The economic historian, Arthur Harrison Cole, is best known as having been the Librarian of the Business School’s Baker Library and also the executive director of the Research Center in Entrepreneurial History at the Business School. This post provides the reading list and examination questions for the undergraduate economic history course he taught at Harvard in the first semester of the 1936-37 academic year. The post begins with the biographical note provided at the Harvard Business School Archives where Arthur H. Cole’s papers are located.
Arthur Harrison Cole’s doctoral examination fields can be found at this post. His dissertation is included in this list of Harvard economics Ph.D.’s through 1926.
His obituary in the Harvard President’s annual report has also been previously posted.
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Arthur Harrison Cole (1889-1974)
Biographical Note
Arthur Harrison Cole was born November 21, 1889 in Haverhill, MA. He attended Governor Dummer Academy (1904-1907) and graduated from Bowdin College with a BA (1911). He received his MA (1913) and PhD (1916) in economics from Harvard University. After completing his dissertation, Cole tutored and taught economics at Harvard. He rose from instructor (1916-1917, 1920-1923) to assistant professor (1923-1928) to associate professor (1928-1933). In addition to his academic work, Professor Cole worked in the War Department and the U. S. Tariff Commission from 1917-1920. In 1933, he became Professor of Business Economics at Harvard Business School.
In 1929, Arthur Cole was appointed financial supervisor of the International Scientific Committee on Price History. Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, which supported the study of social and economic problems, the Committee researched commodity prices of leading European countries and the United States prior to 1861. The Rockefeller Foundation eventually spent $325,000 for this study and allowed Cole the administrative freedom to dispense the funds to Committee members.
Under the presidency of Sir [later Lord] William Beveridge, the Committee reached a consensus on methodology in 1931 after meeting in London (1930), Frankfort (1930), and Amsterdam (1931). Thereafter, economists on the Committee from England, Germany, France, Austria, Poland, Spain, and the United States proceeded to investigate prices in their respective countries. Meetings in Aix-en-Provence (1932), Vienna (1932) and Locarno (1933) allowed the members to gather periodically to discuss various problems of investigation and methods.
In addition to serving in an administrative capacity for the International Scientific Committee on Price History, Arthur Cole wrote one of the volumes of price history for the United States, Wholesale Commodity Prices in the United States, 1700-1860 (1938). The other two volumes of price history for the United States were Prices in Colonial Pennsylvania by Bezanson, Gray and Hussey (1935) and Wholesale Prices for 213 Years, 1720-1932 by Warren, Pearson and Stoker (1932). Publication of the price histories were suspended during World War II, but resumed after the end of hostilities.
Arthur Cole assumed the dual role of economic historian and library administrator throughout his long professional career. As Administrative Curator of Baker Library (1929-1932) and later, Librarian of Baker Library (1932-1956), Cole’s pioneering efforts in collecting and preserving historically significant business records led to the accumulation of one of the finest collections on the subject in the world. In addition, his influence as an economic historian continued long after he left the classroom. Cole remained an integral part of the scholarly community as Managing Editor of the Review of Economic Statistics (1935-1937), Chairman of Inter-University Research Commission on Economic History (1941-1958), Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic History (1943-1946), and Executive Director, Research Center in Entrepreneurial History (1948-1958). He retired to emeritus status from Harvard Business School in 1956.
Arthur Cole married the former Anne Steckel of Pennsylvania on August 5, 1913 and they had two children: Barbara and Jonathan. He died November 10, 1974.
Source: Arthur Harrison Cole Papers. Harvard Business School Archives. Baker Library Historical Collections. Harvard Business School. Accessed July 22, 2018.
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Course Enrollment
34 1hf. (formerly 2a). Professor A. H. Cole.—Economic History Since 1860.
Total, 20: 7 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 7 Sophomores, 1 Other.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1936-37, p. 92.
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ECONOMICS 34
Reading Assignments—1936-37
Industrial Development
- Usher, A. P., Industrial History of England, pp. 1-23, 247-366.
- Clark, V. C., History of Manufactures in the United States, pp. 233-314, 335-63.
- Roe, J. W., English and American Tool Builders, pp. 109-72.
Transportation Improvement
- Kirkaldy, A. W., British Shipping: its History, Organization, and Importance, pp. 3-92, 151-73, 307-47.
