “in a marked degree the range, vitality and acuteness of his thinking” (Yale Alumni Weekly, Oct. 1, 1915, p. 48).

Callender was the recipient of numerous awards and honors.  In 1907 Yale University awarded him an honorary M.A.  Two months before his death the Oberlin College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa elected him to membership.  Upon Callender’s death from a cerebral hemorrhage in Branford, Connecticut, on 8 August 1915, members of the Oberlin College Class of 1891 purchased from his widow his library of some 2500 volumes and gave it to the institution in his memory.  The Class raised additional funds to purchase other titles on economic history, thus rounding out and completing the collection.  A small amount of money was also set aside as an ongoing fund to keep the collection up-to-date.  Callender’s gift to the College Library, established by his graduating class, set an Oberlin precedent.

Source:  Oberlin College Archives.  Guy Stevens Callender Papers, 1820-1870.

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Course Enrollment
1899-1900

[Economics] 6. Dr. [Guy Stevens] Callender.—The Economic History of the United States. Lectures (2 hours); discussions of assigned topics (1 hour); 2 theses.

Total: 163.  11 Graduates, 64 Seniors, 58 Juniors, 19 Sophomores, 11 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Annual report of the President of Harvard College 1899-1900, p. 69.

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Course Description
1897-98

[Economics] 6. The Economic History of the United States. Tu., Th., at 2.30, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructors. Mr. Callender.

Course 6 gives a general survey of the economic history of the United States from the formation of the Union to the present time, and considers also the mode in which economic principles are illustrated by the experience so surveyed. A review is made of the financial history of the United States, including Hamilton’s financial system, the second bank of the United States and the banking systems of the period preceding the Civil War, coinage history, the finances of the Civil War, and the banking and currency history of the period since the Civil War. The history of manufacturing industries is taken up in connection with the course of international trade and of tariff legislation, the successive tariffs being followed and their economic effects considered. The land policy of the United States is examined partly in its relation to the growth of population and the inflow of immigrants, and partly in its relation to the history of transportation, including the movement for internal improvements, the beginnings of the railway system, the land grants and subsidies, and the successive bursts of activity in railway building. Comparison will be made from time to time with the contemporary economic history of European countries.

Written work will be required of all students, and a course of reading will be prescribed, and tested by examination. The course is taken advantageously with or after History 13. While an acquaintance with economic principles is not indispensable, students are strongly advised to take the course after having taken Economics 1, or, if this be not easy to arrange, at the same time with that course.

 

Source: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98.  pp. 32-33.

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1899-1900
ECONOMICS 6
[Final examination, 1900]

  1. Into what periods may the economic history of the United States be properly divided? Give your reasons for making such a division, pointing out the chief characteristic of each periods.
  2. “A monopoly may be either legal, natural, or industrial.”—
    Distinguish each of these from the others by examples, and explain at length what is the character of an “industrial monopoly.”
  3. What legislation, if any, do you think is needed for the control of trusts? Give in full the reasons for your opinion.
  4. What features of American railway legislation do you consider open to criticism?
  5. “…As has been pointed out in the preceding chapter, cotton culture offered many and great advantages over other crops for the use of slave labor; but slavery had few, if any advantages over free labor for the cultivation of cotton….”—
    (a) Point out some of the advantages of cotton over other crops for the use of slave labor. (b) How do you reconcile the last part of the statement with the fact that cotton was produced chiefly by slave, instead of free, labor?
  6. Considering the conditions prevailing among the negroes in the South as well as in the West Indies since emancipation, what criticism, if any, would you make upon the policy of emancipation as actually carried out by the federal government during and after the war?
  7. What influences can you mention which have contributed to the recent depressed condition of cotton producers? (Do not confine your attention to the “credit system.”)
  8. What were the principal provisions of the resumption act? Explain the conditions under which it was carried into effect.
  9. Explain the conditions which led to the crisis or 1893.
  10. What reasons can you give to support the proposition that immigration has increased the population of the United States but little, if any?

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives.  Harvard University. Final examinations, 1853-2001.Box 2, Folder “Final examinations, 1899-1900”.

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Economic History Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Readings and Examination Questions for Economic History Since 1860. Cole, 1936-37

 

The economic historian, Arthur Harrison Cole, is best known as having been the Librarian of the Business School’s Baker Library and also the executive director of the Research Center in Entrepreneurial History at the Business School. This post provides the reading list and examination questions for the undergraduate economic history course he taught at Harvard in the first semester of the 1936-37 academic year. The post begins with the biographical note provided at the Harvard Business School Archives where Arthur H. Cole’s papers are located.

Arthur Harrison Cole’s doctoral examination fields can be found at this post. His dissertation is included in this list of Harvard economics Ph.D.’s through 1926.

His obituary in the Harvard President’s annual report has also been previously posted.

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Arthur Harrison Cole (1889-1974)
Biographical Note

Arthur Harrison Cole was born November 21, 1889 in Haverhill, MA. He attended Governor Dummer Academy (1904-1907) and graduated from Bowdin College with a BA (1911). He received his MA (1913) and PhD (1916) in economics from Harvard University. After completing his dissertation, Cole tutored and taught economics at Harvard. He rose from instructor (1916-1917, 1920-1923) to assistant professor (1923-1928) to associate professor (1928-1933). In addition to his academic work, Professor Cole worked in the War Department and the U. S. Tariff Commission from 1917-1920. In 1933, he became Professor of Business Economics at Harvard Business School.

In 1929, Arthur Cole was appointed financial supervisor of the International Scientific Committee on Price History. Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, which supported the study of social and economic problems, the Committee researched commodity prices of leading European countries and the United States prior to 1861. The Rockefeller Foundation eventually spent $325,000 for this study and allowed Cole the administrative freedom to dispense the funds to Committee members.

