This is one of those postings that I sort of wish I had never started. I began, feeling pretty sure that I knew who the instructor (William Z. Ripley) was and which course was being taught at Harvard some time during the second-half of the 1920s (Economics 6a, Trade-Unionism and Allied Problems). At the Hoover Institution Archives I had found eleven hand-written notecards of Vervon Orvall Watts (Harvard Ph.D., 1932. Thesis: The Development of the Technological Concept of Production in Anglo-American Thought) that were filed together under the keyword “wages”.
Upon closer inspection it became clear that the artifacts were not from a single course and perhaps not even for a single instructor. The problem of identifying unambiguously the instructor for the undergraduate course might have been solved if there had been a clear date on any of the notecards.
The graduate course was always taught by William Z. Ripley over this period. The course outline and reading list for the 1931 graduate course Problems of Labor taught by William Z. Ripley has been transcribed and posted earlier. That post also includes some biographical information.
Since I was dealing with handwritten references, I went to the trouble of tracking down almost all the items. When I did, I added links to the lists, adding both to the accuracy and research value of the transcriptions. Square brackets indicate my additions.
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On Vervon Orvall Watts:
V. Orval Watts’ obituary in the Los Angeles Times (April 1, 1993).
Watts’ 1952 Book Away from Freedom: The Revolt of the College Economists was republished by the Ludwig von Mises Institute (Auburn, Alabama) in 2008. “This book had a powerful impact on a generation — a kind of primer on Keynesian fallacies that still pervade the profession if not by that name.“
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Course Descriptions
6a 1hf. Trade-Unionism and Allied Problems. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Professor Ripley.
This course will deal mainly with the economic and social relations of employer and employed. Among the topics included will be: the history of unionism; the policies of trade unions respecting wages, machinery, output, etc.; collective bargaining; strikes; the legal status of unionism, closed shop, etc.; efficiency management; unemployment, etc., in the relation to unionism, will be considered.
Each student will make at least one report upon a labor union or a special topic, from the original documents. Two lectures a week, with one recitation, will be the usual practice.
34. Problems of Labor. Full-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 2. Professor Ripley.
This course deals more intensively with the same topics which are comprehended in Economics 6a, as given for undergraduates. Especial attention is given to methods of investigation and original sources. Specific aspects of trade union policy and the legal status of unionism are given priority over the broader issues of labor legislation and kindred subjects.
Source: Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXI, No. 22 (April 30, 1924): Division of History, Government, and Economics 1924-25, pp. 68-69, 73.
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Card 1
Ec. 6a. Feb. 2[second digit illegible]. Topics.
Wages.
Justice in Distribution—(Lowell[?] & Dempsey[?])
Wages & Supply of Labor.—Supply falls with rise in wages.
Laissez-faire, Competition (Railroads, vs coal mines, sweat shops.)
Tendency increasing [illegible 2 letters] various kinds of regulation in all sorts of trades.
Competition: over-development of industries & depression of wages.
Trace effects of increase in efficiency of individual, of trade, of group of trades. Effects on other individuals, own wages, wages of other groups.
Increase of efficiency of all trades—benefits landlord largely. Workers get only part of increase. Capitalists benefit.
Increased efficiency of exploitation of land.
Sweated trades—benefits of a strong union. (causes of sweatshops—competition with machinery.)
Effects of rise in wages for union methods (monopoly) upon other classes of wage-earners.
Union answer: universal organization.
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Card 2
[Probably Econ 6a]
Orth, S. P. The Armies of Labor [1919].
Brissenden. The I. W. W. [1920 Columbia University dissertation].
Selekman. Sharing Management with the Workers. [1924]
Paul Gemmill. The Actors’ Equity. [cf. Paul F. Gemmill. Equity: The Actors’ Trade Union, QJE (1926) ]
J. R. Commons. Industrial Goodwill [1919].
S. Perlman. History of Labor in the U.S. [Vol. I, 1918; Vol. II, 1918]
Gompers, S. Labor & the Common Welfare. [1919]
Cole, G.D.H. Labor in the Coal-Mining Industry (1914-1921) [1923].
Tawney, R. H. The British Labor Movement [ca. 1925].
Papers:
What kind of workers make a good trade union?
The A. F. of L. vs. the I. W. W.
Employee Representation: What has it to offer?
The Ford industries & unionism.
The Efficacy of Company Unions.
The Economic Basis of Effective Unionism
The Objection of Unions to the Use of the Injunction in Labor Disputes
The Case for a Labor Party in the U.S.
