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Economists Gender

UK. Chicago newspaper article, Fawcett and His Wife, 1872

 

A newspaper account from 1872 provided me by serendipity. A Chicago reader would have learned that Millicent Garrett Fawcett at age 25 was considered “the best speaker of any of the women who have come into public life”, at least in her own country, and “much more than ordinarily pretty”. Her Political Economy for Beginners ran through ten editions over forty years (Tenth edition, 1911).

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Link to Millicent Garrett Fawcett’s Autobiography:  What I Remember (1925)

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Fawcett and His Wife

Prof. Fawcett, the liberal member of Parliament, who came so near overthrowing Mr. Gladstone is blind. When a pretty well-grown boy, but before entering the university, an accident destroyed one eye, and the spreading inflammation soon took the other. As soon as his health was restored he continued his studies with an attendant who acted as guide, amanuensis and reader. High honors and finally a fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge and subsequently the publication of a work on political economy, secured him a professorship in this same college. Other publications on “Pauperism,” “Land Tenure,” and the various questions that English radicals are airing, won him great favor among the working classes, and in 1865 he entered Parliament as the representative for Brighton, a constituency composed chiefly of trades-people. Prof. Fawcett follows in the line of Mill, but as he is far less subtle, he has the good fortune to be much more popular with the ordinary mind. He is honest and has a steady nerve. He is now 38, just in the prime of his powers, with a markedly strong physique, as opposed to fineness of fibers and nervous receptivity. On the evening of the day that the telegram announced the death of President Lincoln, Prof. Fawcett was in a social gathering of liberals, and heard from a girl of 18 the exclamation, “It would have been less loss to the world if every crowned head in Europe had fallen.” He asked to be introduced to this spirited girl, who has been Mrs. Fawcett for the last five years. Mrs. Fawcett is now 25, and is, with the exception of her sister, Mrs. Anderson, perhaps the most popular woman in England. She is the best speaker of any of the women who have come into public life. She is the author of a political economy adapted for use in girls’ schools, and appears again as the largest contributor in a volume of essays, by Mr. and Mrs. Fawcett just published. She has the same clear, logical, practical type of mind as Prof. Fawcett, with an added feminine fineness. It would be difficult to find two people more consonant in their tastes and aims. Mrs. Fawcett is slight in figure and much more than ordinarily pretty; is neither distrustful nor presuming, and has that perfect balance of mind that enables her to use all her power. Her sister, Mrs. Garrett Anderson, was the first regular woman physician in that country. She is a member of the London School Board, and, what no one fails to add dresses extremely well. She has the reputation of being remarkably skillful in her profession, but I am satisfied that her exceptional qualities, like those of Mrs. Fawcett, lie in the line of practical effectiveness, rather than in original thought. The social popularity of these sisters illustrates a contrast between English and American society. Americans do not like peculiar people, not even people of peculiar excellence. A domestic uniformity is the aristocratic standard, and women who step out of this suffer more than men do. Not so there. If one shows intellectual powers above other women, or superior practical efficiency in public affairs, just so much is added to her social rank. Women are dealt with in this just as fairly as men are. Intellectual merit is the one coin that in England gets everything in exchange. It is rather singular that these three sisters [unnamed third sister: Agnes Garrett, interior designer and suffragist] should all have distinguished themselves in strong-minded lines, since the mother holds the most conservative views in regard to women’s work, and the father has no interest beyond personal pride in the success of his daughters.

Source: Chicago Evening Post, June 1, 1872, p. 3.

Image Source: National Portrait Gallery, “Henry Fawcett; Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett (née Garrett“.

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Exam Questions Gender Harvard

Harvard. Political Economy Examination for Women, 1878

 

The motivation behind the examinations offered by Harvard University to women (beginning in 1874) was “to afford persons desirous of becoming teachers in schools such a diploma of competency for their task as would be received on all hands with respect, and, further, to promote a higher standard of attainments in the private schools attended by the wealthier classes, by thus securing them thoroughly qualified teachers.” However, it was understood that “the preparation for these examinations [was not] equivalent to a course in Harvard, or other first-class colleges, and that they did not place the same value on a Harvard diploma and a Harvard certificate.”

The Harvard 1874 Advanced Examination in Political Economy for Women was previously posted.

The examination was based on Henry Fawcett’s “Manual of Political Economy” [1874] and Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui’s “Histoire de l’Économie Politique en Europe.” [4e èd. Rev. et annot. (1860). Tome Premier; Tome Second]

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POLITICAL ECONOMY.
FAWCETT.

  1. Distinguish productive labor and productive consumption from unproductive. Are “useful” and “productive” convertible terms in political economy?
  2. What is capital? How does the popular use of the term differ from its scientific use? When Macleod contends that “credit is capital,” what is the real point of difference between him and other writers
  3. What causes determine the prices of manufactured commodities, temporarily and in the long run? How do the causes which determine the prices of agricultural commodities differ from the above?
  4. 1What determines the value of money? 2How far does it receive value from being coined and made a legal tender? 3What determines the value of inconvertible paper? 4Does it receive value from being made a legal tender? 5When a legal tender, is its value affected by the greater or less chance of its being paid off?
  5. Explain carefully Ricardo’s theory of rent, showing under what conditions rent can be an element of price, and explaining the application of the theory to a country like the United States, where the cultivators, as a rule, own the land.
  6. What causes the observed tendency of profits to fall as a country advances in age, wealth, and population?
  7. State the general principles which determine the exchange of commodities between two countries. How and why does this international trade differ from domestic trade?
  8. Why do the exports of India regularly exceed her imports, and the exports of the British Islands fall short of their imports? How are these facts to be reconciled with the general principle that the exports of a country must balance its imports?
  9. The United States being a gold-producing country, would exchange on Europe, when commerce is in its normal condition, be “in our favor,” against us, or at par? Why? Would this state of things be for our disadvantage or not?
  10. When a building, e. g., a store, is built on valuable ground and a tax is laid as usual on the total value, what will be the incidence of the tax? Will it have this incidence at once, or in the long run? Suppose the premises are held under a lease for a term of years?
  11. If a tax were laid at a uniform rate on all property of every description, would it meet the requirements of Adam Smith’s first rule?
  12. If a government has a large expenditure to make (1) in some productive enterprise, or (2) for some unproductive purpose, is it better that the amount should be raised at once by taxation, or by loan?

 

BLANQUI.

  1. Contrast the system on which the Bank of Amsterdam and the Bank of England were respectively established.
  2. What was the English act of navigation? When and why was it passed? What position do Adam Smith and J. S. Mill take as to its expediency?
  3. When did the “French Economists” flourish, and what were the distinctive characteristics of that school?
  4. Give what account you can of Turgot and his reforms.
  5. What was “the continental blockade,” and what were its economic effects, both before and after the declaration of peace?
  6. Under what circumstances was Malthus led to write his Essay on Population?
  7. What contribution did J. B. Say make, or what service did he render, to economic science?
  8. Give what account you can of the socialist system of St. Simon.
  9. What share had Ricardo, Mill, and Cairnes, respectively, in the development of the system of political economy, and in what relations do they stand to each other as writers developing the same subject?

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915 (HUC 7000.25), Box 2. Bound volume: Examination Papers 1878-79. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Used at the Examinations for Women held at Cambridge, New York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati, May 29 to June 6, 1878. Cambridge, Mass., 1878, pp. 42-44.

 

Image Sources:

Henry Fawcett (left) The University of Glasgow Story website; Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui (right): Austrian National Library. Website Bildarchiv Austria.