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Harvard. Application for PhD candidacy. John H. Williams, PhD 1919

John Henry Williams was in his day a colossus whose feet were squarely planted in macroeconomic research and macroeconomic policy. Many posts here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror include material from his Harvard courses. The particular contribution of this post is found in the transcriptions of the graduate course records from the Division of History, Government and Economics that document Williams’ own pursuit of the Ph.D. Not essential to any understanding of the development of modern economics is the flurry of letters, cards and telegrams required to coordinate the time of Williams’ Special Examination that followed the acceptance of his doctoral thesis. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

A timeline of his life and career has been appended to the post below.

_______________________

Current Literature

Pier Francesco Asso’s chapter “John Henry Williams (1887–1980)” in The Palgrave Companion to Harvard Economics edited by Robert A. Cord (1924), pp. 197-220.

_______________________

Ph.D. in Economics, 1919

JOHN HENRY WILLIAMS, A.B. (Brown Univ.) 1912, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1916.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, International Trade. Thesis, “Argentine International Trade under Inconvertible Paper Money, 1880-1900.” Assistant Professor of Economics, Princeton University.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1918-19, p. 82.

_______________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS

Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.

[Note: Boldface used to indicate printed text of the application; italics used to indicate the handwritten entries]

I. Full Name, with date and place of birth.

John Henry Williams. June 21, 1887. Ystrad, Wales.

II. Academic Career: (Mention, with dates inclusive, colleges or other higher institutions of learning attended; and teaching positions held.)

Brown University. 1909-12.
Harvard University. 1915 to present.
Brown University. Instructor in English, 1912-15.

III. Degrees already attained. (Mention institutions and dates.)

A.B. Brown University, 1912.
A.M. Harvard, 1916.

IV. General Preparation. (Indicate briefly the range and character of your undergraduate studies in History, Economics, Government, and in such other fields as Ancient and Modern Languages, Philosophy, etc.)

General course in European history; English Constitutional history; European history since 1815; American history.
Elementary course in Economic Theory; Labor Problems;
Elementary courses in Political Science & in Sociology.
History of Philosophy. English composition (2 year courses).
Anglo-Saxon; English literature (two year courses); French (two years); German (two years); Latin & Greek (one year each). I obtained credit for a course in Spanish by special examination.

V. Department of Study. (Do you propose to offer yourself for the Ph.D., “History,” in “Economics,” or in “Political Science”?)

Economics.

VI. Choice of Subjects for the General Examination. (State briefly the nature of your preparation in each subject, as by Harvard courses, courses taken elsewhere, private reading, teaching the subject, etc., etc.)

  1. Economic theory, and the history of economic thought.
    Economics 11, Economics 14: – Harvard.
    (Elementary course in theory at Brown.)
  2. Economic history.
    Economics 2: – Harvard.
  3. Public Finance.
    Economics 31: – Harvard.
  4. Labor Problems.
    Economics 34: – Harvard.
    (one course at Brown.)
  5. Political Theory.
    Govt. 6a; Govt 6b: – Harvard.
  6. International Trade. Special Field
    Economics 33.
    Economics 20(a) (Research – full course) 

VII. Special Subject for the special examination.

International Trade

VIII. Thesis Subject. (State the subject and mention the instructor who knows most about your work upon it.)

The Foreign Trade of Argentina in the Period of Inconvertible Paper Money (1880-19009.
Professor F. W. Taussig.

IX. Examinations. (Indicate any preferences as to the time of the general and special examinations.)

For the general examination. Early May, 1917.

X. Remarks

[left blank]

Signature of a member of the Division certifying approval of the above outline of subjects.

[signed] Charles J. Bullock

*   *   *   [Last page of application] *   *   *

[Not to be filled out by the applicant]

Name: John Henry Williams

Approved: Jan 23 1917

Ability to use French certified by C. J. Bullock. 18 December 1916 – D.H.

Ability to use German certified by  C. J. Bullock. 18 December 1916 – D.H.

Date of general examination Passed – May 7, 1911 – D.H.

Thesis received [left blank]

Read by [left blank]

Approved [left blank]

Date of special examination [left blank]

Recommended for the Doctorate [left blank]

Degree conferred [left blank]

Remarks.  [left blank]

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Record of JOHN HENRY WILLIAMS
in the Harvard Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences

Grades
1915-16 Course Half-Course
Economics 2a1 A
Economics 2b2 A
Economics 11 A
Economics 13 B plus
Economics 31 A minus
Economics 34 A

 

1916-17 Course Half-Course
Economics 14 “Credit”
Economics 20a A
Economics 332 abs.
Economics 351 A
Government 6a1 A
Government 6b2 abs.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Certification of reading knowledge
of French

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

F. W. Taussig
T. N. Carver
W. Z. Ripley
C. J. Bullock
E. F. Gay
W. M. Cole
O. M. W. Sprague
W.E. Rappard
H.L. Gray
E. E. Day

Cambridge, Massachusetts
December 18, 1916.

This is to certify that I have examined Mr. J. H. Williams and found that he has a satisfactory reading knowledge of French and German.

[signed]
C. J. Bullock

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

General examination passed

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

F. W. Taussig
T. N. Carver
W. Z. Ripley
C. J. Bullock
E. F. Gay
W. M. Cole
O. M. W. Sprague
E. E. Day
B. M. Anderson, Jr.

Cambridge, Massachusetts
May 9, 1917.

Dear Haskins:

Mr. J. H. William passed his general examination for the doctor’s degree on May 7th. He did pretty well in all subjects, and the vote of the Committee was unanimous. The examination was not, however, a brilliant one.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Charles J. Bullock

Dean C. H. Haskins

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Willing to take a professorship at Lafayette College if offered.

Department of Commerce
Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce
Washington

June 20, 1918

I have your letter of June 17th, forwarded from the Cambridge Y.M.C.A., stating that I have been recommended for a professorship in economics and government at Lafayette College at $2,000. That prospect seems to me highly desirable and I hope I may get it. I am writing today to Dr. MacCracken.

For the past two weeks, as a result of your kind mention of me to Dr. Klein, I have been doing Latin American research work in the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. My present appointment is temporary and in no way binding on either side. I understand, however, that I may arrange for a permanent appointment if I desire. The salary is about the same as that of the teaching position, but the cost of living here in Washington is terrific! I feel too that I should prefer teaching to this work, provided the salary were satisfactory, as it is in the case of this position at Lafayette College. If, therefore, you could assist me in any way to secure the place, I should be very grateful.

I take this opportunity to explain what is the present status of my thesis. Save for some minor changes it is completed, and is now in Professor Taussig’s hands. He hopes to have an opportunity to read it during his vacation, which I undertand is to begin soon. Once the thesis is returned to me I mean to put it into final shape and forward it to you. Do you not think that it might be examined by a committee in the late summer or early fall, and that, if it is satisfactory, arrangement might be made for me to take the final examination in October?

With many thanks for your kind letter, I am

Very truly yours,
[signed]
John H. Williams

Dean Charles H. Haskins.

(My safest address is the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Latin American Division, Washington, D.C. I am advising the Appointments Office of this address.)

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Dean Haskins reply to Williams

22 June 1918

Dear Mr. Williams:

I am glad to learn from your letter of 20 June that you are interested in the place at Lafayette. Your letter to President MacCracken will put you in touch with him; I had already given him the only address I conld get, 1937 Calvert Street.

In regards your thesis, I will undertake to see what we can do when it reaches me in final shape. It is hard to find men free to read theses during the summer, but at least it can be read early in the academic year, so that your special examination need not go far into the autumn.

Let me know if I can do anything about the place at Lafayette, or elsewhere. I mentioned Professor Bullock in writing to President MacCracken.

Very truly yours,
[unsigned copy]

Mr. John H. Williams.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Undated File Note
Presumably late June 1918.

Miss Ham has telphoned that J. H. Williams wishes to take his special examination next fall. Professor Taussig has received his thesis and has read it. Who are to be the other members of the committee?

[Handwritten notes added:]
Bullock, Sprague, Klein, Carver.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Division asks Carver
to Read Williams’ thesis

7 October 1918

Dear Carver:

Will you serve as one of the committee to read the Ph.D. thesis of J. H. Williams, on “Foreign Trade of Argentina in the Period of Inconvertible Paper Money (1880-1900)”? The thesis will be sent to you.

Yours sincerely,
[unsigned copy]

Professor T. N. Carver

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Taussig’s Daughter to wed in November 1918. Good time to schedule Williams’ Special Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

F. W. Taussig
T. N. Carver
W. Z. Ripley
C. J. Bullock
E. F. Gay
W. M. Cole
O. M. W. Sprague
E. E. Day
B. M. Anderson, Jr.
J. S. Davis
H. H. Burbank
E. E. Lincoln

Cambridge, Massachusetts
October 14, 1918.

Dear dear Haskins:

Taussig writes that he is going to be in Cambridge about November 10th to attend his daughter’s wedding, and obviously that will be the best time for having Williams’s final examination. Let us tentatively put that down for November 9th, 10th, or 11th, the exact date to be fixed after the date of the wedding is definitely set.

Williams’s thesis will undoubtedly be accepted. Taussig and I are now ready to approve it, and find it a very excellent piece of work. Carver is now reading it.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Charles J. Bullock

Dean C. H. Haskins

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Dean Haskins Begins to Assemble Special Examination Committee

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Division of History, Government, and Economics

16 October 1918

My dear Sir:

Can you serve as a member of the committee for the special examination of John Henry Williams for the Ph.D. in Economics, which is provisionally fixed for November 9 or 11? Mr. Williams’s special field is International Trade, and his thesis subject is Foreign Trade of Argentina in the Period of Inconvertible Paper Money (1880-1900). The committee consists of Professors Taussig (chairman), Bullock, Carver, and Persons.

Yours sincerely,
[unsigned copy]
CHARLES H. HASKINS

[To: Taussig, Bullock, Carver, Persons]

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Division sets tentative dates for
Special Examination

16 October 1918

Dear Mr. Williams:

Your special examination has been fixed provisionally for November 9 or 11. The committee consists of Professors Taussig (chairman), Bullock, Carver, and Persons.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]

Mr. J. H. Williams.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Division checking whether
Taussig would be available for the Special Examination

16 October 1918

Dear Taussig:

I understand from Bullock that you are to be here these days. Can you indicate so far in advance whether you could act on Williams’s examination and what hour would be convenient for you?

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]

Professor F.W. Taussig.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Persons can serve on
Special Examination Committee

My dear Dean Haskins:

I will be able to serve on the committee to examine J. H. Williams on Nov 9 or 11.

[signed]
Warren M. Persons

Oct. 18–1918

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

UNITED STATES TARIFF COMMISSION
WASHINGTON

F. W. Taussig, Chairman
Thomas walker Page, Vice Chairman
David J. Lewis
William Kent
William S. Culbertson
Edward P. Costigan
Wm. M. Steuart, Secretary

Address reply to
United States Tariff Commission

October 18, 1918.

Dear Bullock:

I enclose the certificate on Williams’s thesis, duly signed. I should hope to be able to get to Cambridge about November 12th. I can make no unqualified promises, but just now there is something of a let up, and prospects for an easier year are good.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
F. W. Taussig

Professor C. J. Bullock,
Department of Economics
Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Enclosure.

[Short-hand note at bottom of page]

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

UNITED STATES TARIFF COMMISSION
WASHINGTON

F. W. Taussig, Chairman
Thomas walker Page, Vice Chairman
David J. Lewis
William Kent
William S. Culbertson
Edward P. Costigan
Wm. M. Steuart, Secretary

Address reply to
United States Tariff Commission

October 19, 1918.

Dear Haskins:

I have your letter of the 16th. I could take part in Williams’ examination about November 12th or 13th. It will be a pleasure to have a hand again in Cambridge doings.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
F. W. Taussig

Mr. Charles H. Haskins,
Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Bullock has Taussig’s letter to him
forwarded to Dean Haskins

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

F. W. Taussig
T. N. Carver
W. Z. Ripley
C. J. Bullock
E. F. Gay
W. M. Cole
O. M. W. Sprague
E. E. Day
B. M. Anderson, Jr.
J. S. Davis
H. H. Burbank

Cambridge, Massachusetts
October 21, 1918.

Dear Dean Haskins:

Professor Bullock wished me to send you the enclosed letter from Professor Taussig, and to suggest that you provisionally set November 12th as the date for Mr. Williams’s examination and find out whether Professor Taussig now can agree to come at that time.

Very truly yours,
[signed]
A. Pauline Ham

Dean C. H. Haskins

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Special Examination Date Change
(to the Committee)

21 October 1918

Dear Bullock:

Mr. Williams’s examination has been changed to Tuesday, November 12, at 3 p.m. I hope that this will be convenient for you.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]

Professor C. J. Bullock
Professor T. N. Carver
Dr. W. M. Persons.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Special Examination Date Change
(to Williams)

21 October 1918

My dear Mr. Williams:

It has been found necessary to change your examination, and it has been set provisionally for Tuesday, November 12, at 3 p.m.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]

Mr. John H. Williams.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Special Examination Date Change
(to Taussig)

21 October 1918

Dear Taussig:

I have arranged Mr. Williams’s examination for Tuesday, November 12, at 3 p.m. I hope that hour will be convenient for you.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]

Professor F. W. Taussig.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Carver agrees to serve on Williams’ Special Examination Committee

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

F. W. Taussig
T. N. Carver
W. Z. Ripley
C. J. Bullock
E. F. Gay
W. M. Cole
O. M. W. Sprague
E. E. Day
B. M. Anderson, Jr.
J. S. Davis
H. H. Burbank
E. E. Lincoln

Cambridge, Massachusetts
October 22, 1918.

Dean Charles H. Haskins,
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Sir:

I can serve as a member of the committee for the examination of Mr. Williams on either date, given, preferably on November 9.

Very sincerely yours,
[signed]
T. N. Carver (P)

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Bullock can’t make
the new Special Examination date

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

F. W. Taussig
T. N. Carver
W. Z. Ripley
C. J. Bullock
E. F. Gay
W. M. Cole
O. M. W. Sprague
E. E. Day
B. M. Anderson, Jr.
J. S. Davis
H. H. Burbank
E. E. Lincoln

Cambridge, Massachusetts
October 23, 1918.

My dear Haskins:

It now appears that I shall be away from Cambridge the week of November 10-16 in attendance at the annual conference of the National Tax Association. Since Taussig is going to be here that week, I think it would be better to adhere to your date of Noverber 12th for Williams’s examination. You have Taussig, Carver, and Persons, so that you could perfectly well replace me by Burbank or some historian or a government man. It is more important that Taussig should be on hand than that I should be there.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Charles J. Bullock

Dean C. H. Haskins

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Carver agrees to new date for
Williams’ Special Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

F. W. Taussig
T. N. Carver
W. Z. Ripley
C. J. Bullock
E. F. Gay
W. M. Cole
O. M. W. Sprague
E. E. Day
B. M. Anderson, Jr.
J. S. Davis
H. H. Burbank
E. E. Lincoln

Cambridge, Massachusetts
October 24, 1918.

Dean Charles H. Haskins,
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Dean Haskins:

The date for Mr. Williams’s examination, November 12, at 3 p.m. is satisfactory to me.

Very sincerely yours,
[signed]
T. N. Carver

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

UNITED STATES TARIFF COMMISSION
WASHINGTON

F. W. Taussig, Chairman
Thomas walker Page, Vice Chairman
David J. Lewis
William Kent
William S. Culbertson
Edward P. Costigan
Wm. M. Steuart, Secretary

Address reply to
United States Tariff Commission

October 24, 1918.

Dear Haskins:

I have your note concerning Williams’ examination on Tuesday, November 12th. I will be on hand.

Very truly yours,
[signed]
F. W. Taussig

Mr. Charles H. Haskins,
Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Asking Burbank to substitute for Bullock

25 October 1918

Dear Burbank:

Could you serve as a member of the committee for the special examination of J. H. Williams on Tuesday, November 12, at 3 p.m.? Professor Bullock, who was to serve, is obliged to be out of town that week, and the date of the examination has to be fixed with regard to Professor Taussig’s presence in Cambridge. Mr. Williams’s special field is International Trade, and his thesis is on Foreign Trade in Argentina, 1880-1900. The other members of the committee are Professors Taussig (chairmen), Carver, and Persons.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]

Dr. H. H. Burbank.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Bullock informed

25 October 1918

Dear Bullock:

I have asked Burbank to serve in your place at Williams’s examination.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]

Professor C. J. Bullock.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Taussig needs to postpone
the Special Examination

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Dean Agrees to Postponing Special Examination

6 November 1918

Professor F. W. Taussig, U. S. Tariff Commission, Washington, D.C.

Examination can be changed to Friday fifteenth if your presence assured then. Telegraph.

Charles H. Haskins

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Williams informed of Special Examination date change

7 November 1918

Dear Mr. Williams:

It has been found necessary to change your examination to Friday, November 15, at 4 p.m. in Widener U.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]

Mr. J. H. Williams.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Committee members informed of
Special Examination date change

7 November 1918

My dear Sir:

It has been found necessary to change Mr. Williams’s examination to Friday, November 15, at 4 p.m. in Widener U. I trust this hour will be convenient for you.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]

[Carver, Persons, Burbank]

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Special examination passed

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

F. W. Taussig
T. N. Carver
W. Z. Ripley
C. J. Bullock
E. F. Gay
W. M. Cole
O. M. W. Sprague
E. E. Day
B. M. Anderson, Jr.
J.S. Davis
H.H. Burbank
E.E. Lincoln

Cambridge, Massachusetts
November 16, 1918.

Dear Sir:

I beg to report, in behalf of the Committee appointed to conduct the special examination of J. H. Williams, that he passed the examination by unanimous vote of the Committee.

Very truly yours,
[signed]
F. W. Taussig

Dean C. H. Haskins

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Notice to President’s Office
of the Award of Ph.D.

[Format matches the listing in the Annual Report of the President of Harvard College]

3 December 1918

The Division of History, Government, and Economics reports that the following candidate for the degree of Doctor of philosophy has presented a satisfactory thesis and passed his final examination successfully:

John Henry Williams,

A.B. (Brown Univ.) 1912, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1916.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, International Trade.