Under the presidency of Sir [later Lord] William Beveridge, the Committee reached a consensus on methodology in 1931 after meeting in London (1930), Frankfort (1930), and Amsterdam (1931). Thereafter, economists on the Committee from England, Germany, France, Austria, Poland, Spain, and the United States proceeded to investigate prices in their respective countries. Meetings in Aix-en-Provence (1932), Vienna (1932) and Locarno (1933) allowed the members to gather periodically to discuss various problems of investigation and methods.

In addition to serving in an administrative capacity for the International Scientific Committee on Price History, Arthur Cole wrote one of the volumes of price history for the United States, Wholesale Commodity Prices in the United States, 1700-1860 (1938). The other two volumes of price history for the United States were Prices in Colonial Pennsylvania by Bezanson, Gray and Hussey (1935) and Wholesale Prices for 213 Years, 1720-1932 by Warren, Pearson and Stoker (1932). Publication of the price histories were suspended during World War II, but resumed after the end of hostilities.

Arthur Cole assumed the dual role of economic historian and library administrator throughout his long professional career. As Administrative Curator of Baker Library (1929-1932) and later, Librarian of Baker Library (1932-1956), Cole’s pioneering efforts in collecting and preserving historically significant business records led to the accumulation of one of the finest collections on the subject in the world. In addition, his influence as an economic historian continued long after he left the classroom. Cole remained an integral part of the scholarly community as Managing Editor of the Review of Economic Statistics (1935-1937), Chairman of Inter-University Research Commission on Economic History (1941-1958), Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic History (1943-1946), and Executive Director, Research Center in Entrepreneurial History (1948-1958). He retired to emeritus status from Harvard Business School in 1956.

Arthur Cole married the former Anne Steckel of Pennsylvania on August 5, 1913 and they had two children: Barbara and Jonathan. He died November 10, 1974.

 

Source: Arthur Harrison Cole Papers. Harvard Business School Archives. Baker Library Historical Collections. Harvard Business School. Accessed July 22, 2018.

___________________________

Course Enrollment

34 1hf. (formerly 2a). Professor A. H. Cole.—Economic History Since 1860.

Total, 20: 7  Seniors, 5 Juniors, 7 Sophomores, 1 Other.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1936-37, p. 92.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 34
Reading Assignments—1936-37

Industrial Development

  1. Usher, A. P., Industrial History of England, pp. 1-23, 247-366.
  2. Clark, V. C., History of Manufactures in the United States, pp. 233-314, 335-63.
  3. Roe, J. W., English and American Tool Builders, pp. 109-72.

Transportation Improvement

  1. Kirkaldy, A. W., British Shipping: its History, Organization, and Importance, pp. 3-92, 151-73, 307-47.
  2. (a)

Usher, A. P., Industrial History of England, pp. 431-67.
Clapham, J. H., Economic History of Modern Britain, I, pp. 75-97, 381-412.
Clapham, J. H., Economic Development of France and Germany, pp. 104-13, 140-55, 339-54.

or

  1. (b)

Kirkland, E. C., History of American Economic Life, pp. 257-301, 370-419.
Schmidt, L. B. and E. D. Ross, Readings in the Economic History of American Agriculture, pp. 127-30, 173-270.

Commercial Policy

  1. (a)

Barnes, D. G., History of the English Corn Laws, pp. 239-84.
Ashley, P., Modern Tariff History, pp. 3-63, 323-87.

or

  1. (b)

Hill, W., First Stages of the Tariff Policy of the United States, pp. 38-93.
Taussig, F. W., Tariff History of the United States, pp. 68-154.

Banking and Credit

  1. (a)

Andreades, A., History of the Bank of England, pp. 248-94.
King, W.T.C., History of the London Discount Market, pp. 1-169.
Bagehot, W., Lombard Street, Chaps. VII and IX. (1910 ed., pp. 162-209, 283-302.)

or

  1. (b)

Conant, C. A., History of Modern Banks of Issue, pp. 334-95.
Myers, M.G., The New York Money Market, pp. 3-9, 43-209.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950, Box 23, Folder “Course Outlines 1935-37-38-42”.

___________________________

Reading Period (January 4-20, 1937) Assignment
Economics 34:

Read 200 pages in one of the following books:

Ernle, Lord, English Farming, Past and Present, Chs. 7-19 (inclusive).

Levy, H., Monopolies, Cartels, and Trusts in British Industry, Chs. 5-8, 9.

Webb, S. and B., History of Trade Unionism.

Phillips, U. B., American Negro Slavery, Chs. 8-19 (inclusive).

Hibbard, B. H., History of the Public Land Policies.

Seager, H. R., and Gulick, C. A., Jr., Trust and Corporation Problems, Chs. 5, 7-16, 24-26.

Sprague, O. M. W., Crises under the National Banking System.

Commons, J. R., and associates, History of Labour in the United States.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003(HUC 8522.2.1), Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1936-1937”.

___________________________

FINAL EXAMINATION, 1936-37
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 341

I
(About one hour)

  1. Write an essay upon some subject suggested by your reading-period assignment, or upon the changes in ocean shipping, 1760-1870.

 

II.
(About two hours)

Answer four questions

  1. “Those who would set apart certain decades in the economic development of a country as the period of that country’s ‘industrial revolution’ and who conceive the changes therein contained in terms of inventions, commit two grievous errors. The setting-apart of these periods is spurious, while, in so far as there were developments of note, those in industrial technique were not the decisive ones for segregation.” Do you agree? If so, why? If not, why not?
  2. Take one of the following:

(a) Trace the course of tariff change in England in the period 1815-60. What forces were chiefly responsible for the reformation of the tariff accomplished in these decades?

