Tag: Carver

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Economists Gender Harvard NBER Radcliffe Smith Vassar

Radcliffe.Economics Ph.D. Alumna, Dorothy Carolin Bacon, 1928

 

This post began after I noticed that it has been some time since I posted biographical and career information for a economics Ph.D. alumna. I figured it would be good to search for a candidate that Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has already caught in an earlier archival trawling expedition but for whom the details of post-doc life had not been added. Dorothy Carolin Bacon was awarded her Radcliffe economics Ph.D. in 1928 and the following item was what I had to start with.

Dorothy Carolin Bacon.

General Examination in Economics, Thursday, May 26, 1927.
Committee: Professors Persons (chairman), Carver, Crum, Gay and Holcombe.
Academic History: Simmons College, 1918-19; Radcliffe College, 1919-22, 1923-24, 1926-. A.B., Radcliffe, 1922; A.M., ibid., 1924. Assistant in Economics, Vassar College, 1924-25. Instructor in Economics, ibid., 1925-26.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory. 2. Sociology. 3. History of Political Theory. 4. Statistics. 5. Economic History. 6., Money, Banking and Crises.
Special Subject: Money, Banking and Crises.
Thesis Subject: A Study of the Dispersion of Wholesale Commodity Prices, 1890-1896.  (With Professor Persons.)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1926-1927”.

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One of the items that came up after searching for a Google search was an advertisement for her handwritten Radcliffe student journal notes from her Physics course in 1922. Besides being surprised to see a list price of $750.00 for this notebook, I was intrigued by the relatively detailed information provided about Dorothy Bacon. While everything about the text struck me as fully plausible, I thought it worth some due diligence to confirm what I could from the bookseller’s bio-blurb. I have added links wherever possible to sources that confirm the details below. It would appear that information from the above item in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror as well as from the Dzuback chapters in Madden and Dimand (eds.)  and Margaret A. Nash (ed.) have provided some (or even much) of what was included in the D. Anthem advertisement that follows.

The section on Smith College in Mary Ann Dzuback’s chapter “Women economists in the academy: struggles and strategies, 1900-1940” in the Routledge Handbook of the History of Women’s Economic Thought, Kirsten Madden and Robert W. Dimand (eds.) provides information on Dorothy Bacon from the faculty files of the Smith College Archives [Office of President William Allan Neilson Files, Box 364, Folder 34]:

Bacon came to Smith a year before finishing her Ph.D. at Radcliffe in 1928. She took research and service sabbatical leaves to work for the Works Progress Administration and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the 1930s. She focused her research on money flows during the 1930s, cost price problems, and the development of federal level credit institutions. By the 1940s, she was working with the federal Office of Price Administration. By the 1950s, she was consulting with the Brookings Institution, had been a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and received grants from the SSRC. She published a monograph on the recent economic history of five towns around Northampton, Massachusetts, in the late 1930s, and was completing a book on the development of Philippine credit institutions by 1970.

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Another paragraph by Mary Ann Dzuback

From: Mary Ann Dzuback. Chapter 7. Research at Women’s Colleges, 1890-1940. Women’s Higher Education in the United States (Historical Studies in Education), edited by Margaret A. Nash. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Dorothy Bacon (1927–54) arrived in 1928, eventually taking an endowed chair. She investigated the flows of currency during the Depression, cost price problems, and the growth of credit institutions, and was in great demand by private research agencies and the federal government. A sometime consultant with the National Bureau of Economic Research, in the 1920s and 1930s she worked with a range of government and research agencies. She was awarded grants by the Social Science Research Council and published regularly. Bacon’s record of research and service, and her sabbaticals, suggest that women social science scholars at Smith were encouraged to use their research to inform policy at the federal and international levels.

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From: Advertisement for “Economist Dorothy Bacon’s 1922 Physics 2 Journal from Radcliffe College (1922)

Dorothy Carolin Bacon was born in 1902 to George Preston Bacon, a professor of Physics and Dean of both the Tufts Engineering School and the Bromfield-Pearson School, and Hannah Churchill Bacon, a trained nurse. Her sister, Ruth Bacon, also attended Radcliffe College and later became the first female officer of a State Department geographical bureau (Bureau of Eastern Affairs). Bacon attended Simmons College from 1918-19 before transferring to Radcliffe, the former women’s liberal arts college that fully merged with Harvard in 1999. She earned her B.A. (1922), M.A. (1924) and Ph.D (1927) [sic, 1928] there with her dissertation concerning A Study of the Dispersion of Wholesale Commodity Prices, 1890-1896. While at Radcliffe she also worked for the Federal Reserve Board’s Division of Research and Analysis [as a Statistical Clerk starting 1 July 1922] earning an annual salary of $1600 before resigning [May 10] in 1923.

She was hired as an assistant professor [sic, “Assistant” is a lower rank than “Assistant Professor”] in economics at Vassar in 1924 [cf. AER, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Dec. 1924), p. 829 “Miss Dorothy C. Bacon is assistant in economics at Vassar College.”], but was recruited by Esther Lowenthal, Dean of the Faculty and chair of the economics department at Smith, to join Smith’s faculty in 1927. At Smith she focused her research on money flows during the 1930s, cost price problems, and the development of credit institutions at the federal level. In 1930, she was one of three research associates selected for the National Bureau of Economic Research where she studied the relation of current stock prices to earnings per share from the twenty corporations comprising the Index of Industrial Stock Prices of the Harvard Economic Service. Her monograph, Recent Economic History of the Five Towns (1937) was published by the Works Progress Administration. In 1942, Bacon left her post at Smith [sic, only temporary leave] to work under Leon Henderson at the Office of Price Administration. It was there that she wrote a study of the scrap metal market in Syracuse, NY. By the 1950s, she was consulting with the Brookings Institution and was publishing her research in the Review of Economic Statistics, the Journal of the American Statistical Association and the National Encyclopedia. She appears to have never married [she wasn’t]  and when she died in 1998 she was buried at Shawsheen Cemetery in Bedford, MA, alongside her parents and sister.

Source: D. Anthem, Bookseller advertisement for “Economist Dorothy Bacon’s 1922 Physics 2 Journal from Radcliffe College (1922) [posted price: $750.00!]

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A.E.A. Biographical Listing, 1969

BACON, Dorothy Carolin, academic; b. Beloit, Wis., 1902; student Simmons Coll., 1918-19; A.B., Radcliffe Coll., 1922, A.M., 1924, Ph.D., 1928. FIELDS 2c, 5e, 4a. Research asso., Nat. Bur. Econ. Research, 1930-31; formerly sr. research asso., Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp.; fed. Dir. Research project, Work Progress Adm., 1935-36; asst. div. economist, food price div., OPA [Office of Price Administration], 1943-47, OPS [Office of Price Stabilization], 1951; Fulbright prof., U. Philippines, 1956-57; mem. Faculty, Smith Coll. Since 1927, prof. since 1938, Robert A. Woods prof. since 1956. ADDRESS Smith Coll., 115 Elm St., Northampton, MA 01060.

Note. Fields: 2c (Economic Development Studies); 5e (General International Economics); 4a (Monetary and Financial Theory and Institutions).

Source: The American Economic Review, Vol. 59, No. 6, 1969. Handbook of the American Economic Association (January 1970), p. 17.

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Bachelor of Arts, Radcliffe (1922)

With Distinction in Special Subjects
Cum Laude

Dorothy Carolin Bacon [of] Medford. In Mathematics.

Source: Report of the Dean in Annual Report of Radcliffe College for 1920-1923, p. 43.

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Master of Arts, Radcliffe (1924)

Dorothy Carolin Bacon, A.B.

Source: Report of the Dean in Annual Report of Radcliffe College for 1923-1924, p. 31.

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Doctor of Philosophy, Radcliffe (1928)

Dorothy Carolin Bacon A.M.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Money and Banking. Dissertation, “Maladjustment of Prices with Special Reference to the Wholesale Prices of Commodities in the United States; 1890-1896”

Source:  Report of the Dean in Annual Reports of Radcliffe College for 1927-1928, p. 23.

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Publications of Dorothy C. Bacon

A Monthly Index of Commodity Prices, 1890-1900. Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 8, No. 4 (October 1926), pp. 177-83.

The Significance of Fixed-base and Link Relatives in Studies of Price Stability: A Comment on the Behavior of Prices. Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 23 (September 1928), pp. 274-81.

Maladjustment of Prices with Special Reference to the Wholesale Prices of Commodities in the United States, 1890-1896. Ph.D. thesis, Radcliffe College.

Encyclopedia articles in the National Encyclopedia.

Recent Economic History of Five Towns. Northampton, Mass.: Smith College, 1937.

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Vital Dates and Miscellaneous Information

Born:  25 February 1902 in Beloit, Wisconsin.

Last Residence: Niceville, Okaloosa, Florida [Socal Security death index].

Died: 8 November in Meriden, New Haven County, Connecticut. [Apparently visiting: the Connecticut Death Index notes her address 2475 Virginia, Residence Andover, District of Columbia].

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Image Source: Senior year picture of Dorothy Carolin Bacon in the  Radcliffe Year Book 1922, p. 23.

 

 

 

Categories
AEA

American Economic Association. Economic Studies, 1896-1899

 

A few posts ago I put together a list of links to the contents of eleven volumes of monographs published by the American Economic Association from 1886 through 1896.

Those eleven published volumes were briefly followed (1896-1899) by two series of AEA publications, viz.: the bi-monthly Economic Studies, and an extremely short “new series” of larger monographs that would be printed at irregular intervals. In 1900 the American Economic Association reverted to the policy of issuing its monographs, called the “third series” of the publications, at quarterly intervals.

This post provides links to the 1896-1899 intermezzo of AEA publications.

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American Economic Association
ECONOMIC STUDIES.

Price of the Economic Studies $2.50 per volume in paper, $3.00 in cloth. The set of four volumes, in cloth, $10.00.

VOLUME I, 1896
[prices in paper]

No. 1 (Apr., Supplement) Eighth Annual Meeting: Hand-Book and Report. Pp. 178. Price 50 cents.

No. 1 (Apr.). The Theory of Economic Progress, by John B. Clark, Ph.D.; The Relation of Changes in the Volume of the Currency to Prosperity, by Francis A. Walker, LL.D. Pp. 46. Price 50 cents.

No. 2 (Jun.). The Adjustment of Wages to Efficiency. Three papers: Gain Sharing, by Henry R. Towne; The Premium Plan of Paying for Labor, by F.A. Halsey; A Piece-Rate System, by F.W. Taylor. Pp. 83 Price 50 cents.

No. 3 (Aug.). The Populist Movement. By Frank L. McVey, Ph.D. Pp. 81 Price 50 cents.

No. 4 (Oct.). The Present Monetary Situation. An address by Dr. W. Lexis, University of Göttingen translated by Professor John Cummings. Pp. 72. Price 75 cents.

Nos. 5-6 (Dec.). The Street Railway Problem in Cleveland. By W.R. Hopkins. Pp. 94. Price 50 cents.

 

VOLUME II, 1897

No. 1 (Feb., Supplement). Ninth Annual Meeting: Hand-Book and Report. Pp. 162. Price 50 cents.

No. 1 (Feb.). Economics and Jurisprudence. By Henry C. Adams, Ph.D. Pp. 48. Price 50 cents.

No. 2 (Apr.). The Saloon Question in Chicago. By John E. George, Ph.B. Pp. 62. Price 50 cents.

No. 3 (Jun.). The General Property Tax in California. By Carl C. Plehn, Ph.D. Pp. 88. Price 50 cents.

No. 4 (Aug.). Area and Population of U. S. at Eleventh Census. By Walter F. Willcox, Ph.D. Pp. 60. Price 50 cents.

No. 5 (Oct.). A Discourse Concerning the Currencies of the British Plantations in America, etc. By William Douglass. Edited by Charles J. Bullock, Ph.D. Pp. 228. Price 50 cents.

No. 6 (Dec.). Density and Distribution of Population in U.S. at Eleventh Census. By Walter F. Wilcox, Ph.D. Pp. 79.Price 50 cents.

 

VOLUME III, 1898

No. 1 (Feb., Supplement). Tenth Annual Meeting: Hand-Book and Report. Pp. 136. Price 50 cents.

No. 1 (Feb.). Government by Injunction. By William H. Dunbar, A.M., LL.B. Pp. 44. Price 50 cents.

No. 2 (Apr.). Economic Aspects of Railroad Receiverships. By Henry H. Swain, Ph.D. Pp. 118. Price 50 cents.

No. 3 (Jun.). The Ohio Tax Inquisitor Law. By T. N. Carver, Ph.D. Pp. 50. Price 50 cents.

No. 4 (Aug.). The American Federation of Labor. By Morton A. Aldrich, Ph.D. Pp. 54. Price 50 cents.

No. 5 (Oct.). Housing of the Working People in Yonkers. By Ernest Ludlow Bogart, Ph.D. Pp. 82. Price 50 cents.