Thesis. “The Foreign Trade of Argentina in the Period of Inconvertible paper Money (1880-1900).”

[unsigned copy]
Chairman

Source: Harvard University Archives. Division of History, Government & Economics, Ph.D. 1923-24. (UA V 453.270), Box 05, Folder “Degree Granted”.

__________________________

Course Names and Instructors

1915-16

Economics 2a 1hf. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. Professor Gay assisted by Mr. A.H. Cole and Ryder.

Economics 2b 2hf. Economic and Financial History of the United States. Professor Gay assisted by Mr. A.H. Cole and Ryder.

Economics 11. Economic Theory. Professor Taussig.

Economics 13. Statistics: Theory, Methods, Practice. Asst. Professor Day.

Economics 31. Public Finance. Professor Bullock.

Economics 34. Problems of Labor. Professor Ripley.

1916-17

Economics 14. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848. Professor Bullock.

Economics 20a. Economic Research (Economic Theory and International Trade and Tariff Problems). Professor Taussig.

Economics 332. International Trade and Tariff Problems. Professor Persons (Colorado College).

Economics 351. Problems of Business Cycles. Professor Persons (Colorado College).

Government 6a1. History of Political Theory. Asst. Professor Holcombe.

Government 6b2. Political Theories of Modern Times. Asst. Professor Holcombe.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College for 1915-16, 1916-17.

__________________________

John Henry Williams
Timeline of his life and career

1887. Born June 21 in Ystrad, Wales.

1889. May. Family emigrates to the United States, settling in the Blackinton section of North Adams, Massachusetts.

1900. October 13. Became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

 1908[est.] Graduated from Drury High School, North Adams, Massachusetts.

1912. A.B. Brown University.

1912-15. English instructor at Brown University.

1915. Married Jessie Isabelle Monroe (she died in 1960). Two daughters.

1916. A.M. in economics, Harvard.

1917-18. July to May, Sheldon Travelling Fellow to Buenos Aires.

1918-19. Instructor of Economics. Harvard. Also assistant editor of the Review of Economic Statistics.

1919. Ph.D. in economics, Harvard. Thesis awarded the Wells Prize.

1919. Accompanied Professor Edwin Walter Kemmerer of Princeton University, who was serving as adviser to the Guatemalan government in currency matters, to Guatemala and Cuba. (They departed July 12 from New Orleans). Williams traveled as secretary to Kemmerer.

1919-20. Assistant professor of economics, Princeton University.

1920. Publication of the doctoral thesis, Argentine International Trade Under Inconvertible Paper Money, 1880-1900.

1920-21. Associate Professor of Banking, Northwestern University.

1921-25. Assistant Professor of Economics, Harvard University.

1925-26. Westinghouse professor in Italy.

1925-29. Associate Professor of Economics, Harvard University.

1929-33. Professor of Economics, Harvard University.

1933-57. Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy, Harvard University.

1932-33. Delegate to the Commission that prepared the World Monetary and Economic Conference.

1933. Spring. Joined the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as Assistant Federal Reserve Agent. Full-time until October 1934.

1936-47. Vice-president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In charge of the Research Function.

1937-47. First Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration.

1944. First edition of Postwar Monetary Plans and Other Essays published. Second edition (1945). Third edition (1947). Fourth edition (1949).

1947-52. Economic Advisor to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

1948-51. Member of the European Cooperation and Administration advisory committee on fiscal and monetary problems.

1951. President of the American Economic Association.

1952-ca.1963. Consultant to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

1953. Economic stability in a changing world; essays in economic theory and policy.

1953. One of seven named by President Eisenhower to a commission to study foreign economic policy.

1953-54. Member of the United States Commission on Foreign Economic Policy.

1957. Retires from Harvard University.

1957-63. William L. Clayton Professor of International Economic Affairs at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

1962. Married second wife, Katherine R. McKinstry
[note: she was thanked for her editorial help in preparing the publication of Postwar Monetary Plans and Other Essays (1944); also in Economic stability in a changing world; essays in economic theory and policy (1953)]

1980. December 24. Died in Southbridge, Massachusetts.

Timeline sources: Obituary in North Adams Transcript (Jan 5, 1981), p. 12; FRBNY Quarterly Review (Winter, 1980-81), pp. 1-2; Who’s Who in America 1952, p. 2622.

Image Source: Passport picture from John Henry Williams’ passport application July 8, 1919. Low resolution scan enhanced by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
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Harvard. Renewal of Faculty Instructorship. Case of Paul Sweezy, 1940

 

The following records come from the President’s Office at Harvard University involving the terms of the reappointment of Paul Sweezy at the rank of Faculty Instructor in the Harvard economics department. Sweezy joined the army in the fall of 1942, so the debate about a two or five year reappointment turned out to be moot on account of the Second World War. What I found particularly interesting in these records is the last one posted below where we witness a member of the department’s visiting committee trying to scuttle Sweezy’s appointment because of his Keynesian fiscal proclivities.

“Mr. Bigelow presented newspaper and other clippings as evidence that Mr. Sweezy advocated economic doctrines in regard to the utility of government-spending in excess of income, and ways of meeting huge deficits, which characterized Mr. Sweezy in Mr. Bigelow’s opinion as an opponent of capitalism…”

In Sweezy’s defense the two members of the department present at the meeting with the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science felt it necessary to remind the others present that the department itself had nominated John Maynard Keynes to receive an honorary doctorate at the Tercentenary celebrations in 1936 (…but that honor somehow escaped Keynes…).

__________________________

Departmental Recommendation
to Appoint for a Five-year Term

(Copy)

February 23, 1940

Dear Dean Ferguson:

The Department of Economics has considered the reappointment of Paul Marlor Sweezy whose term as a Faculty Instructor expires in the current year. The Executive Committee voted unanimously that he be reappointed without specification of the term of such reappointment. It then voted to appoint him a Faculty Instructor for a period of five years. As indicated on the detailed record of this ballot, there were two dissenting votes. Letters from Professors Burbank and Slichter will explain in detail their reasons for not approving of the five-year term.

                  Mr. Sweezy’s instruction is in the fields of Industrial Organization and Socialism, and is primarily undergraduate. He is an experienced tutor, and at present is one of the two Examiners in Economics. He would at any time be considered a strong candidate for a Faculty Instructorship, and is especially valuable to the Department now in view of the recent departure of so many of our younger staff.

                  Biographical and bibliographical data are enclosed on separate sheets.

Yours very truly,
(S) E. H. Chamberlin
E. H. Chamberlin

Dean W. S. Ferguson
Copied by: MEH

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Departmental Vote
to Appoint for a Five-year Term

Paul Marlor Sweezy

                  At a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Department of Economics on February 13, 1940, upon motion of Dean Williams, it was voted unanimously that we favor the reappointment of Paul Sweezy, without specification of term.

Professor Black Yes
Professor Burbank Yes
Professor Chamberlin Yes
Professor Crum Yes
Professor Frickey Yes
Professor Haberler Yes
Professor Hansen Yes
Professor Harris Yes
Professor Leontief Yes
Professor Mason Yes
Dr. Monroe Yes
Professor Schumpeter Yes
Professor Slichter Yes
Dr. Taylor Yes
Professor Usher Yes
Dean Williams Yes
Professor Wilson Yes

Dean Williams then moved that we recommend the appoint of Paul Sweezy as Faculty Instructor for a five-year term. The motion was carried with two dissenting votes.

Professor Black Yes
Professor Burbank No
Professor Chamberlin Yes
Professor Crum Yes
Professor Frickey Yes
Professor Haberler Yes
Professor Hansen Yes
Professor Harris Yes
Professor Leontief Yes
Professor Mason Yes
Dr. Monroe Yes
Professor Schumpeter Yes
Professor Slichter No
Dr. Taylor Yes
Professor Usher Yes
Dean Williams Yes
Professor Wilson Yes

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Burbank’s Dissent
to Appoint for a Five-year Term

(Copy)

February 17, 1940

Dear Dean Ferguson:

                  You are familiar with the recommendation of the Executive Committee of the Department of Economics regarding Dr. Paul Sweezy.

                  Since I voted against the recommendation which is in your hands, I should like to state the reasons for my action.

                  I strongly favor continuing the present appointment of Dr. Sweezy for two years, or voting him a five-year appointment from 1937. Either action would give him a full five-year faculty term.

                  I take this position because I believe his status should be reviewed in about two years. The members of the Executive Committee have known Sweezy for a long period. We are, or should be, altogether familiar with his work and his promise for growth and accomplishment. I place two more years rather than four or five as the better time for revision both from Sweezy’s point of view and from the point of view of the Department.

                  I  have had many years of experience in placing men in other institutions. It has been our experience that it is extremely difficult to place the better men advantageously after they have passed the early thirties. In this particular category the matter of a few years is of real significance. If, in 1945, Sweezy should not be advanced, the difficulties in securing an acceptable place for him will be increased. I hope this can be avoided. I believe that the colleagues who are the principal supporters of the motion for the longer term would declare that this argument carries little or no weight. However, the fact that Dr. Sweezy has no invitations from other institutions of high standing carries very considerable weight in its bearing on this problem.

                  I was reluctant to recommend a longer appointment at this time because of my estimate of Dr. Sweezy’s promise.

                  In the immediate past men have not been advanced and have gone elsewhere who were regarded, I believe, by a majority of the members of the Committee as superior to Dr. Sweezy. There are a number of men on the ground whom I regard as more promising.

                  Further, I believe that in our present situation our Instructorships should be well staggered and filled with regard for our long-time development. Considering the urgent needs of the Department in particular areas, I think it unwise to fill too many places immediately. I urge this policy strongly, since I am convinced that in some fields it is likely to be exceedingly difficult to uncover the requisite ability. It may be decidedly to our advantage to develop competition in these areas, — that is, two Instructors in the subjects involved. I would not urge this course for all areas of study and instruction, but in Agriculture and related problems, and in Labor and related problems I believe such competition may be essential.

Very sincerely yours,
(s) H. H. Burbank
H. H. Burbank

Dean W. S. Ferguson
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Copied by: MEH

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Slichter’s Dissent
to Appoint for a Five-year Term

(Copy)

February 19, 1940

Dean W. S. Ferguson
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Dean Ferguson:

                  At a meeting of the Department of Economics on February 13, I voted for the reappointment of Mr. Paul Sweezy as faculty instructor but against a term of five years. I favor a two-year term.

                  Mr. Sweezy is just completing a three-year term as faculty instructor. Consequently appointment for two more years would convert his three-year term into a five-year term which is more normal. On the other hand, appointment for five years following three would put Mr. Sweezy in a special class among faculty instructors and would easily be interpreted as a stronger endorsement of his work and qualifications than I think we are warranted in giving.

                  No one, of course, knows how rapidly Mr. Sweezy will develop during the next few years but I think that the chances are against our desiring to offer him a permanent place. If that is so, a two-year appointment is fairer than a five-year both to him and to the University.

Sincerely yours,
(S) Sumner H. Slichter

Copied by: MEH

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Appendix: Sweezy c.v.

Paul Marlor Sweezy

Biography

Born April 10, 1910

A.B., Harvard, 1931
A.M., Harvard, 1934
Ph.D., Harvard, 1937

Married

1934-37 Annual Instructor in Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government and Economics, Harvard.

1937-40 Faculty Instructor in Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government and Economics, Harvard, for three years.

Bibliography

“A Note on Relative Shares,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. I, No. 1, October 1933.

“Pigou’s Theory of Unemployment,” Journal of Political Economy, December, 1934.

“Economics and the Crisis of Capitalism,” The Economic Forum, Spring, 1935.

“John Strachey’s Theory and Practice of Socialism,” review in The Nation, December 5, 1936.

“On the Definition of Monopoly,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1937.

“Review of The United States: A Graphic History, by Louis Hacker et al.,” The Nation, December 11, 1937.

“Review of Economics for Everybody, by Mervyn Crobaugh,” The Nation, December 25, 1937.

“Review of Socialism versus Capitalism, by A. C. Pigou,” The Nation, February 5, 1938; and Plan Age, March 1938.

“Review of The Promises Men Live By, by Harry Schernan,” The Nation, March 26, 1938.

“Review of Socialism, by Ludwig Mises,” Science and Society, Spring, 1938.

“Wage Policies and Investment,” American Economic Review, Supplement, March, 1938.

“Review of On the Economic Theory of Socialism, by Oskar Lange and Fred M. Taylor,” The Nation, June 25, 1938.

“Expectations and the Scope of Economics,” Review of Economic Studies, June, 1938.

“Review of Confessions of an Economic Heretic, by J. A. Hobson,” The Nation, August 27, 1938.

An Economic Program for American Democracy. With R. V. Gilbert, G. H. Hildebrand, Jr., A. W. Stuart, W. Y. Sweezy, L. Tarshis, and J. D. Wilson. The Vanguard Press. 1938.

Monopoly and Competition in the English Coal Trade, 1550-1850. (Wells Prize essay 1937-38.) Harvard Economic Studies Vol. LXIII. Harvard University Press. 1938.

“Demand under Conditions of Oligopoly,” Journal of Political Economy, August 1939.

“The Thinness of the Stock Market,” American Economic Review, December, 1938.

“Review of Full Recovery or Stagnation, by A. H. Hansen,” The Nation, November 19, 1938.

“The Power of the Purse,” The New Republic, February 8, 1939.

“Marx on the Significance of the Corporation,” Science and Society, Spring 1939.

“Review of The Brandeis Way, by A. I. Mason,” Harvard Law Review, April, 1939.

“Review of Jobs for All, by Mordecai Ezekiel,” The New Republic, April 19, 1939.

“Government Spending, its Tasks and Limits,” (discussion), Social Research, May, 1939.

“Is Further Debt Financing Sound?” (symposium), The Business Bulletin, May, 1939.

“Review of Man’s Estate, by Alfred M. Bingham,” The Boston Transcript, July 22, 1939.

“Public Works as an Aid to Private Investment,” The American City, July, 1939.

“Review of Henry George, by Albert Jay Nock,” The Nation, October 28, 1939.

“Review of Ideas are Weapons, by Max Lerner,” The Nation, December 2, 1939.

“Major Interest Groups in the American Economy,” Appendix No. 11 in The Structure of the American Economy, National Resources Committee, 1939.

In preparation:

Lectures on Marxian Economic Theory. Accepted for publication by the Oxford University Press. (Eight chapters completed in first draft.

“A Contribution to the Economic History of the Law of Corporations.” Accepted for publication by The Quarterly Journal of Economics.

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Dean Signals Green Light
to Appoint for a Five-year Term

C O P Y

February 26, 1940.

Dear Mr. Chamberlin:

                  I confirm herewith the message I gave you by telephone this morning, that we are agreed to have Dr. Paul Sweezy appointed as Faculty Instructor for five years beginning on September 1, 1940. It is part of this transaction that you and we are agreed that Dr. Sweezy should be informed (first) that this appointment involves no commitment for his election to a vacancy on the permanent staff, (second) that he will be considered for election to such a vacancy in competition both with other Faculty Instructors on the staff and with outsiders, and (third) that in all likelihood this competition will be severe.

                  Will you kindly write to him to this effect and send to me both a copy of your letter and of his acknowledgment of its receipt?

                  I am

Yours sincerely,
[unsigned]

Professor E. H. Chamberlin

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Chairman Informs Sweezy
of the Appointment Decision

COPY

February 29, 1940

Dear Paul:

This letter is to confirm our conversation of several days ago. The Department of Economics has voted for you a five-year appointment as Faculty Instructor dating from September 1940, and this appointment has been approved by both Dean Ferguson and by President Conant. It goes without saying that it is an expression of a belief in your promise as an economist and in your continued usefulness to the Department over the five years to come.

                  The appointment, made during the transition from the old system to the new, in effect continues your tenure on a non-permanent basis over a period of eight years from your Ph.D. which is perfectly normal, but has the unusual result of extending over the entire eight-year period your status as “Faculty Instructor.” For this reason apprehension has been expressed both in the Department and by the University administration lest it be misinterpreted. In fairness to you it should be made perfectly clear that no one regards this appointment as involving any commitment whatever for subsequent election for a permanent position at Harvard. When such a permanent position is to be filled, the competition will include, as well as yourself and other Faculty Instructors on the ground, former members of the Department and still others from the outside. It looks now as if this competition would be severe.

                  I trust that you will understand the importance of avoiding any misunderstanding at this time. Will you please let me have an acknowledgement to this letter.

Sincerely yours,
(s) E. H. Chamberlin

Dr. Paul M. Sweezy
10 Forest Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts

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Sweezy Confirms Understanding
Tenure Review will be Competitive

COPY

March 3, 1940

Professor Edward H. Chamberlin,
Department of Economics,
Littauer Center,
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Professor Chamberlin,

                  I have your letter of February 29th regarding my appointment to a five year term as Faculty Instructor beginning next fall. Needless to say I am happy that the Department and the Administration feel the confidence in my work to date which this appointment implies.

                  I note that both the Department and the Administration are anxious to make it quite clear that this appointment carries with it no implication of further commitments. You may rest assured that I understand the situation in this respect completely; this letter will serve to furnish a formal record of the fact.

Sincerely,
(sgd.) Paul M. Sweezy

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Official Announcement
of the Appointment Decision

PAUL MARLOR SWEEZY

Recommendation of the Dean of the Faculty:

                  I recommend the appointment of Dr. Paul Sweezy as Instructor in Economics and Tutor in the Department of Economics for five years from September 1, 1940. Dr. Sweezy’s three-year term as Faculty Instructor expires this year. Prior to his present appointment he served three years as Annual Instructor before receiving his doctorate. Consequently he is entitled under our rules to the five-year Faculty Instructorship for which he is recommended. He is thirty years of age.

                  The vote of the Department on which this recommendation is based was not unanimous. The two dissenters preferred to have the five-year period divided into two periods, one of two years and the other of three. This division seems to me to conflict with the essential idea on which the new type of Faculty Instructorship rests. It denies him the opportunity of sufficient time, free from the consequences on himself and his work of an intervening judgment, in which to demonstrate his scholarship. On the plan of the dissenters Dr. Sweezy would come up for consideration again a year hence. It is not urged that the Department would be in a better position to reach a definite decision regarding him twelve months from now than it is in at present. The action recommended by the great majority of the Department is best calculated to give Dr. Sweezy a fair chance. The Department has only one other Faculty Instructor on the five-year tenure at present and he has just been appointed. Their quota is six. Hence they could have another man in direct competition with Dr. Sweezy in 1944. Dr. Sweezy is comparatively young. There is, therefore, little risk in keeping him on for five years longer. In a subject like Economics the five years between the ages of 30 and 35 constitute the period in which a man ordinarily comes to maturity.

