Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr. and Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague were the instructor team that picked up and ran with the baton for the field of money and banking at Harvard after Charles Dunbar had died in 1900. Their division of labor was for Andrew to cover money and for Sprague to teach banking.
Both semester courses continued to be offered in 1902-03. The examination questions with enrollment data for Sprague’s course have been transcribed for this post.
A timeline for his life has been added to “really tie the room together.”
For a recent view of Sprague, see Hugh Rockoff’s NBER Working Paper (October 2021) “O.M.W. Sprague (the man who ‘wrote the book’ on financial crises) meets the Great Depression”.
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O.M.W. Sprague
| 1873, Apr. 22 |
Born in Somerville, Massachusetts |
| 1894 | A.B., summa cum laude, Harvard |
| 1894-95 | University Scholar, Harvard |
| 1895 | A.M., Harvard |
| 1895-96 | Henry Lee Memorial Fellow, Harvard |
| 1896-97 | Thayer Scholar, Harvard |
| 1897 | Ph.D. (Political Science), Harvard. Thesis: The English woolen industry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. |
| 1897-98 | Study of economic history in London, England as Rogers Fellow |
| 1898-99 | Assistant in Economics, Harvard |
| 1899-1900 | Austin Teaching Fellow in Political Economy, Harvard |
| 1900-04 | Instructor in Political Economy, Harvard |
| 1904-05 | Assistant professor of economics (five year appointment), Harvard |
| 1905, June 12 |
Married Fanny Knights Ide (2 children) |
| 1905-08 | Professor of Economics, Imperial Univ. of Tokyo |
| 1908-13 | Asst. Professor, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard |
| 1913-41 | Edmund Cogswell Converse Professor of Banking and Finance, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard |
| 1929 | Member of the Gold Delegation of the League of Nations in a final effort to maintain the gold standard |
| 1930-33 | Economic adviser to Bank of England |
| 1933 | Financial and executive adviser to Secretary of Treasury |
| 1937 | 39th President of the American Economic Association |
| 1938 | Litt.D., Columbia University |
| 1941-1953 | Professor emeritus, Harvard |
| 1953, May 24 |
Died in Cambridge, Massachusetts |
Sources:
Cole, Arthur H., Robert L. Masson, and John H. Williams. Memorial [for] O.M.W. Sprague, 1873-1953. American Economic Review, Vol. 44 (1), March 1954, pp. 131-132.
Committee on the History of the Federal Reserve System, Register of Papers: Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague (1873-1953), 1 November, 1955, p. 2.
Reports of the President of Harvard College.
Obituary in The Boston Globe May 25, 1953.
Books:
Economic Essays by Charles Dunbar, edited by O.M.W. Sprague. New York: Macmillan, 1904.
History of Crises Under the National Banking System. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1910. (Prepared for National Monetary Commission)
Banking Reform in the United States: A Series of Proposals including a Central Bank of Limited Scope. Cambridge: Harvard University, 1911.
Theory and History of Banking by Charles F. Dunbar, Fifth edition, with supplementary chapter presenting the record of the Federal Reserve System by Henry Parker Willis. Revised and in part rewritten with additional material by Oliver M. W. Sprague. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1929.
[Original 1st edition by Charles F. Dunbar, 1891; 2nd edition, 1901; 3rd edition, 1917; 4th edition, 1921]
Recovery and Common Sense. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934.
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Course Description.
International Trade and Payments
1902-03, first semester
- a 1hf. *International Trade and International Payments. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Dr. Sprague.
Course 12a begins with a careful study of the theory of international trade, and of the use and significance of bills of exchange. The greater portion of the time will be devoted to an analysis of the foreign trade of the United States in order to distinguish the various factors, permanent and temporary, which determine the growth and direction of international commerce. With this purpose, also, a number of commodities important in foreign trade and produced in more than one country will be studied in detail. Each student will be given special topics for investigation which will familiarize him with sources of current information upon trade matters, such as trade journals, consular, and other government publications. In conclusion certain topics of a general nature will be considered, among which may be mentioned, foreign investments, the effects of an unfavorable balance of payments under different circumstances, and colonial trade.
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.
International Trade and Payments
1902-03, first semester
Economics 12a. 1hf. Dr. Sprague. — International Trade and International Payments.
Total 10: 1 Gr., 3 Se., 5 Ju., 1 So.
Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1902-03, p. 68.
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Course Final Examination
International Trade and Payments
1902-03, first semester
ECONOMICS 12a
- Compare the English Consular Reports with those of the United States.
- Explain carefully the reasons which render possible permanent differences in the general level of prices between countries, assuming (1) free trade, (2) a high general tariff in one country and free trade in the other. How would the removal of tariff barriers probably affect prices in the United States?
- The temporary effects of an unfavorable balance of foreign payments.
- Characteristics and advantages of trade with the tropics.
- Exports of manufactures from the United States.
- Analyze the effects to each country of complete reciprocity between Cuba and the United States. Would there be any advantage which the United States does not gain from unrestricted trade with Porto Rico?
- The effect of the growth of the foreign trade of other countries upon the absolute amount of British exports.
Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year Examinations 1852-1943. Box 6. Papers (in the bound volume Examination Papers Mid-years 1902-1903).
Also included in 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: O.M.W. Sprague in the Harvard Class Album, 1915, colorized by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.