(b) Trace briefly the development of protectionist thought in the United States in the pre-Civil-War period.

  1. What phases of railroad development on the continent of Europe before 1880 contrast most sharply with the roughly contemporaneous experiences of England and the United States in the same field? Illustrate your points.
  2. What were the outstanding characteristics of the London or New York money market at approximately 1860? How do you account for the emergence of this city as the financial center of England or the United States? (Consider one country only.)
  3. Identify and indicate the significance in economic history of five of the following: (a) Eli Whitney; (b) Brunel; (c) Chevalier; (d) Friedrich List; (e) the Scholfields; (f) Sir Henry Bessemer; (g) Nicholas Biddle.
  4. “Economic independence did not accompany political independence for the United States. The one unifying thread in American economic history for the greater part of the nineteenth century—in commerce, finance, opening the continent, etc.—is action relative to Europe, especially England, and dependence upon these foreign areas.” Do you agree? Why or why not? If on the whole you agree, you should support your views by enlargement of the above contentions (though you may also indicate limitations to the validity of these statements, if you care to); while if on the whole you disagree, you may develop another “unifying thread”—although that course is not essential.

Final. 1937.

 

Source:Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, Finals (HUC 700028, vol. 79). Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History, History of Religions, …, Economics,…Military Science, Naval Science. January—June, 1937.

Image Source: Harvard Business School Yearbook 1930-1931, p. 39.

 

 

 

Categories
Cornell Economic History Gender Harvard Home Economics

Cornell. Home Economics. Radcliffe economic history A.M. (1913), Blanche Hazard

 

Having returned from a trip to the U.S. that included participation at the History of Economics Society 2018 meeting in Chicago, I have gone now two weeks without posting. It is easy to explain away the first ten days that actually involved Michigan road-tripping followed by conferencing with colleagues when the opportunity cost of blogging exceeded the joy of welcoming visitors to the latest artifacts posted at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. The last several days have been more a matter of jet-lag recovery and of overcoming the inertia associated with this extended pause from an almost unbroken three year rhythm of select, transcribe, post and tweet. OK, an intertemporally-savvy blogger would have gradually built up an inventory of artifacts and maintained an uninterrupted flow, but that is not, alas, the way this scholar rolls.

This post ventures into the neighboring field of home economics, in particular, to touch upon the brief career of Cornell’s first professor of woman’s studies, Blanche Evans Hazard (1873-1966) who was trained as an economic historian at Radcliffe/Harvard, A.M. awarded by Radcliffe (1913). She lectured on her dissertation topic: “The Organization of the Boot and Shoe Industry in Massachusetts in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century” at the March 18, 1912 of the seminary in economics. Her economics professors included Thomas Nixon Carver and Edwin Francis Gay.While she did not complete the final examination for the Ph.D., her dissertation was published by Harvard University Press. Here a link to texts by Hazard at archive.org.

_______________________

Blanche Hazard, brief biography

Blanche Hazard came to Cornell in 1914 as an assistant professor of home economics, with a special responsibility to develop courses on the history of women and women’s work. After spending two years at Thayer Academy and two years at Radcliffe College, Hazard taught history in both public and private schools, and was head of the Department of History at Rhode Island Normal School from 1899 to 1904. During this period, she was also an officer of the New England Association of Teachers of History in Colleges and Secondary Schools. She became well-known for her lectures at teachers’ conventions on historical methods, as well as for her collaboration with Harvard’s Albert B. Hart on a book about children in the Colonial Era. In 1904, Hazard returned to Radcliffe, where she earned a B.A. in 1907 with first honors in history and government. In 1913, she completed a Ph.D.  at Harvard in history [sic, A.M., according to Earle (see below) who found that Hazard never actually completed the final examination for the Ph.D. though she did in fact complete and publish her dissertation]; her dissertation, The Organization of The Boot and Shoe Industry in Massachusetts Before 1875 (1921), was the first book written by a woman published by Harvard University Press. At Cornell, Hazard and Martha Van Rensselaer collaborated in creating an early version of women’s studies. Hazard taught courses on “Women in Industry,” “Women in the State,” and “History of Housekeeping.” She also wrote a number of pamphlets for the Farmers’ Wives Reading Course, including Civic Duties of Women (1918), which was widely used and reprinted as women prepared to exercise their suffrage. When she left Cornell in 1922 to return to New England and marry, Hazard was a full professor of home economics.

 

Image Source:   From the webpage of the History Center in Tompikins County, Ithaca, N.Y. announcing the March 3, 2018 lecture by Corey Ryan Earle, “Blanche hazard: Pioneering Local Suffragist & Women’s Studies Education”.

Source: Cornell University Library, Division of Rare & Manuscript Collection’s website: From Domesticity to Modernity, What was Home Economics (2001). Webpage: Faculty Biographies: Blanche Hazard.

_______________________

Blanche Hazard, longer biography

See the paper written by Corey Ryan Earle, “An Overlooked Pioneer: Blanche Evans Hazard, Cornell University’s First Professor of Women’s Studies, 1914-1922” that provides much detail, though unable to explain Hazard’s marriage and her withdrawal from academic life. The paper was written during the summer of 2006 when the author was supported by a Dean’s Fellowship in the History of Home Economics by the College of Human Ecology of Cornell University.