                  The enclosed letter from me to Professor Chamberlin makes clear to Dr. Sweezy the situation in which he stands on entering on his five-year term.

[signed] W. S. Ferguson

March 20, 1940.

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Memorandum of the discussion between Mr. Albert Bigelow, Professors Burbank and Chamberlin, and Assistant Dean Buck, and myself [W. S. Ferguson, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences] Thursday, May 9, 1940.
Dramatis Personae

Albert Francis Bigelow. Harvard Class of 1903. Harvard Law Graduate. Member of the Economics Visiting Committee. Republican member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives 1925-1944. [His son, Albert Bigelow, was a prominent pacifist.]

Paul Herman Buck. Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, associate professor in history as of 1939. He received the Pulitzer prize in American History in 1938 for his book on the Reconstruction Period after the Civil War.

William Scott Ferguson. Dean of Faculty of Arts and Sciences, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History (Fun fact: Ferguson invented the reading period at Harvard)

Harold Hitchings Burbank, David A. Wells Professor of Political Economy. Former chairman of the Department of Economics, chairman of the Board of Tutors in the Division of History, Government and Economics.

Edward Hastings Chamberlin, Professor of Economics and Chairman of the Department of Economics.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

                  Mr. Bigelow presented newspaper and other clippings as evidence that Mr. Sweezy advocated economic doctrines in regard to the utility of government-spending in excess of income, and ways of meeting huge deficits, which characterized Mr. Sweezy in Mr. Bigelow’s opinion as an opponent of capitalism and, on this basis, queried “whether or not he arrived at his views by thorough scholarship and by intellectual processes which command the respect of his peers” — that is to say, met the conditions formulated in the Report of the Visiting Committee of the Economics Department for 193[last digit omitted]. General discussion followed. Professor Chamberlin pointed out that the position taken by Mr. Sweezy was substantially that held by Professor Keynes of Cambridge University, scholar to whom Harvard had tendered an honorary degree at the Tercentenary. Neither Professor Burbank nor Professor Chamberlin was able to define the degree of Mr. Sweezy’s radicalism and affirmed vigorously that in making their recommendation the Department was not actuated for or against him by considerations of his politico-economic opinions. They regarded Mr. Sweezy as a well-trained economist, a man of real ability, and an excellent teacher. Mr. Bigelow raised the question whether the point of view advocated sympathetically by Mr. Sweezy was not considered dispassionately by other members of the Department in their teaching. Professor Burbank affirmed that this was the case, adding that the men who agitated irresponsibly on matters of current controversy were not in the Harvard Department of Economics.

                  Mr. Bigelow also inquired whether Mr. Sweezy was not likely to influence emotionally the opinions of young men predisposed by present conditions to seek, by any or every means, an escape from their immediate troubles. The point was made that individual undergraduates were taught economics not by one man alone but by at least four or five, among them men who were more orthodox than he in their economic theories. Professors Burbank and Chamberlin were clear that it was impossible not to have instruction on socialism in the Economics Department at Harvard and that without the services of Sweezy they would be very hard put to give it. Accordingly somebody else would be needed to replace Mr. Sweezy; and, according to Mr. Burbank, there was only one man in the country whom they regarded as his superior (Lange of Chicago) and whom in his opinion they would prefer to Sweezy when and if they contemplated making a permanent appointment in this field. He is not procurable on an Instructor’s salary. Professor Burbank thought that the needs of the Department on its permanent staff placed Labor, Economic History, and Agricultural Economics prior to the field represented by Mr. Sweezy. It was pointed out by Mr. Buck that with its quota of six Faculty Instructors, the Department could easily provide for these permanent needs and yet retain Mr. Sweezy as a Faculty Instructor of the new type. He pointed out that since the Department would have at best only two Faculty Instructors next year (excluding Sweezy) they had a real need for Sweezy to insure greater continuity in tutoring and to perform other departmental duties such as the conduct of General Final Examinations. This was admitted by both Mr. Burbank and Mr. Chamberlin.

                  I took the point of view that I was recommending Mr. Sweezy’s appointment on the grounds of his training in Economics and his intellectual distinction and his excellence as a teacher, adding that since the question of his opinions had been raised I should like to urge that neither at the present time nor a year from now* could an explanation be given which would seem to Mr. Sweezy or his friends to be at all adequate for our failure to reappoint him: in view of our agreement as to his qualifications he would be entitled to think that he was denied the type of appointment granted to his competitors primarily because of his political opinions, whereas should he be given his five-year appointment and not elected to a permanency at its termination (which Professor Burbank thought highly probable) there would be an explanation for letting him go which he could not contest; namely, the prior needs for men in other fields, the fact that, however good they were, only one Faculty Instructor out of every two would find a vacancy open for him, and the regularity of turn-over at that stage.

                  Mr. Bigelow intimated that he might wish to discuss the matter further with me and with President Conant. (Mr. Bigelow called me up later to say that he would ventilate the problem on Monday but would not press for adverse action.

[signed] W. S. Ferguson

* The date at which a decision would have to be made if he were given a two-year appointment only.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Records of President James B. Conant, Box 154, Folder “Economics, 1939-1940”.

Image Source: Paul Sweezy in the Harvard Class Album 1942.

Categories
Harvard Regulations Teaching

Harvard. On the organization of the Division of History, Government, and Economics. Burbank, 1934

 

Professor Harold H. Burbank (Burbie to his friends) was a decades-long administrative multitasker during the first half of the 20th century. His realms covered both the tutorial system in the Division of History, Government, and Economics as well as the chairmanship of the economics department.The document transcribed for this post appears to have served as Burbank’s background briefing on the organization of the Division of History, Government, and Economics for the committee, chaired by the President of Princeton, Harold W. Dodds, tasked with establishing a school of public administration at Harvard.

_________________________

Who’s Who

James Bryant Conant (1893-1978) was a chemist, educator and public servant. The wide variety of his interests and occupations are reflected in the title of his memoirs, My Several Lives. Conant’s “several lives” included periods as a chemistry instructor, University president, national director of defense research, ambassador to Germany and as an author of critical works examining secondary education in the United States. Conant’s pursuits carried him from his boyhood home in Boston to Harvard University and eventually around the globe.

Conant graduated from Harvard College in 1914, completing a three-year program as an undergraduate concentrator in chemistry. He remained at the University, studying with Elmer Kohler, and received his degree two years later. An academic career followed, during which time Conant worked at Harvard as an instructor (1917), assistant professor (1919) and eventually as a tenured professor (1927) of organic chemistry. In 1921 he married Grace Thayer Richards, daughter of chemistry professor Theodore William Richards, whom Conant had met at a dinner for graduate students at Professor Richards’ house.

In 1933, despite the fact that his only previous administrative experience was a term as chair of the Chemistry Department, Conant was appointed to succeed A. Lawrence Lowell as President of Harvard University. President Conant worked to enhance Harvard’s position as a national institution with an international reputation for academic achievement. He established the National Scholarships which allowed young men of intellectual promise to attend Harvard College regardless of their financial circumstances or proximity to Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also broadened the intellectual scope of the undergraduate student body through the General Education Program. This program required each undergraduate, regardless of his concentration, to take courses in three broad disciplines: the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. President Conant further promoted intellectual exchange through the establishment of the prestigious University Professorships, which gave leading scholars tenured appointments at the University, unencumbered by ties to specific faculties or departments.

Conant’s achievements also included expansion in the teaching of education and of journalism. In the fall of 1935 the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School of Education voted to recommend his plan for the establishment of a new degree, the Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.). The M.A.T. required prospective teachers to demonstrate a command of educational theory as well as familiarity with specific subjects by undergoing examination by members from both the teaching faculty and their specific subject faculty. Three years later, Conant helped to establish the Nieman Fellowships. These fellowships fund a year of study at Harvard for professional journalists.

During wartime, Conant balanced his service to the University with a commitment to national affairs. In 1917 he briefly left Harvard to join the Chemical Warfare Service and by the end of the First World War he was promoted to the rank of major. Conant, an outspoken critic of Nazi Germany, played a more prominent role during the Second World War. As a member and chairman of the National Defense Research Committee, he and his colleagues were responsible for the technical direction of military scientific research, including atomic research. At the end of the war he declined to become the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, although he continued to serve as Chairman of the National Science Board.

Conant retired from Harvard in 1953. He immediately began another of his “lives,” serving as U.S. High Commissioner to Germany and Ambassador to Germany. In 1957 he resigned his diplomatic post and once again turned his attention to American education. In 1957, Conant, along with the Educational Testing Service, administered a large scale study of American high schools. Following this, he studied and reported on teacher education in American Universities. In 1964, he returned to Berlin for eighteen months as an educational advisor under the auspices of the Ford Foundation.

Conant spent his final years as a resident of New York City, Summering in Hanover, New Hampshire. He took ill in Hanover during the spring of 1977 and remained there until his death on February 11, 1978. He was survived by his wife who died in 1985 and his sons James Richards and Theodore Richards.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Collection overview: Papers of James Bryant Conant, 1862-1987.

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Vernon Munroe, Jr., Harvard Class of 1931. One of three members of a special committee of the Student Council who wrote a report “The Tutorial System in Harvard College” (published as a supplement to the Harvard Alumni Bulletin, October 9, 1931).

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College 1930-31, p. 96.

MUNROE RESIGNS AS SECRETARY TO PRESIDENT CONANT

The Harvard Crimson, May 7, 1934

Announcement was made at University Hall yesterday of the resignation of Vernon Munroe, Jr. ’31, as secretary to President Conant.

Munroe has held the position since September 1, 1933 when he was appointed by the Corporation to a new post as assistant to the President of the University.

Graduating from Harvard in 1931 he spent the next year at the Law School, leaving there to assume his post as aide to the President. He plans to continue next year with his work in the Law School.

At college Munroe was President of the Student Council, Captain of the University track team, Chairman of the Dunster House Committee, and Third Marshal of his class. As President of the Student Council he was active in preparing a special undergraduate report on the Tutorial System at Harvard.

Although no one yet has been chosen to succeed Munroe, it is believed that the appointment of his successor will be made in the near future.

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Princeton University President (1933-57) Harold W. Dodds  was appointed by President Conant as head of a commission to consider the establishment of a new school of public administration (today’s John F. Kennedy School of Government).

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College 1934-35, p. 23.

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Harold Hitchings Burbank. Chairman of the department of economics 1927-38 and 1942-46 and Chairman of the Board of Tutorials in the Division 1916-46.

From the active list, Harold Hitchings Burbank, David A. Wells Professor of Political Economy, died on February 6, 1951, in his sixty-fourth year. He began his career in the field of Economics at Dartmouth where he taught for one year, 191o-11. He came to the University in 1911 as an Assistant in Economics, becoming an Instructor in 1912. In 1914 he was appointed a Tutor in that Department, and from 1916 to 1946 he served as Chairman of the Board of Tutors in the Division of History, Government and Economics. He was Assistant Professor of Economics from 1919 to 1923, Associate Professor from 1923 to 1926, and Professor of Economics from 1926 to 1932. From 1932 until his death he held the David A. Wells Professorship of Political Economy. He was also Chairman of the Department of Economics from 1927 to 1938, and again from 1942 to 1949; he acted as Chairman of the Division of History, Government and Economics from 1942 to 1946. Few Harvard teachers ever worked with as many students individually or gave so lavishly of their time and energy.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1950-51, p. 29.

Cf. Burbank’s earlier report, transcribed and archived at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror:  Report on the Tutorial System in History, Government and Economics. Burbank, 1922.

_________________________

Background information on the Division of History, Government, and Economics written by the Chairman of Economics Department, 1934

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

H. H. BURBANK

41 HOLYOKE HOUSE
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

May 21, 1934

Dear Mr. Munroe,

The organization of the Division of History, Government, and Economics is complicated. I am listing below some comments on the questions raised by President Dodd. [sic, almost certainly should be “Dodds”] I can give you complete details should you require them.

  1. The Division has developed through the separation from History of the Departments of Economics and Government. The Division is composed of the members of these three departments.
  2. The Division unit was maintained before 1914 primarily for the administration of graduate degrees. Emphasis was placed upon the formulation and administration of the degree requirements rather than on the development and coordination of the curriculum. I believe that some attention was given also to candidates for Honors for the Bachelors‘
  3. As I recall it, there was a small independent budget to provide for secretarial assistance to the Chairman of the Division and to provide for the printing of the Division pamphlet and the schedule of graduate degree examinations.
  4. The administration of graduate degrees has continued since 1914, but latterly, the programs of the three departments have become characterized by their differences rather than by their unity of conception and action.
    1. The independent Division budget for the purposes summarized above has been continued. It is prepared and administered by the Chairman of the Division.
  5. In 1914 on the recommendation of the Division, Comprehensive Examinations and a system of Tutorial Instruction were initiated. To a small degree the curriculum within the Division was coordinated. Correlation among the subjects taught in the several departments was required. To meet the new objectives, an Examining Committee, appointed by the President, was created, and the general development and supervision of the Tutorial Instruction was placed in the hands of a new Division officer — the Chairman of the Board of Tutors in the Division of History, Government, and Economics.
    1. All tutors, whether in History, Government, or Economics, were, in theory, recommended by the Division. The appointment was, and is, in the Division rather than in a particular department.
    2. Until about 1925, a Division Committee on Appointments — the Chairman of the Board of Tutors, the Chairman of the Division, and the Chairmen of the three Departments — passed upon all recommendations for appointments in the Division as tutors. Since 1925, this Committee has not been active. All appointments as tutor therefore are now on the basis of Departmental recommendation. The Chairman of the Board of Tutors is usually consulted.
    3. With the appointment of Divisional Examiners and Tutors, a budget was called for, which included the expenditures for Tutorial Instruction, for the Examiners, and for Administration.
    4. Until 1931, this budget, prepared by the Chairman of the Board of Tutors was altogether distinct from Departmental budgets, although it was always prepared in consultation with the Division Chairman.
    5. During the last five years there has developed a tendency toward complete Departmental control of Tutorial Instruction. With the development of Departmental control and responsibility, the Division budget has become less important, until for the forthcoming year it will practically disappear except for the maintenance of a small sum for administration and examining.
  6. It may be stated that from 1914 to 1928, or 1929, there was thorough Division control in the development of Tutorial Instruction. After the functions and methods of instruction had been established on a satisfactory plane, Division control was slowly withdrawn and instruction decentralized. The Division still operates unqualifiedly as a unit in the administration of examinations.
  7. With the rapid increase in the membership in the Division since 1914, the group became ineffective as an administrative unit. For some years, the affairs of the Division have been administered by a Committee of Seven— the Chairman of the Division, the Chairmen of the three Departments, and delegates from each Department — which meets when necessary. Although the principal work of the Committee is confined to the administration of graduate degrees, the Committee frequently concerns itself with Tutorial Instruction and with questions of the curriculum which have common interest. The Division meets as a group for the recommendation of degrees — A.B., A.M., and Ph.D.
  8. Until 1930, instruction in Sociology was offered by the Department of Economics. Also, some subjects ordinarily regarded as belonging to the subject of Sociology were offered by the Department of Social Ethics which was affiliated with the Department of Philosophy. Independent instruction in Sociology has been established and the Department of Sociology stands as a Division without direct affiliation with other Departments.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
H. H. Burbank

Mr. Vernon Munroe, Jr.
VS

Source: Harvard University Archives. Records of President James B. Conant, Box 9, Folder “History, Government & Economics, 1933-1934.”

Image Source: Portrait of Professor Harold H. Burbank in the Harvard Classbook 1934. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Undergraduate courses taken by John F. Kennedy, Class of 1940

 

In an earlier post Economics in the Rear-view Mirror presented James Laurence Laughlin’s recollection of Theodore Roosevelt’s economics education at Harvard.

This post moves us forward to the graduate of the Class of 1940, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who it took the standard two term principles of economics followed by three semester courses in economics at Harvard. The future president was a concentrator in the government department which accounted for much more of his studies.

We begin with a complete list of the courses taken by Kennedy that is probably not untypical for your average government major except for maybe the junior semester abroad to England where his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., happened to be serving as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

As it turns out, material for three of the courses taken by Kennedy have already been transcribed and posted.

Economics A. Principles of Economics (1936-37).
Economics 11b. Economics of Socialism (2nd term, 1940).
Economics 62b. Industrial Organization and Control (2nd term, 1940).

To help complete the picture this post adds the final examination for Kennedy’s junior year course Economics 61a, The Corporation and its Regulation. The reading list for this course used in the following year (Kennedy’s senior year, 1939-40) has been transcribed and posted earlier.

Fun fact: Nobel prize economist and economic adviser to JFK, Professor James Tobin of Yale was a fellow student in the Principles of Economics course taken by Kennedy. Plot spoiler: Tobin got an A in Economics A.

____________________________

Undergraduate Courses Taken by John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Class of 1940

Note: Second term senior year courses are listed without a final grade because final examination were waived for the history, government, and economics division honors examination

JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY
S.B. cum laude June 20, 1940
Field of Concentration Government

Freshman year (1936-37)

English A. Rhetoric and English Composition, Oral and Written. (Not Required)

English 1. History and Development of English Literature in Outline. Professor Munn. (C)

Economics A. Principles of Economics. Professor Burbank. (B)

History 1. European History from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Present Time. Professor Merriman. (C)

French F. Introduction to France. Professor Morize. (C)

Sophomore year (1937-38)

English F1. Public Speaking. Asst. Professor Packard. (C)

Fine Arts 1e. Interpretation of Selected Works of Art: an Introduction to Art History. Professor Koehler. (C)

Government 1. Modern Government. Professors Holcombe and Elliott. (C)

History 32a1. Continental Europe; 1815-1871. Professor Langer. (D)

History 32b2. Continental Europe; 1871-1914. Professor Langer. (C)

Government 302. New Factors in International Relations: Asia. Asst. Professor Hopper. (B)

Junior year (1938-39)

Economics 61a1. The Corporation and its Regulation. Professor Mason. (C)

English A-11. English Composition. Messrs. Davis, Gordan, Bailey and McCreary. (B)

Government 7a1. The National Government of the United States: Politics. Professor Holcombe. (B)

Government 9a1. State Government in the United States. Professor Hanford. (B)

Government 181. New Factors in International Relations: Europe. Associate Professor Hopper. (B)

History 551. History of Russia. Asst. Professor Karpovich. (B)

Second Term Leave of absence (England)

Senior year (1939-40)

Economics 11b2. Economics of Socialism. Dr. P. M. Sweezy.

