Before there were courses on business cycles, courses at Harvard dealt with “commercial crises”. Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr. was the young man for the job in 1902-03. His Harvard Ph.D. dissertation’s title was “The ways and means of making payments” (1900) and together with Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague he was an essential member of the post-Dunbar staff to cover the field of money and banking (and monetary macroeconomics).
Oops I did it ago. Almost all of this post had been shared in a collection of all of Andrew’s exams for commercial crises (1903-1908). The colorized and retouched photo from 1909 is new to this post.
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Biography
ABRAM PIATT ANDREW, Jr., was born in La Porte, La Porte County, Ind., February 12, 1873; attended the public schools and the Lawrenceville (N. J.) School; was graduated from Princeton College in 1893; member of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1893-98; pursued postgraduate studies in the Universities of Halle, Berlin, and Paris; moved to Gloucester, Mass,, and was instructor and assistant professor of economics in Harvard University 1900-1909; expert assistant and editor of publications of the National Monetary Commission 1908-11; Director of the Mint 1909 and 1910; Assistant Secretary of the Treasury 1910-12; served in France continuously for 4-1/2 years, during the World War, first with the French and later with the United States Army; commissioned major, United States National Army, in September 1917 and promoted to lieutenant colonel September 1918; awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor medal by the Republic of France in 1917 and the distinguished service medal by the United States Government in 1918; elected as a Republican to the Sixty-seventh Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Willfred W. Lufkin; reelected to the Sixty-eighth and to the six succeeding Congresses, and served from September 27, 1921, until his death; delegate to the Republican National Conventions at Cleveland in 1924 and at Kansas City in 1928; member of the board of trustees of Princeton University 1932-36; died in Gloucester, Mass., June 3, 1936; remains were cremated and the ashes scattered from an airplane flying over his estate at Eastern Point, Gloucester, Mass.
Source: Memorial Service Held in the House of Representatives of the United States, Together with Remarks Presented in Eulogy of Abram Piatt Andrew, Late a Representative from Massachusetts. Seventy-fifth Congress, First Session. Washington, D.C. GPO, 1938. Archived transcription at the American Field Service website.
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Course Description
- b2 hf. History and Theory of Commercial Crises. Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 9. Dr. Andrew.
Course 12b will be devoted to the study of the more important crises of the past two hundred years. The phenomena of these crises will be described, and the record of events before and after will be examined with the object of disentangling their contributory causes and their consequences. The influence upon commercial fluctuations of the present organization of industry, of government finance, of foreign trade, of the money supply, of speculation, of banking methods, and of other credit institutions will be considered, as well as questions with regard to periodicity, over-production and over-investment. In connection with these subjects attention will be given to the methods actually employed in dealing with crises, and to proposed reforms designed to prevent or relieve them.
Subjects will be assigned for special reports, and these reports will be presented for discussion in class.
Course 12b is open to students who have passed satisfactorily in Course 1.
Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of History and Political Science [Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics], 1902-03. Published in The University Publications, New Series, no. 55. June 14, 1902.
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Course Enrollment, 1902-1903
Economics 12b. 2hf. Dr. Andrew. — History and Theory of Commercial Crises.
Total 37: 2 Gr., 9 Se., 19 Ju., 5 So.,2 Others.
Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1902-03, p. 68.
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ECONOMICS 12b
Final Examination, 1903
Omit one question.
- “The crisis is practically of nineteenth century origin, and it is an acute malady to which business appears to be increasing subject.”
Give your opinion of these statements. - In what respects was the English crisis of 1866 peculiar?
- “Commercial crises of the earlier type now belong only to history in England.”
Discuss this statement and explain the situation to which it refers. - Compare the American crises of 1884 and 1893 as regards antecedent conditions, course of events and consequences.
- Describe in their mutual connections the fluctuations in exports and imports of commodities, in gold shipments, and in prices which occur in a normal trade cycle.
Discuss DeLaveleye’s theory of crises. - (a) How far did Jevons succeed in proving a relation between crises and agricultural conditions?
(b) To what extent can a connection be traced in the United States between trade cycles and crop conditions?
(c) In the case of which crop is the connection closest? - Explain and discuss Professor Laughlin’s theory as to the relations between “normal” and “abnormal”credit and price movements.
- Explain and discuss Rodbertus’ theory of crises.
- Explain and discuss Professor Carver’s theory of industrial depressions.
Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 6. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, History of Religions, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College, June 1903 (in the bound volume Examination Papers 1902-1903).
Image Source: Picture of Abram Piatt Andrew from ca. 1909 used in a magazine article on his appointment to the directorship of the U. S. Mint. Hoover Institution Archives. A. Piatt Andrew Papers, Box 51. Retouched and colorized by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.