In the previous post we met Margaret Mulford Lothrop who taught social problems in the Stanford economics department through 1928. Preparing that post, I looked at the Smith College Classbook for 1905 in search of her yearbook picture. I then glanced at the portraits of the faculty to see who would have been at Smith to teach her economics. There I discovered Charles Franklin Emerick, whom I decided to pursue now for Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.
At the genealogy website ancestry.com (available at many libraries for free online use, otherwise requiring a subscription) there is a public family tree of the Emerick family that includes some interesting material about Charles Franklin Emerick’s life.
Emerick was appointed instructor in political economy at Smith College to cover the courses taught by Prof. Henry Moore who was granted a year’s leave of absence for a year. (from an unsourced newspaper report, dateline Northampton, Sept. 21, 1899 “Largest Woman’s College—Smith Opens with Over 1200 Students and a Big Entering Class—Faculty Changes.”)
In the Smith College Bulletin for 1919/20, Emerick was listed as “Professor of Economics and Sociology on the Robert A. Woods Foundation”. He served on the Smith Faculty standing committee on graduate instruction at the time of his death.
I have included below the better part of a paragraph that concludes his serial essay “The Struggle for Equality in the United States” (1913-14) and that sounds distressingly familiar. Considering that Emerick taught at a woman’s college, it would appear somewhat ironic that he exclusively uses male gender pronouns whenever referring to college students.
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Vital Data
Birth: 17 Nov 1867 Montgomery County, Ohio, USA
Death: 22 Mar 1920 (aged 52) Northampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, USA
Burial: Miltonville Cemetery. Miltonville, Butler County, Ohio, USA
Source: Find A Grave.
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Obituary:
Prof. Charles Emerick—The sudden death of Prof. Charles Emerick, head of the department of sociology and economics at Smith college, occurred suddenly from heart failure at the residence in Northampton, Mass., Tuesday, according to word received here. He was the nephew of F.A.Y. Kumler of this city, and had often visited here. While Prof. Emerick was in a weakened condition from an illness of influenza, no cause of alarm had been felt. The body will be taken to Hamilton for burial by his brother. Owing to the illness of a son, Charles Jr., Mrs. Emerick cannot attend the funeral
Source: Transcribed from a scanned newspaper clipping included in the Emerick Family Tree at ancestry.com that does not cite the exact source of the obituary.
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Announcement of Emerick’s death in AER
Professor Charles Franklin Emerick, head of the department of economics and sociology at Smith College, died March 22, 1920. Professor Emerick had been a member of the Smith College faculty for twenty-one years.
Source: “Notes.” The American Economic Review 10, no. 3 (1920): 707-18.
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Personal Note 1898, Vanderbilt University Appointment
Vanderbilt University.—Dr. Charles Franklin Emerick has been appointed Instructor in Economics in Vanderbilt University. Dr. Emerick was born November 17, I867, near Dayton, Ohio. He studied at the Cooper Academy in Dayton, and in 1885 entered Antioch College, where he remained two years. He then entered Wittenberg College and graduated in 1889 with the degree of A. B. The next year he entered Michigan Agricultural College and received the degree of M. S. in 1891. Dr. Emerick was then appointed teacher of History and Political Economy at Avalon College, Trenton, Mo., where he remained until 1894. The next two years he studied at the University of Michigan, receiving in 1895 the degree of Ph. M. He was then appointed Fellow in Economics at Columbia University and received the degree of Ph. D. from that institution in 1897. During the past year he has been Assistant in Economics at Vanderbilt University.
Dr. Emerick has written:
“An Analysis of Agricultural Discontent in the United States.” Pp. 100. Political Science Quarterly, September and December, 1897, and March, 1898. Reprinted for doctor’s dissertation at Columbia.
Source: “Personal Notes.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science12 (1898): 85-87.
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Other Publications
Charles Franklin Emerick, Ph.D., The Credit System and the Public Domain (Nashville,Tenn., Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House, 1899), publication of the Vanderbilt Southern History Society.
“College women and race suicide.” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XXIV, No. 2 (1909), pp. 269-283.
“A neglected factor in race suicide” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XXV, No. 4 (1910), pp. 638-655.
Eight part series “The Struggle for Equality in the United States,” in Popular Science Monthly, Vols. 83/84 (Dec. 1913-July 1914).
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From the Conclusion of “The Struggle for Equality in the United States” (1914)
…I am not unmindful of the perils which attend the period upon which we have entered. Some of them have been alluded to in the course of these pages. In addition I will mention the following. First, is the prevalence of a superficial habit of reading and thinking. Few college graduates, even, are capable of sustained thought. Many voters read nothing but a party newspaper. Second, is the difficulty which many voters experience in foreseeing the distant consequences of some kinds of political action. Third, is the vice of indifference and irresponsibility to which some voters are subject. In a large population, the amount of sovereignty that resides in the individual is so small that he is tempted to wonder if it makes any difference whether he votes or not. Fourth, is the temptation to assume that the majority is invariably right, or, at any rate, that it is irresistible and that it is not worth while to try to reverse it. Fifth, the press is interested in selling news and has a certain bias in favor of war. It is therefore tempted to pander to prejudice against foreigners and to foment international ill-feeling. The manufacturers of armor plate and other military supplies are subject to the same temptation. These and other perils, however, seem to me for the most part as inevitable as the dangers which attend the young man who leaves home to go to college, or is set adrift in the world to shift for himself. Moreover, they are largely offset by the critical spirit which has taken the place of a blind obedience to authority and precedent among a large number of the population. As responsibility is the making of the man that is in the boy, so political institutions that depend upon the self-control, public spirit and wisdom of the masses tend to bring out the better side of human nature….
Image Source: Smith College, Class Book 1920,p. 16.