Economics 62b2. Industrial Organization and Control. Professor Mason.

Government 3a1. Principles of Politics. Professor Elliott. (B)

Government 4. Elements of International Law. Associate Professor P. S. Wild. (B)

Government 22. Theses for Honors. Members of the Department. (B)

Government 8a1. Comparative Politics: Bureaucracy, Constitutional Government and Dictatorship. Professor Friedrich. (B)

Government 10a2. Government of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Professor Elliott.

Government 281. Modern Imperialism. Associate Professor Emerson. (B)

Source: John F. Kennedy Academic Record at Harvard.  John F. Kennedy Personal Papers, 1917-1963, Harvard University Files, 1917-1963/Academic Records 1939-1940; John F. Kennedy Harvard Course Transcript. John F. Kennedy Personal Papers, 1917-1963, Harvard University Files, 1917-1963/Course listing.

____________________________

The Corporation and its Regulation
First Semester 1938-39

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 61a 1hf. Professor Mason and Dr. P. M. Sweezy. — The Corporation and its Regulation.

Total 209: 2 Graduates, 57 Seniors, 110 Juniors, 29 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 10 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1938-39, p. 98.

Reading Period Assignment
January 5-18, 1939

Economics 61a: Read one of the following

  1. Larcom, R. C., The Delaware Corporation.
  2. Flynn, Security Speculation.
  3. Lowenthal, The Investor Pays.
  4. Gordon, Lincoln, The Public Corporation in Great Britain, omit pp. 156-244.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2. Folder “Economics,1938-1939”, Reading Period, p.3.

Final Examination (Mid-Year)

1938-39
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 61a1

PART I

Write a critical review of your reading period work (about one hour).

PART II
Answer two questions.

  1. Discuss the influence of depreciation policies in the determination of net income.
  2. In corporate reorganizations what considerations determine the priority of claims on the assets of the reorganized company?
  3. “The large corporation is a bureaucracy of much the same type as a government agency. As such it faces all the management problems faced by bureaucracy.” Discuss.

PART III
Answer two questions.

  1. “The only people who gain from the stock market are brokers and speculators. Corporations, investors and underwriters would be better off if there were no stock market.” Analyse this statement with respect to each class of person or institution named.
  2. Discuss the direction and significance of present trends in the ownership of securities in the United States.
  3. Write on either the Securities Act of 1933 or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Describe the main problems with which the act in question is intended to deal, any previous efforts to solve these problems, and how the act proposes to solve them.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-Year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 13. Bound volume “Mid-Year Examinations 1939”.

Image Source: Harvard Class Album 1940.

Categories
Economics Programs Faculty Regulations Harvard

Harvard. Economics Graduate Degree Requirements, 1934-1935

 

 

Update: within a few minutes of posting the following, I discovered that I had already transcribed and posted the same material over seven years ago. Actually it was my third post. How did I miss it? My Catalogue of Artifacts page had a misprint, instead of the year 1934 the year 1924 was incorrectly entered. My standard procedure is to search through the catalogue for names and dates. But this item, being a departmental document only had a date. I am leaving this here, though it double-counts an artifact. I like the image and I have added the other comparable posts (so some light curation is going on here).

It has been a while since Economics in the Rear-view Mirror added to the collection of the rules and and regulations governing the award of graduate degrees in economics. To date for Harvard the collection now includes today’s post for 1934-35 and the following items:

Degree Requirements for 1897-98.

Degree Requirements for 1911-12.

Degree Requirements from 1947.

Degree Requirements from 1958.

Degree Regulations from 1968.

_________________________

1934-1935
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Requirements for Graduate Degrees:
The more important regulations regarding graduate degrees are stated below.
  1. General Information for Candidates for the A.M. and Ph.D. degrees
    1. Programs of study
      1. The program of study for the A.M. and Ph.D. degrees must form a consistent plan of work pursued with some definite aim. It should be submitted to Professor Burbank, Chairman of the Department of Economics, 41 Holyoke House, for approval early in the year.
      2. The fields of study are to be chosen from the following:

GROUP A.

        1. Economic Theory and its History, with special reference to the Development of Economic Thought since 1776.
        2. Economic History since 1750, or some other approved field in Economic History
        3. Statistical Method and its Application

GROUP B

        1. Money and Banking
        2. Economic Fluctuations and Forecasting
          e.2 Industrial Organization and Control
        3. Public Utilities (including Transportation)
        4. Economics of Corporations
        5. International Trade and Tariff Policies
        6. Economics of Agriculture
        7. Labor Problems
        8. Socialism and Social Reform
        9. Public Finance
        10. Economic History before 1750
        11. Commodity Distribution and Prices
        12. Economics of Public Utilities
        13. 2Mathematical Economics

GROUP C

        1. Any of the historical fields from Group A or B, defined under the requirements for the Ph.D. in History. [See Division Pamphlet.]
        2. Comparative Modern Government
        3. American Government and Constitutional Law
        4. Municipal Government
        5. Jurisprudence (Selected topics)
        6. Philosophy (Selected topics)
        7. Anthropology
        8. History of Political Theory
        9. International Law
        10. Sociology [Certain fields—see Sociology Pamphlet]
        11. Economics of Forestry
    1. Application for degrees

Candidates for degrees must apply to the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 24 University Hall, by December 1, for the degree at Midyears; or by January 15, for the degree at Commencement.

  1. Special Requirements for the A.M. degree
    1. Residence

The candidate must take one full year of advance work at Harvard—four courses with a grade of B or higher in each. These courses may be taken in one year or over a period of years. (See new requirement on page 5.)

    1. Languages

An ELEMENTARY knowledge of French and German, and a READING knowledge of the other language is required. This requirement may be met as follows:

      1. For the READING knowledge, by a passing grade in the written examinations given by the Department early in November and March.
      2. For the ELEMENTARY knowledge, by one of the following methods:
        1. A passing grade in an elementary course at Harvard or some other institution
        2. A passing grade in an undergraduate examination at Harvard, which is given three times a year—

French: September 22; January 7; April 22
German: September 22; January 8; April 23

        1. A passing grade in the written examination given by the Department early in November and March.

This requirement may be met at any time prior to application for the Master’s degree.

    1. General Examination

The candidate must pass an oral examination on FOUR fields of study, to be selected from those listed above according to the following distribution:

      1. TWO from Group A, including Economic Theory
      2. TWO from Groups A, B, or C (not more than ONE to be selected from Group C.)

The fields are covered only in part by formal course instruction. Supplementary reading must be undertaken to meet the requirements.

Preparation for this examination normally requires TWO full years of study. A student is advised not to stand for examination until he feels thoroughly prepared.

With Professor Burbank’s consent, a student may offer THREE fields of Study for the Oral Examination, substituting a pro-seminar course for the fourth field.

When the General Examination is passed in the Spring, the candidate is excused with credit from the final course examination in courses relating to fields offered for the General Examination.

In judging the candidate’s fitness for the degree, regard will be had for the general grasp and maturity shown, as well as for the range and accuracy of his knowledge of the special subjects examined.

To secure a date for the General Examination, candidates must make arrangements with the secretary in the Division Office, 15 Little Hall before April 1.

  1. Special Requirements for the Ph.D. degree
    1. Residence

The candidate must take two years of advanced work—eight courses, with grades of B or higher in each (See new requirements on page 5.) One year, or four courses, must be taken at Harvard. Credit for work done at another institution may be substituted for the other year’s work, with Professor Burbank’s approval.

    1. Languages

The candidate must present a READING knowledge of both French and German. This requirement is satisfied ONLY by passing the Department written examination which is given early in November and March. It must be met SIX months before the Special Examination. Examinations in the two languages need not be taken at the same time.
At the time of the Special Examination, candidates must show an acquaintance with the literature in their special fields in two modern lan­guages other than English, ordinarily French and German.

    1. Fields of Study

The candidate must present SIX fields of study to be selected from the groups listed above according to the following distribution:

      1. The THREE fields in Group A are required unless a candidate can show that he has done sufficient advanced work in Economic History or in Statistics to warrant his substituting a field from Group B or Group C.
      2. The remaining THREE fields may be selected from Group B and Group C—though not more than ONE field may be taken from Group C.

Evidence of a knowledge of the SIX fields of study is shown as follows:

    1. General Examination

FOUR fields, including Economic Theory, are presented at an oral examination. [For details regarding this examination, refer to the notes under C. of the requirements for the A.M. degree.]

    1. “Fifth” field

The requirement regarding the “fifth” field may be met by presenting work of distinguished quality in an approved course at Harvard.

    1. Special field

The candidate meets the requirements of the sixth field by standing for oral examination and presenting a thesis which normally lies within the field examined. Ordinarily this field is chosen from Groups A or B. By special arrangements the same subject may be offered for the General and Special Examinations. However, this program is unusual, and arrangements must be made with the Chairman of the Department. In this case, the candidate must show evidence of a thorough knowledge of another field, which might have been-offered for examination.

      1. Candidates for the degree at Midyears should arrange for their Special Examination on or before December 1 in the Division Office, 15 Little Hall; for the degree at Commencement, on or before April 1.
      2. Two copies of the thesis must be in the hands of the Chairman of the Division, 15 Little Hall, by January 3 for the degree at Midyears, and by April 1for the degree at Commencement.

The thesis must be accepted before the candidate may be admitted for the Special Examination. It must show an original treatment of the subject and give evidence of independent research. It must be in good literary form, suitable for publication. Except by special permission from the Chairman of the Division, all theses must be in typewritten or printed form.

Every thesis must be accompanied by a summary not exceeding 1200 words in length, which shall indicate as clearly as possible the methods, material, and results of the investigation. Each summary must be approved by the Division Committee as adequate and in suitable form for publication. These summaries are printed by the University in an annual volume.

At least SIX months must elapse between the General and Special Examinations.

Candidates for the Ph.D. degree must plan on no less than THREE full years of advanced study, and it is only a student with superior training and no outside demands on his time who can attain his degree in that time.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  After September 1, 1934, candidates for the Ph.D. are required to show evidence, in some section of their graduate work, of high distinction — “A” — in formal course instruction, General or Special Examinations, or Dissertation.

Business Economics: For the degree in Business Economics, consult the Division pamphlet.

Miss Stone, in 41 Holyoke House, will be glad to answer any questions arising in connection with these regulations.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics Records (UAV349.11) Box 13 Folder “Graduate Instruction Degree Requirements”.

Image: Harvard Class-Day Book 1934.

Categories
Economics Programs Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Economics Department Reports to the Dean, 1946-47 to 1949-50

 

This post adds the Chair’s annual reports on the Harvard Economics Department for the early post-WW II years to previously posted reports for 1932-33 through 1945-46. 

Reports to the Dean of Harvard
from the Department of Economics.
1932-1941
1941-1946

___________________________

1946-1947

September 29, 1947

Dear Dean Buck:

You have requested a brief report on the work of the Department of Economies for the academic year 1946-47.

This report necessarily follows much the same pattern as the report for last year. Again our work has been dominated by the number of students, undergraduate and graduate, and the lack of a trained junior staff.

The number of undergraduates of course is entirely so beyond our control. In Economies A and in most of our “middle group” courses, the elections taxed our capacity for effective instruction. Under the most propitious conditions the crowded classrooms would have presented many problems but with a dearth of trained teaching fellows and annual instructors the load carried by the senior staff was unduly heavy. Foreseeing this range of problems, the Department voted on February 19, 1946 [sic, 1947 probably correct. In December 1946 departments wereallowed to withdraw from offering tutorials] to suspend tutorial instruction for a period of two years. It may be stated here that this was probably a wise decision. Concentration in Economics appears to have resumed the trend apparent before the war. In the current year the number of concentrators will approach, or perhaps exceed 800. Even should no consideration be given to the expenditure involved, the possibility of finding and training effective tutors even for honors candidates seems somewhat remote.

On the graduate level the problems of instruction were even more difficult. During the year the number of graduate students receiving instruction was approximately 286. Our course offering on this level is large. Nevertheless, the principal graduate courses were crowded to a point where the maintenance of standards was difficult. After the graduate student has completed his preliminary program and has been accepted as a candidate for the Ph.D, degree, the instruction is largely individual. In the last year we were just coming into the situation where a considerable proportion of the students were receiving such instruction. The full impact of this situation will be felt in the current year. Most members of the senior staff will be directing the theses of some 10 to 15 students. Some officers will be responsible for even larger numbers. With the numbers we are attempting to handle on the graduate level the single task of examining candidates in the general and special examinations becomes a major consideration. During the last academic year the staff conducted general and special examinations. Such an amount of examining and of individual instruction on the graduate level has its bearing on tutorial instruction for undergraduates.

The Department voted to accept the large number of graduate students now on our rolls only after considerable investigation and discussion. It is my own personal opinion that we have set our limit altogether too high. However, the pressure upon us for admission has been very strong and our obligations to the Littauer School, where the pressure is hardly less, just be observed.

This matter of the size of the Graduate School in the immediate future is one of our most difficult problems. It will receive our attention in the current year.

In the last two or three years these reports have noted certain experiments in instruction, especially in connection with Economics A. Such experiments are dependent upon the presence of a considerable number of able and mature young men with adequate teaching experience, as well as upon a margin of free time. Both of these factors are lacking to such a degree that substantial and outstanding progress could not be expected but the plans were active and some progress was made.

If full tutorial instruction is not resumed by the Department, experimentation in undergraduate courses is imperative and this we have planned. It is our expectation that a good deal in the way of individual guidance can be accomplished in connection with Economics A and some of our middle group courses. We believe that we can make our instruction more efficient with a much smaller personnel and at much less expense than the tutorial system would involve. However, a definitive decision has not been reached on all of these matters.

It is hardly necessary to emphasize that the heavy instructional demands discussed above affected our research projects. Furthermore, the officers of this Department are severely handicapped by the lack of research funds. This dearth of research funds is a question which has been placed before our Visiting Committee.

In spite of the difficulties involved, the contributions of the members of the Department were substantial. The following books were published:

Teoria de la Competencie Monopolica, by E. H. Chamberlin, Mexico, 1946. (Spanish translation of The Theory of Monopolistic Competition)

Economic Policy and Full Employment, by A. H. Hansen. McGraw-Hill. 1947.

The New Economics, S. B. Harris, editor and contributor Knopf. 1947.

The National Debt and the New Economics, by S. E. Harris. 1947.

Income and Employment, by T. Morgan. Prentice-Hall. 1947.

New enlarged edition of Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, by J. A. Schumpeter.

The Challenge of Industrial Relations, by S. H. Slichter, Cornell University Press, 1947.

Postwar Monetary Plans and other Essays, by J. Williams. Knopf, 3rd edition. 1947.

articles were published.

Although we are able to record only one new volume and one republication of an older volume in the Harvard Economic Series for the past year, four other volumes are in the hands of the printer and will appear in the current year.

In the area of distinctions or honors, I believe the only items to be noted concern Dean Edward S. Mason. Last spring he was appointed Economic Advisor to Secretary of State Marshall at the Moscow Conference. In July he was appointed a member of President Truman’s Committee on Foreign Aid.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Paul H. Buck

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

___________________________

1947-1948

September 30, 1948

Dear Provost Buck:

You have requested a brief report on the work of the Department of Economics for the academic year 1947-48.

The report on the work of the Department for the last year can be given in part in the same terms that have been employed in the last three reports. Our major problems have been quantitative and have presented the same difficulties that were emphasized in the other post-war reports. However, we believe that the last year did reach the peak of the load and that the pressure of numbers will abate steadily. The problem of building and maintaining an effective junior staff was hardly less than in the preceding years. Crowded classrooms and insufficiently trained assistants imposed unduly severe burdens upon the senior teachers responsible for course instruction. Some improvement, especially in the middle group courses, is in prospect for the coming year but it is probable that two to three years more will be necessary before these courses will be adequately staffed. In the introductory course which relies heavily upon a large number of young instructors and teaching fellows, the situation is still serious but latterly we have been able to utilize young men with more satisfactory preparation and training. Because of the heavy demands for the services of these young men by other institutions, the turnover is large leaving us each year with a relatively inexperienced staff.

Graduate instruction continues to make unusual demands upon the time and energy of the senior staff. During the past year we conducted 109 general examinations and 26 special examinations. Examining and the related task of directing the research of candidates for the higher degrees undoubtedly have an incidence upon undergraduate instruction which raises questions of fundamental importance. It is encouraging that the number of graduate students is, through the action of the Department, declining.

In spite of the difficulties presented by the numbers of undergraduates and graduates, the Department, perhaps belatedly, has given particular consideration to its commitments in the Areas and in General Education. A report on General Education is enclosed.

Also, the Department has considered at length and in detail various problems of instruction, particularly undergraduate instruction. These considerations will be continued in the current year. By completely revising the content of our basic courses it may be possible to increase the effectiveness of our instruction and reduce somewhat the number of courses offered. A preliminary report on this aspect of our work is included.

A year ago I noted that many of our senior officers were handicapped severely by the lack of research funds. As you know, it can now be recorded with sincere satisfaction that a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and that several projects under the auspices of the Research Marketing Act, U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Charles H. Hood Dairy Foundation, the Ferguson Foundation Fund, and the Carnegie Corporation Fund, meet the situation effectively for some of our officers. The set-up of these projects promises not only to be of great value to the professors in charge of the research but it contributes heavily to the training of our most promising graduate students and younger officers.

The following books were published by members of the Department:

How Shall We Pay for Education? by Seymour Harris. Harpers.

Stabilization Subsidies by Seymour Harris. Historical Report Series, U.S. Gov’t.