No. 6 (Dec.). The State Purchase of Railways in Switzerland. By Horace Micheli; translated by John Cummings, Ph.D. Pp. 72. Price 50 cents.

 

VOLUME IV, 1899

No. 1 (Feb.). I. Economics and Politics. By Arthur T. Hadley, A.M.; II. Report on Currency Reform. By F. M. Taylor, F.W. Taussig, J.W. Jenks, Sidney Sherwood, David Kinley; III. Report on the Twelfth Census. By Richmond Mayo-Smith, Walter F. Willcox, Carroll D. Wright, Roland P. Falkner, Davis R. Dewey. Pp.70. Price 50 cents.

No. 2 (Apr.). Eleventh Annual Meeting: Hand-Book and Report. Pp. 126. Price 50 cents.

No. 2 (Apr.). Personal Competition: Its Place in the Social Order and Effect upon Individuals; with some Consideration upon Success. By Charles H. Cooley, Ph.D. Pp. 104. Price 50 cents.

No. 3 (Jun.). Economics as a School Study. By Frederick R. Clow, A.M. Pp. 72. Price 50 cents.

Nos. 4-5 (Aug.-Oct.). The English Income Tax, with Special Reference to Administration and Method of Assessment. By Joseph A. Hill, Ph.D. Pp. 162. Price $1.00.

No. 6. (Dec.) The Effects of Recent Changes in Monetary Standards upon the Distribution of Wealth. By Francis Shanor Kinder, A.M. Pp.91. Price 50 cents.

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NEW SERIES

No. 1 (Dec., 1897). The Cotton Industry. By M. B. Hammond. Pp. 382. (In cloth $2.00.) Price $1.50.

No. 2 (Mar., 1899). Scope and Method of the Twelfth Census. Critical discussion by over twenty statistical experts. Pp. 625. (In cloth $2.50.) Price $2.00.

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Core economic theory. Readings and Exams. Carver, 1900/01-1902/03

Thomas Nixon Carver

 

 

For the academic years 1900/01 through 1902/03 the core course in economic theory at Harvard was taught by Thomas Nixon Carver. He was substituting for Frank Taussig, who later wrote that he had been “compelled by ill health to withdraw from teaching” (1901-03). [Chapter IX Economics (1871-1929) by The Development of Harvard University since the Inauguration of President Eliot, 1869-1929 Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930. p. 191].  

Schumpeter provided more detail: “We speak of nervous breakdown in such cases, which indeed are more frequent in the academic profession than one would infer from the general conditions of a professor’s life. He [Taussig] took leave and went abroad for two years, relaxing completely and spending one winter at Meran in the Austrian Alps, another on the Italian Riviera, and the summer between (1902) in Switzerland. Catastrophe was thus avoided, and in the fall of 1903 he was able to return to teaching and the editorship of the Quarterly Journal.” [Joseph A. Schumpeter, Chapter 7 “Frank William Taussig (1859-1940)” in Ten Great Economists from Marx to Keynes. p. 206.]

During the first term of 1903/04 Taussig resumed teaching the core economic theory course with Carver teaching the second term.  Beginning 1904/05 Taussig once again taught the course by himself.

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Economics 2.
Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century
1900-01

Enrollment
1900-01

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Asst. Professor Carver.— Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century.

Total 45: 6 Graduates, 15 Seniors, 16 Juniors, 5 Sophomores, 3 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1900-01, p. 64.

 

Reading list [previously posted]  for the first term

 

ECONOMICS 2
[Mid-year examination, 1901]

  1. Define value and explain why one commodity possesses more value in proportion to its bulk than another.
  2. Explain the various uses of the term diminishing returns, and define it as you think it ought to be defined.
  3. In what sense does a law of diminishing returns apply to all the factors of production.
  4. State briefly Böhm-Bawerk’s explanation of the source of interest.
  5. What, if any, is the relation of abstinence to interest.
  6. Would you make any distinction between the source of wages and the factors which determine rates of wages? If so, what? If not, why not?
  7. Discuss the question: Is a demand for commodities a demand for labor?
  8. What is the relation of the standard of living to wages.
  9. Discuss briefly the following questions relating to speculators’ profits. (a) Do speculators as a class make any profits? (b) Are speculators’ profits in any sense earned?
  10. In what sense, if any, does the value of money come under the law of marginal utility?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1900-01.

 

ECONOMICS 2
[Final examination, June 1901]

Discuss the following topics.

  1. The bearing of the marginal utility theory of value upon the questions of wages and interest.
  2. The definitions of capital as given by Taussig and Clark.
  3. Clark’s explanation of the place of distribution within the natural divisions of economics.
  4. Clark’s method of distinguishing between the product of labor and the product of capital.
  5. Clark’s distinction between rent and interest.
  6. Böhm-Bawerk’s theory of the nature of capital.
  7. The origin of capital, according to Böhm-Bawerk and Clark.
  8. The meaning of the word “productive” in the following proposition: “Protection is an attempt to attract labor and capital from the naturally more productive, to the naturally less productive industries.”
  9. The incidence of tariff duties.
  10. The theory of production and the theory of valuation as the two principal departments of economics.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1900-01. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Design, Music in Harvard College (June, 1901), pp. 23-24.

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Economics 2.
Economic Theory
1901-02

Enrollment
1901-02

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Asst. Professor Carver.— Economic Theory.

Total 32: 5 Graduates, 6 Seniors, 17 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1901-02, p. 77.

ECONOMICS 2.
1901-1902

General Reading. Prescribed.

Marshall. Principles of Economics.
Taussig. Wages and Capital.
Böhm-Bawerk. Positive Theory of Capital.
Clark. The Distribution of Wealth.

References for Collateral Reading. Starred references are prescribed.

I. VALUE.

1. Adam Smith. Wealth of Nations. Book I. Chs. 5, 6, and 7.

2. Ricardo. Pol. Econ. Chs. 1 and 4.

3. Mill.          “        “     Book III. Chs. 1-6.

4.  Cairnes     “        “     Part I.

5.*  Jevons. Theory of Pol. Econ. Chs. 2-4.

6.   Sidgwick. Pol. Econ. Book II. Ch. 2.

7.   Wieser. Natural Value.

8.* Clark. Philosophy of Wealth. Ch. 5

II. DIMINISHING RETURNS.

1.    Senior. Pol. Econ. Pp. 81-86.

2*.  Commons. The Distribution of Wealth. Ch. 3.

III. RENT.

1.   Adam Smith. Wealth of Nation. Book I. Ch. 2. Pts. 1-3.

2.* Ricardo. Pol. Econ. Chs. 2 and 3.

3.   Sidgwick. “     “       Book II. Ch. 7.

4.   Walker.     “     “       Pt. IV. Ch. 2.

5.   Walker. Land and its Rent.

6.  Hyde. The Concept of Price Determining Rent. Jour. Pol. Econ. V.6. p. 368.

7.  Fetter. The Passing of the Old Rent Concept. Q.J.E. Vol. XV. P. 416.

IV. CAPITAL

1.   Adam Smith. Wealth of Nations. Book II.

2.   Senior. Pol. Econ. P. 58-81.

3.   Mill.        “       “       Book I. Ch. 4-6.

4.   Roscher. “      “       Book I. Ch. 1. Secs. 42-45.

5.   Cannan. Production and Distribution. Ch. 4.

6.   Jevons. Theory of Political Economy Ch. 7.

7.  Fisher. What is Capital? Economic Journal. Vol. VI. P. 509.

8.  Fetter. Recent Discussion of the Capital Concept. Q.J.E. Vol. XV. P. 1.

9.* Carver. Clark’s Distribution of Wealth. Q.J.E., Aug. 1901.

V. INTEREST.

1.   Adam Smith. Wealth of Nations. Book I. Ch. 9.

2.   Ricardo. Pol. Econ. Ch. 6.

3.   Sidgwick.  “     “        Book II. Ch. 6.

4*.  Carver. Abstinence and the Theory of Interest. Q.J.E, Vol. VIII. P. 40.

5.    Mixter. Theory of Saver’s Rent. Q.J.E. Vol. XIII. P. 345.

VI. WAGES.

1.   Adam Smith. Wealth of Nations. Book I. Ch. 8.

2*. Ricardo. Pol. Econ. Ch. 5.

3.   Senior.       “       “      Pp. 141-180 and 200-216.

4.   Senior. Lectures. Pp. 1-62.

5.   Mill. Pol. Econ. Book II. Chs. 11, 12, 13, and 14.

6.   Cairnes. Pol. Econ. Part II. Chs. 1 and 2.

7. Sidgwick.  “       “      Book II. Ch. 8.

8.  Walker.     “       “      Part IV. Ch. 5.

9.  Hadley. Economics. Ch. 10.

10*. Carver. Wages and the Theory of Value. Q.J.E. Vol. VIII, P. 377.

VII. PROFITS.

1.   Walker. Pol. Econ. Part IV. Ch. 4.

2.   Hobson. The Law of the Three Rents. Quar. Jour. Econ. Vol. V. P. 263.

3.   Clark. Insurance and Business Profits. Quar. Jour. Econ. Vol. VII. P. 40.

4*.  Hawley, F. B. in Quar. Jour. Econ. Vol. VII. P. 459; Vol. XV. Pp. 75 and 603.

5.    MacVane, in in Quar. Jour. Econ.,  Vol. II. P. 1.

6.   Haynes, in               “     “       “     Vol. IX, P. 409.

Source: Harvard University Archives. HUC 8522.2.1, Box 1 of 10 (Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003). Folder: 1901-1902.

 

ECONOMICS 2
[Mid-year examination, 1902]

Discuss the following topics.

  1. The relation of utility to value.
  2. The price of commodities and the price of services.
  3. Various uses of the term “diminishing returns.”
  4. The law of diminishing returns as applied to each of the factors of production.
  5. Prime and supplementary cost: illustrate.
  6. Joint and composite demand and join and composite supply.
  7. Quasi rent.
  8. Real and nominal rent.
  9. Consumer’s rent.
  10. The equilibrium of demand and supply

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 6, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1901-02.

 

ECONOMICS 2
[Final examination, June 1902]

  1. State some of the different meanings which have been given to the law of diminishing returns, and define the law as you think it ought to be.
  2. Can you apply the law of joint demand to the wages fund questions?
  3. What is meant by an elastic demand and how does it affect monopoly price.
  4. Discuss Clark’s distinction between capital and capital goods.
  5. Under what conditions would there be no rent, and how would these conditions affect the value of products?
  6. Explain Clark’s theory of Economic Causation.
  7. What is the source of interest?
  8. What is the relation of the standard of living to wages?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 6, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1902-03. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College (June, 1902), p. 21.

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Economics 2.
Economic Theory
1902-03

Enrollment
1902-03

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professor Carver.— Economic Theory.

Total 25: 5 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1902-03, p. 67.

 

Course Description
1902-03

For Undergraduates and Graduates

[Economics] 2. Economic Theory. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30 Professors Taussig [sic] and Carver.

Course 2 is intended to acquaint the student with some of the later developments of economic thought, and at the same time to train him in the critical consideration of economic principles and the analysis of economic conditions. The exercises are accordingly conducted mainly by the discussion of selected passages from the leading writers: and in this discussion of selected passages from the leading writers; and in this discussion the students are expected to take an active part. Lectures are given at intervals outlining the present condition of economic theory and some of the problems which call for theoretical solution. Theories of value, diminishing returns, rent, wages, interest, profits, the incidence of taxation, the value of money international trade, and monopoly price, will be discussed. Marshall’s Principles of Economics [4th ed., 1898], Böhm-Bawerk’s Positive Theory of Capital [1888; William Smart translation, 1891], Taussig’s Wages and Capital [1896], and Clark’s Distribution of Wealth [1899] will be read and criticized.

Course 2 is open to students who have passed satisfactorily in Course 1.

Source: Harvard University.  Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1902-03. The University Publications, New Series, No. 55 (June 14, 1902), pp. 40-41.

 

ECONOMICS 2.
1902-1903

General Reading. Prescribed.

Marshall. Principles of Economics.
Taussig. Wages and Capital.
Böhm-Bawerk. Positive Theory of Capital.
Clark. The Distribution of Wealth.

References for Collateral Reading. Starred references are prescribed.

I. VALUE.

1.  Adam Smith. Wealth of Nations. Book I. Chs. 5, 6, and 7.

2.  Ricardo. Pol. Econ. Chs. 1 and 4.

3.   Mill.          “        “     Book III. Chs. 1-6.

4.   Cairnes     “        “     Part I.

5.*  Jevons. Theory of Pol. Econ. Chs. 2-4.

6.   Sidgwick. Pol. Econ. Book II. Ch. 2.

7.   Wieser. Natural Value.

8.* Clark. Philosophy of Wealth. Ch. 5

II. DIMINISHING RETURNS.

1.  Senior. Pol. Econ. Pp. 81-86.

2.  Commons. The Distribution of Wealth. Ch. 3.

3*. Bullock. The Variation of Productive Forces, Q.J.E., August, 1902.