_______________________

Image Source: Faculty of Home Economics at Cornell. Cornell University Library, Division of Rare & Manuscript Collection’s website: From Domesticity to Modernity, What was Home Economics (2001). Webpage: Early Faculty Biographies. Note: second row, leftmost is Blanche Hazard.

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions Syllabus Yale

Yale. American Economic History. Topics and final exam. Parker and Joskow, 1972

 

If my extremely fuzzy recollection of the graduate course in American economic history taught at Yale in the spring semester of 1972 by William Parker and Paul Joskow is to be trusted, many if not most of the readings came from these two texts:

  • American Economic Growth: An Economist’s History of the United States, Lance E. Davis, Richard A. Easterlin and William N. Parker (editors). New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
  • Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman (eds.). The Reinterpretation of American History. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

The topical outline and final examination questions for the course are transcribed below. 

One of the graduate students taking the course was the brilliant Willem Buiter who left a deep impression (that was probably reinforced and made permanent by Robert Solow having taught the Cowles Foundation Discussion paper by Tobin and Buiter (1974) to my cohort at M.I.T.). 

Careful readers will note the distinctly Yale custom of not displaying academic rank. We addressed our professors with Mr./Miss/Mrs./Ms. [it was a transition time for gender honorifics].

William Parker had a well-honed wit. His Adam-Smith inspired lyrics to the tune of the evergreen spiritual “Rock of Ages” has been posted earlier here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

________________

Economics 133b—American Economic History
Spring 1972

Mr. Parker
Mr. Joskow

Schedule of Topics

  1. Establishing the National Economy
    1. The colonial economy.
    2. Problems of colonial and early national policy
    3. Regional economies to the Civil War
  2. Natural Sources of National Wealth
    1. Relations between Resources and Technology
    2. Population Growth and Organization of Labor Force
  3. The Process of Extensive Expansion
    1. Westward Movement and Agrarian Expansion
    2. Extension of Transportation and its Effects
  4. The Growth of Manufactures
    1. Expansion and Transformation of Light Industries
    2. Heavy Industry: Shifts in Location and Scale
  5. Economic Organization within the Market Economy
    1. Money, Finance and Controls over Investment
    2. The U.S. in the International Economy
    3. Economic Fluctuations through the Great Depression
  6. Non-market Organization and Controls
    1. Large Organizations in the American Economy
    2. Political Issues and Public Policies

 

Economics 133b
Final Examination
May 17, 1972

Take any three questions including at least one from each Part of the examination.

I.

  1. Trace the major developments in the economic history of one of the three major regions of the United States from 1750 through the 1830’s.
  2. What problems appear in measuring the economic growth of the United States before 1860? Distinguish between problems of source materials and problems of definition and concepts. What do the data most probably show about the growth rate between 1800 and 1850?
  3. The major sources of growth of agricultural productivity are: (1) Westward movement to new lands, (2) regional specialization deriving from market growth and transport improvements, (3) technical change. Discuss the influence of any one of these sources on agricultural productivity in 19thCentury United States.
  4. “Government policy toward the economy before 1860 was not controlled by the philosophical issue of laissez-faire vs. intervention, but by the political issue of federal-state relations.” Discuss with reference to specific policy areas (land policy, banking, tariffs, public works, etc.)
  5. Slavery and cotton go together in the sense that neither could have flourished in the South without the other. Do you agree? Explain.
  6. “The relative scarcity of labor in the American economy in the first half of the 19thCentury gave a labor-saving bias to the technology invented and introduced in that period.
    Analyze and discuss this statement, giving specific examples.

II.

  1. “The efficiency of a monetary and banking system can be judged by several criteria, notably: (1) elimination of the risk of individual losses, (2) variety of monetary and credit instruments available to supply individual preferences with respect to wealth holding, (3) effects on the volume of investment, (4) effects on the trend of prices and the stability of such a trend.
    Evaluate the American monetary and banking institutions with respect to these criteria over some 25-30 period in American history.
  2. What do you consider to be the main factors causing the increase in scale of firm in manufacturing industry between 1840 and 1890?
  3. Describe the major changes in the evolution of the balance of payments of the United States between colonial times and 1929. Do you think that phases in the growth process in the United States can be dated from turning points in the relation of the various items in the balance to one another.
  4. “The railroad is the mother of trusts.” Explain. Is this true for the United States?
  5. “Large organizations developed not just in manufactures, but in all sections of American economic life after 1880. The phenomenon therefore cannot be simply derived from the economies of large scale manufacture and the technological changes which produced them.” Do you agree? Discuss with specific reference to one industry and to one type of non-industrial organization (Labor, government, politics etc.)
  6. Increased government regulation of the economy between 1887 and 1914 was a response to the concerns of progressive elements in the country regarding the increasing concentration of American industry. Discuss the validity of this statement by looking at the causes and effects of several attempts by the federal government to regulate industrial structures or practices.

 

Source:  Irwin Collier, personal papers.

Image Source: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 151, No. 2, June 2007.

Categories
Economic History Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Economic History to 1450. Readings and paper topics, Usher. 1934

 

What is nice about this particular economic history reading list is that it is not an extended bibliography but actually quite limited and specific, thereby giving us a better sense of the actual course content. The reading list had 1933-34 crossed out in the heading and 1934-35 penciled in. Note as of 1933-34, the Harvard course numbering was changed from Economics 23 to Economics 21.

_________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 21 1hf. Associate Professor Usher.—Economic History to 1450.

Total 4:  2 Gr., 2 Se.

Source:Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College for 1934-1935, p. 82.

_________________

Course Description [1932-33]

[Economics] 23 1hf. Economic History to 1450
Half-course (first half-year). Two hours each week, to be arranged. Associate Professor Usher.