Price Control of International Commodities by Seymour Harris. Archives Volume, Historical Records Office.

International Monetary Policies, by Gottfried Haberler (with Lloyd Metzler and Robert Triffin). Postwar Economic Series, Federal Reserve System Board of Governors.

Problemas de Conjuntura e de Politica Economica, by Gottfried Haberler. Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janiero.

Production in the United States, 1866-1914, by Edwin Frickey. Harvard University Press.

Seventy-eight articles have been published. Three books were published in the Harvard Economic Series during the past year. Five volumes are in the hands of the Press to be published later this year.

Professor Edward H. Chamberlin has been appointed to succeed Dr. Arthur B. Monroe as Managing Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Both the Quarterly Journal of Economies and the Review of Economic Statistics are well established intellectually and financially. With the demands of instruction and research, the editing of the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economics and Statistics, as well as the direction of the Harvard Economic Series, raises questions regarding the adequacy of the manpower within the Department.

 In the area of distinctions or honors, Professor Joseph A. Schumpeter was chosen to be President of the American Economic Association for 1948. Dean Edward S. Mason was awarded an honorary degree, D. Litt, from Williams College, June, 1948.

Very sincerely,
H. H. Burbank

Provost Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

___________________________

1948-1949

September 28, 1949

Dear Provost Buck:

The pattern of the report of the Department of Economics on the work of the last year is essentially the same as the other reports for the post-war years. Indeed, not a little of the introduction to the report of a year ago could be utilized in the current report. The quantitative side of our work has been among our major problems. I think I was correct in predicting that the peak of the load would be passed in 1948-49. For the year 1949-50, numbers, particularly on the graduate level, will be approximately less although the total is still beyond the capacities of our senior staff.

Again I can repeat that the problem of building and maintaining a junior staff presents great difficulties. We have strengthened our position on the level of the assistant professor but we are unable to hold our most promising young Ph.D’s for appointment at the instructor level. All of our undergraduate instruction suffers because of this factor, but Economics 1 (the introductory course) is affected particularly. The demand for these young men by other institutions continues at a high level resulting in a high rate of turnover and leaving us sech year with a relatively inexperienced staff. [end of p. 1]

[Note: need to replace unfocussed image of page 2]

[p. 3 begins ] …expectation that we will be able to revise our general examination effectively.

In the post-war years the Department has been striving to meet its obligations to General Education and to the areas. We believe that we have made an excellent beginning in both General Education and in the Russian Area. We are still actively engaged in the attempt to strengthen our position in the Chinese Area. This is exceedingly difficult but I believe that some progress is being made.

Last year we were able to record with great satisfaction that some research projects were being established satisfactorily. These projects under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation and under the auspices of various groups interested in agriculture and marketing are now going forward successfully and up proving to be important for us not only as research projects but also because of their general effect upon a relatively large group of our graduate students. We can now give a type of training to our most promising men which would have been impossible without such projects. It should be emphasized at this point that other areas of interest need research funds.

The following books were published:

Collective Bargaining: Principles and Cases, Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1949, by John I. Dunlop.

Labor in Norway by Walter Galenson. Harvard University Press, 1949.

Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy, by Alvin Hansen McGraw-Hill, 1949.

The European Recovery Program, by Seymour E. Harris. Harvard University Press.

Foreign Economic Policy for the U.S., edited by Seymour E. Harris, Harvard University Press.

Price Control of International Commodities, by Seymour E. Harris. Archives Volume for Historical Records Office.

Saving American Capitalism, edited by Seymour E. Harris. Knopf.

Economic Planning, by Seymour E. Harris. Knopf.

Post-war Monetary Plans and Other Essays, by John H. Williams. Oxford, Basil Blackwell.

The American Economy, Its Problems and Prospects, by Sumner H. Slichter. Knopf.

There were 62 articles published by members of the Department during the past year. Five books were published in the Harvard Economic Studies and two volumes are in the hands of the Press to be published later this year. There has been a total of 86 books published in the Harvard Economic Studies to this date.

It should be recorded that both the Quarterly Journal of Economics under the editorship of Professor Chamberlin and the Review of Economics and Statistics have prospered during the year. Again I do feel it necessary to refer to the fact that editing the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economics and Statistics and the carrying forward of the Harvard Economic Studies continues to raise questions regarding the adequacy of the manpower within the Department.

In the area of distinctions and honors, Professor Slichter was awarded honorary degrees (LL.D.) from the following universities: Lehigh University, Harvard University, University of Rochester, University of Wisconsin and Northwestern University. Professor

Haberler was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Economics (“Doktor der Wirtschaftswissenschaft honoris causa”) from Handelshochschule, St. Gallen, Switzerland. Dr. Galbraith was awarded the President’s Certificate of Merit, Medal of Merit Board, for services in Price Control and Economic Stabilization during the war.

Sincerely
[Harold H. Burbank]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Departmental Annual Reports to the Dean 1948-54”.

___________________________

1949-1950

[Draft] Report to Dean, October 2, 1950
Professor Burbank

In each of the reports for the last three years, emphasis has been placed upon two matters; our efforts to handle the increased numbers incident to the war, particularly on the graduate level, and our attempts to revise and improve our instruction, particularly on the undergraduate level.

With a good deal of satisfaction we are able to report that for the last year substantial progress has been made in each of these areas. Immediately after the war the number of our graduate students increased from approximately 100 to nearly 300. By raising the standards of admission and giving the most careful scrutiny to applications, the numbers on the graduate level are now well under 200, and will be reduced somewhat more for 1950-51.

The work of supervising and directing graduate students falls very unevenly upon the various members of the senior staff. Even with not over 150 graduate students some members of the staff will carry an inordinate part of individual instruction and of examining for the higher degrees. Further, large graduate classes tend to dilute the instruction.

On the undergraduate level the Department has revised its requirements for concentration, including the content of many of our key courses. This plan has been accepted by the Faculty and is now in operation. It is an ambitious scheme that involves not only a change in the content and coverage of our key courses but it also involves the strengthening the staff in these courses and an integration of course work with tutorial work. Undoubtedly it will take some years to complete this plan. Much depends upon our ability to build a strong junior staff, especially on the annual instructor level. When this reorganized instruction is in full operation it is expected that a number of courses now offered for undergraduates may be deleted.

Also it is with a good deal of satisfaction that after a period of suspension tutorial instruction has been reestablished and is developing steadily. The period of suspension was unfortunate but probably inevitable. We are now approaching a position with respect to both graduate and undergraduate instruction that at least approximates a normal situation, with a possibility of a carefully planned and well integrated system of undergraduate instruction. As a part of this plan increased attention has been given to reestablishing the General Examinations on something approximating the level of earlier years. Since we are lacking experienced tutors the establishment of tutorial instruction is a very real task but it is believed it can be done successfully.

We have been fortunate to have been able to attract to the Graduate School a group of unusually able young men. The very top of this group represents ability of the very highest order. Unfortunately only rarely can we retain the services of these young men even on the assistant professor level. However, the Department is keenly aware of the difficulties it faces in recruitment and every effort is being made to follow the progress of the product of other schools as well as the progress of our own young scholars.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

___________________________

1949-1950

January 5, 1951

Provost Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Provost Buck:

I am now somewhat belatedly submitting the report of the Department of Economics for 1949-50.

I. Undergraduate Instruction

Four hundred eighty-two Harvard and Radcliffe students concentrated in economics in 1949-50 as compared with 608 in the previous year. The enrolment in Economics 1 was 402 as compared with 546 in the previous year. Seventy-seven students graduated with honors; 20 obtaining magna cum laude and 57 cum laude.

The entire senior staff gave courses at the undergraduate level— a practice that distinguishes Harvard sharply from institutions such as Columbia and Chicago which restrict the activities of some of the most talented members of the staff to graduate instruction. Nevertheless, the strength of our undergraduate teaching has depended very largely on the unusually fine group of assistant professors we now have on our staff.

During the past couple of years the Department has been gradually moving toward restoration of the tutorial system and last spring it decided finally to give tutorial instruction to all honors students in their junior and senior years,

II. Graduate Instruction

Two hundred graduate students in economics were in residence last year as compared with 234 the previous year. The Department gave 58 general examinations for the Ph.D. and 47 special examinations.

The number of graduate students is still too large to handle effectively with the present staff. The students themselves justifiably complain that they cannot see enough of the members of the faculty. However if they did see as much of the faculty as they wanted to, the faculty would have little time for reading and research and the quality of instruction would decline. We are planning to deal with this problem as far as possible by making sure that more graduate students attend reasonably small seminars and do have an opportunity to get to know at least one faculty member reasonably well.

I believe that the quality of our graduate work has suffered through overemphasis on course work and preoccupation with grades. We tend to make graduate instruction too much of a prolongation of undergraduate instruction. We also tend too much in the direction of specialization and provide too little encouragement for students to become coordinated in the whole economic field. The remedy for this state of affairs depends more upon the general attitude of the Department rather than any specific measures of reorganization. We shall do whatever is possible to encourage students in the feeling that their main function here is to acquire the maturity that is essential for scholarship rather than to accumulate a collection of pieces of isolated information.

III. Research

Professors Mason, Leontief, Black, Galbraith and Dunlop are all conducting organized research projects within the Department. Apart from their substantive value, these projects give a considerable number of graduate students an opportunity to take part in organized research activity. I believe these projects have an important part to play in the future of the Department as a whole rather than as special interests of individual members. However, I do not share the view that most of our intellectual activities should be directed towards organized research. There is danger that we may become a research bureaucracy and that the merits of individual scholarship may achieve less recognition than they deserve. While the research project is invaluable in training the students in specialized activity, it does little to cultivate the maturity that should be one of the most important products of our graduate training.

IV. The Staff of the Department

Professor Schumpeter’s death has meant a loss to the Department that cannot be covered by any individual that we now have on the staff or could get from the outside. The only way to make up for his absence is for the present members of the faculty to direct part of their attention to the aspects of economic thought in which Schumpeter was particularly interested. This has in part been done. I think it is true to say that since Schumpeter’s death his own work has received more attention in Harvard classrooms than it received while he was alive.

The only new additions to the to the staff at the professorial level in 1949-50 were assistant professors Orcutt and Sawyer. Orcutt is giving a course at the graduate level and the undergraduate level on empirical economies in which he stresses the quantitative aspects of economic theory. He is also a first-class statistician. Since the resignation of Professor Crum we have had only one professional statistician in the Department, and it seems highly desirable to have at least two. Sawyer will add considerable strength to the Department’s work in economic history although he will spend half of his time in the General Education program.

VI. [sic] Distinctions

Members of the Department received the following distinctions:

Professor Edward Chamberlin — An honorary degree (Dr.) awarded by the Universita Catholica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy. December 1949.

Professor Sumner Slichter — President, Industrial Relations Research Association.

Professor Gottfried Haberler — President, International Economic Association for 1950 (held by Professor Schumpeter at the time of his death).

I am attaching a bibliography of the writings of the members of the Department. [not included in this folder]

Sincerely yours,
Arthur Smithies

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Departmental Annual Reports to the Dean 1948-54”.

Images Source: Burbank (left) from the Harvard Class Album 1946, Smithies (right) from the Harvard Class Album 1952.

Categories
Economics Programs Economists Harvard Teaching Undergraduate

Harvard. Promotion for Harold H. Burbank, Job Offer for Allyn Young 1919

This provides some back-story to the rise of Harold Hitchings Burbank in the Harvard economics department. Coincidentally, some light is cast on the salary negotiations involved in the hire of Allyn Young, as well as the hopes the department of economics held in the prospect of Young joining the economics department.

Chairman Bullock’s characterization of Burbank “He does everything willingly, but we are already in danger of driving the willing horse to death” is not exactly the language a chairman today would use today to justify a promotion for an assistant professorship…I hope.

___________________________

Harvard University
Department of Economics

F.W. Taussig
T.N. Carver
W.Z. Ripley
C.J. Bullock
E.F. Gay
W.M. Cole
O.M.W. Sprague
E.E. Day
B.M. Anderson, Jr.
J.S. Davis
H.H. Burbank
E.E. Lincoln

Cambridge, Massachusetts
12 o’clock. January 28, 1919.

Dear Mr. Lovell:

I have failed thus far to get in touch with Dr. Burbank, but will leave word at his house, and he will doubtless come to see you tomorrow.

I wish to express the hope that you will not propose any arrangement to him by which he will have to do any more work or make any more labor-consuming adjustment in connection with his work this year. He does everything willingly, but we are already in danger of driving the willing horse to death. Your suggestion that recent graduates now studying in the Law School be put in to do section work in Economics A. involves, even tho these new men are placed in charge of sections which began work in September, an amount of labor, responsibility, and worry on Burbank’s part which I feel strongly It would be unfair to ask of him.

I have not myself been one of the real sufferers from the war, so far as University work is concerned. Such extra work as I have had to do for the men in Washington has been comparatively limited in amount, and some of my ordinary work has been decreased so that I have not suffered greatly. But the younger men who have stood by us have had a bad time, and I feel so keenly that it is unjust not to give them relief as soon as we can do it that I hate to think of Burbank’s being asked to make any further readjustments in Economics A.

You will recall, if you will review the last two years, that I have not found difficulties in the way of doing the things which it was necessary to ask the Department to do, and have been ready to disorganize, or readjust and adapt, to any necessary extent. I have further found the ways of doing this; and only last fall, in spite of the fact that I felt it was hardly right for Day to be taken from us, I went to a deal of trouble to fix up an arrangement under which he might be released. If I saw any arrangement now, I would surely make it, as I have done in the past. If Burbank can think of any arrangement that I have not been able to think of, I shall be glad to have it put into effect; but I wish to represent to you that it will not only be bad for the course, but very unfair for Burbank to ask him to take young and inexperienced instructors whose heart is in the Law School work anyway, and fit them into section work in Economics A at this time. Moreover, this arrangement involves delay of at least ten days or a fortnight, and our men need relief at the earliest moment. There are certainly no suitable men in the Law School now; and if any register next week, it will take time to find them out, to make arrangement, and to have them get up their work so that they are fit to take charge of a section. should think that under this plan it would be more rather than less than a fortnight before our men would get any relief. If you could know from actual contact with conditions what I have been compelled to know about the work of our young men during the war, I believe you would feel as strongly as I do that what they need now is immediate relief and not a plan by which they will have to spend the next month breaking in green, and possibly inefficient, substitutes. By the time that Burbank gets Economics A running smoothly again, if, indeed, that can be done at all, the term will be most over and the acute need of relief will be almost at an end.

Sincerely yours,
[Signed] Charles J. Bullock

President A. Lawrence Lowell

___________________________

Harvard University
Department of Economics

F.W. Taussig
T.N. Carver
C.J. Bullock
E.F. Gay
W.M. Cole
O.M.W. Sprague
E.E. Day
J.S. Davis
H.H. Burbank
E.E. Lincoln

Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 8, 1919.

My dear Mr. Lovell:

Dr Burbank informs me that he has received from Dartmouth College the offer of a full professorship, and this makes it necessary for the Corporation to consider whether it desires to retain him at Harvard. You will recall that two years ago the Department of Economics recommended that Burbank be advanced to an assistant professorship. This was at the time when he received from Chicago University the offer of an assistant professorship with full charge of their instruction in Public Finance. A year ago I brought the matter to your attention, but you desired to postpone action until Burbank’s book had been published. Last June I asked whether you would be willing to waive the question of publication of Burbank’s book, which was nearly, but not quite, completed. in order that he might accept employment from a committee of the American Economic Association, which would both be remunerative and give him an unusual opportunity to investigate a subject in which he is greatly interested, namely, the practical operation of the Federal income and excess profits taxes. You sent me word through Mr. Pierce that you would waive the requirement, and that you would be glad to have Mr. Burbank accept this employment.

Mr. Burbank made a distinct success of his work for the Economic Association, and such success as the Committee achieved was largely due to him. This year he has been conducting Economics A, and has demonstrated his ability to handle that course in a satisfactory manner. It seems to me that he is an invaluable man for the Department, and I hope that the Corporation will be able nor to advance him to an assistant professorship.

You also asked me this morning to write you concerning Allyn A. Young, whom we have had under consideration for a number of years.

In the winter of 1916-17 the full professors of the Department of Economics, after carefully looking over the field, recommended to you that Mr. Young be called to a full professorship at Harvard University.

You authorized me to write to Young and inquire whether he could be secured, and if so, at what salary; and I was able to report to you that Young would come to Harvard if he were offered a full professorship at a salary of $4500. At this juncture the United States entered the war, and the matter was necessarily dropped.

Last December Professors Gay and Haskins called my attention to the fact that Young was likely to receive an offer from Columbia University, and I held a hurried conference with them, and they later conferred with you. Action was postponed, inasmuch as Mr. Young was going to the Peace Conference as exert on economic resources; and it appeared probable that, if we could offer him a professorship at $5000, we could secure him for Harvard, even tho another offer developed elsewhere.

I hope that the Corporation will feel able to extend a call to Professor Young at this time. Since I talked with you this morning, I have met Professors Carver and Ripley, and they both concur in the recommendation which I make. Professor Gay gave you his opinion in December; and since that time I have heard from Taussig, who still is of the opinion that we ought to call Young.

I have no further knowledge as to the amount of salary that it would be necessary to offer. I assume that we should have to offer at least $4500, which was the figure that would have been necessary in 1916; and in view of Young’s increased experience and enhanced reputation, I should think that a salary of $5000 would be justified.

It is, I believe, important for the Department to secure Young at this time. We had in 1917 a Department of Economics which was recognized as one of the strongest in the country; but we needed Young at that time, and shall need him still more now in order to develop our work during the next decade. With him, I believe we should have a department that would be recognized as very clearly the strongest department in the country.