III. RENT.

1.  Adam Smith. Wealth of Nation. Book I. Ch. 2. Pts. 1-3.

2.* Ricardo. Pol. Econ. Chs. 2 and 3.

3.  Sidgwick. “     “       Book II. Ch. 7.

4.  Walker.     “     “       Pt. IV. Ch. 2.

5.  Walker. Land and its Rent.

6.  Hyde. The Concept of Price Determining Rent. Jour. Pol. Econ. V.6. p. 368.

7.  Fetter. The Passing of the Old Rent Concept. Q.J.E. Vol. XV. P. 416.

IV. CAPITAL

1.  Adam Smith. Wealth of Nations. Book II.

2.  Senior. Pol. Econ. P. 58-81.

3.  Mill.        “       “       Book I. Ch. 4-6.

4.  Roscher. “      “       Book I. Ch. 1. Secs. 42-45.

5. Cannan. Production and Distribution. Ch. 4.

6.  Jevons. Theory of Political Economy Ch. 7.

7.  Fisher. What is Capital? Economic Journal. Vol. VI. P. 509.

8.  Fetter. Recent Discussion of the Capital Concept. Q.J.E. Vol. XV. P. 1.

9.* Carver. Clark’s Distribution of Wealth. Q.J.E., Aug. 1901.

V. INTEREST.

1.   Adam Smith. Wealth of Nations. Book I. Ch. 9.

2.   Ricardo. Pol. Econ. Ch. 6.

3.   Sidgwick.  “     “        Book II. Ch. 6.

4*. Carver. Abstinence and the Theory of Interest. Q.J.E, Vol. VIII. P. 40.

5.   Mixter. Theory of Saver’s Rent. Q.J.E. Vol. XIII. P. 345.

VI. WAGES.

1.   Adam Smith. Wealth of Nations. Book I. Ch. 8.

2*. Ricardo. Pol. Econ. Ch. 5.

3.  Senior.       “       “      Pp. 141-180 and 200-216.

4.   Senior. Lectures. Pp. 1-62.

5.   Mill. Pol. Econ. Book II. Chs. 11, 12, 13, and 14.

6.   Cairnes. Pol. Econ. Part II. Chs. 1 and 2.

 7.  Sidgwick.  “       “      Book II. Ch. 8.

8.  Walker.     “       “      Part IV. Ch. 5.

9.  Hadley. Economics. Ch. 10.

10*. Carver. Wages and the Theory of Value. Q.J.E. Vol. VIII, P. 377.

VII. PROFITS.

1.   Walker. Pol. Econ. Part IV. Ch. 4.

2.   Hobson. The Law of the Three Rents. Quar. Jour. Econ. Vol. V. P. 263.

3.   Clark. Insurance and Business Profits. Quar. Jour. Econ. Vol. VII. P. 40.

4*.  Hawley, F. B. in Quar. Jour. Econ. Vol. VII. P. 459; Vol. XV. Pp. 75 and 603.

5.   MacVane, in in Quar. Jour. Econ.,  Vol. II. P. 1.

6.   Haynes, in               “     “       “     Vol. IX, P. 409.

Source: Harvard University Archives. HUC 8522.2.1, Box 1 of 10 (Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003). Folder: 1902-1903.

 

ECONOMICS 2
[Mid-year examination, 1903]

Explain and illustrate any twelve of the following subjects.

  1. Marginal utility.
  2. Elasticity of wants.
  3. The law of diminishing returns from land.
  4. The extension of the law of diminishing returns to other factors than land.
  5. The law of economy of organization (Bullock).
  6. The law of varied costs (Bullock).
  7. The cause of rent.
  8. The law of rent.
  9. Quasi rent.
  10. Joint and composite demand.
  11. Joint and composite supply.
  12. Prime and supplementary cost.
  13. The relation of rent to the price of products.
  14. The effect of the shortening of the working day upon the demand for labor.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 6, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1902-03.

 

ECONOMICS 2
[Final examination, June 1903]

  1. Explain the principal of marginal utility.
  2. Explain the law of diminishing returns and extend it to other factors than land.
  3. What is the relation of cost to value?
  4. What is the relation of rent to value?
  5. What is the relation of waiting to interest?
  6. What is capital?
  7. What is the relation of capital to wages?
  8. Explain joint and composite demand and joint and composite supply.
  9. Does the home consumer necessarily pay the whole of the tariff duty?
    Give reasons for your answer.
  10. Is the value of money determined in all particulars as the value of any other commodity?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 6, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1902-03. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, History of Religions, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College (June, 1903), p. 21.

Source Image: Thomas Nixon Carver, Harvard Class Album 1906.

 

Categories
Agricultural Economics Harvard Problem Sets

Harvard. Problem set from agricultural economics. Carver, ca. 1904

 

The problem set transcribed below was found in the Harvard University archives collection of syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003; box 1. It was (mis-)filed in the folder “Economics, 1904-05”.  The problem set is clearly identified as belonging to Economics 23. This semester course, “The Economics of Agriculture, with special reference to American conditions”, was taught by Professor Thomas Nixon Carver, but according to the annual report of the president of Harvard College, the course was not offered in 1904-05 though it was indeed offered during the immediately preceding academic year. I have assumed that the problem set was printed for the second term of the academic year 1903-1904. This is consistent with the library time stamp on the problem set (March 7, 1905), i.e. it cannot have come from later years.

From Carver’s autobiography, Recollections of an Unplanned Life, we know that his textbook, Principles of Rural Economics (1911) was based upon this course. For a long-form course reading list, one can consult the bibliography, pp. xi-xviii, in the textbook.

Previously transcribed and posted artifacts from Carver’s agricultural economics course:

Course enrollment and final exam for 1914-15.

Course syllabus for 1917.

Course examination from 1918.

________________________

Trace of the 1904 problem set found in Carver’s 1911 textbook

Note:  Column (Field A) is Table A p. 180; Column (Field C) is Table B p. 181

Source: Thomas Nixon Carver, Principles of Rural Economics, (1911).

________________________

From Thomas Nixon Carver’s Autobiography.

I have mentioned the three strenuous years 1900 to 1903, and that I served the three following years, 1903-1906, as chairman of the Division of History, Government, and Economics. Before leaving for my sabbatical year abroad in 1906, I had resigned as chairman of the Division. In the fall of 1907 I was back in Cambridge with no administrative responsibilities and ready to settle down to teaching and writing. By this time I had come to be recognized as one of the pioneers in this country in the field of agricultural economics. One of the difficulties in the teaching of that subject was the lack of written material. Textbooks were needed and I began to plan one of my own. Before I got well started Professor Liberty Hyde Bailey of Cornell asked me to write a brief historical sketch of American agriculture for his Cyclopedia of American Agriculture which he was preparing. I under took this, not realizing how much work it would require. The material, such as there was, was widely scattered and there was no guide to indicate where to look for it. However, with much toil and sweat I finished the chapter.

Then came a request for an account of the introduction of various crops and farm animals into this country. That was a still harder job but I finished it in time. I was able, later, to use a part of the material in my book, “Principles of Rural Economics,” which Ginn & Company published in 1911.

This book did a great deal to popularize agricultural economics in this country. Henry C. Taylor’s “Introduction to the Study of Agricultural Economics” had preceded it, but, while an excellent introduction, had not made much of an appeal outside the agricultural colleges. My “Principles” sold well. As I remember it, 40,000 copies were sold the first year, and it was favorably reviewed in a number of journals…

…The course on rural economics appealed to a limited number of students, but continued to be elected by enough to make a fair-sized class…

Source: Thomas Nixon Carver. Recollections of an Unplanned Life, p. 171.

________________________

Course description

[Economics] 23 2hf. The Economics of Agriculture, with special reference to American conditions. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., at 1.30. Professor Carver.

Omitted in 1904-05.

            A study of the relation of agriculture to the whole industrial system, the relative importance of rural and urban economics, the conditions of rural life in different parts of the United States, the forms of land tenure and methods of rent payment, the comparative merits of large and small holdings, the status and wages of farm labor, the influence of farm machinery, farmers’ organizations, the marketing and distribution of farm products, agricultural credit, the economic aspects of public roads, irrigation, forestry, etc., the policy of the government toward agriculture, and the probable future of American agriculture.

The course will be conducted by means of lectures, discussions and reports, with some special investigations of local conditions.

 

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1904-05. University Publications, New Series, No. 129 (May 16, 1904), p. 47.

________________________

Course enrollment, 1903-04

[Economics] 23 2hf. Professor Carver.—The Economics of Agriculture, with special reference to American conditions.

Total 99: 5 Graduates, 32 Seniors, 28 Juniors, 17 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 15 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-04, p. 67.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Note:  The course was indeed not offered in 1904-05, though course enrollments were reported for Carver’s courses Economic 3 “Principles of Sociology. Theories of Social Progress”; Economics 13 “Methods of Economic Investigation”; Economics 14a “The Distribution of Wealth”; Economics 14b “Methods of Social Reform. Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.”

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1904-05, pp. 74 ff.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Course enrollment, 1905-06

[Economics] 23 2hf. Professor Carver.—The Economics of Agriculture, with special reference to American conditions.

Total 42: 4 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 14 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1905-06, p. 73.

________________________

Time stamp: “Harvard College Library, MAR 7, 1905”

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 23

Amount of corn grown with varying amounts of labor on a given amount of land.

Number of days’ labor of a man and team with the appropriate tools.

 Product, in bushels, on each of four fields of ten acres each.
Field A. Field B. Field C.

Field D.

5

 50 45 40 35
10 150 140 130

120

15

 270 255 240 255 [sic]
20 380 360 300

280

25

 450 425 350 325
30 510 480 390

360

35

 560 520 420 385
40 600 550 440

400

45

 630 570 450 410
50 650 575 455

415

 

The following problems are based on the above table:—

Problem 1. Assuming that the labor of a man and team, with the appropriate tools, costs a farmer five dollars a day, and that corn is worth forty cents a bushel, how many days of such labor could he most profitably devote to the cultivation of each of the four fields?

Problem 2. Assuming that corn is worth only 33 1/3 cents a bushel, how much labor, etc., could he most profitably apply to the cultivation of each field,—the cost of labor, etc., remaining the same?

Problem 3. Assuming that a farmer has only 200 days’ labor to use, but that he can have rent free an indefinite amount of land of the grade of Field A, how much land could he most profitably use? How much land of the grade of Field C could he most profitably use?

Problem 4. How much land of each grade could he most profitably use if he had to pay five dollars an acre rent, corn being worth fifty cents a bushel, other conditions the same as in Problem 3?

Problem 5. Assuming that the two fields A and C are owned by the same farmer, and that he has but 20 days’ labor which he can devote to their cultivation, how could these 20 days be most profitably distributed among them? How could 25 days be most profitably distributed? 35 days? 50 days? 60 days? 70 days? 90 days?

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 1. Folder “Economics, 1904-05”.

Image Source: Thomas Nixon Carver in Harvard Class Album 1906.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Sociology Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Sociology. Syllabus, reading assignments, final exam. Carver and Joslyn, 1927-28

 

This post has two functions: it adds to the syllabi for sociology taught at Harvard previously transcribed:  

Economics 3. Thomas Nixon Carver and William Z. Ripley, 1902
Economics 8. Thomas Nixon Carver, 1917-18.

It also serves as a meet an economics Ph.D. alumnus from Harvard post. The 1927-28 offering of Economics 8 was co-taught by Professor Carver and his sociology graduate student, Carl Smith Joslyn.

Carl Smith Joslyn (b. 20 Aug 1899 in Springfield, MA.; d. 23 Dec 1986 in Worthington, MA) went to Central High School in Springfield. At Harvard he received the Class of 1844 Scholarship (1919-1920). He went on to chair the sociology department at the University of Maryland, during which time he hired young C. Wright Mills.

________________

Carl Smith Joslyn
Harvard Ph.D. in Economics, 1930.

Carl Smith Joslyn, A.B. 1920
Subject, Economics. Special Field, Sociology. Thesis, “The Social Origins of American Business Leaders.” Instructor in Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government, and Economics, and Tutor in Sociology and Social Ethics, Harvard University.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1929-30. Page 120.

________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 8a1hf. Professor [Thomas Nixon] Carver and Mr. [Carl Smith] Joslyn.— Principles of Sociology

Total 79: 7 Graduates, 23 Seniors, 36 Juniors, 2 Sophomores 11 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1927-28. Page 74.

________________

8. Principles of Sociology

[This is for 1928-29, virtually identical to 1924-25 description]

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12.
Professor Carver and Mr. Joslyn

A study of human adaptation. Progress defined as adaptation. In what does progress consist, how may it be verified, what are the factors that promote or hinder it? The biological as well as the psychological, moral, economic, and political factors are studied. Attention is given to problems of moral adjustment and readjustment, of active control of the environmental factors, of economizing human energy and of social control.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1928-29.  Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXV, No. 29 (May 26, 1928), p. 68.