The purpose of the course is to afford opportunity for careful study of the more important episodes in the period under survey. Attention will be concentrated upon the following problems: the economic aspects of the period extending from the accession of Constantine to the death of Charlemagne; the economic institutions and social conditions in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with emphasis upon Italy and France.

 

Source:  Division of History, Government, and Economics 1932-33in Official Register of Harvard University,Vol. 29, No. 32 (June 27, 1932) p. 78.

_________________

Economics 21.
1934-35

Required reading.

  1. The early Christian period, to be completed Oct 27.

Usher, A. P. History of population and settlement in Eurasia, Geographical Review, vol. XX, pp. 110-132.
Usher, A.P. Industrial History of England, pp. 1-52.
Usher, A. P. History of Mechanical Inventions, pp. 1-31, 66-120.
Pirenne, H. Medieval Cities, pp. 1-108.
Poissonade, P. Life and labour in medieval Europe, pp. 1-61, 102-118.
Lewinsky, The origin of property in land, pp. 1-71.

 

  1. The middle ages, to be completed Dec. 22

Boissonade, P. Life and labour in medieval Europe, pp. 132-149, 159-225, 239-263, 286-315.
Vinogradoff, P., Villeinage in England, pp. 43-88, 223-277.
Pirenne, H. Belgian democracy and its early history, pp. 1-54, 76-107.
Usher, A.P. Industrial history of England, pp. 52-86, 165-191.
Usher, A.P. History of mechanical inventions, pp. 121-200.
Gras, N.S.B. Evolution of the English Corn Market, pp. 3-64.
Thompson, J.W. The Economic and Social History of the Middle Ages, pp. 565-602.
Power, E. and Postan, M.M. English trade in the fifteenth century, pp. 247-292.
Thompson, J.W. The Economic History of the Later Middle Ages, pp. 431-461.
Holdsworth, W.S. History of English Law, vol. VIII, pp. 99-205, 222-229.
Usher, A.P. Deposit banking in Barcelona, Journal of Economic and Business History, vol. IV. pp. 121-155.
[in pencil added “or Usher. Origins of Banking: the primitive bank of deposit” (1200-1600)]

 

Reading period.

Two hundred pages from any title not used by the student for the essay.

Dill, S. Roman society in the last century of the western Empire.
Dill, S. Roman society in Gaul in the Merovingian period.
Rostovtzeff, M. Social and economic history of the Roman Empire.
Yule, H. Cathay and the way thither.
Vinogradoff, P, The growth of the Manor.
Unwin, G. The gilds and companies of London.
Anderson, Romola C. The sailing ship.
Burns, A.R. Money and monetary policy in early times.

 

Economics 21
Topics for Essays

An essay of about 2000 words will be due Dec 22 on one of the following topics, or by special arrangement upon some subject suggested by the student. (About 300 pages of reading is assumed.)

  1. The development of the colonate under the Roman Empire

Pelham, H.F. The imperial domains and the colonate.
Gras, N.S.B. A history of agriculture.
Clausing, R. The Roman colonate.
Rostovstzeff, M. Studien zur Geschichte des Römischen Kolonates.

  1. Ausonius and Gregory of Tours: a study of the intellectual life of the late Empire and the Frankish kingdom.

Dalton, Gregory of Tours.
Brehaut, E. Gregory of Tour’s History of the Franks.
Byrne, M.A. Prolegomena to an edition of the works of Ausonius.
White, H.C.E. Ausonius.

  1. Magnates and common people.

Carlyle, T. Past and Present.
The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelonde.
Hone, N.J. The Manor and manorial records.

  1. The origin of property in land.

Lapsley, G.T. The origin of property in land, American Historical Review, VIII, p. 426.
Maine, H. Sumner. Village communities in the East and West.
Vinogradoff, P. The growth of the Manor.

  1. The commerce of Genoa.

Byrne, E.H. Genoese shipping.
_________. Genoese trade with Syria, American Historical Review, XXV, p. 191.
_________. Commercial contracts of Genoese in Syrian trade, Quarterly Journal of Economics, XXXI, p. 128.
Finot, J. Étude historique sur les relations commerciales entre la Flandre et la république de Gênes au moyen âge.
Bent, G.T. Genoa.

  1. Moslem geography and travel from the ninth to the fourteenth centuries.

Wright, J.K. Geographical lore of the time of the Crusades.
Schoy, C. The geography of the Moslems of the middle ages, Geographical Review, XIV, pp. 257-269.
Le Strange, G. Lands of the Eastern Caliphate.
Barbier de Meynard, C. Le Livre des routes et provinces, Journal Asiatique, 1865, pp. 227-295.
Defremery, C. et Sanguinetti, B.R. Les voyages de Ibn Battûta.

  1. The industries and gilds of Florence.

Renard, G. Histoire du travail à Florence.
Doren, A. Entwickelung und Organisation der Florentiner Zünfte im 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts.

  1. The industries and gilds of Douai.

Espinas, G. La vie urbaine de Douai au moyen âge.

  1. The fairs of Champagne and Brie.

Huvelin, P. Essai historique sur les droits des marchés et des foires.
Alengry, C. Les foires de Champagne.
Basserman, Elisabeth. Die Champagner Messen.
Bourquelot, F. Études sur les foires de Champagne, Memoire de l’Académie des Inscriptions et de Belles-Lettres. Paris, 1865.

  1. The English wool trade and its organization.

Power, E. and Postan, M.M. English trade in the 15thcentury.
Jenckes, A.L. The origin, the location and the organization of the staples of England.

  1. European travellers to the Middle and Far East in the 12thand 13thcenturies.

Marco Polo. Travels.
Yule, H. Cathay and the way thither.