- (a)
Usher, A. P., Industrial History of England, pp. 431-67.
Clapham, J. H., Economic History of Modern Britain, I, pp. 75-97, 381-412.
Clapham, J. H., Economic Development of France and Germany, pp. 104-13, 140-55, 339-54.
or
- (b)
Kirkland, E. C., History of American Economic Life, pp. 257-301, 370-419.
Schmidt, L. B. and E. D. Ross, Readings in the Economic History of American Agriculture, pp. 127-30, 173-270.
Commercial Policy
- (a)
Barnes, D. G., History of the English Corn Laws, pp. 239-84.
Ashley, P., Modern Tariff History, pp. 3-63, 323-87.
or
- (b)
Hill, W., First Stages of the Tariff Policy of the United States, pp. 38-93.
Taussig, F. W., Tariff History of the United States, pp. 68-154.
Banking and Credit
- (a)
Andreades, A., History of the Bank of England, pp. 248-94.
King, W.T.C., History of the London Discount Market, pp. 1-169.
Bagehot, W., Lombard Street, Chaps. VII and IX. (1910 ed., pp. 162-209, 283-302.)
or
- (b)
Conant, C. A., History of Modern Banks of Issue, pp. 334-95.
Myers, M.G., The New York Money Market, pp. 3-9, 43-209.
Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950, Box 23, Folder “Course Outlines 1935-37-38-42”.
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Reading Period (January 4-20, 1937) Assignment
Economics 34:
Read 200 pages in one of the following books:
Ernle, Lord, English Farming, Past and Present, Chs. 7-19 (inclusive).
Levy, H., Monopolies, Cartels, and Trusts in British Industry, Chs. 5-8, 9.
Webb, S. and B., History of Trade Unionism.
Phillips, U. B., American Negro Slavery, Chs. 8-19 (inclusive).
Hibbard, B. H., History of the Public Land Policies.
Seager, H. R., and Gulick, C. A., Jr., Trust and Corporation Problems, Chs. 5, 7-16, 24-26.
Sprague, O. M. W., Crises under the National Banking System.
Commons, J. R., and associates, History of Labour in the United States.
Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003(HUC 8522.2.1), Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1936-1937”.
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FINAL EXAMINATION, 1936-37
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 341
I
(About one hour)
- Write an essay upon some subject suggested by your reading-period assignment, or upon the changes in ocean shipping, 1760-1870.
II.
(About two hours)
Answer four questions
- “Those who would set apart certain decades in the economic development of a country as the period of that country’s ‘industrial revolution’ and who conceive the changes therein contained in terms of inventions, commit two grievous errors. The setting-apart of these periods is spurious, while, in so far as there were developments of note, those in industrial technique were not the decisive ones for segregation.” Do you agree? If so, why? If not, why not?
- Take one of the following:
(a) Trace the course of tariff change in England in the period 1815-60. What forces were chiefly responsible for the reformation of the tariff accomplished in these decades?
(b) Trace briefly the development of protectionist thought in the United States in the pre-Civil-War period.
- What phases of railroad development on the continent of Europe before 1880 contrast most sharply with the roughly contemporaneous experiences of England and the United States in the same field? Illustrate your points.
- What were the outstanding characteristics of the London or New York money market at approximately 1860? How do you account for the emergence of this city as the financial center of England or the United States? (Consider one country only.)
- Identify and indicate the significance in economic history of five of the following: (a) Eli Whitney; (b) Brunel; (c) Chevalier; (d) Friedrich List; (e) the Scholfields; (f) Sir Henry Bessemer; (g) Nicholas Biddle.
- “Economic independence did not accompany political independence for the United States. The one unifying thread in American economic history for the greater part of the nineteenth century—in commerce, finance, opening the continent, etc.—is action relative to Europe, especially England, and dependence upon these foreign areas.” Do you agree? Why or why not? If on the whole you agree, you should support your views by enlargement of the above contentions (though you may also indicate limitations to the validity of these statements, if you care to); while if on the whole you disagree, you may develop another “unifying thread”—although that course is not essential.
Final. 1937.
Source:Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, Finals (HUC 700028, vol. 79). Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History, History of Religions, …, Economics,…Military Science, Naval Science. January—June, 1937.
Image Source: Harvard Business School Yearbook 1930-1931, p. 39.