There is one further consideration to be taken into account in connection with extending a call to Young. If our economic research enterprise proves permanent, Young would be absolutely the best man in the country to coöperate with Professor Persons in carrying through the work we have undertaken. With Young and Persons in the economic research undertaking, we should have almost a monopoly of high class statistical brains. Young’s appointment was recommended by the Department in the winter of 1916-17, before the Committee on Economic Research was established, and without any reference to the development of that Committee’s work. The Department recommended him because they thought he was the one man whom the Department needed. The point I am now making is that Young is the one man whom our economic research undertaking needs, so that it seems upon every account desirable to add him to our staff next fall. Under the arrangement that I have in mind, if our economic research enterprise proves permanent, Professor Persons could give two-thirds of his time to the Committee on Economic Research and one-third to teaching, and Professor Young could give two-thirds of his time to teaching and one-third to the Committee on Economic Research. By this arrangement the Department of Economics would gain two teachers of the very highest reputation at an expense amounting only to the salary of one full professor, while the Committee on Economic Research would secure the services of the two minds in the country which are best adapted for the immediate work it has in hand.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Charles J. Bullock

President A. Lawrence Lowell

___________________________

Carbon Copy of Letter from President Lowell to Professor Bullock

March 8, 1919

Dear Mr Bullock:

I understand that Mr Burbank is feeling uneasy about his promotion, and has been made valuable offers from elsewhere. Mr Pierce, at my request, wrote you last May that the completion of his book was not essential to his promotion to an assistant professorship. He is as near as possible the soul of the body of tutors; and I think it is important that we should make it clear that good work as a tutor will receive as much recognition as an equally good conduct of lecture courses. Would it not be well, therefore, if Mr Burbank were appointed an assistant professor now? There is a Corporation meeting on Monday, and I should be very glad if you could communicate with me before it takes place, if you come home in time.

Very truly yours,
[stamp] A. Lawrence Lowell

Professor Charles J. Bullock
6 Channing Street
Cambridge, Mass.

Source: Harvard University Archives. President Lowell’s Papers 1917-1919. Box 124. Folder 1689.

Categories
Economics Programs Harvard Teaching

Harvard. Haberler and Chamberlin fight over last-minute course changes, 1942-43

Exogenous shocks are really useful for finding out how the economy works. They also help dear colleagues reveal themselves when their private interests conflict with those of other colleagues in particular or with departmental needs in general. The U.S. entry into the Second World War forced several adjustments in the graduate and undergraduate instructional staffing at the Harvard economics department.

This post provides some light on the time Gottfried Haberler was asked to teach the first of the two term graduate economic theory sequence for the academic year 1942-43. The course was a direct descendent of Frank Taussig’s Economics 11 (the expansion of course offerings over the decades required moving into 3 digits for some course numbers and a zero was dropped into the middle of “Economics 11” to obtain “Economics 101”). At the last minute Chairman Edward Chamberlin decided that he wanted “his” course back for both semesters but Gottfried Haberler was clearly not one to go quietly. And so we witness the performance of an academic drama before colleagues, of Professor X and Professor Y claiming conflicting rights to a particular course.

The record presented here is incomplete. I have been unable to find Haberler’s written plea on his own behalf. Reading the material one might think that Chamberlin got his way and Haberler was left to find another course to satisfy his annual teaching obligation. However, a look into the annual report of the President of Harvard College for 1942-43 finds that as far as the staffing of Economics 101 in 1942-43 goes, ex ante equals ex post. The course was ultimately divided that year between Messrs. Haberler and Chamberlin.

___________________________

Economics 101: syllabi (with links to most readings) and examinations for fall and spring terms 1941-42 taught by Edward Chamberlin.

___________________________

Who ended up teaching what 1942-43

Edward Chamberlin

Economics 1a. First term, undergraduate course “Economic Theory”.

Economics 102b. Second term, graduate course “Monopolistic Competition and Allied Problems”.

Co-taught Economics 101 with Gottfried Haberler. Full-year graduate course “Economic Theory”. Presumably Haberler taught the first term and Chamberlin taught the second term.

Gottfried Haberler

Economics 18b. Second term, undergraduate course on the Economic Aspects of War,

Co-taught Economics 45a with Alvin Hansen. First term, undergraduate course  “Business Cycles”.

Economics 144. Graduate School of Public Administration Seminar “International Economic Relations”.

Co-taught Economics 101 with Edward Chamberlin. Full-year graduate course “Economic Theory”. Presumably Haberler taught the first term and Chamberlin taught the second term.

___________________________

Ex Ante Course Announcement

Economics 101. Economic Theory

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructors) Fri., at 12. Professors Chamberlin and Haberler.

Source: Final Announcement of the Courses of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences during 1942-43. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXXIX, No. 53 (September 23, 1942), p. 55.

___________________________

Ex Post Course Enrollment and Staffing

[Economics] 101. Professors Chamberlin and Haberler. — Economic Theory.

Total 24: 16 Graduates, 4 School of Public Administration, 1 Graduate Business School, 3 Radcliffe.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1942-1943, p. 47.

___________________________

Presumably the statement prepared by Edward Chamberlin (referring to himself in the third person)

October 9, 1942

Course Economics 101 was announced in the catalogue for 1942-3 to be given jointly by Messrs. Chamberlin and Haberler. This arrangement was never considered as final but was subject to adjustment at the beginning of the college year in view of the general uncertainty as to the status of such of the graduate instruction until enrolments in various courses were known. (In particular, it seemed likely that either 102b or 163 or both might be bracketed, thus freeing either one half or one full course of Mr. Chamberlin’s time). It was, however, agreed between Mr. Haberler and Mr. Chamberlin that, in case the course were given jointly, Mr. Haberler would give the first half year and Mr. Chamberlin the second. Several times prior to the opening of college Mr. Haberler asked Mr. Chamberlin about the status of the course and was told that unfortunately nothing final could be decided until enrolments were known; it was agreed, however, that Mr. Haberler would take the first meeting, or meetings, of the course until a decision was reached. The matter was mentioned on Friday morning, October 2, at a casual meeting between classes at which time, since no final decision had been taken, Mr. Chamberlin said that it was still possible that the arrangement might stand. On Saturday, October 3, a final decision to take back the course was communicated to Mr. Haberler after considering a number of factors, among which were the following:

  1. The enrolment in Economics 102b was only two, plus five auditors. This course had always been given in the second semester, thereby opening it to the first year students who had had the first semester of 101. The bracketing of 163 made it possible to revert to this disposition of 102b, (or to bracketing it later on if this seemed necessary). The chief obstacle to Mr. Chamberlin’s giving the first half and therefore all of 101 was thereby removed.
  2. The class list of 101, received Friday afternoon, revealed that of 16 [or 18?] student then enrolled in the course all but two were foreigners. Many of these would have serious problems of adaptation to academic work in a new language and in a new country, and it seemed for the reason especially desirable to unify the introductory course in theory under one direction during the current year.
  3. During the past, two years the course had, for better or worse, been split both vertically and horizontally, not by action of the department but on the initiative of Mr. Chamberlin. This was done in part to open greater possibilities for discussion through smaller sections, and in part to share the course with others who wanted very much to teach theory. At no time during that period had Mr. Chamberlin given less than a full year of the course, and its outline and organization had always been his. It was his sincere belief that now that the course was again of manageable size the department would wish it to be given as it had directed earlier, and that he was fully competent to make the decision. At that time the work of the year had not really begun.

However, Mr. Haberler objected so strongly to the change that in order to settle the matter amicably, Mr. Chamberlin proposed on Sunday afternoon, and Mr. Haberler agreed, that the matter be left to a committee composed of Professor Crum as Chairman and other members to be chosen by Professor Crum. As this Committee could not possibly be assembled and give a decision before the Monday meeting of the course it was agreed that Mr. Haberler would take that meeting and that the Committee shouId render a decision before the Wednesday meeting. The decision was in fact rendered Tuesday afternoon and was unanimous that Mr. ChamberIin should give the course, When apprized of this decision, Mr. Haberler said he would like time to consider whether or not he was willing to accept it. From this point on Mr. Chamberlin became a passive duopolist, leaving all initiative to Mr. Haberler, who proposed that he take the Wednesday meeting of the course, finishing matters which he had begun on Monday, give a cut on Friday (there was a holiday the following Monday), and decide sone time before the Department meeting whether or not he would like to bring the matter before the Department. Meanwhile, the Committee had decided that certain questions which it had discussed apart from the immediate issue should be brought before the Department at its meeting October 13th. Mr. Haberler’s final decision on Thursday was that if the Department is going into the whole theory question anyway, they should also decide on the present status of Economics 101.

___________________________

Chairman Chamberlin announces his attention to return statement with statement

October 10, 1942

Dear Leonard [Crum]:

It has occurred to me that, since Haberler has given you in writing a statement of the facts as he sees them, I might, even at this late date do the same. My own statement will add some details and perhaps present a different emphasis at one or two points It may be used at your discretion in whatever way you think best, (including, of course, the possibility of no use at all beyond your own reading). I am sending a copy to Haberler.

Sincerely,

E. H. Chamberlin

___________________________

Chairman Chamberlin makes his written statement available to the department

October 17, 1942

To Members of the Department of Economics:

In view of the fact that Professor Haberler’s statement with respect to Economics 101 had some circulation prior to last Tuesday’s meeting and was also read in the meeting, whereas my own statement has to this moment been seen only by Professor Crum and one other member of the Department, I should like now to make both equally available to any who may wish to consult them. Accordingly, they will both be found in the blue folder in Mrs. Arnold’s office. Also in the blue folder are: (1) The minutes of the last three meetings, and 2) The report of the Chairman to the Dean of the Faculty covering the work or the Department for the past year.

Chairman [Chamberlin]

___________________________

Special Committee sides with Chamberlin

CONFIDENTIAL

(for use of Department
of Economics officers
only)

Report of a Special Committee
on the assignment for teaching Economics 101.

13 October, 1942

On Monday, October 5, the Chairman of the Department brought to my notice a personal disagreement between himself and Mr. Haberler concerning the assignment for teaching Economics 101, and asked that I serve as Chairman of a Special Committee to “arbitrate” in the case, and report before the meeting of Economics 101 on Wednesday the 7th. I was instructed to associate with myself such members of the Department as I saw fit in making up the Committee. I asked Mr. Burbank, formerly Chairmen of the Department, to be a member, and also four other members of the Department who have at present no active part in the teaching of economic theory and whose views on the matter at issue were unknown to me. One of these individuals was unable to serve because of his inability to meet with the Committee at any time available for meeting within the interval during which action had to be taken. The Committee, therefore, was made up as follows: Crum, Chairman, Black, Burbank, Dunlop, and Usher.

The Committee met and considered to the best of its ability all aspects of the case, and herewith reports certain recommendations to the Department for such action as it wishes to take. The Chairman of the Committee reported on Tuesday afternoon the 6th to Messrs. Chamberlin and Haberler the findings of the Committee in outline form because the Chairman thought that the two individuals concerned might have agreed to abide by the finding of the “arbitration” and might be willing to put the findings into effect immediately. The Chairman of the Committee did, however, report to both participants in the controversy that he did not regard the Committee as being clothed with any conclusive authority and that unless the participants in the controversy both accepted the findings of the Committee those findings would have to go to the Department as recommendations and would be subject to such action as the Department saw fit to take.

Statement of the issues.

Course Economics 101 is announced in the spring issue of the current Courses of Instruction pamphlet as to be given jointly Messrs. Chamberlin and Haberler, and I am informed that they had during the summer agreed among themselves that, in case the course was given jointly, Mr. Haberler would give the course during the first half year and Mr. Chamberlin during the second. Late in the week in which instruction of the present half year began Mr. Chamberlin indicated to Mr. Haberler that he thought the entire course should be given by Mr. Chamberlin. Mr. Haberler objected to any such change and insisted that he continue to give the course during the first half year. The issue, accordingly, was whether the conduct of the course should go forward on the basis of joint responsibility of Mr. Haberler in the first half year and Mr. Chamberlin in the second half year, or should be restored to the basis prevailing for several years in which Chamberlin gave the full course.

History of the case.

After the retirement of Professor Taussig, Course 101 (formerly called Course 11) was given for several years by Mr. Schumpeter by an arrangement which was understood to be provisional and subject to later change. At the end of this interim, after extended consideration of the needs and purposes of the Department with respect to the teaching of the several courses in economic theory, the Department took specific action directing Mr. Chamberlin to teach Course 101. At the same time arrangements were agreed upon by which several other specialists in economic theory in the staff of the Department participated in the instruction in economic theory. Presently the enrolmont in Course 101 became so large that its conduct as a single course by the discussion method became difficult; and, without specific vote of the Department, the course was divided into two sections, with one conducted by Mr. Chamberlin and Mr. Taylor in 1940-41 and by Mr. Chamberlin and Mr. Leontief in 1941-42, the other by Mr. Haberler and Mr. Chamberlin in both years.

With the decline in enrolment which has occurred, no occasion for such splitting of the course persists, and it has long been forseen that Economics 101 would be conducted as a single section during the present year. In recognition of this, an arrangement was made, without specific action by Department vote, to announce Economics 101 for the present year as to be given jointly by Messrs. Chamberlin and Haberler. At the time this arrangement was made the expectation was that Mr. Chamberlin would be giving during the first half year Economics 1a and Economics 102b and that he should not be called upon to carry the additional instruction involved in teaching Economics 101 during the first term.

The initial enrolment in Economics 102b was so small that the course has been withdrawn from the first term offering, and although it is announced for the second term doubt remains whether the enrolment will be sufficient even then to warrant giving it. In recent months, various changes in personnel of the Department and the necessity of distributing the teaching and other load in all branches of the Department work as fairly and efficiently as possible have resulted in various changes in the assignments of particular officers to particular duties. In these circumstances it became possible for Mr. Chamberlin to resume during the first term instruction in Economics 101 without making his course load excessive.

In connection with the controversy, the Chairman of the Committee had a conversation with Mr. Chamberlin in which the latter presented his own views concerning the history of the case and the points at issue. Mr. Haberler submitted a written statement to the Chairman of the Committee setting forth his ideas on the matter. Those items were brought to the attention of the Committee by its Chairman. Following the meeting of the Committee, Mr. Chamberlin also submitted a written statement to the Chairman of the Committee. Either or both of the written statements will be laid before the Department on request.

Meeting of the Committee.

The Committee met on Tuesday, October 6. The Chairman gave the Committee a history of the case and a summary of the information available bearing upon the point at issue. The Chairman also informed the Committee that he did not understand that the Committee had any conclusive powers and would be obliged to report its findings in the form of recommendations to the Department.

The Chairmen specifically urged the Committee, therefore, in proceeding toward its findings to consider the wisdom of bringing in findings which, in its opinion, would probably be supported by the Department. The Chairman reminded the Committee that adequate treatment of the particular matter at issue might well involve (a) recommendations by the Committee concerning certain related matters affecting other courses; and (b) recommendations by the committee concerning certain longer run matters relating to the general question of our offering in economic theory. The Chairman discussed with the Committee certain basic principles bearing upon the case, and received the concurrence of all the members of the Committee in these principles. They are outlined below.

The Committee then proceeded to discuss the matter at issue and various related matters. Discussion by the members of the Committee was free and active and the Chairman made a special effort to call forth the views of each member of the Committee. After this discussion the Committee agreed upon a set of recommendations to be made to the Department, and to be reported to Messrs. Chamberlin and Haberler in the hope they would accept the findings. The agreement of the Committee was unanimous. Those recommendations are presented below.

Basic principles.

In approaching a set of findings with respect to the issues raised the Committee had in mind a series of basic principles in which members of the Committee concurred. Those are as follows:

(a) Because of its compressed personnel in wartime and because of the extraordinary wartime adjustments needed in its work: the Department has a peculiarly difficult task of assigning functions to its various officers with a view to getting the essential work of the Department done with such distribution of the burden as will be primarily efficient from the point of view of the Department and secondarily fair from the point of view of the individuals.

(b) Even in peacetime the needs of the Department and the objective of securing maximum efficiency in the performance of Department work transcend the interests and preferences of individual officers. Although in peacetime many concessions can be made with a view to accommodating the preferences and interests of individual officers and with a view to protecting the rights or supposed rights of individual officers, the Department would in general not recognize that such individual interests can overrule the general interest of the Department. In wartime this condition is even more emphatically true, and in such time the individual preferences and interests may be obliged to give way to the general interest of the Department more frequently and more extensively than in normal times. Throughout the duration of the war many if not all of the officers of this Department will be doing work which they prefer not to do and will be denied the opportunity to do work which they would like to do. Without such sacrifices the essential work of the University cannot be effectively handled in wartime.

(c) The Department and the University cannot afford to allow the general interest to be sacrificed because of informal commitments or quasi agreements made among individual officers when such agreements fail to take adequate account of the general interest of the Department, even though those who made the agreements acted in good faith. That agreements thus made may from time to time have to be set aside in the interest of the Department, and that such setting aside may involve some sacrifice by one or more individuals involved must be accepted as one of the costs of giving primary importance to the general interest of the Department. Ordinarily it is to be expected that individuals will refrain from making arrangements for which they have no power under the law of the Department; but ever if such arrangements are entered into under a grant of power, the individuals concerned must recognize that the Department itself has a clear right to final determination at one of its meetings.

(d) To the best knowledge of the Committee, the purpose of the Department with respect to the assignment of instruction in Course 101 remains as it was last officially determined by Department vote several years ago, namely, that Course 101 should be given by Mr. Chamberlin.

(e) Under the stress of war the Department may be obliged to sacrifice in part some branches of its work, and the Committee believes that graduate instruction will probably need to be sacrificed before instruction in undergraduate courses, tutorial instruction, and other Department work directed toward the teaching of undergraduates. A policy which exposes graduate instruction to the principal sacrifices is also likely to result in the most frequent disregard of personal preferences and even of supposed rights of individual officers; but presumably the Department would nevertheless feel that such a policy must be adopted and maintained.

Recommendations to the Department.

After considering the facts laid before it in connection with the matters at issue and in the light of its own agreement on basic principles, the Committee agreed unanimously to present the following recommendations to the Department at its meeting on Tuesday, October 13, and to report these recommendations at once to the parties in the controversy:

(a) That during the present year Mr. Chamberlin be assigned to conduct the entire Course 101.

(b) That, in view of chancing conditions which may mean that the Department’s present total offering in economic theory covering the entire range of courses in that field does not most satisfactorily meet the needs of instruction in that field, the Department promptly and earnestly reconsider the total offering with a view to making such changes as may be necessary in the next announcement of courses. The Committee makes no recommendation as to how the reconsideration should be conducted, whether by the appointment of a committee or by general Department discussion or by a combination. It also makes no specific recommendation as to any changes in the present offerings of courses, but merely notices that such a general reconsideration may well cover the possibility that Mr. Haberler might be asked to give work in economic theory.