  1. Earlier history of the Worshipful Company of the Drapers of London.

Johnson, A.H. The history of the Worshipful Company of the Drapers of London.

 

Source:   Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003.(HUC 8522.2.1) Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1934-35”.

Image Source:  A. P. Usher in Harvard Class Album 1934.

Categories
Chicago Duke Economic History Economists Harvard Northwestern

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus (1929), later Chicago professor, E.J. Hamilton.

 

In an earlier post Economics in the Rear-view Mirror provided the undergraduate and graduate academic transcripts of Earl J. Hamilton, who besides having gone on to a distinguished career as a leading economic historian also served as the editor of the Journal of Political Economy for seven years. For this post I have transcribed c.v.’s from ca. 1948 and from Hamilton’s emeritus years, presumably from the 1970s, but he did live for nearly another two decades.

The previous post was dedicated to a long-time professional colleague and friend, Jacob Marschak, with whom Hamilton had overlapped at the Universidad Internacional (Santander, Spain) during the summer of 1933, and to whom Marschak had written for some advice regarding an application for a possible University of Chicago job.

Earl Hamilton died May 7, 1989. [Find-a-Grave link]

____________________

On Hamilton’s research on economic history

John H. Munro. “Money, Prices, Wages, and ‘Profit Inflation’ in Spain, the Southern Netherlands, and England during the Price Revolution era: ca. 1520-ca. 1650”. História e Economia—Revista Interdisciplinar. Vol. 4, No. 1 (1° semester 2008), pp. 13-71.

John H. Munro’s eh.net review of Hamilton’s American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501-1650 (1934).

See:  Earl J. Hamilton Papers on the Economic History of Spain 1351-1830.

____________________

Hamilton’s unfinished John Law Project

“John Law has attracted the interest of many writers. In the twentieth century two of the most active scholars researching on John Law were Paul Harsin and Earl Hamilton…Hamilton, who devoted some fifty years of his life to Law, never produced his promised biography and left only a couple of short articles on the man he so passionately studied…

Unfortunately, there is little order in the Hamilton papers. It will take the librarians of Duke University, assisted by experts on Law and his System, many years to classify them…As such, Earl and Gladys Hamilton will have left a very rich legacy for future generations of scholars.”

Source:    Antoin E. Murphy, John Law: Economic Theorist and Policy-maker.  Clarendon Press, (1997), especially Chapter 2 “Law’s Writings and his Critics”, pp. 8-13.

____________________

Earl J. Hamilton c.v., ca. 1948

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Chicago 37, Illinois
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

EARL. J. HAMILTON, Professor of Economics, University of Chicago

Previous and Present Positions: Assistant professor of economics, 1927-29, professor, 1929-44, director of graduate study in economics, 1938-44, Duke University; professor of economics, 1944-47, Northwestern University; professor of economics, 1947—, University of Chicago. Delegate for Spain, International Scientific Committee on Price History, 1930-36; lecturer, Universidad Internacional (Santander, Spain), summer, 1933, Colegio de Mexico, summer, 1943; rapporteur, Committee on World Regions, Social Science Research Council, spring, 1943; director of civilian instruction, Army Finance School, 1943-44. Editor of the Journal of Political Economy, August, 1948—.

Degrees: B.S., with Honors, 1920, Mississippi State College; M.A., 1924, University of Texas; Ph.D., 1929, Harvard University.

Affiliations: Economic History Association (Vice-President, 1941-42, Bd. Editors, 1941—); American Association of University Professors; American Historical Association; Economic History Society (Engl.); Corresponding Member, Hispanic Society of America; Fellow, Royal Economic Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Publications: American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501-1650 (1934); Money, Prices, and Wages in Valencia, Aragon, and Navarre, 1351-1500 (1936); War and Prices in Spain, 1651-1800 (1947); El Origen del Capitalismo y Otros Ensayos de Historia Económica (1948). Articles on history of economic thought, economic history, money, and prices.

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archive. Earl J. Hamilton Papers, Box 2, Folder “Correspondence-Misc. 1930’s-1940’s and n.d.”.

____________________

Earl J. Hamilton c.v.
early 1970s[?]

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

1126 East 59thStreet
Chicago, Illinois 60637

 

Earl J. Hamilton

Born at Houlka, Mississippi on May 17, 1899

B.S. with Honors, Mississippi State University 1920
M.A. University of Texas 1924
Ph.D. Harvard University 1929

Docteur Honoris Causa, University of Paris 1952; LL.D. Duke University 1966; Doctor Honoris Causa University of Madrid 1967.

Have held Thayer Fellowship and Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, Harvard University; Social Science Research Council Fellowship; Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship; and Faculty Research Fellowship from the Ford Foundation.

Have spent a total of more than twelve years gathering research data in the archives and manuscripts divisions of libraries in France, Italy, Holland, Spain, Belgium, England, Scotland and Latin America.

Speak, read, and write French, Italian, German, Spanish and Dutch.

Assistant Professor of Economics, Duke University, 1927-1929
Professor of Economics, Duke University, 1929-1944
Professor of Economics, Northwestern University, 1944-1947
Professor of Economics, University of Chicago, 1947-1968
Distinguished Professor of Economic History, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1967-1969
Now Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Chicago and Distinguished Professor of Economic History Emeritus, State University of New York Binghamton.

Editor of the Journal of Political Economy for seven years.

President of the Economic History Association, 1951-1952.

Have determined from original manuscript sources the volume of precious metals imported into Europe from Mexico and Peru in the first hundred and seventy years after the discovery of America and have written a history of price in Spain from 1350 to 1800 based on contemporaneous account books, published in three volumes by the Harvard University Press. I have published a book of essays in Spanish entitled El Florecimiento del Capitalismo y Otros Ensayos de Histoira Económica [1948].

