The previous post included lists of books used for undergraduate and graduate courses dealing with the economics of railroad regulation taught at Harvard in the mid-1930s. The list was put together by Donald Holmes Wallace who was a recent Harvard Ph.D. graduate and soon to be appointed to an assistant professorship in economics.
His career was cut short at age 50 by a heart attack. His early promise was recognized with the award of the prestigious David A. Wells prize for his 1931 dissertation on the aluminum industry.
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Ph.D. 1931
Donald Holmes Wallace, A.B. 1924, A.M. 1928.
Subject, Economics. Special Field, Economics of Corporate Organization. Thesis, “The Aluminum Monopoly in the United States.”
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1930-31, p. 120.
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Donald Holmes Wallace
(1903-1953)
Born in West Chester, PA, June 29, 1903.
1924. A.B. Harvard.
1924. Taught at the Suffield school in Suffield, CT.
1925. Instructor in economics at the University of Vermont.
1926-27. Assistant in economics at Harvard
1927-36. Instructor and tutor in economics at Harvard.
1928. A.M., Harvard.
1931. Ph.D., Harvard. Thesis: The Aluminum Monopoly in the United States.
Awarded the David A. Wells dissertation prize 1933-34.
1931-32. Year in Europe funded by a Social Science Research Council grant.
1937. Revised version of dissertation published by Harvard University Press: Market Control in the Aluminum Industry. “The present study first took partial form as a doctoral dissertation (presented in 1931) upon the aluminum monopoly in the United States. Thereafter, the scope of the inquiry was widened to include market control in Europe and international relations in this industry.”–Preface.
1937-39. Assistant professor of economics at Harvard
1939. Associate professor of economics at Williams.
1939. Part-time economist for the Department of Labor
1940. Consultant of the National Defense Advisory Commission
1941. Consultant of the Office of Price Administration
1942-43. Director of OPA industrial manufacturing price division.
1943, Summer. Acting deputy administrator for prices of OPA.
1943-1945. (He resigned from Williams in 1945) Economic adviser to the deputy price administrator.
1945-1953. American Economic Association’s representative on the National Bureau of Economic Research.
1946-47. Member of the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers.
1948. Hired by Princeton “to inaugurate the graduate study program of Woodrow Wilson School, as well as apppointment as Professor of Economics.
1951. Vice-President of the American Economic Association.
1953, September 19. Died in Princeton, NJ. [Final position: Director of the Graduate Program of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs]
Source: North Adams Transcript (MA), September 21, 1943, p. 3; Eveline M. Burns “In Memoriam, Donald Holmes Wallace”, AER, Papers and Proceedings (May, 1954), p. 696.
Image Source: Dr. Donald H. Wallace. Head Economic Analyst, Office of Price Administration (OPA) and Civilian Supply. From the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photograph Collection. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.