________________

Economics 8

I.
Introduction

  1. The Nature, Scope, and Method of Sociology

A study of purposeful human association.
Relation to Linguistics, Psychology, Jurisprudence, Ethics, Politics, Economics.

Carver, Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 1-14; 65-79.
Bushee, Principles of Sociology, ch. 1.

  1. The Evolutionary Concept in Sociology:
    (1) Continuity; (2) Change; (3) Differentiation; (4) Fixation.

Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Pt. I, ch. 1. Pt. II, chs. 1-4.
Bristol, Social Adaptation, pp. 29-40; 123-149.

  1. The Mechanism of Organic and Super-organic (Social) Evolution Compared.
    (1) Variation. (a) spontaneous or artificially produced; (b) minute or extreme.
    (2) Selection. (a) Natural. (b) social.

Bristol, Social Adaptation, pp. 55-79.
Carver, Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 276-299.
Bushee, Principles of Sociology, pp. 42-56.
Carver, Essays in Social Justice, pp. 1-27.

  1. The Origin and Development of Human Society.
    Survival value of (a) associated effort; (b) social inclination.

Giddings, Principles of Sociology, pp. 199-229; 256-323.
Dealey and Ward, Textbook of Sociology, Ch. I.

  1. The Nature and Conditions of Social Progress. Progress considered as the adaptation of the organism, man, to his environment: the method of adaptation being (a) Passive, or (b) active; the character of the environment being (a) physical, or (b) social.

Bushee, Principles of Sociology, pp. 19-41; 73-103.
Carver, Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 88-120.
Bristol, Social Adaptation, Preface and Introduction.

  1. The Limits of Social Progress: A mutual fitting together or balancebetween the passive and the active forms of adaptation.
    (1) on the physical side, (a) such modifications as will enable it to live healthfully in the modified physical environment, (b) such improvements of the physical environment as will so fit the modified human organism as to enable it to live healthfully.
    (2) on the moral side; (a) such modifications of the intellectual and moral nature of man as will cause individuals to react favorably to such stimuli as can be brought to bear upon them by an improved system of social control: (b) such improvements in the system of social control as will secure favorable responses from the improved intellectual and moral nature of man.

Bristol, Social Adaptation, pp. 221-304.

II.
A. Passive physical adaptation.

  1. Race and Environment as Factors in Social Progress.

Carver, Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 174-243; 498-500; 631-636.
Bristol, Social Adaptation, pp. 105-120.

  1. The Stability of the Racial Factor in Historic Time: the Inheritance of Acquired Characters.

Bushee, Principles of Sociology, pp. 362-368.
Popenoe & Johnson, Applied Eugenics, pp. 25-74; 99-115; 402-423.

  1. The Displacement of Natural Selection by Social Selection and its Consequences:
    (a) the Differential Birth-rate; (b) Philanthropy; (c) The Punishment of Criminals; (d) Military Selection.

Carver, Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 392-409; 647-653; 676-696.
Popenoe and Johnson, Applied Eugenics, pp. 116-146.
Bushee, Principles of Sociology, pp. 386-413.
Bristol, Social Adaptation, pp. 92-102.

  1. The Correlation of Ability and Social Status; Nature and Nurture in Social Stratification. Tests of Ability; (a) economic. (b) psychological.

Popenoe & Johnson, Applied Eugenics, pp. 1-24; 75-98.
Bushee, Principles of Sociology, pp. 326-361; 369-385.

  1. The Qualitative Control of Population; Eugenic and Dysgenic Factors in Modern Society.

Popenoe and Johnson, Applied Eugenics, pp. 176-279.

  1. The Increase of Population in Modern Times:
    a) General, (b) local, (c) occupational.

East, Mankind at the Crossroads, pp. 45-109; 146-198.

  1. The Quantitative Control of Population; the Operation of Positive and Preventive Checks in Modern Society.
    The Redistribution of population to relieve congestion. (a) local; (b) occupational.

Carver, Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 133-173.
East, Mankind at the Crossroads, pp. 231-283.

  1. Marriage and the Family; Disintegrative Forces and their Control.

Bushee, Principles of Sociology, pp. 252-273.
East, Mankind at the Crossroads, pp. 318-339.
Carver, Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 317-375; 674-675.

B. Passive Intellectual and Moral Adaptation.

  1. The Raw Material of Mental and Moral Development; Human Nature and its Re-Making

McDougall, Social Psychology, pp. 19-120.

  1. The Original Nature of Man; Instinct vs. Environment in Human Institutions.

McDougall, Social Psychology, pp. 121-227.

  1. The Psychology of the Crowd; Fundamental Processes of Social Behavior; the Nature of the “Group Mind”.

Carver, Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 503-521.
Bushee, Principles of Sociology, pp. 417-444.
McDougall, Social Psychology, pp. 279-301, 322-351.

  1. Education as the Instrument of Intellectual Adaptation; a Sociological View of the Objective and the Methods in Education.

Spencer, Education, pp. 21-128.

  1. Religion as the Instrument of Moral Adaptation; an Appraisal of Current Tendencies in Religion and Ethics.

Carver, Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 481-497.
Bushee, Principles of Sociology, pp. 529-549.
Carver, Religion Worth having, pp. 3-24; 93-140.

  1. The Problem of the Morally Unadapted; the Nature and Causes of Crime; a Program for Social Control.

Carver, Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 654-673.
Ferri, Criminal Sociology (to be assigned).
Parmelee, Criminology (to be assigned).

C. Active Physical Adaptation.

  1. Material Adaptation as the Productive Utilization of Human Energy; Prevalent Forms of Waste and their Elimination.

Carver, The Economy of Human Energy, pp. 140-181.
Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, pp. 35-101.

  1. The Problem of Material Mal-Adaptation; Poverty and its Causes; a Program for Social Reform.

Carver, Essays in Social Justice, pp. 349-383.
Warner, American Charities, pp. 36-90.

  1. The Nature and Justification of Property; Problems of Ownership and Control in Modern Industry.

Carver, Essays in Social Justice, pp. 304-323.
Tawney, The Acquisitive Society, pp. 1-83.

  1. Radical Programs of Social Reform; Socialism, Anarchism, Syndicalism, and their Variants.

Carver, Essays in Social Justice, pp. 232-263.
Taussig, Inventors and Money-makers, pp. 76-135.

  1. Liberty and Equality as Practicable and Compatible Ideals; the Peculiar Destiny of the American Nation.

Carver, Essays in Social Justice, pp. 264-280.
Carver, The Present Economic Revolution in the United States, pp. 15-65; 233-263.

D. Active Moral Adaptation, or Social Control in its Broader Aspects.

  1. The Place of the State in Human Adaptation. Physical Compulsion as a System of Social Control. Punishment. Voluntary Agreement. The Problem of the Reconciliation of Group Interests and Individual Interests.

Bushee, Principles of Sociology, pp. 176-205.
Carver, Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 750-763.
Mill, Essay on Liberty, chs. 1, 2, and 4.

  1. The Essential Nature of Democracy; Sensitivity and how it is achieved (a) in a coercive state, (b) in a non-coercive business.

Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Pt. V, Chs. XVII, XVIII and XIX.

  1. Problems of Modern Democracy; a Survey of the claims of Democracy as the “Ideally Best Polity”

Carver, Sociology and Social Progress, pp. 764-787.
Mill, Essay on Representative Government, chs. 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6.

  1. The Possibility of Progress; a Recapitulation of Inorganic, Organic, and Social Evolutions and a Forecast of Future Developments.

(Reading to be assigned)

 

Reading Period

Ec 8a Professor Carver.

Sumner and Keller: Science of Society, Vol. I. Chs. I-X inclusive, Chs. XVIII, XIX.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1927-1928”.

________________

1927-28
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 8a1
Final Examination

Allow about one hour to each part of the examination.

I

  1. Below are given two contrasting views regarding: (a) the effects which an increase in numbers “in any given state of civilization” might be expected to have on the productive capacity of society; (b) the cause of want and misery in society. Which of these seems to you the more reasonable in each of these respects, and why? State in each case the considerations which, in your opinion, led the writer to take the particular view of the matter which he did.
    “A greater number of people cannot, in any given state of civilization, be collectively so well provided for as a smaller. The niggardliness of nature, not the injustice of society, is the cause of the penalty attached to over-population.”
    “I assert that in any given state of civilization a greater number of people can collectively be better provided for than a smaller. I assert that the injustice of society, not the niggardliness of nature, is the cause of the want and misery which the current theory attributes to over-population.”
  2. What is the attitude of Sumner and Keller on the question of “natural” rights? What is your own attitude? Would a man whose labor is absolutely superfluous to society have any right to a subsistence, in your opinion? Explain fully the grounds on which you base your judgment.

II

  1. Discuss the relation of sensitivity to democracy and point out the principal ways by which those who govern or manage are made sensitive to the interests of those who are governed or managed.
  2. What is meant by the vertical mobility of labor and what social institutions tend to decrease and what tend to increase it?
  3. Suppose that, from the beginning of human evolution, individual effort had been more effective than associated effort, do you think that men would have developed a social nature? Give reasons for your answer.

III

  1. Sumner and Keller have traced back all of our important social institutions to four primary interests in man. What are these interests and what are the institutions arising from each of them?
  2. Explain concisely each of the following terms, showing by your answer that you have a clear understanding of their several meanings:
    1. the man-land ratio;
    2. parallel induction;
    3. intellectual egalitarianism;
    4. maintenance-mores;
    5. ghost-fear;
    6. non-sustentative lethal selection;
    7. Marx’s theory of economic stratification;
    8. assortative mating
  3. Men are not sufficiently equipped with instincts to insure automatic behavior which has survival value in the complex life of modern society, neither are they sufficiently endowed with intelligence to secure rational behavior which has survival value. Between the limited field of behavior controlled by instinct and the equally limited field of behavior controlled by reason, there is apparently a wide gap. How is this gap filled?

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers Mid-years, 1927-1928(HUC 7000.55). Papers printed for Mid-year Examinations: History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …, Military Science, Naval Science. January-February, 1928.

________________

JOSLYN AWARDED $6000
END PRIZE FALLS TO PENN. MAN

May 22, 1920

Carl Smith Joslyn ’20 of Springfield, now working his way through college, has won the Truxton Beale prize of $6000. This award was made as a result of the Walker Blaine Beale memorial contest for a Republican Platform suitable for use in the approaching campaign. The prize was offered by Truxton Beale for the purpose of stimulating political study among young people, and was to be won by a Republican not over 25 years of age.

His Platform Decisive and Complete

Mr. Joslyn’s platform is a well-built and well-reasoned document, embracing nearly a score of the outstanding questions of the day. His Republican convictions are set forth with incisive moderation, which lends emphasis to every statement. He deals expeditiously with the various international and socialistic delusions; sets forth a peace program as clear as it is decisive; makes a quick analysis of the league of nations and puts well defined limits to its powers. The greater part of his platform is, however, devoted to domestic problems, beginning with the high cost of living and following its economic and sociological ramifications through the relations of labor and industry, production and economy, taxation, railroads, foreign trade and merchant marine. ment. He ends with the following paragraphs:

“The Republican party appeals to the people for their support on the stand which it has taken against the abuse of the executive power and for the preservation of the sovereignty and independence of the United States. Its principles and policies are all formulated by a liberal and constructive statesmanship. Its creed is one of undivided Americanism; one faith, one loyalty, one devotion–and these in the service of upbuilding and strengthening the great United States of America, the country which gave the world the ideals of liberty and justice and which has dedicated its future to their perpetuation and advancement.”

Other Prizes Also Fall to College Men

The second prize of $3000 goes to Howard B. Wilson of Philadelphia, a student at the University of Pennsylvania and the third of $1000 to W. P. Smith, a student at the University of Michigan. The judges were President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University, former United States Senator Beveridge and former United States Ambassador David Jayne Hill.

Source: Archive of the Harvard Crimson, May 22, 1960.

________________

History of U. Maryland’s Sociology Department

Although classes began on this campus in October 1859, the first sociology course was not taught until fall semester 1919.  The course was “Elementary Sociology.”  From the time of this first course until 1935, when a separate Department of Sociology was established, all sociology courses were offered by the Economics Department. During the 1970s, the Sociology Department was restructured and Anthropology and Criminology became separate programs.  Today, the Sociology Department houses the Center for Innovation, Program for Society and the Environment, Maryland Time Use Laboratory, Center for Research on Military Organizations, Group Processes Lab and is affiliated with the Maryland Population Research Center.

Over the years, the sociology faculty has included many nationally and internationally renowned scholars.  In the 1920s, sociology courses were taught by George Peter Murdock, who later created the Human Relations Area Files.  In 1938, Logan Wilson, who later became the President of the University of Texas, joined the faculty for a few years.  C. Wright Mills, the author of The Power Elite, White Collar, and The Sociological Imagination, was a member of the faculty from 1941-1945.  The most renowned scholar on the faculty during the last quarter-century was Morris Rosenberg, the world’s foremost student of how social forces shape the self-esteem.