Am now writing from manuscript sources in the archives of France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, England and Scotland, to be published in four or five volumes a definitive history of John Law’s System, one of the greatest inflationary and deflationary episodes in history, popularly known as the Mississippi Bubble, and a biography of John Law of Lauriston.

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archive. Earl J. Hamilton Papers, Box 2, Folder “Various Financial Correspondence (Personal) (1930s-1960s)”.

Image Source:  University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-02446, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

 

 

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Chicago. Friedman memo regarding Karl Bode and Moses Abramovitz, 1947

 

In the following 1947 memo from Milton Friedman to T.W. Schultz we can read two talent-scouting reports on potential appointments for the University of Chicago economics department. One candidate, Karl Bode had been vouched for by Allen Wallis, a trusted friend and colleague of Milton Friedman, but we can easily read Friedman’s own less than enthusiastic report on the meager published work examined, certainly compared to Friedman’s glowing report for his friend from Columbia student days, Moses Abramovitz. But comparing the publications listed in the memo, I certainly wouldn’t fault Friedman’s revealed preference for Abramovitz.

Abramovitz went on to have a long and distinguished career at Stanford and Bode left Stanford for government service with his last occupation according to his death certificate “Planning Director, Agency for International Development (A.I.D.)”

Since Karl Bode turned out to have cast a relatively short academic shadow, I have appended some biographical information about him at the end of this post. But for now just the vital dates: Karl Ernst Franz Bode was born November 24, 1912 in Boennien, Germany and he died March 18, 1981 in Arlington, VA.

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Milton Friedman on Bode and Abramovitz

January 10, 1947

[To:] Mr. Schultz, Economics
[From:] Mr. Friedman, Economics
[Re:] Staff appointments

In connection with staff appointments, I thought it might be helpful if I put down on paper for you the information I have on two persons whose names I have casually mentioned: Karl Bode and Moses Abramovitz.

  1. Karl Bode (Assoc. Prof. of Economics, Stanford)

I know about Bode primarily from Allen Wallis. Allen considers him absolutely first-rate in all respects and recommends him very highly.

Bode, who is now in his early thirties, was born in Germany and, though Catholic of Aryan descent, and the holder of a highly-prized governmental fellowship, left Germany almost immediately after Hitler’s accession. He went first to Austria, then to Switzerland, where he took his Ph.D., in 1935, then to England, where he studied at Cambridge and at the London School. Bernard Haley met him while at Cambridge, was highly impressed with him, and induced him to come to Stanford, where he has been since 1937. He has been on leave of absence since early 1945, first with the Tactical Bombing Survey, then with the Allied Military Government in Berlin. He is expected back sometime this summer.

At Stanford, Bode is responsible for American and European Economic History, and, in addition, has taught advanced courses in Economic Theory. His original interest was in International Trade. He has a contract to write a text on Economic History, but I do not know whether on American or European Economic History.

I have obtained a list of his publications, most of which are fragments or reviews. Three of more general interest are:

(a) A. W. Stonier: “A New Approach to the Methodology of the Social Sciences”, Economica, Vol. 4, p. 406-424, Nov., 1937.

(b) “Plan Analysis and process analysis: AER, 33-348-54, June 1943.

(c) “A Note on the Mathematical Coincidence of the instantaneous and the serial multiplier”, Review of Economic Statistics, 26: 221-222, Nov. 1944.

I have read these. They are too slight to permit a reliable and comprehensive judgment about his capacities; but they are sufficient to demonstrate a clear, logical mind.

Allen tells me that Schumpeter, Haberler, Howard Ellis, and of course, the Stanford people all know him and could provide evidence about his abilities.

 

  1. Moses Abramovitz (member of research staff in charge of business cycle unit, National Bureau of Economic Research.)

Abramovitz got his bachelor’s at Harvard, his Ph.D. at Columbia. He has done some part-time teaching of Theory at Columbia. During the war he was with the Office of Strategic Services, where he worked on foreign economic conditions. He was a member of the reparations commission staff at both the Moscow and Paris Conferences.

Abramovitz and I were fellow graduate students at Columbia, and I have known him rather well ever since. I think him extremely capable, with an excellent mind, broad interests, and an extraordinary capacity for forming a sound judgment from conflicting evidence.

His academic and private research background is mostly in Economic Theory and Business Cycles; but the war years gave him a considerable background, and generated a real interest, in foreign economic relations.

Some of his writings are:

Selected Publications:

An Approach to a Price Theory for a Changing Economy, Columbia University Press, 1939.

Monopolistic Selling in a Changing Economy, Q.J.E., Feb., 1938.

Saving vs Investment: Profits vs Prosperity?Supplement on papers relating to the TNEC, Am. Econ. Rev., June, 1942.

Book on Cyclical behavior of inventories completed and scheduled to be published shortly by Nat’l Bureau of Economic Research.

M.F.

ab

* * * * *

PUBLICATIONS OF KARL BODE

A new approach to the methodology of the social sciences. (With A.W. Stonier): Economica, vol. 4, pp. 406-424, November, 1937.

Prosperität und Depression: Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, vol. 8, pp. 597-614, December, 1937.

Review of: Plotnik, M.J. Werner Sombart and his type of economics. 1937. American Economic Review, 28: 522-523, September, 1938.

Review of: Sombart, Werner. Weltanschauung, Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft. 1938. Ibid., 28: 766, December, 1938.

