This post is a cross between “get to know an economics Ph.D. alumnus (Harvard)” and a deposit into the data bank of old exams. For three years at the end of the 19th century Guy Stevens Callender taught U.S. economic history at Harvard where he received a Ph.D. in 1897. He ultimately went on to a professorship at Yale. One of the connections that I discovered in preparing the post is that Guy Stevens Callender and John R. Commons were undergraduate classmates at Oberlin.
For an article about Callender’s contributions:
Engelbourg, Saul. Guy Stevens Callender: A Founding Father of American Economic History. Explorations in Economic History. Vol. 9, 1971-72, pp. 255-267.
_________________
Biographical note:
Guy Stevens Callender was born on 9 November 1865 in Hartsgrove, Ohio, the son of Robert Foster Callender and Lois Winslow Callender. The family moved from Massachusetts to the Western Reserve when Callender was a child. At an early age he demonstrated that he had an active mind, intellectual curiosity, and a strong physical constitution; these attributes, along with his being an avid reader of books, led him at the age of fifteen to teach in the district schools of Ashtabula County. Using his savings from several winters of teaching and his summer earnings made working on the family farm, Callender succeeded in paying for college preparatory courses at New Lyme Institute, South New Lyme, Ohio.
In 1886, at the age of twenty-one, Callender enrolled at Oberlin College where he took the classical course. There he was influenced by James Monroe, professor of political science and modern history, who taught courses in political economy and sponsored Callender’s volunteer work in the Political Economy Club. Callender also was an active participant in extracurricular organizations, including the Oberlin Glee Club, Oratorical Association, Phi Delta Society, The Review (student newspaper), and the Traveling Men’s Association. In these groups, some of Callender’s affinity for leadership and exactness became evident (i.e., service as the financial manager and secretary). He graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in June, 1891, counting among his classmates John R. Commons and Robert A. Millikan.
After a year spent traveling and working in the business departments of newspapers in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Chicago, enrolled (1892) for graduate study at Harvard University from which he received a B.A. (1893), an M.A. (1894), and a Ph.D. in political science (1897). During his graduate studies at Harvard he served for some time as instructor in economics at Wellesley College, and he was considered an “outstanding man among our graduate students” by Frank W. Taussig and other members of the teaching faculty. Following the award of his Ph.D., Callender held an appointment as instructor in economics at Harvard from 1897 to 1900. There he conducted a course in American economic history, which he personally created. In 1900 he was appointed professor of political economy at Bowdoin College; in 1903 he accepted an appointment as professor in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, where he continued to teach and engage in scholarly research until 1915. He also served as a member of the Governing Board of the Sheffield Scientific School. In 1904 Callender married Harriet Belle Rice; they had one son (Everett, b. 1905).
Callender published his only book, Selections from the Economic History of the United States, 1765-1860 in 1909. In it he revealed his entire theory of the progress of the United States from the beginning of colonization until the Civil War. Callender’s most important contributions are to be found in his condensed, precisely written introductory essays that precede each chapter. His article “The Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises of the States in Relation to the Growth of Corporations,” in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (November 1902) was also well recognized and consulted by scholars.
Callender was as a member of the American Historical Association and the American Economic Association, and he was a frequent contributor as a book reviewer, essayist, and speaker. Callender’s contribution to scholarship is probably best summed up in his “The Position of American Economic History,” American Historical Review 19 (October, 1913). Therein he argued that American economic history should “be pursued as a separate subject of study” and that economic historians must be prepared to interpret facts. For Callender economic history was more than the chronological recital of events of commercial and industrial significance. He sought historical explanations by applying the principles of economic science to the economic and social development of communities. His published studies included an analysis of the part played by economic factors in the adoption of the Federal Constitution and in the debate over the economic basis of slavery in the South.
Prior to his death, Callender worked on several writing projects, including a comprehensive, multivolume economic history of the United States, but poor health prohibited him from completing this project. Another work in progress was a critical essay of Arthur Young’s Political Essays Concerning the British Empire (1772), which focused on the history of British colonies in America. Until then, Young’s essays had not been generally appreciated or known by American scholars. Callender was also at work on an introduction for a new edition in two volumes of American Husbandry, which was first published in London in 1775. Callender’s review of Cyclopedia of American Government (edited by A.S. McLaughlin and Albert Bushnell Hart) appeared in the Yale Reviewshortly after his death. According to commentator Co Wo Mixter, this highly critical review showed “in a marked degree the range, vitality and acuteness of his thinking” (Yale Alumni Weekly, Oct. 1, 1915, p. 48).