Since its founding, the Department has had eleven leaders: Theodore B. Manny, Carl Joslyn, Edward Gregory, Harold Hoffsommer, Robert Ellis, Kenneth C. W. Kammeyer, Jerald Hage, William Falk, Lee Hamilton, Suzanne Bianchi, and Reeve Vanneman. The current chair is Patricio Korzeniewicz.

Among the many people who have earned a degree from this department and subsequently achieved considerable recognition are William Form, the first person to hold a Ph.D. (1944) from this department; Parren Mitchell, who became a member of the U.S. House of Representatives; Adele Stamp, for whom the Stamp Student Union is named, and Charles Wellford of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Source: University of Maryland, Department of Sociology. Webpage: “History of the Sociology Department”.

Image Source: Thomas Nixon Carver (left) and Carl Smith Joslyn (right) from the faculty photos in the Harvard Class Album 1932.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Socialism

Harvard. Exams and enrollment for economics of socialism and communism. Edward Cummings, 1893-1900

The father of the American poet E.E. Cummings, Edward Cummings, taught courses in sociology, labor economics, and socialism at Harvard during the last decade of the 19th century before he resigned to become the minister at Boston’s South Congregational Church. In this post I have included all the exams for his course on ancient and modern  utopias (a.k.a. communism and socialism) that I have been able to find. A course description and enrollment data are readily available from internet archives and included below as well. 

Note: for only the 1893-94 academic year and the single-term version of the course offered in 1895-96 are the exams complete. For the other academic years when the course was offered I have only found the first term exams.

Analogous courses on schemes of social reconstruction were taught in one form or another later by Thomas Nixon Carver, Edward S. Mason, Paul Sweezy, Wassily Leontief,  Joseph Schumpeter, and Overton Hume Taylor.

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Course Description
(1897-98)

*14. Socialism and Communism, — History and Literature. Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 9. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.

[An asterisk (*) indicates that the course can be taken only with the previous consent of the instructor.]

Course 14 is primarily an historical and critical study of socialism and communism. It traces the history and significance of schemes for social reconstruction from the earliest times to the present day. It discusses the historical evidences of primitive communism, the forms assumed by private ownership at different stages of civilization, the bearing of these considerations upon the claims of modern socialism, and the outcome of experimental communities in which socialism and communism have actually been tried. Special attention, however is devoted to the recent history of socialism, – the precursors and the followers of Marx and Lassalle, the economic and political programs of socialistic parties in Germany, France, and other countries.

The primary object is in every case to trace the relation of historical evolution to these programmes; to discover how far they have modified history or found expression in the policy of parties or statesmen; how far they must be regarded simply as protests against existing phases of social evolution; and how far they may be said to embody a sane philosophy of social and political organization.

The criticism and analysis of these schemes gives opportunity for discussing from different points of view the ethical and historical value of social and political institutions, the relation of the State to the individual, the political and economic bearing of current socialistic series.

The work is especially adapted to students who have had some introductory training in Ethics as well as in Economics. A systematic course of reading covers the authors discussed; and special topics for investigation maybe assigned in connection with this reading.

 

Source: Harvard University. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 35-36.

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1893-94

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 14. Asst. Professor Cummings. – Ideal Social Reconstructions, from Plato’s Republic to the present time. 1 hour.

Total 22: 7 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 2 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 61.

 

 

ECONOMICS 14.
Mid-year examination, 1893-94.

(Arrange your answers in the order of the questions. Omit one.)

  1. What is a Utopia? and what significance do you attached to the recurrence of such literature at certain historical ethics?
  2. “For judging of the importance of any thinker in the history of Economics, no matter is more important to us than the view he takes of the laboring population.” Judge Plato, More and Bacon by this standard.
  3. “Moreover, it is hardly too much to say that Plato never got to the point of having a theory of the State at all.” In the Republic “man is treated as a micropolis, and the city is the citizen writ large.” Explain and criticize.
  4. “In More’s Utopia we have a revival of the Platonic Republic with additions which make the scheme entirely modern.… The economical element in the social body receives for the first time its proper rank as of the highest moment for public welfare.” Explain. To what extent have the ideals of Utopia been realized?
  5. “Then we may say that democracy, like oligarchy, is destroyed by its insatiable craving for the object which defines to be supremely good?” What, according to the Republic are the peculiar merits and defects of the several forms of political organization? and how are these forms related in point of origin and sequence?
  6. “Sir Thomas More has been called the father of Modern Communism.” How does he compare in this respect with Plato? How far do you trace the influence of historical conditions in each case?
  7. “But in your case, it is we that have begotten you for the State as well as for yourselves, to be like leaders and kings of the hive,– better and more perfectly trained than the rest, and more capable of playing a part in both modes of life.” Criticise the method and purpose of the educational system of the Republic. How far does Plato’s argument as to the duty of public service apply to the educated man to-day?
  8. “The religious ferment produced by the Reformation movement had begun to show signs of abatement, when another movement closely connected with it made its appearance almost at the same time in England and Italy, namely, the rise of a new philosophy.” How was this new philosophy embodied in the social ideals of Bacon and of Campanella? and what is the distinguishing characteristic of it?
  9. What essential contrast between pagan and Christian ideals have you found in schemes for social regeneration?
  10. Is there any recognition of “Social Evolution” in the Utopian philosophies thus far considered?
  11. What in a word, do you regard as the chief defect of the social reconstruction suggested in turn by Plato, Lycurgus, More, Bacon and Campanella? To what main problems suggested by them have we still to seek an answer?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers. Mid-Year, 1893-94.(HUC 7000.55).

 

ECONOMICS 14.
Final examination, 1893-94.

(Arrange your answers in the order of the questions.)

  1. [“]The essential unity and continuity of the vital process which has been in progress in our civilization from the beginning is almost lost sight of. Many of the writers on social subjects at the present day are like the old school of geologists: they seem to think that progress has consisted of a series of cataclysms.” How far is this criticism true? Is the characteristic in question more or less conspicuous in earlier writers?
  2. “At the outset underneath all socialist ideals yawns the problem of population…. Under the Utopias of Socialism, one of two things must happen. Either this increase must be restricted or not. If it be not restricted, and selection is allowed to continue, then the whole foundations of such a fabric as Mr. Bellamy has constructed are bodily removed.” State carefully your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing. In which of the schemes for social reconstruction, ancient or modern, do you find any adequate recognition of the part which selection plays in progress?
  3. “If it is possible for the community to provide the capital for production without thereby doing injury to either the principle of perfect individual freedom or to that of justice, if interest can be dispensed with without introducing communistic control in its stead, then there no longer stands any positive obstacle in the way of the free social order.” Discuss the provisions by which Hertzka hopes to guaranteed this “perfect individual freedom.” Contrast him with Bellamy in this respect.
  4. “I perceive that capitalism stops the growth of wealth, not – as Marx has it – by stimulating ‘production for the market,’ but by preventing the consumption of the surplus produce; and that interest, though not unjust, will nevertheless in a condition of economic justice becomes superfluous and objectless.” Explain Hertzka’s reasoning and criticise the economic theory involved.”
  5. What is the gist of “News from Nowhere”?
  6. The condition which the social mind has reached may be tentatively described as one of realization, more or less unconscious, that religion has a definite function to perform in society, and that it is a factor of some kind in the social evolution which is in progress.” How far have you found a recognition of this factor in theories of social reconstruction?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, 1853-2001. (HUC 7000.28). Box 2, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1894.

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1894-95

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 14. Asst. Professor Cummings.—Philosophy and Political Economy.—Utopian Literature from Plato’s Republic to the present time.  2 hours.

Total 8: 5 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 1 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1894-95, p. 62.

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1895-96

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 141. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.—Communism and Socialism.—Utopias, ancient and modern. Hf. 2 hours. 1st half-year.

Total 15: 1 Graduate, 10 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 2 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1895-96, p. 63.

 

ECONOMICS 14.
Mid-Year Examination, 1895-96.

(Arrange your answers in the order of the questions. Omit one.)

  1. The different senses in which the word Socialism is used. Where do you intend to draw the line between Socialism proper, and familiar forms of government interference and control – such as factory legislation, municipal water works, and government postal, telegraph or railroad services? Why?
  2. “National communism has been confused with the common ownership of the family; tenure in common has been confused with ownership in common; agrarian communism with village commons.” Discuss the evidence.
  3. “Just as Plato had his Republic, Campanella his City of the Sun, and Sir Thomas More his Utopia, St. Simon his Industrial System, and Fourier his ideal Phalanstery…. But the common criticism of Socialism has not yet noted the change, and continues to deal with the obsolete Utopias of the pre-evolutionary age.” What do you conceive to be the character of the change referred to? How far did earlier Utopias anticipate the ideals of the modern social democracy?
  4. What indication of Socialistic tendencies are to be found in the discipline of the Christian church? Explain the triple contract and its bearing on the doctrine of the usury.
  5. “The Communistic scheme, instead of being peculiarly open to the objection drawn from danger of over-population, has the recommendation of tending in an especial degree to the prevention of that evil.” Explained Mill’s argument. Do you agree?
  6. To what extent are the theories of Karl Marx indebted to earlier writers in the 19th-century?
  7. How far are the economic series of (a) Lasalle, (b) Marx related to the theories of the so-called orthodox Economists? Explain critically.
  8. How far do you trace the influence of historical conditions in the social philosophies of Plato, More, Bacon, Rousseau, St. Simon, Karl Marx?
  9. What connection do you see between the teachings of Rousseau and (a) modern Socialism, (b) modern Anarchism?
  10. What, according to Hertzka, is the economic defect of the existing social and industrial system, and what is the remedy? Contrast “Freeland” with “Looking Backward.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers. Mid-Year, 1895-96.(HUC 7000.55).

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1896-97

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 14. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.—Communism and Socialism.—History and Literature.2 hours.

Total 13: 10 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 1 Sophomore.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1896-97, p. 65.

 

ECONOMICS 14.
Mid-Year Examination, 1896-97.

(Arrange your answers in the order of the questions. Omit one.)

  1. The different senses in which the word Socialism is used. Where do you intend to draw the line between Socialism proper, and familiar forms of government interference and control – such as factory legislation, municipal water works, and government postal, telegraph or railroad services? Why?
  2. “National communism has been confused with the common ownership of the family; tenure in common has been confused with ownership in common; agrarian communism with village commons.” Discuss the evidence.
  3. “Just as Plato had his Republic, Campanella his City of the Sun, and Sir Thomas More his Utopia, St. Simon his Industrial System, and Fourier his ideal Phalanstery…. But the common criticism of Socialism has not yet noted the change, and continues to deal with the obsolete Utopias of the pre—evolutionary age.” What do you conceive to be the character of the change referred to? How far did earlier Utopias anticipate the ideals of the modern social democracy?
  4. What indication of Socialistic tendencies are to be found in the discipline of the Christian church? Explain the triple contract and its bearing on the doctrine of the usury.
  5. The contributions of Greek writers to the development of economic thought.
  6. To what extent are the theories of Karl Marx indebted to earlier writers in the 19th-century?
  7. How far are the economic series of (a) Lasalle, (b) Marx related to the theories of the so-called orthodox Economists? Explain critically.
  8. How far do you trace the influence of historical conditions in the social philosophies of Plato, More, Bacon, Rousseau, St. Simon, Karl Marx?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers. Mid-Year, 1896-97.(HUC 7000.55).

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1897-98

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 14. Asst. Professor E. Cummings.—Communism and Socialism.—History and Literature.2 or 3 hours.

Total 12: 3 Graduates, 5 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 2 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 78.

 

ECONOMICS 14
Mid-Year Examination, 1897-98

Outline briefly the characteristics of socialistic theory and practice in ancient, medieval and modern times, — devoting about an hour to each epoch, and showing—

(a) so far as possible the continuity of such speculations; the characteristic resemblances and differences;

(b) the influence of peculiar historical conditions;

(c) the corresponding changes in economic theory and practice.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers. Mid-Year, 1897-98.(HUC 7000.55).

 

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Not offered 1898-99

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1898-99, pp. 72-73.

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1899-1900

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 14. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings.—Communism and Socialism.—History and Literature.Lectures (3 hours); 6 reports or theses.

Total 22: 2 Graduates, 11 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

 

ECONOMICS 14
Mid-Year Examination, 1899-1900

  1. How, according to Plato, are economic organization, and the problems of production and distribution related (a) to social development; (b) to social and political degeneration?
  2. What do you conceive to be his most permanent contribution to social philosophy? What his chief defect?
  3. How far do the teachings of the Christian church and the Canon Law throw light on the gradual development of our fundamental economic ideas in regard to wealth, capital, trade, commerce?
  4. How far is there ground for the contention that the writings of Rousseau have been the chief arsenal of social and political revolutionists?
  5. “The right to the whole produce of labor—to subsistence—to labor:”
    What, according to Menger, have been the most important contributions to the successive phases of this discussion?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers. Mid-Year, 1899-1900.(HUC 7000.55).