The acceptance of defeat in Germany: Journal of abnormal and social psychology, 38: 193-198, April, 1943.

Plan analysis and process analysis: American Economic Review, 33: 348-354, June, 1943.

Review of: Day, C. Economic Development in Europe. 1942:Journal of economic History, 2: 225-227, November, 1942.

Catholics in the postwar world: America, 71: 347-348, July, 1944

Economic aspects of morale in Nazi Germany: Pacific Coast Economic Association: Papers, 1942. pp. 29-34, 1943.

Reflections on a reasonable peace: Thought, 19: 41-48, March, 1944

Review of: Dempsey, B.W. Interest and usury. 1943: Ibid., 18: 756-758, December, 1943.

German reparations and a democratic peace: Thought, 19: 594-606, December, 1944

A note on the mathematical coincidence of the instantaneous and the serial multiplier: Review of Economic Statistics, 26: 221-222, November, 1944.

 

Source:Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman, Box 79, Folder 1 “University of Chicago, Minutes. Economics Department 1946-1949”.

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Karl F. Bode
AEA 1969 Directory of Members, p. 41.

Bode, Karl F., government; b. Germany, 1912; student, U. Bonn-Germany, 1931-33, U. Vienna-Austria, 1933-34; Ph.D., U. Bern-Switzerland, 1935; Cambridge-England, 1935-37. DOC.DIS. The Concept of Neutral Money, 1935. FIELDS 2abc, 1c, 4a. Chief, Regional Organization & Program Staff, Intl. Cooperation Adm., 1955-60, asst. dep. dir. for planning, 1960-62; chief, Planning Assistance & Research Div., Agy. for Intl. Dev., 1962-67; dir., Research, Evaluation & Information Retrieval, Agy. for Internat. Dev. since 1967. ADDRESS Vietnam Bur., Agy. for Internat. Dev., Dept. State, Washington, DC 20523.

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 Haberler Report of Mises’s Private Seminar

Regular participants of the seminar were several members of the Mont Pelerin Society – notably Hayek, Machlup, the late Alfred Schutz and in the very early days, John V. Van Sickle. Visiting scholars regarded it a great honor to be invited to the seminar – among them Howard S. Ellis (University of California), Ragnar Nurkse (late Professor of Economics in Columbia University, New York) whose untimely death occurred three years ago, Karl Bode (later in Stanford University and now in Washington), Alfred Stonier (now University College in London), and many others. There was Oskar Morgenstern (now Princeton University), the late Karl Schlesinger and Richard Strigl, two of the most brilliant economists of their time…the unforgettable Felix Kaufmann, philosopher of the Social Sciences in the broadest sense including the law and economics – he also wrote a much debated book on the logical foundation of mathematics – who after his emigration in 1938 joined the Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York where he taught with great success until his premature death twelve years ago.

Source: Mises’s Private Seminar: Reminiscences by Gottfried Haberler. Reprint from The Mont Pelerin Quarterly, Volume III, October 1961, No. 3, page 20f. Posted at the Mises Institute website.

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 From the Preface of Felix Kaufman’s 1936 book

For the critical editing of the manuscript and of the galleys, I wish to thank most heartily a number of friends in various countries, expecially Dr. Karl Bode, presently of St. John’s College, Cambridge and Dr. Alfred Schütz of Vienna. Dr. Bode has also taken upon himself the great labor of preparing both indexes.

Source: Felix Kaufmann. Theory and Method in the Social Sciences. [English translation of Methodenlehre der Sozialwissenschaften. Wien: Julius Springer, 1936.] from Felix Kaufmann’s Theory and Method in the Social Sciences, Robert S. Cohen and Ingeborg K. Helling (eds.). Boston Studies in the Philosophy and  History of Science, 303. Springer: 2014.

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 Reports from The Stanford Daily

The Stanford Daily, Volume 93, Issue 47, 29 April 1938

Several distinguished scholars from other universities will join the Stanford faculty next year…Dr. Karl Franz Bode, formerly on the faculty of St. John’s College, Cambridge University, England, was appointed assistant professor of economics to succeed Dr. Donald M. Erb who was appointed president of the University of Oregon….

 

The Stanford Daily, Volume 100, Issue 02, 23 September 1941, p. 1.

Econ Department Changes Classes… History of Currency Problems, 118, will he given in fall quarter rather than in the spring quarter. It is a five-unit course, taught MTWThF at 11 a.m. in Room 200Q by Karl F. Bode. Economics 1 and 2 are prerequisites….

 

The Stanford Daily, Volume 103, Issue 86, 28 May 1943, p. 1.

Wilbur Names New Faculty Promotions. Promotions and appointments of faculty members for the academic year 1943-1944 were announced yesterday by Chancellor Ray Lyman Wilbur. … Those promoted from assistant professor to associate professor are … Dr. Karl F. Bode, economics….

 

The Stanford Daily, Volume 111, Issue 20, 7 March 1947, p. 3

President Donald B. Tresidder yesterday announced 37 faculty promotions. The promotions include 11 faculty members to full professorships, six to associate professorships, and two to assistant professorships, together with promotion of 18 members of the clinical faculty at the Stanford School of Medicine in San Francisco….

To professorships … Karl F. Bode, in economics…

 

The Stanford Daily, Vol 119, Issue 7, 13 February 1951, p. 1.

Dr. Karl F. Bode, Stanford economics professor on leave for government duty in Germany, has been appointed deputy economic adviser, Office of Economic Affairs, it has been announced by the office of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany. Dr. Bode will be stationed in Bonn, Germany. He has been acting chief of the program division in the Office of Economic Affairs.

 

Image Source: Karl Bode from the 1939 Standford Quad.