Arthur Norman Holcombe (1884-1977) was awarded a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard in 1909. In the Preface to his doctoral thesis he thanked “Professor Gustav Schmoller of Berlin, Professor Lujo Brentano of Munich, and above all Professor F. W. Taussig of Harvard.”
Thesis title: Public ownership of telephones on the continent of Europe. Boston, etc., Houghton, Mifflin, 1911, 8°. pp. xx, 482 (Harv. Econ. Stud., 6).
It is an indicator of the porousness of the borders between the disciplines making up the Harvard Division of History, Government, and Economics in the early 20th century that Holcombe moved so easily from the department of economics to the government department where he went on to have a distinguished career.
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Arthur Norman Holcombe was born in Winchester, Massachusetts, on November 3, 1884. He graduated from Harvard with an AB in 1906, and a Ph.D. in 1909. On August 30, 1910, he married Carolyn H. Crossett; they had five children. In 1964, he married Hadassah Moore Leeds Parrot. Holcombe split his career between public service and teaching. He was credited with establishing political philosophy and theory as basic disciplines in Harvard’s government curriculum. Among his students were Henry A. Kissinger and Henry Cabot Lodge. In 1949, he assisted Chiang Kai Shek in the drafting of a constitution for the Republic of China. In 1955, he retired as Eaton Professor of the Sciences of Government to become chairman of the Committee to Study the Organization of Peace, an affiliate of the American Association for the United Nations. He died on December 9, 1977.
Source: “Biographical Note” from Guide to the Arthur N. Holcombe Personal Papers at the John F. Kennedy Library.
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ARTHUR NORMAN HOLCOMBE
Address: (home) 21 Follen St., Cambridge, Mass.; (business) Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Occupation: University Professor.
Married: Carolyn Hawley Crossett, Warsaw, N.Y., August 30, 1910.
Children: Waldo Hawley, born July 25, 1911; Mary, born September 1, 1914; Robert Crossett, born January 28, 1916; Jane, born August 11, 1917; Richard Maynard, born February 2, 1920.
War Record: Investigator U. S. Bureau of Efficiency, 1917-18; Investigator War Industries Board, 1918; acting member Wire Control Board, U. S. Telegraph and Telephone Administration, 1918-19.At the time of our Decennial I was assistant professor of government at Harvard and was serving my second term as Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commissioner. The following Winter I published my book on State Government and was nominated at the primary for the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, but was defeated for election. In June, 1917 I went to Washington as a specical Investigator for the U.S. Bureau of Efficiency, with which I remained during the greater part of the War. My principal assignment was to the Bureau of Internal Revenue to assist the Commissioner in organizing the administration of the war income and excess-profits tax law. In 1918 I was assigned to the War Industries Board, where I remained until the Armistice. Thereafter I was appointed by the Posmaster General to the Committee on Standarization of Telephone Rates and acted as a member of the Wire Control Board in charge of the telegraphs and telephones of the United States until the return of the properties to their owners in the Summer of 1919. Returning to Harvard I was presently appointed professor of government and chairman of the department of government, positions which I still hold. During the War I declined reappointment as Minimum Wage Commissioner for a third term, but after my return was appointed by Governor Coolidge a member of the Special Commission on Teachers’ Salaries. I have also been a member of the Council of the American Political Science Association and have written vor various periodicals on political and economic subjects.
Have written: “Public Ownership of Telephones” (1911); “State Government in the United States” (1916).
Member: Cambridge Club; Boston City Club; American Political Science Association; American Economic Association.
Source: Harvard College Class of 1906, Fifteenth Anniversary Report (No. 4, 1926), pp. 167-8.
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ARTHUR NORMAN HOLCOMBE
Address: (home) 20 Berkeley St., Cambridge, Mass.; (business) Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Occupation: University Professor.
Married: Carolyn Hawley Crossett, Warsaw, N.Y., August 30, 1910.
Children: Waldo Hawley, born July 25, 1911; Mary, born September 1, 1914; Robert Crossett, born January 28, 1916; Jane, born August 11, 1917; Richard Maynard, born February 2, 1920.Since the last report I have remained at Harvard as professorof government and chairman of the department of government. I have lectured also at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, Stanford University, and the Furman Institute of Politics at Greenville, S. C. I have published two more books and sundry articles in various periodicals. I am secretary of the Harvard Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, chairman of the Policyholders’ Committee of the Teachers’ Insurance and Annuity Association of America, and a member of the Committee on Research Agencies of the Social Science Research Council, organized by the leading national aossociations for the advancement of the social sciences. I am also chairman of the Troop Committee, Troop 6 of Cambridge, Boy Scouts of America, a director of the Tuckerman School, Boston, and a member of the National Committee for a Department of Education, which is working for a reorganization of the educational activities of the Federal Government. I have been treasurer of the Cambridge Public School Association, chairman of the Sunday School Committee of the First Parish Church, Cambridge, and chairman of the Massachusestts Legislative Council, organized by sundry associations interested in social welfare measures of various kinds. I am a member of the Council for the National Economic League, and have also been more or less active in divers other organizations, particularly the Proportional Representation League, the Massachusetts Civic League, the National Municipal League, and teh League of Nations Non-Partisan Association.
Have written (since 1921): “The Foundations of the Modern Commonwealth” (1923); “The Political Parties of Today” (1924; 2d edition, 1925).
Source: Harvard College Class of 1906, Twentieth Anniversary Report (No. 5, 1926), pp. 136-7.
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ARTHUR NORMAN HOLCOMBE, Old Cove Road, Duxbury, Mass. Chairman, Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, American Association for the United Nations, U. N. Plaza, New York, N.Y.
I now have nineteen grandchildren, nine grandsons and ten granddaughters.
Lectured on American Government at the College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium, in 1952. Lectured on same subject at Claremont Men’s College, Claremont, Calif., in 1955-56. Became Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, emeritus, in June, 1955. L.H.D., Columbia University, 1954.
Several papers of mine have been published since 1951 in various technical volumes. With my retirement from teaching in January, 1956, I shall give my working time to my avocation, planning and agitating for a stronger United Nations Orgnaization.
Source: Harvard Class of 1906, 50th Anniversary Report (Cambridge: Cosmos Press, 1956), p. 91.