Image Source: University and their Sons. History, Influence and Characteristics of American Universities with Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Alumni and Recipients of Honorary Degrees. Editor-in-chief, General Joshua L. Chamberlain, LL.D. Vol II (1899), pp. 155-156.

 

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Economists Germany Harvard

Harvard. Thomas Nixon Carver’s German Summer of 1902.

 

Preparing the previous blog post which provides the syllabus with reading assignments for Thomas Nixon Carver’s 1902-03 Harvard course, Economics 14 “Methods of Social Reform, including Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.”, I came across the following brief description of his trip with his family to Germany during the summer of 1902. In his autobiography, Carver briefly recounted his contact with colleagues at economic seminars in Halle and Berlin.

For visitors who can read German, I strongly recommend the website “Die Geschichte der Wirtschaftswissenschafte an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin”. During the Winter Semester of 2012, Till Düppe harnessed raw student seminar power to assemble much interesting material about people, organizational structures and the developing curriculum in the Berlin University and its East Berlin successor, the Humboldt University.

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Thomas Nixon Carver’s European Summer Vacation (1902)

I had never been abroad and had always wanted to see something of Europe. At the end of the academic year 1901-1902 we decided to make the trip. I got permission from President Eliot to leave Cambridge as soon as examinations were over without waiting for commencement. Just a few days before sailing, I came down with the grippe, as it was then

called. It looked for a day or two as though we might have to cancel the trip, but with Dr. F. W. Taylor’s help I recovered sufficiently to undertake it. I had a Ph.D. examination to conduct during the afternoon of the evening we had to start. The rest of the family called at the University for me with a hack, on the way to the South Station, where we took the train for New York, from which we sailed for Antwerp.

… We went armed with a supply of Baedeckers, American Express Company checks, and several letters of introduction….

Our destination was Germany where we planned to spend a few weeks first at Eisenach and then to Berlin….At Eisenach we stayed at a pension which had been recommended by Professor Albert Bushnell Hart. …

After a week or two I … went on to Berlin, stopping for a few days at Halle, where I visited Professor [Johannes] Conrad and attended one meeting of his seminar. There I met George Thomas, who had been at Harvard but was about to take his Ph.D. at Halle and who has since become president of the University of Utah. One afternoon I went with him to call on Professor Conrad at his home. He offered us beer or cold tea, both in bottles. He had been in America, had a daughter living in Buffalo, New York, and knew that many Americans did not drink liquor. He himself drank no liquor except wine.

I also took time to visit the breeding farm attached to the University of Halle where they were experimenting with all sorts of crossbreeding of animals brought from the ends of the earth.

In Berlin I took rooms in a pension and found it pretty well filled with American students, with a few from Russia, Romania, and Hungary. Edwin F. Gay had been recommended for a position in economic history, to follow Professor Ashley, at Harvard. He was in Berlin finishing his work for the Ph.D. degree at the university. I looked him up almost at once, called on him, and we had several talks. He had made a distinguished record at the university and was soon to take his final examination, which he passed with flying colors. His appointment as instructor at Harvard was confirmed by the Governing Boards and he began his teaching the following autumn.

While in Berlin I attended seminars by Professors [Adolph] Wagner in taxation, Schmoller in economic history, Ausserordentlich Professor [Adolph von] Wenckstern on socialism, and Professor [Max] Zering on Agrarpolitik. Wenckstern, a young man, had been in the army and still held the rank of lieutenant. One night after one of our sessions he invited me with the seminar group to his country place. We left the university about 10 p.m., took a train and traveled nearly half an hour, got off at a country station, walked a mile or so through fields and came to a sizable country house. …

Professor Wagner was getting along in years but seemed fairly vigorous. He was reasonably courteous when he was convinced that I was really an assistant professor at Harvard. My visiting card had merely said “Mr. Thomas N. Carver,” after the American custom, whereas a German would have had all his titles and degrees embossed on his visiting card. Schmoller was genial but dignified. His classes were crowded and he was very busy conferring with his students.

After about four weeks Flora and the children joined me in Berlin. Soon after they arrived Professor and Mrs. Charles J. Bullock turned up in Berlin, also a Miss McDaniels of Oberlin, who had been one of my students. Together we visited Dresden, mainly for the purpose of seeing the famous Art Gallery….

Source:   Thomas Nixon Carver, Recollections of an Unplanned Life (1949), pp. 135-139.

Image Source: The Friedrich Wilhelm University in the old Palace of Prince Heinrich (ca. 1820)

 

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Exam Questions Harvard Socialism Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Readings and Exams for Methods of Social Reform. Carver, 1902-03

Thomas Nixon Carver

 

“The trouble with radicals is that they only read radical literature, and the trouble with conservatives is that they don’t read anything.”

Thomas Nixon Carver quoted by John Kenneth Galbraith (A Life in Our Times)

This conservative Harvard economic theorist regularly taught the course on schemes of economic reform at Harvard early in the 20th century. He was certainly more forgiving than sympathetic to his radical subjects. 

Variations of this course syllabus have been transcribed earlier here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror:

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Course Description

[Economics] 14. Methods of Social Reform, including Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc. Tu.,Th, at 1.30. Professor Carver.

The purpose of this course is to make a careful study of those plans of social amelioration which involves either a reorganization of society, or a considerable extension of the functions of the state. The course begins with an historical study of early communistic theories and experiments. This is followed by a critical examination of the series of the leading socialistic writers, with a view to getting a clear understanding of the reasoning which lies back of socialistic movements, and of the economic conditions which tend to make this reasoning acceptable. A similar study will be made of Anarchism and Nihilism, of the Single Tax Movement, of State Socialism and the public ownership of monopolistic enterprises, and of Christian Socialism, so called.

Morley’s Ideal Commonwealths, Ely’s French and German Socialism, Marx’s Capital, Marx and Engels’s The Communist Manifesto, and George’s Progress and Poverty will be read, besides other special references.

The course will be conducted by means of lectures, reports, and classroom discussions.

Source: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics 1902-03. The University Publications, New Series, No. 55 (June 14, 1902), p. 42

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Course Enrollment
(Harvard, 1902-03)

[Economics] 14. Professor Carver.— Methods of Reform. Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.

Total 15: 2 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1902-03, p. 67.

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Course Enrollment (Radcliffe, 1902-03)

[Economics] 14. Professor Carver.— Methods of Social Reform.

Total 6: 4 Undergraduates, 2 Others.

Source: Radcliffe College. Report of the President of Radcliffe College, 1902-03, p. 43.

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Economics 14
[handwritten note: 1902-03]

Topics and References
Starred references are prescribed

COMMUNISM

A
Utopias
1. Plato’s Republic
2. *Sir Thomas More.   Utopia.
3. *Francis Bacon.   New Atlantis.
4. *Tommaso Campanella.   The City of the Sun. (Numbers 2, 3, and 4 may be found in convenient form in Morley’s Ideal Commonwealths.)
5. Etienne Cabet.   Voyage en Icarie.
6. Wm. Morris.   News from Nowhere.
7. Edward Bellamy.   Looking Backward.

 

B
Communistic Experiments
1. *Charles Nordhoff.   The Communistic Societies of the United States.
2. Karl Kautsky.   Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation.
3. W. A. Hinds.   American Communities.
4. J.H. Noyes.   History of American Socialisms.
5. J. T. Codman.   Brook Farm Memoirs.
6. Albert Shaw.   Icaria.
7. G.B. Landis.   The Separatists of Zoar.
8. E.O. Randall.   History of the Zoar Society.

 

SOCIALISM

A
Historical
1. *R. T. Ely. French and German Socialism.
2. Bertrand Russell. German Social Democracy.
3. John Rae. Contemporary Socialism.
4. Thomas Kirkup. A History of Socialism.
5. W. D. P. Bliss. A Handbook of Socialism.
6. Wm. Graham. Socialism, New and Old.
7. [Jessica Blanche] Peixotto. The French Revolution and Modern French Socialism.

 

B
Expository and Critical
1. *Albert Schaeffle. The Quintessence of Socialism.
2. Albert Schaeffle. The Impossibility of Social Democracy.
3. *Karl Marx. Capital.
4. *Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels. The Manifesto of the Communist Party.
5. Frederick Engels. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
6. E. C. K. Gonner. The Socialist Philosophy of Rodbertus.
7. E. C. K. Gonner. The Socialist State.
8. Bernard Shaw and others. The Fabian Essays in Socialism.
9. The Fabian Tracts.
10. R. T. Ely. Socialism: An Examination of its Nature, Strength, and Weakness.
11. Edward Bernstein. Ferdinand Lassalle.
12. Henry M. Hyndman. The Economics of Socialism.
13. Sydney and Beatrice Webb. Problems of Modern Industry.
14. Gustave Simonson. A Plain Examination of Socialism.
15. Sombart. Socialism and the Social Movement in the Nineteenth Century.
16. Vandervelde. Collectivism [and Industrial Evolution].

 

ANARCHISM

1. *Leo Tolstoi. The Slavery of Our Times.
2. Wm. Godwin. Political Justice.
3. Kropotkin. The Scientific Basis of Anarchy. Nineteenth Century, 21: 238.
4. Kropotkin. The Coming Anarchy. Nineteenth Century, 22:149.
5. Elisée Reclus. Anarchy. Contemporary Review, 45: 627. [May 1884]

 

RELIGIOUS AND ALTRUISTIC SOCIALISM

1. Lamennais. Les Paroles d’un Croyant.
2. Charles Kingsley. Alton Locke.
3. *Kaufman. Lamennais and Kingsley. Contemporary Review, April, 1882.
4. Washington Gladden. Tools and the Man.
5. Josiah Strong. Our Country.
6. Josiah Strong. The New Era.
7. William Morris, Poet, Artist, Socialist. Edited by Francis Watts Lee. A collection of the socialistic writings of William Morris.
8. Ruskin. The Communism of John Ruskin. Edited by W. D. P. Bliss. Selected chapters from Unto this Last, The Crown of Wild Olive, and Fors Clavigera.
9. Carlyle. The Socialism and Unsocialism of Thomas Carlyle. Edited by W. D. P. Bliss. Selected chapters from Carlyle’s various works. [Volume 1; Volume 2]

 

AGRARIAN SOCIALISM

1. *Henry George. Progress and Poverty.
2. Henry George. Our Land and Land Policy.
3. Alfred Russell Wallace. Land Nationalization.

 

STATE SOCIALISM

An indefinite term, usually made to include all movements for the extension of government control and ownership, especially over means of communication and transportation, also street lighting, etc.

1. R. T. Ely. Problems of To-day. Chs. 17-23.
2. J. A. Hobson. The Social Problem.

 

WORKS DISCUSSING THE SPHERE OF THE STATE IN SOCIAL REFORM

1. Henry C. Adams. The Relation of the State to Industrial Action.
2. *D. G. Ritchie. Principles of State Interference.
3. D. G. Ritchie. Darwinism and Politics.
4. *Herbert Spencer. The Coming Slavery.
5. W. W. Willoughby. Social Justice.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1902-1903”.

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Economics 14
Mid-year Examination, 1902-03

  1. Give an account of More’s Utopia.
  2. Is there any ground for supposing that Utopian schemes have influenced social development? Give reasons.
  3. What were the periods of greatest activity in the founding of communistic settlements in America? What stimulated the activity in each period, and what were the general conditions favorable to such activity?
  4. Does the history of communistic experiments in America throw any light on the probable success or failure of socialism on a large scale? Give reasons.
  5. Give an account of the communistic plans and activities of Etienne Cabet.
  6. Describe the Communist Manifesto. What place does it hold in socialistic literature, and why?
  7. Compare the socialism of Rodbertus with that of Karl Marx.
  8. Outline Marx’ theory of surplus value.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year Examinations 1852-1943. Box 6. Papers (in the bound volume Examination Papers Mid-years 1902-1903).

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Economics 14
Year-End Examination, 1902-03

  1. Give some account of Fourier and the Fourieristic experiments in the United States.
  2. Distinguish between Utopian and Scientific Socialism.
  3. What part has religion played in the history of Communistic Experiments?
  4. How does Karl Marx explain the existence of poverty?
  5. Trace briefly the history of the German Social Democratic Party.
  6. Distinguish between land and other forms of property.
  7. How do you account for the share of the capitalist in distribution?
  8. Is there any relation between the unequal distribution of workers among different occupations and the unequal distribution of wealth?
  9. What is meant by the term “Natural Monopolies.”
  10. Define “Christian Socialism” and explain how it differs from Marxian Socialism.

Source:  University Archives. Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 6. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, History of Religions, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College, June 1903 (in the bound volume Examination Papers 1902-1903).