(c) The Committee recommends that the Department consider asking Mr. Haberler to take charge of an additional half course during the present academic year, with a view to replacing the first half of Course 101 in rounding out his teaching assignment. The Committee specifically recommends that Course 18b be considered as one of the possibilities for additional instruction by Mr. Haberler; and makes this recommendation because on the one hand the Committee feels that the hurried arrangement by which that course was assigned jointly to four officers won Mr. Harris withdrew may have been ill-advised in that use of too numerous instructors in such a course may damage the continuity from the point of view of the student; and on the other hand the Committee believes that Mr. Haberler’s areas of specialization would enable him to handle this particular course very effectively.

(d) The Committee recommends that the Department consider carefully the question whether in determining that the enrolment in a course is so small that the course should be withdraw only those enrolled for credit should be counted, or whether in addition the auditors should be counted (this question was raised before the Committee in connection with Course 102b in which the first term enrolment was two members for credit plus five others. Course 102b has been withdrawn from the first term offering, but will be announced again for the second term, and the question posed above may at that time again be raised).

W. L. Crumm

___________________________

Thus spake the Dean

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

Paul Herman Buck, Dean
Henry Chauncey, Assistant to the Dean
Jeffries Wyman, Jr. Assistant Dean

5 University Hall

January 12, 1943

To the Senior Members of the Department of Economics:

After considerable contemplation of the issue which has arisen between Professors Chamberlin and Haberler and which I have undertaken to arbitrate, I find I am in complete accord with the Report of a Special Committee on the assignment for teaching Economics 101, dated October 13, 1942. I commend especially as sound, the basic principles outlined on page 3 of that report and I accept as my official decision the recommendations to the Department given on page 4 of that report.

Frankly, it seems to me most unfortunate that the issue should have descended into personalities. The department should be prepared to face the large problems of policy which I have outlined in a letter to your Chairman which, I trust, will be read at your meeting tonight. Obviously those problems will not be solved intelligently and equitably if they are not approached with a vision directed to the loyalties of one’s subject and university rather than to self. Is it asking too much to relegate the personal aspects of this issue to oblivion?

It seems to me very important so to do. I have taken a great deal of pride in the distinction of the Department of Economics at Harvard and I have spoken in many circles boastfully of having what seems to me one of the very few remaining great departments of economics in the world. Certainly the responsibility of keeping that department great and of enabling it to develop continuing leadership should be the major loyalty to which every other consideration is subordinate. The awareness of this responsibility and the opportunities it presents will preoccupy your time and energies. Let me conclude by saying that I have always had and retain confidence in the intelligence, initiative, devotion. and cooperative spirit of your membership. I write this with all the more assurance because I know so many of you intimately and appreciate from personal friendship the qualities I have mentioned.

Very truly yours,
[signed]
Paul H. Buck

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950. Box 25. Folder “Graduate Instruction in Theory. Economics 101. 1942-43.

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Economics Programs Harvard

Harvard. Meeting of the Visiting Committee with the Economics Department. January 1944

 

Maybe attending to the routine business of the Harvard economics department was seen as a welcome respite amidst the Sturm und Drang of the Second World War. Maybe the consensus was simply shared that the transistory shock of the war would soon be over and it was time to worry again about the core missions of Harvard and its economics department. In any event, the following report outlines a “Research Program for the Department of Economics” presented to the visiting committee by the chair of the department’s Committee on Research Program, Professor John D. Black. 

____________________________

Visiting Committee Reports available at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror

Visiting Committee Report 1915

Visiting Committee Report 1974

____________________________

Meeting of the Visiting Committee of the Department of Economics with the Department, on Monday, January 10, 1944.

The Visiting Committee of the Department of Economics met with the Department at seven o’clock on Monday, January 10, 1944, at the Harvard Club in Boston. There were present for the Visiting Committee: Roger N. Baldwin, Albert F. Bigelow, Paul M. Herzog, George Rublee (chairman), Charles E. Spencer, and Orrin G. Wood. For the Department: John D. Black, H. H. Burbank, W. L. Crum, John T. Dunlop, Edwin Frickey, Seymour E. Harris, Arthur E. Monroe, Wassily Leontief, Abbott P. Usher, John H. Williams, and Edwin B. Wilson. Mr. Rublee presided.

 

Mr. Rublee called on Professor Burbank, the chairman of the Department of Economics, to make an opening statement.

Professor Burbank said that in previous years we had at these dinners talked about our teaching difficulties, especially those connected with the junior staff. Last year we discussed Professor Slichter’s experiment with the labor-union representatives. This year the Department had suggested to Mr. Rublee that we consider our most pressing problem of the present, as well as the immediate and long-run future. Fundamentally, this problem is concerned with the Department’s research. We must have a vigorous and effective program of research if we are to have a dominant Department of Economic in the University or, indeed, if the University itself is to maintain its high standing. The Department of Economics has recently appointed a Committee on Research Program. Professor Black is the chairman of this committee.

Professor Black then presented the following report:

RESEARCH PROGRAM FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

A department of economics in a large university has three functions to perform:

  1. To teach and train students,
  2. To contribute to an understanding of the current problems of private enterprise and public affairs,
  3. To help develop the science of economics.

In a small college a good job of teaching is about all that can be expected of a department of economics. In a great university the second and third functions are as important as the first.

Fortunately those three functions not only need not interfere with each other, but in a large university can be performed in such a way that each strengthens the other. This does not mean that all can be performed in the same time, but rather that each is better done if the other two are also being strongly carried. As a matter of fact, however, much time and energy is saved if all three are combined. Thus what is learned from the study of current problems can be used very effectively in the classroom and at the same time furnishes needed and valuable inductive material for the development of economic science. One’s teaching, in turn, especially one’s graduate instruction, is a constant source of ideas and suggestions to be developed in research. Only, therefore, if the staff of a department of economics is large enough and well enough financed so that it can work along all three of these lines, is it able to yield a large return upon the investment in it. Only if thus set up and thus functioning is it able to realize the possible economies of combination of these functions.

The Department of Economics of Harvard University has been performing on all of these fronts ever since it was organized. But in the period while the members of this committee have been associated with it, it has by no means measured up to its opportunities on the last two of them, and what is more important, unless some action is taken in the near future, it will miss out still more on its opportunities after the war. It will not only do less well the job it has been trying to do, for reasons to be indicated presently, but also will not reach out and encompass the larger needs of the years ahead. Needless to state, society and the nation are going to be faced with major tasks of adjustment in the years just ahead and over the next decade or two and likewise breath-taking possibilities for social advancement. So important is the role of economies in these developments that if the Department of Economies of Harvard University does not contribute its part to them, this alone will almost be enough to shrink Harvard University in toto into a second- rate institution. This, therefore, is a moment for stock-taking and laying out plans.

It is not part of the assignment of this committee to consider the teaching function of the Department. But some reference must be made to it for the reasons just given. the present course offerings and methods of instruction are not well fitted to the present and the impending future. The function of teaching in a field like ours is primarily to train students to apply economics, and the methods of economic analysis, to the situations which confront them after they leave college. For Harvard undergraduates, most of these situations are situations in private enterprise, although having important public relations. A limited proportion are assignments in the public service itself. The program of teaching needs to be organized in anticipation of the kinds of jobs, mostly private, that the graduates of Harvard University get to do. The graduate teaching program needs to envisage e wide range of working assignments, a large fraction of them in the public service. Training teachers of economics is only one of the functions of graduate teaching. Because the teaching is not organized as needed, there are some large gaps in the present program, and these gaps, it will appear presently, coincide with gaps in the research activities of the department.

The other two functions, contributing directly to an understanding of current situations, and developing economic science, are orginarily considered as research. There is considerably more to the first of these than just research, but since good research is basic to it, we will here consider them both as research and treat them under one head from this point on.

The deficiencies in the research activities of the Department of Economics, considered especially from the standpoint of the postwar can be designated under the following heads:

  1. Not enough research is being done
  2. There are gaps in it
  3. Some of it is not of enough significance.

The reasons for these deficiencies are as follows:

  1. Lack of resources to carry on the needed volume of research.
  2. This includes resources in research personnel as well as in the expenses of clerical assistants, field study, publication, and the like.
  3. Inadequate staff, or none at all, in some important fields.
  4. Very little in the way of leadership. Staff not organized in such a way as to promote research.

Let us now consider briefly these four reasons. When an economist does not have financial resources with which to do significant research, he may put in his spare energy on library work on the writings of his predecessors, the Congressional Record, and the like. For this he needs only someone to type his manuscript. If in addition, he has a little money to hire a computer, he may go to work on the census records and other official statistics. Those two descriptions about cover all the research now being done by the Harvard Department of Economics as such.

Lacking funds for anything more, two developments have followed. First, a goodly number of the staff members have taken on research or related assignments with other agencies. Merely to list these agencies tells the story. (We are purposely omitting the wartime agencies), the Treasury Department, the State Department, the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Reserve Board, the National Resources Planning Board, the Food and Nutrition Board, the Bureau of Economic Research, the League of Nations, the Twentieth Century Fund, the National Planning Association, the National Industrial Conference Board, etc. While most of those assignments are important, to have as many of them disorganizes the research and teaching of the Department. Also the Department as such does not get adequate recognition for work done under other auspices. Finally, there is great need for having research done that is largely independent of government agencies. This point cannot be too strongly emphasized.

The second development has been that several members of the Department have started projects that they have not been able to complete thus far. They have learned by sad experience that they cannot swing ambitious projects without the help of trained younger associates who can direct the detail of the analysis and help with the writing. As a result, a number of important projects are now left suspended.

If the Department is to have a vigorous research program of its own, there must be funds with which to employ a dozen or two of these younger research associates, as well as funds for computers, clerical help, drafting, travel and field study.

The Committee is also disposed to think that a clearer recognition should be given to research duties in the total program of the Department. It would suggest that consideration be given to a plan which would differentiate teaching loads according to research carried. Staff members who do very little research, because not inclined that way, or having small capacity for it, would handle more classes under such a plan.

The nature of the gaps in the present program may be judged from a following incomplete survey of fields of research and teaching and the needs of each.

  1. Money and credit. Staff ample, but research associates, clerical and other help much needed. High time that a research showing be made.
  2. Business cycles. Staff ample. Funds to continue the program that was under way before the war.
  3. International economic relationship. Staff probably not entirely adequate and great need of developing a well-rounded research program suited to the postwar world. This program should include work on Inter-American relationships, development of resources of Latin America, international food supply and distribution and related population problems. Research associates and other financial help.
  4. Public finance. Staff ample. Research associates and other help needed.
  5. Economic history. A teaching as well as research associate needed. One professor now working alone in the field.
  6. Labor and industrial relations. The principle problem is to develop a workable program for using the research funds now available.
  7. Agriculture. A teaching associate needed, and probably two research associates with necessary supplementary funds.
  8. Commodity distribution. Needs complete staffing. An undergraduate and a graduate course are now being given on a makeshift basis. No research under way.
  9. Production economics. Courses now bracketed. Needs complete staffing.
  10. Forestry economies. A slight beginning has been made on a program in this field in collaboration with the Harvard Forest. An opportunity for an important contribution here. Needs a man to develop teaching and research with such financial support as required.
  11. Concerning the several other present fields of teaching and research in the Department, no statement is being made at this time.

The present research funds available for the Department are:

  1. A share with three other departments in the remnants of grant that will expire in June 1946. (About $40,000 left, most of which must be reserved for publication expenses.)
  2. Remnants of three other small grants, totaling about $6000, for special projects.
  3. The Wertheim fund, yielding about $3000 a year, for research in industrial relations, to be shared with other divisions of the University.

The committee suggests as a method of approach to the situation outlined that the Department set up a committee to draft a research program for the Department, and another one to develop a procedure for securing the necessary support for the program.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Professor Black added that in the natural sciences the idea of large laboratories is well established. In Economics also we need extensive laboratories and personnel therefor. Further, we need funds for field workers and for traveling expenses.

Mr. Bigelow asked whether there were any project being worked on in the School of Public Administration which could be coordinated with the research of the Economics Department. Professor Black answered that the idea of combining has already been carried as far as possible. The School of Public Administration funds are sufficient only to take care of the assembling of materials and other routine connected with the seminars.

Mr. Baldwin asked what the Department did with its research funds in the past when such funds were available. Professor Black answered that we made small grants to individual professors to help them finish projects in which they were engaged. These grants covered such activities as preliminary research, computing, and typing, but in general not much was available for field work or for traveling. Some eight or ten books have been published as a result of these projects. The publication of these books, as well as the research behind them, depended largely on research grants. Our research funds are now almost exhausted; we have very little money available for the future.

Professor Usher pointed out that in these earlier grants the modes and procedures were laid down by the donors. The Department did not have a free hand in organizing and planning research.

Mr. Baldwin asked whether the Economics Department today has a claim for research funds superior to that of other departments. Professor Burbank urged that a very strong case can be made out for such a position.

Professor Wilson observed that in days gone by great emphasis was laid on “inter-disciplinary” research. A second-rate “interdisciplinary” project would be given preference over a first-rate piece of restricted research. Professor Wilson further remarked that the research programs of the natural sciences were well set up thirty or forty years ago. Our social sciences, on the other hand, were for a long time treated as mere teaching departments. The movement away from this stand received a great impetus from an article by the late Professor Charles J. Bullock, in the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine for June 1915. This article called attention to the need of more generous and systematic provision for economic research. Our research program for Economics needs to be extended to a scale comparable with that of the natural sciences—unless, indeed, the United States government is to handle all the economic research in this country!

There was some discussion regarding the relation of university research in Economics to governmental research. Professor Usher pointed out that university research can be the basis for developing techniques of analysis which government bureaus can later put into “mass production.” Mr. Bigelow suggested that the development of techniques is more difficult in the social sciences than in the natural sciences. Professor Leontief predicted that the Economies Department’s research will set the direction for larger-scale governmental or “foundation” research, and emphasized that independent research, especially in its earlier stages, can never be reproduced in the “rough and tumble” conditions of governmental work. Dean Williams supported this view: a situation has been developing for some time—not just in connection with the War emergency—in which men are pulled out of university work to become mere administrators, to “run” projects; furthermore, working under governmental supervision may mean a certain loss of independence of thought, for consciously or unconsciously a men may be affected by considerations of “official policy.” Dr. Dunlop declared that you simply cannot do fundamental research under governmental auspices, there are always too many pressing current problems.

Mr. Herzog urged that the Department’s next step is to present cogent arguments to support its contentions regarding research needs. In this connection, it will be quite important to show people what contributions the Department has made in the past with the research grants allotted to it—what, for example, has resulted for practical use of the Government. Professor Burbank responded that we might take as an example the history of the statistical work on the Balance of International Payments. At the end of the last war the government and business men were vitally interested in this subject. Dean Williams was a pioneer in the field. Dean Williams briefly outlined the record. He began with an examination of the balance of payments for Argentina. Then, under the auspices of the Harvard Economics Society he, together with Professor Bullock and Mr. Tucker, made and presented a historical study of the Balance of Payments of the United States from 1789 to 1920. He kept this study up to date for several years and then turned it over to the Department of Commerce, working with them for a transition period of one year. The Department of Commerce has subsequently carried on the study currently.

As a suggestion regarding further possibilities of this sort, Professor Burbank referred to the problems connected with the incidence of taxation; these are most certainly current issues of the utmost importance. The country needs evidence for the formulation of governmental policy. We have in the Department a young man of high ability who has made a start on the investigation of these problems. We have no funds to help him, not even money for clerical and mechanical assistance.

Professor Burbank indicated that the Department would work a report along the lines of Mr. Herzog’s suggestion.

Mr. Wood urged that the Department visualize its projects and lay them out fully, with an indication of minimum and maximum amounts of money needed. Very little will be gained by talking in generalizations; the program must be concrete. Incidentally, with the Federal tax situation as it is, the present is a propitious time to obtain money for research—with reference both to individuals and to corporations.

Mr. Rublee raised question as to the exact significance of the title “Research Associate.” Professor Black answered that we have something in mind beyond a mere statistical clerk. Between the man in charge of a project and those doing the mechanical work, we need trained young economists who can assume the burden of direct supervision and also can help in writing up the results. Other Research Associates are needed to do traveling and field work. Professor Leontief suggested that the appointment of Research Associates is important for still another reason. Many of the young men thus appointed will become leaders in the economic developments of the future. The experience gained on our projects will be extremely valuable to them.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Mr. Rublee asked Dr. Dunlop to say a few words about the progress of the trade-union experiment which was described by Professor Slichter in this meeting last year. Dr. Dunlop said that this year we have gone ahead with the program, although of necessity on a reduced scale because of man power shortage in the various unions. We have six union representatives who, on the whole, are superior to the group we had last year. We have continued the development of techniques of instruction and we have widened our range of contacts with the unions. The unions are supporting the program and we are establishing new connections with certain important unions. In spite of the fact that the teaching staff has been somewhat depleted and we have had to furnish instruction on the basis of special arrangements, we feel that the year has been decidedly profitable and worth while, both for the union representatives and for us.

Mr. Herzog urged that by all means the work should continue, even though it had to be on a reduced scale. It is much easier to keep on with a going concern than to start afresh. He confirmed Dr. Dunlop’s impressions as to the high quality of the union personnel. He also reported the sincere testimony of a leading member of the labor-union group that the work at Harvard was felt to be highly worth while—to be a vital and crucial experience.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The meeting closed with general expressions of appreciation for Mr. Rublee’s work as chairman of the visiting Committee during the past few years and of the deep indebtedness which the Department feels to him for this work.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers 1930-1961 (UAV 349.11). Box 25. Folder: “Visiting Committee Correspondence, 1943-45.”

Image Source: Cropped image of  John D. Black (1938). Harvard Library, Digital Collections.

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Economics Programs Harvard Teaching Undergraduate

Harvard. Economics Department Reports to the Dean, 1941-1946

This post adds the Chairman’s annual reports on the Harvard Economics Department for the World War II years to the series:

Department of Economics Reports to the Dean of Harvard, 1932-1941

More about Harvard during WWII: Coreydon Ireland, “Harvard Goes to War,” The Harvard Gazette (November 10, 2011).