Callender was the recipient of numerous awards and honors. In 1907 Yale University awarded him an honorary M.A. Two months before his death the Oberlin College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa elected him to membership. Upon Callender’s death from a cerebral hemorrhage in Branford, Connecticut, on 8 August 1915, members of the Oberlin College Class of 1891 purchased from his widow his library of some 2500 volumes and gave it to the institution in his memory. The Class raised additional funds to purchase other titles on economic history, thus rounding out and completing the collection. A small amount of money was also set aside as an ongoing fund to keep the collection up-to-date. Callender’s gift to the College Library, established by his graduating class, set an Oberlin precedent.
Source: Oberlin College Archives. Guy Stevens Callender Papers, 1820-1870.
_________________
Course Enrollment
1899-1900
[Economics] 6. Dr. [Guy Stevens] Callender.—The Economic History of the United States. Lectures (2 hours); discussions of assigned topics (1 hour); 2 theses.
Total: 163. 11 Graduates, 64 Seniors, 58 Juniors, 19 Sophomores, 11 Others.
Source: Harvard University. Annual report of the President of Harvard College 1899-1900, p. 69.
_________________
Course Description
1897-98
[Economics] 6. The Economic History of the United States. Tu., Th., at 2.30, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructors. Mr. Callender.
Course 6 gives a general survey of the economic history of the United States from the formation of the Union to the present time, and considers also the mode in which economic principles are illustrated by the experience so surveyed. A review is made of the financial history of the United States, including Hamilton’s financial system, the second bank of the United States and the banking systems of the period preceding the Civil War, coinage history, the finances of the Civil War, and the banking and currency history of the period since the Civil War. The history of manufacturing industries is taken up in connection with the course of international trade and of tariff legislation, the successive tariffs being followed and their economic effects considered. The land policy of the United States is examined partly in its relation to the growth of population and the inflow of immigrants, and partly in its relation to the history of transportation, including the movement for internal improvements, the beginnings of the railway system, the land grants and subsidies, and the successive bursts of activity in railway building. Comparison will be made from time to time with the contemporary economic history of European countries.
Written work will be required of all students, and a course of reading will be prescribed, and tested by examination. The course is taken advantageously with or after History 13. While an acquaintance with economic principles is not indispensable, students are strongly advised to take the course after having taken Economics 1, or, if this be not easy to arrange, at the same time with that course.
Source: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98. pp. 32-33.
_________________
1899-1900
ECONOMICS 6
[Final examination, 1900]
- Into what periods may the economic history of the United States be properly divided? Give your reasons for making such a division, pointing out the chief characteristic of each periods.
- “A monopoly may be either legal, natural, or industrial.”—
Distinguish each of these from the others by examples, and explain at length what is the character of an “industrial monopoly.” - What legislation, if any, do you think is needed for the control of trusts? Give in full the reasons for your opinion.
- What features of American railway legislation do you consider open to criticism?
- “…As has been pointed out in the preceding chapter, cotton culture offered many and great advantages over other crops for the use of slave labor; but slavery had few, if any advantages over free labor for the cultivation of cotton….”—
(a) Point out some of the advantages of cotton over other crops for the use of slave labor. (b) How do you reconcile the last part of the statement with the fact that cotton was produced chiefly by slave, instead of free, labor? - Considering the conditions prevailing among the negroes in the South as well as in the West Indies since emancipation, what criticism, if any, would you make upon the policy of emancipation as actually carried out by the federal government during and after the war?
- What influences can you mention which have contributed to the recent depressed condition of cotton producers? (Do not confine your attention to the “credit system.”)
- What were the principal provisions of the resumption act? Explain the conditions under which it was carried into effect.
- Explain the conditions which led to the crisis or 1893.
- What reasons can you give to support the proposition that immigration has increased the population of the United States but little, if any?
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Final examinations, 1853-2001.Box 2, Folder “Final examinations, 1899-1900”.