East. Mankind at the Crossroads. [1923]
Marshall. Industry & Trade. [3rd edition, 1920]
Budish & Soule. The New Unionism in the Clothing Industry.
Selekman & Van Kleeck Employe’s Representation in Coal Mines. [1924] [cf. Miners and Management; a study of the collective agreement between the United Mine Workers of America and the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company, 1934]
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Card 3
[Probably Econ 6a]
(Assignments to a Junior by William Thomas Ham)
Hammond, J. L. B. The Rise of Modern Industry. [1925]
H. Ford. My Life and Work. [1922]
Lewisohn, S. The New Leadership in Industry. [1926]
Lewisohn, Sam A. et al. Can Business Prevent Unemployment? [1925]
Carver. The Present Economic Revolution in the United States. [1926]
Groat. Labor and the Courts. [“Unionism and the Courts,” Yale Review (August, 1910) ]
Gompers. S. Editorials.
Commons and Andrews. Labor Legislation. [1916]
Blum, S. Labor Economics. [1925]
11th Special Report of U.S. Commissioner of Labor. Regulation and Restriction of Output. [1904]
Allen, H. J. The Party of the Third Part. [1921]
Pound, R. The Spirit of the Common Law. [1921] Freedom of Contract (in Harvard Law Review, sic) [Perhaps “Liberty of Contract” in the Yale Law Journal (1909) is meant here]
Commons, J.R. Trade Unionism and Labor Problems, selections. [1921]
Webb. Industrial Democracy (Selections). [1920]
Robertson, D.H. The Control of Industry. [1923]
Feis. The Principles of Wage Settlement. [1924] The Settlement of Wage Disputes. [1921]
P. Douglas. The Family Wage (sic). [cf. Wages and the Family (1925)]
Barnett, G. A. Machinery and Labor. [1926]
Taussig. Inventors and Money-Makers [1915]. The Minimum Wage. [cf. Minimum Wages for Women in QJE (1916) pp. 411-442 ]
Papers:
The right to strike and the doctrine of conspiracy.
What should be the painters’ policy re the [two illegible words] machine?
The Use of the Injunction in Labor Disputes.
Wage Principles in Arbitration cases.
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Card 4
Appears not to properly belong to either course (penciled addition)
Sorokin. Social Mobility. [1927]
Popenoe and Johnson. Applied Eugenics. [1922]
Sumner and Keller. The Science of Society, Soc. 543.16.20 [1927, 4 volumes] [Vol. II; Vol III; Vol. IV]
C. S. Day. This Simian World. [1920]
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Card 5
Ec. 6a—Topics
Does the competition of women and children tend to lower wages of men? Does prohibition of it benefit men workers?
Standard of Living. make assumption of family of 5.
cf P. Douglas, The Family Wage (sic). [cf. Wages and the Family (1925)]
Extent to Wk. Budgets/Minimum of Subsistence should be considered by arbitration boards in adjusting/fixing wages (rising/falling/stable prices).
Could it be maintained if given? I.e. do poor make their standards, or do the low wages make the standards?
Do the poor make the slums, or the slums produce the poor?
(Note Tugwell’s [?] estimate that American real wages rose 400%–1820 to 1922.)
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Card 6
[Probably Ec 34]
Labor Problems—Sources.
Monthly Labor Review, and Bulletin of U.S. Business of Labor Statistics. can be obtained cheaply from Washington as they appear by writing for them.
Law and Labor. Published by the League for Industrial Rights
(cf. Sayer: The Law and Labor: a Collection of Cases)
(Ellingwood and Coombs: The Government and Labor)
Report of the British Royal Commission on Labor, 1894 (19 Vol.).
[T. G. Spyers, The Labor Question. An Epitome of the Evidence and the Report of the Royal Commission on Labour. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1894] ]
Report of the U.S. Industrial Commission 1899
Report of the New York State Factory Investigation. Vol. 1-3; Vol. 4-5.
Report of the U.S. Coal Commission, 1923.
(Q. J. E. for 1924, Resumé of the Report).
Part I. Principal Findings and Recommendations [1923]
Part II. Antracite—Detailed Studies
Part III. [could not find a link]
Part IV. Bituminous Coal—Detailed Studies of Cost of Production, Investment and Profits. [1923]
Part V. [could not find a link]
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Card 7
[Probably Econ 34] Labor.
Catlin, W. B. The Labor Problem. [1926]
Ripley says is best general text. Cfs. Eng. and U.S. A long section (40 pp) on restriction of output. Interesting style. Gives sources. Is weak on legislative side.
