More and more universities are putting digitized, searchable copies of the student newspaper online. Up to now I have made ample use of the archives of the Harvard Crimson, the Columbia Spectator, and the U of M Daily. While sampling the Yale Daily News archive, I came across the name of a guest lecturer from the University of Pennsylvania, Robert Ellis Thompson in the January 28, 1885 issue.
It was reported that Thompson had been instructor, then assistant professor of mathematics before receiving “a chair of Social Science”. Thompson was also reported to have just delivered a course of lectures on the subject of “Protection” at Harvard. Wondering why I had not come across (or noticed) his name before, I reached for volume three of Joseph Dorfman’s Economic Mind in American Civilization, and came up with relatively little:
…there was general agreement in the academic world on most major [economic] issues. The one exception was the question of the tariff, but even here, by the end of the period, only one leading Eastern institution and a few Midwestern state universities could be said to be clearly protectionist. The one was the University of Pennsylvania, where the Reverend Robert Ellis Thompson (1844-1924), professor of social science, held to Carey’s views throughout, even on money.*
*Robert Ellis Thompson’s Social Science and National Economy (Philadelphia: Porter-Coates, 1875), was promoted far and wide by the powerful protectionist Industrial League of Pennsylvania. For biographical detail, see “Memorial Meeting in Honor of Robert Ellis Thompson,” The Barnwell Bulletin, February 1925, pp. 3-23; James H. S. Bossard, “Robert Ellis Thompson, Pioneer Professor in Social Science,” The American Journal of Sociology, September 1929, pp. 239-49.
Source: Joseph Dorfman. The Economic Mind in American Civilization. Vol 3, 1865-1918 (New York: Viking Press, 1949), p. 80, bibliographic notes p. xvi.
___________________________
Sketch of Life and Career of Robert Ellis Thompson
The University of Pennsylvania archives provides the following sketch of Robert Ellis Thompson’s life and career. One’s curiosity is naturally aroused by the indication that Thompson had been eased/forced out of his professorship by the Provost. Was there a political/philosophical issue involved? Plot-spoiler: Thompson appears to have been at cross-purposes with the direction of the Wharton School of Finance and Economy and his way or the highway led to an off-ramp into a very successful, 27-year second career as president of Central High School in Philadelphia for him.
On the founding of the Wharton School, see Chapter 8 of Edgar Potts Cheyney’s History of the University of Pennsylvania 1740-1940 , esp. pp. 288-293. This reference and more detail about the Penn economics department are found at Gonçalo L. Fonseca’s History of Economic Thought Website.
Robert Ellis Thompson
1844 – 1924
- A.B. 1865, A.M. 1868, D.D. (hon.) 1887
- Member of Zelosophic Society and University Chess Club
- Phi Beta Kappa, class salutatorian, and Junior English Prize recipient
- Professor of mathematics, social science, history, and English literature
Born in Lurgan, County Down, Ireland, on April 15, 1844, Robert Ellis Thompson was the son of Samuel and Catherine Ellis Thompson. The family came to Philadelphia when Robert was thirteen years old.
Thompson entered the University as a freshman in the Class of 1865 and served as class historian in his sophomore year. During his college years he was a member of the Zelosophic Society and the University Chess Club. He was also a Phi Beta Kappa honoree, recipient of the Junior English Prize, and the class salutatorian.
Thompson’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania included an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in 1887. Additionally, he earned a Ph.D. from Hamilton College in 1879 and received a LL.D. from Muhlenberg College in 1909.
A Presbyterian clergyman and educator, Thompson began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania in 1868 as an instructor in mathematics; in 1871 he was promoted to an assistant professor of mathematics. From 1874 until 1883 he taught at Penn as professor of social science, and then from 1883 to 1893, he was John Welsh Centennial Professor of History and English Literature. During these years, Thompson lectured at Harvard and Yale from 1884 to 1887 and also at the Princeton Theological Seminary. Thompson was editor of Penn Monthly from 1870 to 1880, and of The American from 1881 to 1892. He published Social Science and National Economy in 1875, and also served as editor for the first two volumes of the Encyclopedia Americana, a supplement to the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica from 1883 to 1885.
In 1892 Provost William Pepper (nephew of Class of 1865 classmate John Sergeant Gerhard) requested Thompson’s resignation from the John Welsh Chair of History and English Literature. Thompson refused to resign and also declined a proposed transfer to a chair of biblical literature, American church history, and industrial history. Eventually however, he was unsuccessful in the attempt to keep his job and, in 1894, took over the presidency of Central High School in Philadelphia. He remained there for twenty-seven years until he was forced out of this post under a state law which fixed the retirement age for teachers at seventy years. He was an outspoken defender of labor unions (1911) and proponent of female suffrage, predicting in 1911 that a woman would be elected mayor of Philadelphia by 1961. He married Mary Neely in 1874. She died in 1894, while Robert Ellis Thompson died on October 19, 1924 in Philadelphia.
Source: Robert Ellis Thompson (1844-1924). University of Pennsylvania. University Archives & Record Center. Web series “Penn People”.
