One can imagine the raised eyebrows when colleagues learned that Professor Richard T. Ely at the tender age of 77 married his former student who was a gentle 32 years old, leaving a 45 year age gap to fill with conjugal bliss. It even became national news when it was reported that Richard T. Ely became father for the fourth and fifth times at ages 78/79, respectively. Robust Professor Ely lived another ten years and his widow Margaret Hale Ely, née Hahn, went on to teach economics at Connecticut College for Women for two decades after his passing. Along the way, she picked up her Yale economics Ph.D. Her retirement years spanned another seventeen years.
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Professor Ely is Married to Former Pupil
Madison—Prof. Richard Theodore Ely, 78, honorary professor of political economy at the University of Wisconsin, was secretly married last summer to Miss Margaret Hahn, 30 [sic, 32 years is correct], once his student at Northwestern university friends here learned today.
The economist and his bride are living at Radburn, N.J., near the Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities established by Dr. Ely several years ago in New York.
He was professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin from 1892 until 1925, when he went to Northwestern. There he met the co-ed destined to become his wife.
In 1933 he received an LL.D. degree from the university.
Before coming to Wisconsin he was head of the department of political economy at Johns Hopkins university for 11 years.
His marriage to Miss Hahn was his second. In 1884 he was married to Miss Anna Morris Anderson, who died in 1923. He has three children, Richard S. Ely, John T. A. Ely and Mrs. Anna Ely Morehouse.
Dr. Ely received his A.B. and A.M. degrees from Columbia university, his Ph.D. at the University of Heidelberg, and another LL.D. from Hobart college.
He was founder of the American bureau of industrial Research, one of the organizers of the American Economics association, first president of the American Association for Labor Legislation, and founder of the Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities.
He has written several books dealing with economics.
Source: Wisconsin State Journal, December 21, 1931, pp. 1,4.
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L.A. Times exclusive, 1932
Economist Ely Becomes Father
at 79 (sic, should be 78) Years of Age
New York, July 15 (Exclusive)
Prof. Richard T. Ely, the economist, 79 years of age, who last year married Miss Margaret Hahn, still in her early thirties, became the father of an 8-pound son on the 1st, it was learned today.
Prof. Ely proudly confirmed the news at the offices of the Institute for Economic Research, Inc., of which he is the head.
“He’s a fine, big, kicking fellow,” he said. “We named him after William Brewster, a leader in the Mayflower colony and an early ancestor of his.”
Prof. and Mrs. Ely live at Radburn, N.J., the model motor-age real-estate development planned by the professor and financed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and others.
Prof. Ely and the mother of his child, who was born in a Paterson (N.J.) hospital, met at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., where he was teaching in the summer of 1931. She was one of his students, and received a Ph.D. degree at that institution of learning (sic, she did not).
The professor, a noted economist, is the author of a number of books. He came to New York several years ago to establish the institute he heads.
Source: The Los Angeles Times (July 16, 1932), p. 1.
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Associated Press, 1934
Dr. Ely Father Again at 79
Daughter Second Child
Since He Wed Former Pupil in 1931
By the Associated Press.
New York, March 30.–Dr. Richard T. Ely, 79-year-old economist and president of the Bureau of Economic Research, became the father of his sixth child last Wednesday, friends here have learned.
A nine-pound-seven-ounce daughter, named Mary Charlotte, was born to his wife, the former Margaret Hahn of Chicago, in Paterson General Hospital, Paterson, N.J. Dr. Ely will be 80 April 13. Dr. and Mrs. Ely have another child, William Brewster Ely, born in July, 1932. Mrs. Ely is the economist’s second wife. Dr. Ely, founder of the American Economic Association, married her, a former pupil, in 1931.
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (March 30, 1934), p. 2.
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From the horse’s mouth:
Richard T. Ely’s Memoir
1938
It was at Northwestern, also, that I found the young woman who later became my wife, Margaret Hale Hahn was a member of my round table, a dynamic personality, with many varied interests. She was a Northwestern graduate and had attained distinction in athletics, as well as in scholastic work. She was a member of the debating group and was one of the first women to represent the university in a joint debate with Wisconsin; she was also president of the hockey team and had obtained her letter. We were married in 1931. Her companionship and her vitality have greatly enriched my life. We are now the proud parents of two loverly children, Billy, six, and Mary, four.
Source: Richard T. Ely. Ground Under Our Feet, p. 250.
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Personal and professional timeline of
Margaret Hale Ely, née Hahn
1899. June 29. Born in Ohio to Parents Raymond C. Han and Mary Katruah Hahn née Hale.
1923. B.S. from Northwestern University.
1931, August 8. Marriage to Richard Theodore Ely in Old Lyme, Connecticut.
1932, July 1. Birth of son, William Brewster Ely in Paterson, New Jersey.
1934, March 28. Birth of daughter, Mary Charlotte Ely in Paterson, New Jersey. [Family residing at 2 Audubon Place, Rayburn, N.J.]
1936, May 12. Third child, stillborn.
1943, October 4. Richard T. Ely dies at home in Old Lyme, Connecticut.
1944. Appointed assistant professor of economics at Connecticut College for Women.
1947. A.M. from Yale University.
1954. Ph.D. in economics from Yale University.
1966. Retires from Connecticut College for Women.
1983, May 24. Died May 24. in Waterford, Connecticut.
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MRS. MARGARET H. ELY
Associate Professor of Economics
Mrs. Margaret H. Ely’s life, on this campus and away from it, has been expressive of a personal philosophy which will continue to pervade her experience after she leaves her position as Associate Professor of Economics at Connecticut. She believes strongly in a commitment to education as a challenge and as a creative process, and she considers the lack of such a commitment the main problem in education today. In accord with this belief, Mrs. Ely has taught the Senior Seminar in Economic Research since she has been here. This course emphasizes creative research and enables students to talk with experts in their particular area. Labor and investment have always been Mrs. Ely’s own favorite areas of interest and instruction. She was originally trained as a banker in the investment division of the Irving Trust Company. In addition to her love of teaching, she has actively extended her own education. Last summer she attended a Contemporary Economics Seminar and this year at Connecticut she has studied mathematical statistics. In the language of economics, Mrs. Ely feels there is a great deal of manpower, the country’s most valuable resource, which is being wasted in the form of the unmotivated student. She believes this situation can be improved and, with this in mind, she intends to continue working in the educational system: We can expect further significant accomplishments by Mrs. Ely, a woman dedicated to her field and her profession.
Source: Connecticut College for Women student yearbook, Koiné 1964, p. 74.
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Retirement note by Connecticut College President
Mrs. Margaret Ely joined the Faculty in 1944 as a recent widow and the mother of two young children. Ten years later she had received her Doctor’s degree in Economics at Yale, created new courses in Labor Economics and Corporations at this college and brought her own children into young manhood and womanhood. She likes to teach the lore of corporations by the case study method. A study of her own case suggests that she is the sort of educated American woman who has demonstrated to the undergraduates of this college that a woman of purpose and courage can do anything she wants to do. Her human warmth and ingenious teaching methods will be available to us for one year more in the absence of her Department Chairman.
Source: Connecticut College Alumnae News, August 1964, p. 19.
Image Source: Connecticut College Alumnae News, August 1964, p. 19. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.