Blum: Labor Economics. [1925]
Good on Wages. Knows economic theory. Investment is rather abstract.
Hoxie: Trade Unionism in the U.S. 1917 (13-33).
Furniss: Labor Problems (1-17). 1925.
S. and B. Webb. Industrial Democracy. [1920]
——————. History of Trade Unionism. [1920]
Old, confined to England. Over-sympathetic with labor. Contrast Hoxie and Webb on the Labor Leader.
Commons and Andrews. Principles of Labor Legislation.
Best on legal aspects. [1920]
(Watkins, Groat, Carlton–dsg[?]. Over-sympathetic with labor. Cf Adams and Sumner, Ely.)
Hoopingarner [Dwight Lowell Hoopingarner, Labor Relations in Industry (1925)] from employers standpoint.
Lauck: Political and Social Democracy. [1926]
Intimate contact with labor in U.S. Knows subject. Interesting. Not good text book.
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Card 8
[Probably Econ 34] Topics. Labor Problems.
Life of Robert Owen (G. D. H. Cole). [1920]
Origin and Causes of Trade Unionism
Are they, as Persons and Perlman say, a defensive reaction against excessive cut-throat competition among producers, a competition which is due to the Industrial Revolution and instead of machine-methods of production.
–Due to a desire to reduce costs and widen markets.
Trade Unionism in U.S.
Note influence of free lands in the West, and (increasing) new opportunities in Young and expanding country. Is there likely in future to be this same vertical mobility of labor which has hindered growth of Unionism in U.S. So union inevitable accompaniment of capitalism.
Laissez-faire and Labor Legislation
Laissez-faire and Trades Unions.
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Card 9
[Probably Econ 34] Labor
D. Houser: What the Employer Thinks. (Econ 7409.27.5) [1927]
W. B. Catlin: The Labor Problem. [1926]
E. S. Furniss, and L. R. Guild. Labor Problems. [1925]
R. W. Cooke Taylor: The Modern Factory System (IE, 20.26) [1891]
J. A. Fitch: The Causes of Industrial Unrest (inefficiency of present order) [1924]
W. L. M. King: Industry and Humanity [1918]
Ch. 12—plea for making worker understand bigger economic tendencies and results for him. e.g. machinery, large-scale industry, etc.
Brooks, J. G.: The Social Unrest (S.E.) [1903]
Penty, A. J.: Post-Industrialism [1922]
Feis, Herbert: Principles of Wage Settlement [1924].
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Card 10
References. Ec. 34.
Unemployment
Beveridge. Unemployment in Industry. [Unemployment—A Problem of Industry (3rd ed, 1912)]
J. L. Cohen. Unemployment Insurance. [Insurance Against Unemployment. London, 1921.]
Feldman. Regularization of Employment [1925] [also published as a Columbia University, Ph.D. thesis)]
[Berridge et al.] Business Cycles and Unemployment.[NBER publication for a Committee of the President’s Conference on Unemployment, and a Special Staff of the Naitonal Bureau (1923)] (collection of papers)
Berridge. Business Cycles and Unemployment. (re indexes for unemployment—how to construct) [William A. Berridge. Cycles of Unemployment in the United States, 1903-1922. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1923.]
U.S. Bureau of Labor (No. 310)-1922- Bulletin on Unemployment in U.S., No. 310. [Ernest S. Bradford, Industrial Unemployment—A Statistical Study of Its Extent and Causes, BLS Bulletin 310 (August 1922)]
Secretary of Labor, Report on Unemployment in U.S., 1928. (head of Bur. of Labor Statistics) (Shrinkage in competition, 1925-7, in a few industries)
The Ministry of Labor Gazette—figures for England and Britain, monthly, operat[?] of unemployment doles.
Feb. 1928, Q. J. E.—German Unemployment Insurance. [Frieda Wunderlich. The German Unemployment Insurance Act of 1927. Quarterly Journal of Economics (Feb. 1928)]
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Card 11
Readings. Ec. 34. Feb 28.
W. B. Catlin. [The Labor Problem, 1926] 259-315.
Brissenden. The I. W. W. 83-110, 155-178, (297-309)
Hoxie. [Trade Unionism in the U.S., 1917] 103-139
Furniss. [Labor Problems, 1925] 267-325
[…]
Source: Hoover Institution Archives. V. Orval Watts Papers. Box 21, Blue-tab-Notecard File, Tab W (Wages).
Image Source: William Zebina Ripley in the Harvard Class Album, 1928.