___________________________
Selection of publications by Robert Ellis Thompson
[results of a relatively casual bibliographic search]
Books
Social Science and National Economy (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1875).
Thompson’s Social Science and National Economy, reviewed. Penn Monthly, Vol. 6 (September 1875), pp. 692-698.
Third, revised edition published as Elements of Political Economy with Especial Reference to the Industrial History of Nations (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1882).
Relief of Local and State Taxation through Distribution of the National Surplus. [Series of revised articles in The American.] Philadelphia: Edward Stern & Co., 1883.
Protection to Home Industry. Four lectures delivered to Harvard University, January, 1885. (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1886)
De Civitate Dei—the Divine Order of Human Society. Princeton Stone Lectures (Philadelphia: John D. Wattles, 1891).
Syllabus of a Course of Six Lectures on Money and Banking. University Extension Lectures, Series D, No. 3. American Society for the Extension of University Teaching, 1894. [Transcription at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror]
Political Economy for High Schools and Academies. Boston: Ginn & Company, 1895.
The History of the Dwelling-House and its Future. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1914.
Articles published in Penn Monthly
The Old Education. Vol. 1 (February 1870), pp. 52-60.
A Current Revolution. Vol. 1 (April 1870), pp. 121-130.
Ulster in America. Vol. 1 (June 1870), pp. 202-209.
Harbaugh’s Harfe. [Review of Gedichte in Pennsylvanisch-Deutscher Mundart von H. Harbaugh] Vol. 1 (August 1870), pp. 202-286.
The Three Arches. Vol. 1 (September 1870), pp. 202-329.
The Protective Question Abroad. Vol. 1 (Nov. 1870), pp. 436-440.
The Revision of the Old Testament. Vol. 2 (January 1871), pp. 44-52.
Zeisberger’s Mission to the Indians. [Review of Edmund de Schweinitz’s The Life and Times of David Zeisberger, the Western Pioneer and Apostle to the Indians] Vol. 2 (February 1871), pp. 97-106.
The Race and the Individual in their Parallel Development. Vol. 2 (May 1871), pp. 250-263.
The German Mystics as American Colonists.—I. Vol. 2 (August 1871), pp. 391-403.
The German Mystics as American Colonists.—II. Vol. 2 (September 1871), pp. 443-451.
The German Mystics as American Colonists.—III. Vol. 2 (October 1871), pp. 487-497.
Darwin on his Travels. [Review of second American edition of the Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Round the World] Vol. 2 (November 1871), pp. 562-572.
The Origin of Free Masonry. [Review of G.. W. Steinbrenner’s The Origin and Early History of Masonry] Vol. 2 (December 1871), pp. 617-626.
Some German Critics of Adam Smith. [unsigned, perhaps Thompson] Vol. 3 (Nov. 1872), pp. 586-96.
Review of E. Dühring’s Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und des Socialismus. Vol. 3 (Nov. 1872), pp. 631-33.
The Communisms of the Old World. Vol. 5 (January 1874), pp. 12-28
The Teutonic Mark. [This article is in great measure supplementary of the series on “The Communisms of the Old World.”] Vol. 5 (August 1874), pp. 557-578.
Prof. Cairnes on Political Economy. Vol. 5 (September 1874), pp. 637-750
The Economic Wrongs of Ireland. Vol. 5 (October 1874), pp. 713-750
Communism and Serfdom in Russia. Vol. 5 (November 1874), pp. 791-808
National Education.—IV. Vol. 6 (May 1875), pp. 327-341
Carey and Ricardo in Europe. Vol. 8 (July 1877), pp. 548-557.
Recent Economic Literature. Vol. 8 (December 1877), pp. 956-968.
Is Christianity on the Wane among Us?. Vol. 9 (January 1878), pp. 45-65.
Use and Abuse of Examinations. [L. Wiese, German Letters on English Education, 1854 and 1876] Vol. 9 (May 1878), pp. 379-400.
De Laveleye’s Primitive Property. Vol. 9 (August 1878), pp. 620-633.
How It Strikes a Stranger. [Review of Hermann Grothe, Die Industrie Amerikas] Vol. 9 (October 1878), pp. 782-793.
The Commercial Future. Vol. 9 (November 1878), pp. 869-889.
My Neighborhood as a Starting-Point in Education. [Substance of an Address delivered before the National Educational Association, July 31, 1879] Vol. 10 (September 1879), pp. 664-676.
The Proposed Franco-American Treaty. Vol. 10 (October 1879), pp. 772-778.
Henry Charles Carey. [Memorial] Vol. 10 (November 1879), pp. 816-834. Frontpiece.
The Silver Question in England. Vol. 11 (January 1880), pp. 64-74.
Spiritualism in Germany. Vol. 11 (February 1880), pp. 97-117.
The Issues of the Campaign. Vol. 11 (August 1880), pp. 630-649.
Lessons of Social Science in the Streets of Philadelphia. Vol. 11 (December 1880), pp. 919-941.
The Future of our Public School System. Vol. 12 (April 1881), pp. 282-292.
Image Source: Robert Ellis Thompson, ca. 1880. University of Pennsylvania. University Archives & Record Center. Web series “Penn People”.