Image Source: Harvard Class Album, 1906.

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Economists Gender Harvard Transcript

Harvard/Radcliffe. Economics PhD alumna and Wharton professor, Anne C. Bezanson, 1929

 

The materials in this post are presented in the opposite order that they were actually assembled. I began with three pieces of correspondence and a transcript of economics courses for a Radcliffe graduate who was ABD (= “all but dissertation”) and still interested in submitting a thesis more than a decade after her last course work at Harvard. The economics department chairman, Harold H. Burbank, made no fuss and we can see from the record that Annie Catherine Bezanson was indeed awarded an economics Ph.D. in 1929.

After I filled in the course titles and professors for her transcript, I then proceeded to gather biographical/career information for Bezanson. It of course did not take very long to discover that shortly after being awarded her Ph.D. she was promoted to a  professorship with tenure, the first woman to have cleared that professional hurdle at the University of Pennsylvania. What turned out to be more challenging was to find any photo whatsoever. Fortunately I stumbled upon a genealogical site that posted a picture of Anne Catherine Bezanson along with the obituary that begins the content portion of the post…

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Obituary from Bezansons of Nova Scotia

Died, Feb. 4, 1980, Dr. Anne Bezanson bur. Riverside Cemetery, Upper Stewiacke. Professor Emeritus, Wharton School of Finance & Commerce, U. of Pennsylvania, d… Hanover, Mass.

Born Mt. Dalhousie, N.S. daughter of the late John and Sarah (Creighton) Bezanson. Dr. Bezanson went to the United States in 1901, where she received her A.B. degree, A.M. & PhD. from Radcliffe…member of the Phi Beta Kappa…awarded an honourary doctor of science degree from University of British Columbia and from the University of Pennsylvania…served as Director of the Industrial Research Dept., Wharton School of Finance and Commerce; was professor at the Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania…served on the staff of the U.S. Coal Commission..member of Conference of Price Research, advisor to the Social Services Research Project, Rockefeller Foundation…wrote numerous articles in various professional economic journals …member American Economic Associationn; Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Economic History Association., serving as President from 1946-1948; American Statistical Association; Econometrics Society; Vice-President Delta Chapter Phi Beta Kappa, University of Pennsylvania.

Source: From the Website: Bezansons in North America

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PIONEER IN ACADEMIC BUSINESS RESEARCH
ANNE BEZANSON, PROFESSOR

ANNE BEZANSON had not yet completed her PhD in economic history in 1921, yet she was about to make history herself. At Wharton, the young Canadian helped establish the first business school research center, the Industrial Research Unit (later known as Industrial Research Department or IRD), with Professor Joseph Willits. The founding marked Wharton’s shift toward becoming an academic business research hub — defining a new role for business schools that continues today.

Bezanson’s 1921 article on promotion practices became the first product of the IRD. Bezanson continued her practical research in the early 1920s, writing a series on personnel issues, focusing on turnover, worker amenities, and accident prevention.

Willits and Bezanson designed an ambitious research program to explore and help civilize industrial working conditions, with the goal of social change. In 1922, Bezanson and Willits spent a year studying the earnings of coal miners at the U.S. Coal Commission. Employer associations, government agencies, and international organizations continued to look to the IRD for timely and practical knowledge.

In 1929, Bezanson finished her Harvard PhD and became the first female faculty member of Penn’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Under her leadership as co-director (which continued until 1945), the IRD had many women on its team and pursued research into the economic status of workers, revealing for the first time hard proof of the disparities in salaries and promotions for women and minorities across many industries.

Bezanson became the first woman to get full tenure at Penn, and in the 1930s sat on the National Bureau of Economic Research Price Conference. From 1939 to 1950 Bezanson was a part-time consultant at the Rockefeller Foundation, where she organized the first-ever roundtable on economic history in 1940. As a result of this involvement, Bezanson played a crucial role in the creation of the Economic History Association in the early 1940s, serving as president between 1946–1947. She died in 1980.

Source:  University of Pennsylvania. The Wharton School.Wharton Alumni Magazine, 125th Anniversary Issue (Spring 2007).

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Harvard/Radcliffe Academic Record

A.B. magna cum laude in economics.

 Source:  Report of the President of Radcliffe College for 1914-1915, pp. 10,13.

 

A.M. Annie Bezanson….Southvale, N.S. [Nova Scotia]

Source:   Report of the President of Radcliffe College for 1915-1916, p. 12.

 

June 1929 Doctor of Philosophy

Annie Catherine Bezanson, A.B. (Radcliffe College), 1915; A.M. (ibid.), 1916. Subject, Economics. Special Field, Labor Problems. Dissertation, Earnings and Working Opportunity in the Upholstery Weavers’ Trade.

Source: Report of the President of Radcliffe College 1928-29, p. 321.

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Economics Coursework

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
(Inter-Departmental Correspondence Sheet)

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Miss Anne Bezanson, A.B., Radcliffe 1915; A.M., 1916.

1911-12

Ec 1….B [Principles of Economics, Prof. Taussig et al.]
Ec 5….B, A- [Economics of Transportation, half course. Prof. Ripley]

1912-13

Ec 23….A- [Economic History of Europe to the Middle of the Eighteenth Century. Dr. Gray]

1913-14

Ec 11….B [Economic Theory. Prof. Taussig]
Ec 24….A [Topics in the Economic History of the Nineteenth Century. Prof. Gay]

1914-15

Ec 7….. [Theories of Distribution. Prof. Carver, Excused for Generals.]

1914-15

Ec 13….A [Statistics: Theory, Method and Practice. Asst. Prof. Day]
Ec 34….A [Problems of Labor. Prof. Ripley]
Ec 12….B+ [Scope and Methods of Economic Investigation. Half-course. Prof. Carver]
Ec 33….B [International Trade and Tariff Problems in the United States. Half-course. Prof. Taussig]
Ec 20….A- [Course of Research. Probably Economic History with Prof. Gay]
Ec 14….A [History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848. Prof. Bullock]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics. Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950. Box 3.

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Handwritten letter from Bezanson to Burbank

January 2, 1928 [sic]

My Dear Prof. Burbank:

A long time ago, I talked with Professor Young, as well as Professors Carver and Gay about submitting one of my studies in part fulfillment of the requirement for a doctor’s thesis. This request is the result of the difficulty of leaving my present work to complete the study upon which I was at work from 1915 to 1918 on the Industrial Revolution in France. This month when I completed the first analysis of the Earnings of Tapestry Weavers, I sent it to Professor Gay with the hope that it would be, or could be, made acceptable to the Department of Economics.

All this discussion has been informal and, of course, unofficial. I am now writing to you for advice about the official steps: should I apply to the Dean of the Graduate School for permission to change the thesis subject? or should this request go from you? Do you advise such a request and if so can it be made without changing my field of concentration?

Briefly my difficulty is that though I passed the General Examination in October, 1916, I have since not completed the thesis and final examination requirements. A degree seems to have some value in promotion here. Yet, I am engaged on studies which I cannot drop and go back to a subject as remote as French conditions. Dean Gay has been in touch with the progress of Tapestry Earnings and I am acting upon his suggestion in asking for an opinion upon the possibility of offering that study as a thesis.

Very sincerely yours
[signed]
Anne Bezanson

Industrial Research Department
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pa.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics. Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950. Box 3.

_______________________

Copies of responses by H.H. Burbank to Bezanson

 

January 7, 1929

Miss Anne Bezanson,
Index Research Department,
University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pa.

Dear Miss Bezanson:

I see no reason why the program which you have offered for the Ph.D. cannot be changed to allow you to present your study on “Earnings in the Upholstery Weavers Trade”.

There will be some red tape about it. I expect I shall have to secure the consent of the Dean of the Graduate School and of the Department, but I foresee no difficulties in either direction.

I will write you as soon as there is a definite decision.

One question that is certain to be raised is whether or not the research is entirely your own work or whether it was carried on by an organization. I should like to have your reply to this as soon as possible. Your preface throws some light on this. I note that you say: “All analysis and interpretation of material has been made by the Index Research Department”. Does this mean that your own work was strictly limited to the writing of the report in the preparation of the material on which the investigation was based?

Very sincerely,
[H.H. Burbank]

 

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January 9, 1929

Miss Anne Bezanson,
Index Research Department,
University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pa.

Dear Miss Bezanson:

This is more or less a continuation of the note I sent to you yesterday. Last evening I talked to the members of the Department regarding your request. I think something can be worked out for you without very much trouble.

For your General Examination you presented Theory, Statistics, International Trade, Labor, and American History, reserving Economic History as your special field. It is my guess that you have done very little indeed with the literature of the field of Economic History during the last ten years, and that to prepare this field for a special examination would involve an inordinate amount of work. Further, it would require quite a stretch of the imagination to include your study of “The Upholstery Weavers” as Economic History.

Would it not be more within your general field of interest to present Labor problems as the subject for intensive examination. In spite of the fact that you presented this subject in your General Examinations it could be included as a special field. By a stroke of good fortune the Department put into effect this fall a ruling whereby candidates for the PhD may present an honor grade in an approved course in lieu of an oral examination in a subject. Ordinarily you would be required to stand for examination in Economic History as well as in Labor Problems, but under this new ruling we are able to accept the grade of A in Economics 24 taken in 1915.

Briefly then, it is my suggestion that your special field be Labor Problems, within which the dissertation which you are now presenting naturally would fall.

Please let me know if this meets with your approval.

Very sincerely,
H. H. Burbank.

HHB:BR

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics. Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950. Box 3.

Image Source: Website Bezansons in North America.

 

 

 

Categories
Economists Harvard Radical Salaries

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus. Not hired as a teaching assistant. W. H. Crook, 1928

 

The meat of the following post is found in the correspondence regarding a one year appointment of a Harvard graduate student in 1922 as Thomas Nixon Carver’s assistant for Economics 8 (Principles of Sociology). Wilfrid Harris Crook’s appointment was shot down by the Harvard Corporation over the express positive recommendation of the department chairman (who happened to be Thomas Nixon Carver himself). There were two economics faculty members (unnamed) who voted against hiring Crook, and one suspects that one or both had raised red flags of pacifism and socialism in their dissent high enough for President Lowell to have seen them. I am simply amazed that any candidate for a humble teaching assistantship would have been vetted by the President of the university himself.

For those interested in what had become of Crook, who eventually went on to complete his Ph.D. in 1928, I have assembled a few snippits of biographical and career data. His irregular employment is consistent with both a difficult personality (“In a world of teetotalers Crook would be a conscientious drunkard”) and the challenges posed by dual academic careers.

Small world:  The above image of Crook’s calling card from his time as Assistant Minister, Central Congregational Church, Boston, 1916-1918 was found in the online material from the W.E.B. Du Bois archive.

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Scraps of information from the life and career of Wilfrid Harris Crook

Born: May 16, 1888 in Swinton, Lancastershire, England.

Married: Lucy Mildred Cluck, Sept. 1 1917 in New London, New Hampshire. (still together in 1930 according to the U.S. Census)
Son: Sydney L. Crook (b. ca. 1919)

Married: Evelyn Buchan Sept 8 1931 in Glens Falls New York. She was a professor at the University of Maine at the time according to the Bangor Maine City Directory, 1931.

1929-30. Bowdoin College Catalogue. Listed as Assistant Professor of Economics and Sociology. Besides listed with the other members of the department of economics and sociology, he is listed for the three semester courses in sociology (Principles of Sociology, Applied Sociology, and Social Evolution of the Hebrew People)

1930-31. Bowdoin College Catalogue. Listed as Associate Professor of Economics and Sociology on leave of absence.

1933-34 Boston City Directory: Wilfrid H. Crook and Evelyn B.  instr. Simmons College (see item below)

1935 Haverhill, Mass. City Directory.  Crook Wilfrid H. inst. Bradford Junior College.

1935 Wilkes-Barre, Penn. City directory. Wilfrid H. Crook and Evelyn B. instr. Bucknell University Jr. College.

Bucknell Junior College, Wilkes-Barre, Pa. (1942, Draft registration of Wilfrid H. Crook)

Wilfrid H. Crook born 16 May 1888, Social Security Claim date 30 April 1956.

Died April 16, 1963 in DeKalb, Georgia

Two details about Wilfrid H. Crook’s second wife Evelyn Buchan

From a UP report, Sept. 17 1946, Albany in the Dunkirk Evening Observer (Dunkirk, New York)

“Three professors of sociology join the faculty today of the Associated Colleges of upper New York. They are Mrs. Evelyn Buchan Crook, who has taught at five other universities….The associated college [is] located at Sampson…”

From The 1962 Yearbook of the Westminster Schools, Atlanta, Georgia (Vol. V):  Mrs Wilfrid Harris Crook, Testing and Counseling, Ph.B. and M.A., University of Chicago. (Note how in 1962 women still lost both their first and last names upon marriage!)

