I have mentioned this before, the papers of the economic historian Earl Hamilton are a grab-bag of essentially unsorted material. Sometimes you find a rough gem to include in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. For this post below we have a brief description of Harvard economic history professor Edwin Francis Gay’s seminar. To complete the post I have uncovered a few career facts about the author of the letter to Earl Hamilton that congratulates him for his memorial article about Gay.
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Ernest Herman Hahne
(b. Oct. 20, 1890; d. November 25, 1952)
1911. University of Nebraska, B.A.
1913. University of Nebraska, LL.B.
1914. Harvard University, A.M.
1916. Doctoral Dissertation in preparation. AER 1916, p. 503: The History of the meat packing industry in the United States.
1930. University of Chicago, Economics Ph.D. “Special Assessment Theory and Practise with Special Reference to Chicago.”
Academic career:
Taught sociology at the University of Chicago.
Taught economics and sociology at Dakota Wesleyan University (Mitchell, South Dakota)
Professor of economics, Northwestern (1919-1946)
Assistant dean of liberal arts college and director of the summer session at Northwestern.
President of Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) April 1, 1946- November 25, 1952)
Chairman of the board of the Cincinnati branch of the Cleveland Federal Reserve
______________________
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio
Office of the President
December 22, 1947
Professor Earl J. Hamilton
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois
Dear Earl:
Thanks for the complimentary copy of the memorial you have written on Edwin Francis Gay in the June issue of the American Economic Review. As I read it, it brought back many a fond memory. I don’t know whether I ever told you that I started writing my doctor’s thesis, the history of the parking industry, and Gay recommended that I go to University of Chicago and carry on additional work and get first-hand information there. Therefore I went to Chicago in 1915, eventually to wind up as an assistant in sociology under E. W. Small and Scott E. W. Bedford. I not only took Gay’s courses in economic history but followed them with his course on French and German economists. Most of us were taking the work not only to brush up on continental theory but also to master the languages preparatory to the general exams. We met in Gay’s home. The course was supposed to last about two hours. I doubt if it ever broke up in less than three and a half to four hours. It was a small group that sat at the feet of Gamaliel but it included Rice of Dartmouth, Stehman of Minnesota, Van Sickle of Wabash, and two graduate students who went into business.
I remember writing a term paper for Gay in French history on the origin of the British labor exchanges. I never worked so hard on a paper in my life, but when it came back with the word “Excellent” sighed E.F.G. I felt well repaid. In fact I still have that paper in my library. I prize it highly. All this is simply to say that your admiration of one of Harvard’s greatest teachers does not exceed mine.
Your memorial is splendidly done.
With the Season’s greetings and best wishes from the Hahnes to the Hamiltons,
Cordially yours,
[signed]
Ernest
Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archives. Earl J. Hamilton Papers, Box 2, Folder “Correspondence — misc. 1919, Aug. 26; 1920s-1970s and n.d.”
Image Source: Yearbook of Miami University, Recensio 1946, p. 13.