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1941-42

October 15, 1942

Dear Dean Buck:

I submit herewith a report on the work of the Department of Economics covering the past year.

The only honor conferred upon a member of the Department during this period has been the election of Professor Leontief to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Several books have been published by members of the Department, including Professor Harris’s two major works (appearing, I believe, not more than a month apart), The Economics of American Defense and Economics of Social Security; Professor Black’s Parity, Parity, Parity; Professor Hansen’s Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles; and Professor Haberler’s Consumer Credit and Economic Fluctuations. Professor Haberler’s Prosperity and Depression has also gone through a third edition. Professor Crum was co-author of Fiscal Planning for Total War. The list of articles, pamphlets, reviews, and other items seems unusually long. Professor Hansen has listed thirteen items, Professor Slichter eight, and Professor Black six. The Harvard Economic Studies has expanded from 70 to 72 volumes during the year.

The contribution of the Department to the war effort has been substantial. Professor Mason continues on leave of absence with the Office of Strategic Services, and Professor Harris has recently been granted full time leave to serve as Director of the Division of Export-Import Price Control in the Office of Price Administration. Among those in the Department who are more or less active as Consultants or in other part time war activities are Professors Black, Crum, Hansen, Leontief, and Slichter, and Dr. Butters. Numerous younger men have, of course, entered the war services or have declined possible reappointment at Harvard in order to accept administrative and research positions in Washington.

The problem of maintaining instructional standards has, of course, been aggravated by the war. Fortunately, exceptions to the two-thirds rule have been granted in many cases; otherwise it would have been literally impossible in the face of competing wartime opportunities to recruit a staff of younger men at all. Out of the present staff of fifteen teaching fellows eleven are on more than two-thirds time, and almost without exception these men would not have been available (that is, not even at two-thirds time) if exceptions to the rule had not been made. The average experience of the Economics A staff has improved owing to a policy of putting more experienced men into Economics A and breaking in new men either in tutorial work or in the Statistics and Accounting courses. 36% of concentrators in Economics are tutored by new men this year; 60% by men of one year or less experience. The very sizeable staff in Statistics and Accounting is made up almost entirely of new appointees.

In view of the desperate need for trained economists in the expanding activities of the United States Government, the Department has announced for the current year an Undergraduate Training Program in Economics for Government Service which has attracted a substantial enrolment. The program has been opened to non-honors as well as to honors candidates. It has been carefully designed to give advanced training of a type which will enable them to undertake with a minimum of delay and adaptation administrative and research positions in the government service. It includes, in addition to a substantial corps of standard courses in Economics, three new courses, namely, Economics 7a and 7b, Research in Market Organization, Commodity Distribution, and Prices; Economics 19a, Research in Money and Finance; and Economics 22b, Government Statistics. One striking indication of the merits of this program might appear in the fact that a program of training announced by the Department of Government seems to consist essentially in normal concentration Government plus an election from these new courses in Economics.

Sincerely yours,

E. H. Chamberlin

Dean Paul H. Buck

_______________________

1942-43

October 21, 1943

Dear Dean Buck:

I submit herewith the report on the work of the Department of Economics for the academic year.

The war effort has continued to deplete our staff. Since the opening of the academic year Professors Chamberlin and Haberler and Dr. Dunlop have been granted leave of absence to undertake work in war agencies in Washington. However, Professor Crum resumes his work with the Department after leave of absence from the University to conduct an investigation on Fiscal Planning for the National Bureau of Economic Research of which he is currently the Chairman. Also Associate Professor Seymour Harris has returned to the University after a year and a half of service with the Office of Price Administration where he served as Director of the Office of Import-Export Price Control. A very small fraction of the once large junior staff now remains. By the end of the coming term it is expected that not more than four Annual Instructors will be active in instruction.

The incidence of war activities on research and publication has been two-fold. In some instances long-time research projects have been put aside, but concurrently much effort has been applied to projects concerned with war and post-war problems. Having in mind the inevitable interruptions of the war period, it is gratifying to be able to report that the books, scientific articles, addresses and reports have been in about the same number as the average of the immediately preceding years.

Of the major publications during the year the following should be mentioned:

J. A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy

P. M. Sweezy, The Theory of Capitalist Development

Edwin Frickey, Economic Fluctuations in the United States: a Systematic Analysis of Long-Run Trends and Business Cycles, 1866-1914

S. E. Harris, Economics of America at War

S. E. Harris, Editor, Postwar Economic Problems

A. P. Usher, The Early History of Deposit Banking in Mediterranean Europe has just left the press.

J. T. Dunlop, Cost Behavior and Price Policy

It is also indicative of the demands of war activities that some forty or fifty articles directly related to the war and post-war economy have been published by members of the Department. In addition numerous reports have been issued to or under the auspices of various war agencies such as Professor Harris, “O.P.A. Manual of Price Control” and his “Reports on Anti-Inflationary Programs in South America,” and Professor Crum’s memorandum on Fiscal Planning for Reconstruction and Peace for the National Bureau of Economic Research. The Quarterly Journal of Economics has continued successfully through another year, bringing the total volumes of this publication to 57. The Review of Economic Statistics now in its 25th volume is continuing under the editorship of Professor Harris. The Harvard Economic Studies is now publishing its 75th volume.

The rapid reduction in the numbers of the teaching staff has been met in part by the increased activity of those remaining. With the very active cooperation of the members of the staff we have been able to offer a reasonably full and well balanced program of instruction. On the graduate level flexibility of instruction has been more necessary than in previous years because of the cosmopolitan group now in attendance –not less than a dozen different nationalities are represented. This flexibility is being achieved largely by increased individual supervision and instruction.

The sharp decline in the undergraduate body together with the presence of a small but able and experienced staff of teachers has made possible a degree of experimentation in the introductory course in Economics which should lead to significant changes in the conduct of this course in the post-war period. Also at the present time some attention is being given to a question which has been in the minds of a number of members of the staff for some year—the so-called quiz section. It has been a quite common practice, in the conduct of middle group courses to provide for two lectures and one section meeting each week. On occasion five lectures are followed by the section meeting. For many years the usefulness of the section meeting has been in question. It is to be admitted that it does relieve the instructor of a lecture, but whether or not it provides equivalent or better instruction is debatable. At the present time Professor Crum and Dr. Smith are conducting a controlled experiment in the section meetings connected with their offering Government Control of Industry and Public Utilities. In the course time they will report their findings to the Department.

At this point I should like to mention the interesting and valuable “experiment” which Professor Slichter has called The Trade Union Fellowship Project. I am enclosing Professor Slichter’s report on this project which, I believe, you will find of interest. We regard the experiment as not only highly successful from both the point of view of the University and the Unions, but the experience furnishes a good deal of evidence regarding educational processes which may prove to be highly significant.

Very sincerely yours,

H. H. Burbank

_______________________

1943-44

October 13, 1944

Dear Dean Buck:

I submit herewith a brief report on the work of the Department of Economies for the academic year.

In the main, this report is a continuation of the report sent to you a year ago. In spite of the multifarious wartime activities of the member of the staff, the Department has maintained a well balanced offering of courses on both the undergraduate and graduate level. Course elections have continued to be surprisingly large, but I believe that the decline we have been expecting will actually begin with the Winter Term. The large proportion of foreign students on the graduate level, together with our inability to give complete offerings each Term, has necessitated an unusual amount of individual instruction.

Professors Mason and Chamberlin and Drs. Sweezy and Dunlop were on leave for the entire year. Professor Haberler resumed his work with us for the Summer Term.

I can repeat from my report of last year that the incidence of war activities on research and publication has been twofold. Most of our long time research projects have been put aside, but currently many projects concerned with war and postwar problems have been initiated and some of them completed. Although publication has been diminished by war activities, it is still gratifying to be able to report that the books, scientific articles, addresses, and reports—although not in quite the same quantity as in the prewar years—have nevertheless appeared in substantial numbers. Progress on the publication of books has shown a more definite interruption, but four books have been published during the year and not less than six books are now either actually in the press or are nearing form for publication. The books published during the year were:

J. D. Black, Food Enough

A. H. Hansen, (with H. S. Perloff), State and Local Finance in the National Economy

S. H. Slichter, Present Savings and Postwar Markets

J. H. Williams, Postwar Monetary Plans and Other Essays

Both of our periodicals — the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economic Statistics — have been able to continue publication without interruption and have been able to maintain their high standards. The difficulties encountered by scientific periodicals during these years are very real. One other volume has been added to the Harvard Economic Studies.

In my last report I mentioned the experimentation, particularly in the Introductory course, which had been initiated. I am very happy to be able to report that this experimentation has continued through another year with very gratifying results. A very interesting problem is involved in the attempt to present adequately the introductory material in Economies. Most of us who have been intimately concerned with the problem believe that a single course can serve both for those who will concentrate in Economics and for those whose main, interest lie elsewhere. The content of such a course, and the effective presentation of the material, is now being studied.

I might add here—because fundamentally it is experimentation in methods and relationships—that the Trade Union Fellowship Project has been conducted successfully for another year. At various times I have sort you Professor Slichter’s reports on these projects. We believe that a very interesting and productive educational experiment is being carried on with the Trade Union men.

Also in the sane connection I should like to record that during the last year we were presented with a variety of problems by the numerous South American students who came to us on the graduate level.We gave these students particular attention. By the end of the year we had learned that it would be highly profitable to develop for such students some specialized instruction which would overcome the difficulties under which all of them labored in their first term or two of residence. Their educational background, following European patterns, is such that it is necessary for us to present to them in concentrated form certain types of qualitative and quantitative analysis with which they are unfamiliar and which is not now offered on the graduate level.

The members of the Department have continued to discuss and to arrive at decisions regarding course instruction in the postwar years. In sone respects, we will strengthen the instruction offered mainly for the specialist in Economics, but we are more concerned with broader offerings which will prove to be desirable, and we hope necessary, for the college at large. Our permanent staff is large and versatile. We hope to be able to utilize to the full the resources we possess. In connection with the enrichment of our teaching, we expect to utilize more effectively in our instruction the material forthcoming from a number of proposed seminars.

It seems unnecessary to mention in detail the wartime activities of our staff members. Practically every member of the staff is actively engaged in some type of war activity. Without exception, each officer is utilizing his special aptitudes and training in connection with the various Federal agencies concerned with economic problems.

Very sincerely,

H. H. Burbank

Dean Paul H. Buck
University Hall 5
Cambridge, Massachusetts

_______________________

1944-45

October 24, 1945

Dear Dean Buck:

I submit herewith a brief report on the Department of Economics for the last year.

As in the preceding war years, the Department has been able to present a very respectable offering of courses, both on the graduate and undergraduate level. The number of graduate students continued to be unexpectedly large, necessitating a rather more elaborate course offering for them than we had planned. To a somewhat larger extent than in the two preceding years the students enrolled represent such a diverse background of training and experience that sone new types of instruction were involved. Some seventeen nationalities were represented. We are inclined to believe that this is not altogether a temporary and war situation. Even after the European universities are reestablished, we expect to draw many students with foreign background and training. If this expectation is fulfilled, our wartime experience with foreign students will have been of considerable value.

Even before the war the Department was concerned with the reorganization of its instruction. Our discussions continued throughout the year materializing in a curriculum in theoretical and applied Economics which tends to utilize to the full the unusual capacities of the members of the staff. Our present position, however, is by no means definitive. We have always relied heavily upon the stimulating intellectual activities of the younger members of the staff. When recruitment is again possible we expect to strengthen our position markedly through the cooperation of these younger members.

The reorganization of instruction has been concerned mainly with the content and coverage of courses, but in some cases it has dealt with the actual methods of classroom instruction. The introductory course has been completely recast, involving new types of material and new methods of presentation. The full effects of these changes will have to wait upon the enlargement of our junior staff. Also, some of our plans involving quantitative instruction necessarily are held in abeyance until the questions regarding a statistical laboratory have been settled.

The war effort of many officers of the Department continued through the year. Professor Mason and Drs. Sweezy and Dunlop were on leave from the University devoting their entire time to their respective wartime assignments. Professor Chamberlin returned to Cambridge in February from his post with the office of Strategic Services. Other members of the Department, particularly Professors Hansen, Slichter, Harris, Leontief and Black, while meeting their University obligations also served in various capacities with wartime agencies.

The incidence of this wartime service upon research and publishing activities of the group was marked. Both books and articles were fewer in number than in the normal year and in the main reflected the particular war activities of the authors. However, in all some

34 articles and 7 books were published. It should be noted that at least three volumes which the authors had expected to complete in the last year are now being prepared for the press.

The difficulties involved in the publication of scientific journals have been great but not insurmountable. We have been able to continue the publication of the Quarterly Journal of Economies and the Review of Economic Statistics without reduction in size and without omission of numbers. In the Harvard Economic Series [rest of line blank] that some four volumes either in the hands of the press or the Department were ready for publication but because of the war restrictions were not actually published.

Latterly the Department has been concerned with the vexing problems of the definition of objectives of students on the graduate level and the adjustment of these objectives to the various higher degrees offered. We are concerned with the administration not only of the Ph.D. degree in Business Economies, the Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government, and in part with the Ph.D. in Public Administration which may be conferred through the Littauer School of Public Administration. The problems involved in defining and administering each of these degrees will receive continued attention.

Although no honorary degrees have been reported by members of the staff, Professor E. H. Chamberlin was elected Membre Correspondent de L’Institut de Science Économique Appliquée, May 1945, and Professor S. E. Harris was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Very sincerely,

[H.H. Burbank]

_______________________

1945-46

September 30, 1946

Dear Dean Buck:

You have requested a brief report on the Department of Economics for the academic year 1945-46.

Although the Department of Economics had anticipated to a considerable extent the problems that would be presented by the post-war situation, it found the academic year 1945-46 presenting difficulties for which there, was no immediate solution.

Fortunately we had devoted a great deal of time and thought to our course offering and to methods of instruction. We were moderately well prepared to take up the new work involved in new instruction and also the work involved in changing the content of, old courses. Again we were fortunate in being able to meet most of the difficulties presented by the unprecedented number of graduate students. With all of the permanent members of the staff in residence, we were able to meet the graduate situation although it taxed our resources to the limit. Many of our most insistent problems were concerned with the difficulties we met in assembling and training an adequate junior staff. We began the fall term with 2 Assistant Professors (Faculty Instructors), 3 Annual Instructors, and 7 Teaching Fellows. The staff was increased during the year but it was far from adequate to meet the course work, involved in our offering. However, this would seem to be a problem of relatively short duration. A few young scholars are being brought from other institutions and occupations and our Graduate School contains a number of most promising young scholars whose development is proceeding rapidly.

During the fall of 1945 the Department surveyed repeatedly the obligations it had undertaken. We were committed to an elaborate course offering. He realized that the permanent personnel of the Department could not be expanded and we recognized that in the range of the junior staff immediate and extensive increases in personnel also were impossible. Because of the irreducible demands upon our limited resources, we reconsidered repeatedly our efforts in the area of tutorial instruction and eventually voted to suspend tutorial instruction for a period with the stipulation that the subject be reconsidered at such time as the Department might see fit and in no event not later than two years.

The foregoing remarks have indicated that all members of the staff are carrying much heavier loads than in pre-war days. The burden necessarily is apportioned unevenly but all are affected. The main incidence of this situation is on research. For some officers it means that research must be put aside temporarily. For others, less than ordinary progress is being made. However, as the following titles indicate, the contributions have been substantial:

Black, John D., and a committee consisting of M. R. Benedict, S. T. Dana, and L. K. Pomeroy; Credit for Small Timberland Owners, Including Farmers with Woodlands; A Report on Forest Credit. (In press)

Black, John D., with some guidance from Jorge Ahumada of Chile, Roberto Arellano Bonilla of Honduras, and Jorge Alcazer of Bolivia; Farm Cost Analysis, with Some Reference

Black, John D.; Clawson, Marion; Sayre, C.F.; Willcox, W. W.; Farm Management. The Macmillan Company (in press).

Chamberlin, E. H.; Fifth edition of the Theory of Monopolistic Competition (Chapter added). Translation of the above book into Spanish.

Crum, W. L., and Schumpeter, J. A.; Rudimentary Mathematics for Economists and Statisticians. McGraw-Hill.

Hansen, A. H.; America’s Role in the World Economy. W. W. Norton.

Hansen, A. H.; The United States After the War. Cornell Uiv. Press.

Hansen, A. H.; Financing American Propsperity. 20th Century Fund.

Harris, S. E.; Price Control in the International Field. (In press)

Harris, S. E.; National Debt. (In press)

Mason, E. S.; Controlling World Trade; Cartels and Commodity Agreements. McGraw-Hill.

Morgan, T.; The Development of the Hawaiian Economy, 1778-1876. Stanford Press. (In press)

In addition to the above books, some 72 articles have been contributed to scientific journals. We feel particularly happy in having been able to carry our publications, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economic Statistics, through the war period without serious alterations. Both publications are in sound financial condition. Actually, the Review of Economic Statistics will be in a much sounder position financially at the end of the current fiscal year than at the beginning of the war. However, increased publication costs are a matter for concern.

We have added two volumes to the Harvard Economic Series and published a revision of one. Three more volumes are now in the press. Again, increasing publication costs constitute a serious problem.

As mentioned above, all of the permanent officers of the Department had returned to active duty in Cambridge at the beginning of the year. A few officers have maintained contacts with various Washington departments and on occasion are called upon for consultation. In this connection, Professor John D. Black has served as Chairman of the Committee on Food Supplies for the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council and also has served actively with at least four other agencies. Professor John T. Dunlop has served as Consultant in the Office of Economic Stabilization and the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. Professor Seymour E. Harris has served as Consultant for the office of Price Administration. Professor Edward S. Mason has served as Consultant for the Department of State.

Very sincerely,

H. H. Burbank

Dean Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall

_______________________

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers 1930-1961 (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

Image Source: A Harvard Army ROTC unit on parade along Memorial Drive, July 1943. From the Harvard Archives published in: Coreydon Ireland,  “To Honor the Living and Dead“, The Harvard Gazette (November 10, 2011).