_______________________

Economics Ph.D. awarded 1928

Wilfrid Harris Crook, A.B. (Univ. of Oxford, England) 1911, A.M. (ibid.) 1914. Subject, Economics. Special Field, Labor Problems. Thesis, “The General Strike in Theory and Practice to 1914.” Assistant Professor of Economics and Sociology, Bowdoin College.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1927-28, p. 113.

_______________________

Instructorship at Simmons College

Wilfrid Harris Crook, Special Instructor in Economics. B.A., Lincoln College, Oxford, 1911; M.A., 1914; Hibbert Scholar, 1915; Harvard, 1914-16, 1921-1923; Ph.D., 1928.

Formerly: Assistant Minister, Central Congregational Church, Boston, 1916-1918; Editorial work, New York, 1919-1920; Special Instructor in Economics, 1922-1923; Assistant and Associate Professor of Economics and Sociology, Bowdoin College, 1923-1931.

Publications: The General Strike, 1931; articles in Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, The Survey. The Nation.

Source: 1933 Microcosm, Simmons College Yearbook, p. 35.

_______________________

The case made against hiring Wilfrid Harris Crook as a teaching assistant at Harvard in 1922…in spite of the departmental recommendation to hire him

Economics department’s recommendation to hire

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Oct. 23, 1922

The Division Department of Economics respectfully recommends to the Corporation the appointment of W. H. Crook [as] Assistant [in] Economics for one year from Sept. 1, 1922 at a salary of $400. Courses in which instruction or assistance is to be given: Economics 8.

Remarks:  See letter to President Lowell.

[Signed|
T. N. Carver
Chairman.

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Letter to President Lowell from the economics department chairman

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Cambridge, Massachusetts
October 24, 1922

Dear President Lowell:

At a meeting of the Department of Economics held Monday afternoon, October 23, it was voted to recommend to the President and Fellows that W. H. Crook be appointed Assistant for one year in Economics 8, and that C. N. Burrows be appointed as Assistant for the first half-year in Economics 9a.

Sincerely yours,

[signed]
T. N. Carver
Chairman

President A. Lawrence Lowell

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Elaboration by economics department chairman regarding the case of W. H. Crook

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Cambridge, Massachusetts
October 24, 1922

Dear President Lowell:

The case of W. H. Crook was pretty thoroly [sic] discussed at the Department Meeting before the vote was taken. The vote stood eight in favor of the recommendation, two against it, the Chairman not voting.

When I talked with you about the case several days ago you stated that if new information could be furnished regarding the case you would take it into consideration. I asked Dean Sperry to write you what he knew about it. Mr. Crook has given me some documents, including his certificate of discharge from military service on the ground of physical unfitness, his correspondence with the Hibbert Trustees, etc. The information is pretty well summarized in the enclosed copy of a letter which he wrote to Professor Bullock in 1921. I think that this correspondence with the Hibbert Trustees and other documents which he submits support every important statement which he makes in the letter. It appears that his anti-war attitude in this country was by no means so positive as it has been made out to be. Being a pacifist he could not do otherwise than urge peaceful mediation on the part of this country rather than actual war. After war was declared he seems to have quite accepted the situation, did not take advantage either of the fact that he was an ordained minister or a conscientious objector to evade the draft. In fact I think he showed a much finer spirit in refusing to enjoy the luxuries of peace in war time than many of our people who pass as respectable.

I should be glad to hand you the other correspondence which Mr. Crook gave me if you care to be bothered with them. Their only value, however, would be to verify what Mr. Crook has said.

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

President A. Lawrence Lowell

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President Lowell’s letter to Harvard Corporation member John F. Moors

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE

PRESIDENT’S OFFICE

October 25, 1922

Dear John:

Would you mind looking over these papers and sending them back to me as soon as you can, for it is a question that will come up at the next Corporation meeting. Professor Bullock evidently thinks Crook a rather blatant propagandist for socialism and pacifism; and of course this is one of the cases where we shall be somewhat blamed whatever we do. But while protecting free speech on the part of our professors, I do not think that we are obliged to appoint to the instructing staff men who would bring us into unnecessary criticism, or people of a quarrelsome disposition. This last impression of Crook I derive rather strongly from the enclosed letter from Dean Sperry. This is a question of balance of judgment. What do you think?

Very truly yours,
[stamp] A. Lawrence Lowell

John F. Moors, Esq.
111 Devonshire Street
Boston, Mass.

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Theology Dean’s assessment of Wilfrid Harris Crook

The Theological School in Harvard University
Andover Hall, Francis Avenue
Cambridge, Mass.

Office of the Dean

October 20, 1922

My dear President Lowell:

Professor Carver tells me that the name of Wilfrid Harris Crook has been suggested as an assistant in one of the economics courses, and that objection to this appointment has been filed with you, on the ground that he was an ‘English draft dodger’, etc. Professor Carver asks me to send you a word on the matter.

I know Mr. Crook well. He was my assistant for two or three years in Central Church, Boston.

The basic fact about Crook is this. He comes of a long line of English dissenters and Non-conformists. And the ‘dissidence of dissent’ is bred in his blood and bone. He had been, for years, a more or less doctrinaire pacifist of the Tolstoian type.

But he is not a ‘draft dodger’ in any correct sense of the word. In the spring of 1914 he had received from the Hibbert Trustees and Manchester College, Oxford, their Hibbert Fellowship for foreign study. He had intended to take the academic year 1914-15 doing economics in Germany, and was caught there at the outbreak of the War.

He came back at once to England, and with the consent of the Hibbert Trustees transferred his fellowship to this country and to Harvard. The draft was not then in force in England. Whether he ought to have stayed and volunteered, or faced the ultimate consequences of not volunteering is another matter.

He has been in this country ever since. He remained a ‘doctrinaire pacifist’ all through the War. His native non-conformity, with its anti-imperialist heckling temper was not understood here at all. His best friends deplored a good many of his utterances, and found it hard to bear with him at times. While he made a good many enemies who did not hesitate to go far beyond the facts and accuse him of actual political irregularities of which he was technically quite innocent.

The whole case of the man was put in a nutshell by the Chairman of my Parish Committee, who once said that, “In a world of teetotalers Crook would be a conscientious drunkard.”

It seemed impossible for him to do much useful work in our Parish in Boston after we had entered the War and he eventually dropped out. His opinions on War in general were abhorrent to most of our people at that time. But I never heard anything but words of respect and affection for the man’s character, his personal charm and his transparent integrity.

He must have been under suspicion here during the War. But so far as I know he never ran foul of any actual trouble with the authorities.

He was, I think, in process of becoming an American citizen during the war, and was called for the draft but dismissed at once for a shockingly bad heart, the result of rheumatic fever.

My impression is that his citizenship has since been granted, and that if there had been any technical case against him it would have appeared at that time and would have held that matter up permanently.

Perhaps he ought to have gone back to England, perhaps he ought to have felt differently here. All that is debatable ground.

Technically, I think his case stands clear. As to the basic fact of the man himself, it is the problem of the rather remote idealism of the Tolstoian type.

He has been plugging along latterly for the Ph.D. degree in economics. My latest impressions of him are of a man somewhat sobered and reluctantly making concessions to the stubborn world of hard facts, which his dissenting heredity and romantic temperament incline him to regard as given over to Satan.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Willard L. Sperry

President A. Lawrence Lowell
Harvard University

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President Lowell’s response to Theology Dean

October 24, 1922

Dear Mr Sperry:

Thank you very much for your letter about Mr Crook. He does not seem to be the kind of person the Corporation would like to appoint as a member of the instructing staff.

I asked Mr. Foote to inform me about the denominational relations of the members of the Faculty, and I think you would be interested in his answer, which you need not return. It shows very clearly that the School has not been Unitarian; but I am not sure that the publicity would do us any good.

Very truly yours,
[stamp] A. Lawrence Lowell

Rev. Willard L. Sperry
Andover Hall
Cambridge

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Harvard Corporation member John F. Moors responds to President Lowell

MOORS & CABOT
111 Devonshire Street
Boston, Mass.
Telephone Main 8170

Members
Boston Stock Exchange

John F. Moors
C. Lee Todd
Francis E. Smith
William Ferguson
Willis W. Clark

October 26, 1922.

President A. Lawrence Lowell,
Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Lawrence:

I have read and return herewith the documents received from you today about Mr. Crook.

Let me say at the outset that it speaks well for Carver, who himself analyzes socialism, to advocate a man of the Crook type, for Carver, we know, is himself so far from being a socialist that it would be very easy for him to feel prejudiced.

Our bookkeeper in this office is a prominent member of Mr. Sperry’s church. I have today asked him about Crook and find that, though he likes him personally and respects him as a man, he has pronounced abhorrence of his views and says that in thus speaking he feels sure that he reflects a vast majority of the congregation.

I have heard Crook speak and have addressed audiences in the Chapel of the Central Congregational church at which Crook as assistant minister has been present. His voice is soft, he is gentlemanly, he has no brilliant sparks such as Laski threw forth, he is, I think, very much as Sperry describes him, a natural dissenter of the outwardly rather meek but inwardly recalcitrant type. He would, I imagine, present socialism sympathetically rather than analytically.

While his letter to Bullock indicates that Bullock took a rough attitude toward him, which may have led him to feel sore, it seems to me that the first paragraph and the next to the last paragraph in his letter lack self-restraint; and I though this before I read the rest of the correspondence, my eye having caught this letter first.

Having seen Crook mostly in the pleasant relationship of a speaker being introduced (as speakers are introduced!) I should have said before I read the correspondence that I liked him. I suppose too that no one can really teach anything who does not heartily believe in it; and Carver’s reasonableness is the thing which most impressed me in the whole correspondence. I should like to back him up in it. But while all great men are cranks, all cranks are not great men. Judgment seems to lie in distinguishing which is the great man without the crankiness, which the crank without the greatness. I am inclined to think that Crook would get us into hot water without our being sure, when we were in it, that we were right.

Yours very truly,
signed]
John F. Moors

Dict. J.F.M.

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Department Chair T. N. Carver senses one or two other persons with a “vindictive disposition” are the source of Crook’s troubles

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Cambridge, Massachusetts
November 6, 1922

Dear President Lowell:

I have your letter of October 31 informing me that the Corporation did not think wise to appoint Mr. Crook as Assistant in Economics 8. The reason given must be based on information that was not in the possession of the Chairman of the Department. You state that it was not on account of his opinions but on account of his disposition, and that the Corporation felt that it would be a mistake to introduce into the teaching staff a man who has shown so much capacity for getting into trouble. So far as any information has come to the Chairman of the Department, Mr. Crook has had no trouble since early in the war on account of his own disposition. Such trouble as he has had seems to be due entirely to the vindictive disposition of one or two other persons.

I think that Mr. Crook would like to have the carbon copy of his letter to Professor Bullock which I enclosed with my letter to you of recent date. Will you kindly have some one return it to me and I will hand it to Mr. Crook?

Very sincerely,
[signed]
T. N Carver

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Wilfrid Harris Crook’s request to speak with Harvard Corporation member John F. Moors

20a Prescott Street
Cambridge, Mass.
November 9, 1922

Mr. John F. Moors
32 Mr. Vernon St.
Boston, Mass.

Dear Mr. Moors

Professor Carver of Harvard, in a letter of Nov. 6th, writes me as follows: The Department of Economics recommended your appointment as assistant in Economics 8, but the President and Fellows, as you learned the other day when in my office, declined to make the appointment. Inasmuch as all appointments have to be made by the President and Fellows, there is nothing more that the Department can do about it.”

As you are the only member of the Corporation with whom I am to any degree acquainted, I take the liberty of inquiring, for my own satisfaction, what were the reasons for the attitude of the Fellows to my appointment as Professor Carver’s assistant. I am studying for a Ph.D. at Harvard, and am meanwhile acting as Special Instructor of Economics at Simmons College. The decision is, therefore, one that causes me some degree of regret and of interest as to its cause.

I wonder if you will give me the privilege of a brief personal talk with you on this matter? If so, I should be glad to meet your convenience any afternoon next week, or any hour on Tuesday or Saturday, on which days I have no class.

Faithfully yours,
[signed]
Wilfrid Harris Crook

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Harvard Corporation member J. F. Moors declines with “kindest personal feelings”

MOORS & CABOT
111 Devonshire Street, Boston

November 10, 1922.

Rev. Wilfrid Harris Crook,
20a Prescott St.
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Mr. Crook:

I wish I could give you the information which you ask for. It is, however, essential that the views of the individual members of the Board on which I serve and the nature of our discussions should not be divulged except through the President of the University.

I have sent him your letter.

With the kindest personal feelings, I am,

Yours very truly,

 

Dict. J.F.M.

 

Source:   Harvard University Archives. President Lowell’s Papers 1922-1925, Box 189, Folder 188 (1922-25).

Image Source: Crook, Wilfrid Harris, b. 1888. W. Harris Crook, 1915?. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries