Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Socialism

Harvard. Final exam for Methods of Social Reform. Socialism etc. Fetter, 1906-1907

As mentioned in the previous post Thomas Nixon Carver was in Europe for a sabbatical year in 1906-07,  the Harvard economics department had to fill the instructional gap left by Carver and so Frank A. Fetter was brought in from Cornell to cover two of Carver’s standard courses: one on the economic theory of income distribution and the other that surveyed methods of social reform. The artifact for today is Fetter’s final exam for the fall semester course on “Methods of Social Reform. Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.”

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Course Reading List
1906-07
(previously posted)

https://www.irwincollier.com/methods-of-social-reform-fetter-covers-carver-course/

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Course Enrollment
1906-07

Economics 14b 1hf. Professor Fetter (Cornell University). — Methods of Social Reform. Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.

Total 32: 4 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 3 Sophomore, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-1907, p. 71.

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ECONOMICS 14b
Mid-year Examination, 1906-07

  1. Discuss the various classes into which the communistic experiments in America may be divided, and indicate the periods of their greatest success.
    Why are there fewer experiments of that kind now?
  2. Compare Christian socialism with Marxism in its philosophy of progress and in the methods it favors.
  3. In what countries is radical socialism making most headway, and what methods are followed by it?
  4. Define and criticize the surplus-value theory of Marx. Indicate its relation to the labor-value theory of Ricardo, and to Malthusianism.
  5. Discuss historical materialism, and the application made of it by Mars to the revolutionary propaganda.
  6. What is meant by the class conflict, and class consciousness? Give illustrations supporting and opposing these ideas.
  7. Discuss the personality, training, and social experiences of the founders of social-democracy.
  8. In what countries has the socialization of industry made greatest progress? What are present tendencies?
  9. What would be the effect, upon present holders, of a single tax absorbing the whole net rental of city land-sites? What would be the effect upon future purchasers of the land?
  10. In the light of the experience in other countries, what experiments in social reform do you expect to see soon tried in America?
    Give reasons.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1906-07.

Image Source: Faculty portrait of Frank A. Fetter in the 1902 Classbook, Cornell University, p. 21.

Categories
Dartmouth Economists Germany Michigan Princeton Suggested Reading Syllabus

Princeton. Course readings for “Government and Business”. Frank Haigh Dixon, 1924-25

 

 

According to the Princeton catalogue for 1922/23, the undergraduate course Economics 407 “Corporations: Finance and Regulation” was taught by Professor Frank Haigh Dixon. The course was designated as a senior course that graduate students could attend with supplementary work and a weekly conference. Frank W. Fetter took Economics 407 (that appears to have had the title “Government and Business” during the first semester of the academic year 1924-25. In his papers at the Economists’ Papers Archive at Duke University, one finds 47 pages of lecture notes for this course taken by Fetter (in which clear references to Dixon as the lecturer are found) plus about 40 pages of notes he took on his reading assignments. 

This post is limited to providing links to the texts and the weekly reading assignments of Dixon’s course. The course outline is followed by a memorial faculty minute for Professor Frank Haigh Dixon that provides career and biographical information.

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Princeton University, 1924-1925

Government and Business
Economics 407

Links to Course Texts

Gerstenberg, Charles W. Financial Organization and Management. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1924. [Revised in 1923, Second revised edition 1939, Fourth Revised Edition, 1959]

Jones, Eliot. The Trust Problem in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1921.

Ripley, William Z. (ed.). Trusts, Pools and Corporations, rev. ed. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1916.   [1905 edition]

Morgan, Charles Stillman. Regulation and the Management of Public Utilities. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, Riverside Press Cambridge, 1923. [Awarded second prize in Class A of the Hart, Schaffner & Marx competition]

Assignments

Sept. 26 Gerstenberg Ch. 4-7
Sept. 30 Gerstenberg Ch. 8-12
Oct. 6 Gerstenberg Ch. 13, 18, 19, 22
Oct. 13 Gerstenberg Ch. 27, 28, 29
Oct. 20 Gerstenberg Ch. 30, 31, 32
Oct. 27 Gerstenberg Finish book
Nov. 3 Jones

Ripley

Ch. 1, 2, 3, 4, 19

old ed. pp. 244-249
rev. ed. pp. 465-470

Nov. 10 Jones

Ripley

Ch. 13, 14

Ch. 1 and 2

Nov. 17 Jones

Ripley

Ch. 5, 7

Ch 4 (rev.) or 5 (old)

8 (rev. only)

Nov. 24 Jones Ch. 6, 9, 10.
Dec. 1 Jones Ch. 17 & 18
Dec. 8 Jones

Ripley

Ch. 8

Ch 18 (rev ed.) &

pp. 545-549 (rev. ed)

Dec. 15 Jones

Ripley

Morgan

Ch. 15

Ch 19 (rev. ed.)

Ch. 1 & 2

Jan. 12 Morgan Ch. 3, 5
Jan. 19 Morgan Ch. 6, 7

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Frank Whitson Fetter Papers, Box: 49, Folder:  “Student Papers, Graduate Courses (Princeton University) EC 407 Government and Business Notes 1924-1925”.

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Faculty Minute adopted March 6, 1944

FRANK HAIGH DIXON

The death, on January 27, 1944, of Frank Haigh Dixon, professor of economics, emeritus, closed a scholarly career of national distinction in his special field of transportation and public utilities. Professor Dixon was born in Winona, Minn., on October 8, 1869, the son of Alfred C. and Caroline A. D. Dixon. He pursued his collegiate studies at the University of Michigan until his attainment of the doctorate in 1895. This was followed by a year of study at the University of Berlin. Returning to Michigan, he served one year as an instructor in history before becoming an assistant professor of economics. At the University of Michigan he had the good fortune to have as his teacher and later as colleague that able economist and remarkable man, Henry Carter Adams, who at that time was organizing the uniform accountancy system of all the American railroads under the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission. As a young economist Dixon was thus attracted to the subject of transportation, in which he wrote his doctoral thesis. Declining an invitation to go to Cornell University, he in 1898 accepted a call to an assistant professorship at Dartmouth College.

Professor Dixon’s record of academic and public services is outstanding. Following a visit to England in 1900 to get information, he largely prepared the plans for the establishment at Dartmouth of a graduate school of commerce and business, the Amos Tuck School of Administration and Finance, of which he became the first director. In 1903 he attained full professorial rank. Giving up the Tuck School position, he retained the chairmanship of the department of economics and at the time of his resignation to come to Princeton was recognized as one of the most influential leaders in the Dartmouth faculty.

Professor Dixon came to Princeton in 1919 with ripe scholarship, broad experience and outstanding ability as a lecturer and teacher of college classes, as was further evidenced at once by the large enrollments in his Princeton courses. His coming put Princeton in the first rank of American universities for the distinction of its graduate work in this field. His Alma Mater, Michigan, tried in vain to lure him away from us. His services as chairman of the department of economics and social institutions from 1922 to 1927, on various faculty committees, and particularly in the building up of the Pliny Fisk Collection of research material in the fields of railroad and corporation finance, were marked by clear vision, practical judgment, and unwavering loyalty to the best interests of the University as a whole. In 1938, having reached the age for retirement, he became professor emeritus.

From the first of his career Professor Dixon was very active professionally outside the classroom. In 1907-1908 he served as a consulting expert for the Interstate Commerce Commission and in the following year in a similar capacity for the National Waterways Commission. During the first world war he was a special expert for the U.S. Shipping Board and he was a member of the executive board of the New Hampshire Commission on Public Safety. From 1910 to 1918, without giving up his college work, he was chief statistician of the Bureau of Railway Economics at Washington. For a full half century he was a member of the American Economic Association, serving repeatedly on its executive committee, and in 1927 he was vice-president of the Association. His writings, which with few exceptions were on transportation, are too numerous to be listed here. One of the most notable items in his bibliography was his authoritative text published after his coming to Princeton, “Railroads and Government: their Relations in the United States, 1910-1921.”

In 1900 Professor Dixon married Alice L. Tucker, daughter of the Rev. William J. Tucker, then president of Dartmouth College. In coming to Princeton Professor and Mrs. Dixon left in Hanover many close professional and personal friends. In turn they quickly won in Princeton many others whose number and regard have grown with the passing years. We rejoice that Mrs. Dixon is keeping the family residence among us. To her and to her three children, William Tucker, Roger Colt, and Caroline Moorhouse Dixon, the faculty of Princeton University wishes to express its deep sympathy as well as the high appreciation of the large contributions which Frank Haigh Dixon made to this University community.

Frank A. Fetter
William S. Carpenter
Stanley E. Howard, Chairman

 

SourcePrinceton Alumni Weekly, Vol. 44 (April 28, 1922), p. 25.

Image Source: Frank Haigh Dixon faculty portrait Tuck School, Dartmouth College. Rauner Special Collections Library.

Categories
Chicago Economists

Chicago. Visiting Economics Professors, 1896-1943.

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On April 10, 1945, the chairman of the University of Chicago’s economics department, Professor Simeon E. Leland, submitted a 77 page (!) memorandum to President Robert M. Hutchins entitled “Postwar Plans of the Department of Economics–A Wide Variety of Observations and Suggestions All Intended To Be Helpful in Improving the State of the University”.

In his cover letter Leland wrote “…in the preparation of the memorandum, I learned much that was new about the past history of the Department. Some of this, incorporated in the memorandum, looks like filler stuck in, but I thought it ought to be included for historical reasons and to furnish some background for a few of the suggestions.” 

The memorandum deserves reproduction in its entirety sometime (and will probably be done by somebody else), but I intend to serve at least several blogpost-sized portions from Leland’s memo. So look forward for more tables/excerpts to come.

Today we have (1) a list compiled by Leland of visiting professors to the department of economics who had not been absorbed into the faculty as of 1945 (e.g. George Stigler was still at Minnesota at the time of the memo was written. Later posts include (2) data on economics faculty 1944/45 and the trend of enrolments and (3) talent-scouting lists for possible permanent, visiting and joint appointments.

__________________________

 

List of visiting professors
(excluding faculty members who frequently were visitors before joining the University)

[An asterisk (*) for deceased colleagues]

Visiting Professor

Year Institution

Present Location

G. W. S. Adams

1902

Henry C. Adams*

1902

Michigan
Clarence E. Ayers

1923

Amherst

Texas

Stephan Bauer

1899

Chamber of Commerce, Brünn, Austria
Spurgeon Bell

1920

Texas

National Resources Planning Board

E. L. Bogart

1910

Princeton

Illinois (Emeritus)

Arthur J. Boynton*

1914

Kansas
Harry G. Brown

1917

Missouri

Missouri

J. B. Canning

1924

Stanford

Stanford

T. N. Carver

1908

Harvard

Harvard (Emeritus)

Paul T. Cherington

1914

Harvard

McKinsey & Co., Management Consultants, 60 East 42nd St., N.Y.C.

F. E. Clark

1921

Northwestern

Northwestern

F. R. Clow*

1904

State Normal, Oshkosh, Wisconsin
J. B. Condliffe

1941

California

California

Frederick E. Croxton

1926

Ohio State

Columbia

E. E. Day

1910

Harvard

Cornell

F. S. Deibler

1917

Northwestern

Northwestern (Emeritus)

J. C. Duncan

1913

Illinois
J. F. Ebersole

1914

Minnesota

Harvard

Donald English

1916

Cornell

Cornell

Frank A. Fetter

1926

Princeton

Princeton (Emeritus)

Martin G. Glaeser

1930

Wisconsin

Wisconsin

John Paul Good

1899

Eastern Ill. State Normal, Charleston
Frank D. Graham

1930

Princeton

Princeton

Waldo E. Grimes

1939

Kansas State College

Kansas State College

Lawrence H. Grinstead

1926

Ohio State
Walton H. Hamilton

1917

Amherst

Yale

Matthew B. Hammond*

1921

Ohio State
Max S. Handman*

1928

Texas
Lewis H. Haney

1914

Texas

New York

Charles O. Hardy

1923
1925)
1929)
1933)

State Univ. of Iowa

Brookings Institution

Federal Reserve Bank, Kansas City, Missouri

Ernest L. Harris

1904

Grover G. Heubner

1926

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

Jens P. Jensen*

1920)
1930)

Kansas
Alvin S. Johnson

1909

Texas

New School for Social Research

Eliot Jones

1925

Stanford

Stanford

Albert S. Keister

1926)
1927)

North Carolina Woman’s College

North Carolina Woman’s College

William S. Krebs

1921

Washington University

Washington University

Robert R. Kuczynski

1923

Statistical Office, Berlin

12 Lawn Rd., London, N.W. 3, England

Ben W. Lewis

1931)
1937)

Oberlin

Oberlin

H. L. Lutz

1915

Oberlin

Princeton

Leverett S. Lyon

1926)
1927

Brookings Institution

Chicago Association of Commerce

James D. Magee

1916

Cincinnati

New York

T. W. Mitchell

1911

Minnesota
Bernard Moses*

1898

California
Edwin G. Nourse

1931

Brookings Institution

Brookings Institution

T. W. Page*

1898

Randolph-Macon
Maffeo Pantaleoni*

1896

Naples
C. A. Phillips

1931

State Univ. of Iowa

State Univ. of Iowa

H. H. Preston

1924

Univ. of Washington

Univ. of Washington

Benjamin M. Rastall

1910

Wisconsin
H. L. Reed

1923

Washington University

Cornell

R. R. Renne

1940

Montana State

Montana State

Edward V. Robinson*

1908

Minnesota
Clyde O. Ruggles

1916)
1920)

Ohio State

Harvard

William J. Shultz

1926

College of the City of New York

College of the City of New York

Guy E. Snider

1915

College of the City of New York

College of the City of New York

A. E. Staley

1941

Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy

School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, D.C.

George J. Stigler

1943

Minnesota

Minnesota

Walter W. Stewart

1915

Missouri

Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J.

R. H. Tawney

1939

London

London

George O. Virtue*

1915

Nebraska
Norman J. Ware

1942

Wesleyan

Wesleyan

G. S. Wehrwein*

1940

Wisconsin
Louis Weld

1916

Yale

McCann-Erikson Co., New York

Albert C. Whitaker

1912)
1913)

Stanford

Stanford (Emeritus)

Nathaniel R. Whitney

1921

Cincinnati

Proctor and Gamble, Cincinnati

Murray S. Wildman*

1909

Missouri
John H. Williams

1921

Northwestern

Harvard

Milburn L. Wilson

1923

Montana

Chief, Nutrition Programs Branch, Office of Distribution, War Food Administration

Ambrose P. Winston

1913

Pekin
A. B. Wolfe

1915

Texas

Ohio State

Holbrook Working

1928

Stanford

Stanford

Bruce Wyman*

1903

Harvard
Allyn A. Young*

1912

Washington University
Ernest C. Young

1939

Purdue

Purdue

Source: University of Chicago Library, Department of Special Collections. Office of the President. Hutchins Administration Records. Box 73, Folder “Economics Dept., “Post-War Plans” Simeon E. Leland, 1945″.

Image Source: Detail of Simeon E. Leland photograph. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-03717, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Courses Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Methods of Social Reform. Frank A. Fetter, 1906.

Thomas Nixon Carver was granted a sabbatical leave from Harvard for the academic year 1906-07. Frank Albert Fetter from Cornell was hired to teach Carver’s course that covered economic utopias and proposed social reforms. 

Inspecting university course catalogues from where Fetter had previously taught, I was able to find that he did indeed once teach a one term course at Cornell before teaching Carver’s course in 1906:  “Political Science 55a: Socialism and Communism” that was given in the Fall term of a three term academic year 1894-95.

After Fetter returned to Cornell, it appears he then taught a course very similar to what he taught at Harvard: Political Science 66b Social Reforms. “History and growth of the more radical modern plans for changing industrial conditions; program and spirit of the socialistic parties in Europe and America.” (1907-08)

Here are the main dates in Fetter’s career:

1891  A. B. Indiana University
1892  Ph.M. Cornell University
1894  Ph.D. University of Halle
1894-1895   Instructor in Political Economy, Cornell University
1895-1898   Professor of Economics and Social Science, Indiana University
1898-1901   Professor, Stanford University
1901-1911   Professor, Cornell University
1911-1933   Professor, Princeton University

1912  President of the American Economic Association

Comparing this syllabus with those used by Carver before and after this year, one sees that Fetter essentially added items to Carver’s syllabus and made some minor rearrangements of the topics, e.g. anarchism moved to the end of the term.

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If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled thus far. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below.  There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting…

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[Course Enrollment First Half-year 1906-07]

[Economics] 14b 1hf. Professor Fetter (Cornell University).—Methods of Social Reform. Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.

4 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 7 Other. Total 32.

 

Source:  Harvard University. Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College, 1906-07, p.71.

_______________________________

 

ECONOMICS 14b
METHODS OF SOCIAL REFORM

First Half-Year, 1906 – 07, F. A. Fetter.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I.  Evil’s and Discontent Portrayed.

Engels, F., Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.
Rowntree, B. S., Poverty (a study of York, Eng.).
London, J., The People of the Abyss (in London).
Brooks, J. G., The Social Unrest (1903).
Hunter, R., Poverty (a pessimistic view of the U. S.).
Spargo, J., The Bitter Cry of the Children (1906).

II. Utopian Romances (chronological order of publication).

Plato, The Republic (4th century B.C.).
Morley, H. (ed.), Ideal Commonwealths (containing Plutarch’s Lycurgus, More’s Utopia (1516), Bacon’s New Atlantis (1629), Campanella’s City of the Sun (1520), Hall’s Mundus Alter et Idem (1607)).
Cabet, E., Voyage en Icarie (1839)
Bellamy, E., Looking Backward (1887).
Morris, W., News from Nowhere.
Hertzka, Freiland.
Bellamy, E., Equality (1897).
Wells, H. G., Anticipations (1902).
________, Mankind in the Making (1904).
Parry, The Scarlet Empire (1906, anti-utopian).

III. Communistic Experiments (American books in chronological order).

Kautsky, Karl, Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation.
Cabet, E., Icaria (history of the society in America, 1852).
Noyes, J. H., History of American Socialisms (1870).
Nordhoff, Charles, The Communistic Societies of the United States (1875).
Hinds, W. A., American Communities (1878, and later revised edition).
Shaw, Albert, Icaria, a Chapter in the History of Socialism (1884).
Codman, J. T., Brook Farm; Historic and Personal Memoirs (1894).
Randall, E. O., The Zoar Society (1899).
Landis, G. B., The Separatists of Zoar.
Lockwood, George B., The New Harmony Communities.
Broom, Isaac, The Last Days of the Ruskin Coöperative Association (1902).
Hillquist, M., History of Socialism in the United States (1903).

IV. Religious and Altruistic Socialism

Lamennais, Les Parole d’un Croyant.
Kaufman, Lamennais and Kingsley. Contemporary Review, April, 1882.
Kingsley, Charles, Alton Locke.
Stubbs, Charles Kingsley.
Woodworth, A. V., Christian Socialism in England (1903).
Gladden, Washington, Tools and the Man, A View of Christian Socialism.
Strong, Josiah, Our Country (1885), The New Era (1893).
Ballon-Adin, Practical Christian Socialism.
Nitti, F., Catholic Socialism (trans. 1895).
Carlyle, Thomas: “The Socialism and Unsocialism of Thomas Carlyle,” a selection of chapters by W. D. P. Bliss.
Ruskin, John: “The Communism of John Ruskin,” a selection by W. D. P. Bliss from Unto This Last, The Crown of Wild Olive, and Fors Clavigera.
“William Morris, Poet, Artist, Socialist,” a collection of his socialistic writings, by F. W. Lee.

V. History and Exposition of Collectivism (alphabetic by authors).

Dawson, W. H., German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle (1888).
Ely, R. T., French and German Socialism (1883); Socialism, an examination of its nature, strength, and weakness (1895).
Flower, B. O., How England Averted a Revolution of Force (1903).
Gonner, E. C. K., The Socialist Philosophy of Rodbertus (1899).
Graham, William, Socialism, New and Old.
Kirkup, Thomas, A History of Socialism.
Peixotto, Jessica B., The French Revolution and Modern French Socialism (1901).
Rae, John, Contemporary Socialism (2d ed. 1891).
Russell, Bertrand, German Social Democracy.
Schaeffle, Albert, The Quintessence of Socialism (1874).
Sombart, Werner, Socialism and the Social Movement in the 19th Century (1st ed. translated; 5th ed. revised, in German, 1905).
____________, Der moderne Capitalismus, 2 vols.

VI.  Collectivist arguments.

German.

Karl Marx and F. Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1847).
Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1867).
Engels, F., Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
Bebel, A., Woman in the Past, Present and Future (trans. 1894).
Kautsky, K., The Social Revolution (trans. 1903).
Bernstein, E., Ferdinand Lassalle (trans. 1893).
_________, Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus (1899).
_________, Zur Geschichte und Theorie des Sozialismus (2d ed. 1901).

English and American.

Hyndman, H. M., The Economics of Socialism (English of the Marxist school).
Webb, Sydney and Beatrice, Problems of Modern Industry.
Fabian Essay in Socialism, B. Shaw and others.
Fabian Tracts, 1-86 (1884-1899).
Blatchford, R., Merrie England (1895).
Gronlund, L., The Coöperative Commonwealth (1895).
_________, The New Economy (1898).
Bliss, W. P. D., A Handbook of Socialism (1895).
Vail, Modern Socialism (1899).
Ghent, W. J., Our Benevolent Feudalism.
_________, Mass and Class.
London, J., War of the Classes.
Spargo, John, Socialism (1906).

Various.

Selections from Fourier.
Jaures, J., Studies in Socialism (trans. 1906).
Ensor, R. C. K., Modern Socialism as set forth by Socialists (collection of 29 articles, 1904).
Labriola, A., Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History (trans. 1904).
Vandervelde, E., Collectivism.

VII. Anti-Collectivist Arguments.

Brunhuber, Dr. Robert, Die heutige Sozialdemokratie (1906).
Cathrein, Rev. Victor, Socialism Exposed and Refuted (trans. 1902).
______________, Socialism, its Theoretical Basis and Practical Application.
Gilman, N. P., Socialism and the American Spirit.
Gonner, E. C. K., The Socialist State.
Guyot, Y., The Tyranny of Socialism.
Le Bon, G., Psychology of Socialism (trans. 1899).
Mackay, T., A Plea for Liberty.
Malloch, W. H., Labor and the Popular Welfare (new ed., 1894).
___________, Classes and Masses.
___________, Aristocracy and Evolution (1898).
Menger, A., The Right to the Whole Produce of Labor (trans. 1899).
Sanders, G. A., Reality, or Law and Order vs. Anarchy and Socialism, a reply to E. Bellamy (1898).
Schaeffle, A., The Impossibility of Social Democracy (1884).
Simonson, G., A Plain Examination of Socialism (1900).
Spencer, H., The Coming Slavery.

VIII. Land Nationalization.

Favorable.

George, H., Progress and Poverty.
______________, Our Land and Land Policy.
Wallace, A. R., Studies, Scientific and Social (in Vol. II, articles on land nationalization).
Loria, A., Problèmes Sociaux Contemporains.
George, H., Jr., The Menace of Privilege.
Shearman, T. G., Natural Taxation.

Unfavorable.

Cathrein, Rev. Victor, The Champions of Agrarian Socialism, A Refutation of Lavelèye and George (trans. 1889).
Huxley, T. H., Evolution and Ethics (chs. on single tax, 1894).
_________, Social Diseases and Worse Remedies (1891).
Rae, John, Ch. 12 of Contemporary Socialism.
Smart, W., Taxation of Land Values (1900).
Walker, F. A., Land and Its Rent (1883).

General.

Epps, Land Systems of Australia.
Lefèvre-Shaw, English Commons and Forests.

IX. The Extension of State Action

Adams, H. C., The Relation of the State to Industrial Action.
Ely, R. T., Problems of To-day (chs. 17-23).
Hobson, J. A., The Social Problem, Life and Work (1901).
Jevons, W. S., Methods of Social Reform (last 5 chs.).
Ritchie, D. C., Principles of State Interference.
_________, Darwinism and Politics.
Taylor, F. M., The Right of the State to Be (1891).
Willoughby, W. W., Social Justice.

X. Anarchism and Nihilism.

Godwin, William, Political Justice; on Property.
Tolstoi, L., The Slavery of Our times (1900).
Kropotkin, The Scientific Basis of Anarchy. Nineteenth Century, 21: 238.
______________, The Coming Anarchy. Nineteenth Century, 22: 149.
Reclus, Elisée, Anarchy. Contemporary Review, 14: 627.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1906-1907).

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Seminary in Economics. Topics and Speakers, 1891/2-1907/8

 The inspiration for the research workshop goes back to the German tradition of the research seminar for which the English word “seminary” was used. A sole economics seminary was announced at Harvard for the period 1892-1933 according to the annual Announcement of Courses of Instructions. One presumes the division of workshops is limited by the extent of the graduate program and that, by the early 1930s, the scale and scope of the Harvard department supported greater differentiation of its research seminars. The later Hansen-Williams Fiscal Seminar is an example of the kind of specialized workshop that was to develop. 

This posting provides the names and topics of presenters at the seminary in economics as published in the Harvard University Catalogues up through the academic year 1907/08 after which time we need to draw on other sources, e.g. announcements of individual seminars published in the Harvard University Gazette or the Harvard Crimson. Where invited guest lecturers for the public were announced, e.g. John Commons and Thorstein Veblen, I have included the information for the corresponding year.

________________________________

[First announcement of the Seminary in Economics, 1892-93]

Economics 20. Seminary in Political Economy.

Professors Dunbar and Taussig, and Mr. Cummings, will guide competent students in research on topics assigned after consolation. The Seminary will hold weekly meetings; and in addition each student will confer individually, once a week, with the instructor under whose guidance he carries on his investigations.

Source:  Harvard University, Announcement of Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1892-93, p. 32.

________________________________

[Last announcement of the Seminary in Economics, 1932-33]

The Seminary in Economics. Mon., at 7.45 P.M.

Meetings are held by instructors and advanced students for the presentation of the results of investigation.

Source: Harvard University, Announcement of Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1932-33 (second edition), p. 130.

_________________________________________

1891-92

At the Seminaries of Political Economy and American History (Joint Meetings):

Colonial Tariffs. Mr. William Hill.
Periodical Literature and Collections. Professor Taussig.
Suppression of the African Slave Trade. Mr. W. E. B. DuBois.
The Episcopal Church and Slavery. Mr. W. L. Tenney.
The Pacific Railways. Mr. H. K. White.
The Central Pacific Railway. Mr. W. Olney.
Impeachment Trials. Mr. Melville E. Ingals, Jr.
Some Early Anti-Immigration Laws. Mr. E. E. Proper.
Reconstruction in South Carolina. Mr. D. F. Houston.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1892-93, p. 122.

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1892-93

At the Seminary in Economics:

The economic periodicals of France and England. Prof. C. F. Dunbar.
The economic periodicals of Germany and the United States. Professor F. W. Taussig.
Georgia’s experiment in state railway management. Mr. G. Walcott.
The theory of gluts, with special reference to earlier discussions. Mr. C. W. Mister.
Public works in Pennsylvania. Mr. A. M. Day.
Postal subsidies in Great Britain. Mr. H. C. Emery.
Internal improvement in Indiana. Mr. H. H. Cook.
Railway Pools in the United States. Mr. G. L. Sheldon.
The earlier history of the anthracite coal industry. Mr. G. O. Virtue.
The construction of the Union Pacific Railway. Mr. H. K. White.
The organization of Poor Relief in Massachusetts. Mr. H. K. White.

At the Seminaries of American History and Institutions and of Economics. (Joint Meetings):

Study of History and Economics in English Universities. Professor W. J. Ashley.
The Mark theory. President E. A. Bryan.
Tariff legislation in the United States from 1783-1789. Mr. William Hill.
The federal import and the tariff act of 1879. Mr. William Hill.
The currency situation in the United States. Professor F. W. Taussig.
Legislation by the states on the issue of bank notes. Mr. D. F. Houston.

 

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1893-94, pp. 129-130.

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1893-94

At the Seminary of Economics:

The economic congresses and meetings at Chicago. Professors Cummings and Taussig.
The economic and statistical meetings at Chicago. Professor Taussig.
Combinations among anthracite coal producers since 1873. Mr. Virtue.
Results of recent investigations on prices in the United States. Professor Taussig.
Some phases of public management of railways in Victoria (Australia). Mr. H. R. Meyer.
Local rivalry in the earlier development of internal improvements in the United States. Mr. A. M. Day.
Forestry legislation in the United States. Mr. C. C. Closson.
The Trunk Line Pool, and its effects on railway rates. Mr. G. L. Sheldon.
Sismondi and the theory of gluts. Mr. C. W. Mixter.
The earlier stages of the operation of the Erie canal. Mr. W. R. Buckminster.
The income tax of the civil war. Mr. J. A. Hill.
Internal improvements in Illinois. Mr. G. S. Callender.
Changes in the factory population of the United States. Mr. E. H. Vickers.
The Canadian Pacific Railway. Mr. G. W. Cox.
Public railway management in New South Wales. Mr. H. R. Meyer.
The development of the theory of gluts and over-accumulation. Mr. C. W. Mixter.
Compulsory insurance in Germany. Mr. J. G. Brooks.
The Erie canal. Mr. W. R. Buckminster.
The factory system in the United States. Mr. E. H. Vickers.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1894-95, p. 136.

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1894-95

At the Seminary of Economics:

Wilhelm Roscher. Professor Ashley.
The factory operatives in the United States. Mr. E. H. Vickers.
The classification of the Political Sciences. Professor Ashley.
The English Budget of 1894. Mr. F. R. Clow.
The antecedents of J. S. Mill’s “Principles.” Messrs. Aldrich, Estabrook, and Harper.
The theory of “House-Industry.” Mr. O. M. W. Sprague.
Definition and history of statistics. Mr. H. H. Cook.
The distribution of mediaeval fairs. Mr. J. Sullivan.
The United States and its mineral lands Mr. G. O. Virtue.
Child labor in the early factories. Mr. Hisa.
The economic condition of the South. Dr. E. von Halle.
The Chicago strike. Professor Ashley.
Legislation on arbitration in the United States. Rev. T. P. Berle.
The taxation of sugar in Germany. Mr. G. E. Chipman.
State railroads in New South Wales. Mr. H. R. Meyer.
Economic teaching in Germany. Rev. W. L. Bevan.
English industrial organization in the 17th and 18th centuries. Mr. O. M. W. Sprague.
Mediaeval fairs and the law merchant. Mr. J. Sullivan.
The antecedents of Mill’s “Doctrine of Value.” Mr. E. H. Harper.
The financing of internal improvements in the Northwest. Mr. G. S. Callender.
The antecedents of Mill’s chapters on Property and Land-Tenure. Mr. H. K. Estabrook.
Technical education in England. Mr. G. W. Cox.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue, 1895-96, p. 139.

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1895-96

Eight lectures by Francis A. Walker, LL.D., on Bimetallism since the Discovery of America.

Lecture. The Present Condition of the Currency of the United States. Professor F. W. Taussig.

At the Seminary of Economics: —

Economics in Italy. Professor Taussig.
The study of economics in German universities. Mr. C. W. Mixter.
The theory of the standard of living, from Adam Smith to J. S. Mill. Mr. R. Ware.
Financial operations by the loyal states during the Civil War (1861-1865). Mr. H. H. Cook.
International borrowing in its early stages, with special reference to England and the United States, 1820-1840. Mr. G. S. Callender.
The workman in the textile industries of England and the United States. Mr. S. N. D. North.
Attainment of the income tax in England. Mr. A. M. Chase.
Public management of railways in Victoria. Mr. H. R. Meyer.
The organization and regulation of certain domestic industries in England in the 18th century. Mr. O. M. W. Sprague.
The taxation of personal property in Massachusetts. Mr. E. W. Hooper.
The annual appropriation bill of the city of Boston. Mr. W. H. King.
The legal tender acts of 1862. Mr. D. C Barrett.
Fundamental errors in sociology. Dr. Frederick H. Wines.
International borrowing before 1850. Mr. G. S. Callender.
The tonnage laws and the shipping policy of the United States. Mr. P. D. Phair.
The internal revenue act of 1862. Mr. G. Thomas.
The beginning of liquor legislation. Mr. A. P. Andrew.
The international trade of the United States in its relation to recent currency legislation. Mr. A. Sweezey.
Beginnings of trade and industry in Scotland, with some account of the early Guilds. Mr. T. Allison.
The bimetallic situation. President Francis A. Walker.
The Intercolonial Railway of Canada. Mr. C. E. Seaman.
The railway situation in California. Mr. H. C. Marshall and Dr. F. E. Haynes.
The taxation of sugar in the United States since 1860. Mr. C. S. Griffin.
The economic basis of Irish emigration 1650-1850. Mr. H. H. Cook.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1896-97, pp. 138-9, 141-42.

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1896-97

Eight lectures on the Income Taxes in Germany, Switzerland, and England, by Dr. J. A. Hill. Subjects as follows: —

Income Taxes in Germany: Historical Development. The Taxpayers, the Taxable Income, and the Rates.
The Methods of Assessment. Income and Property Taxes in Switzerland: Their Development. The Rate and Exemptions. The Methods of Assessment.
The English Income Tax: Its History. The Assessment.

At the joint meetings of the Seminary of American History and Institutions and the Seminary of Economics: 

Methods and experience of historical investigation. Mr. J. F. Rhodes.
The financial procedure of a state legislature. Mr. F. C. Lowell.

At the Seminary of Economics:

French economic periodicals and other aids to economic study. Professor Dunbar.
Periodicals and other aids to economic study, in France. Professor Dunbar.
Periodicals and other aids to economic study, in England and the United States. Professor Ashley.
John Rae: A neglected economist. Mr. C. W. Mixter.
Some impressions of reformatories. Mr. W. H. Gratwick.
Sir Robert Giffen on prices in relation to material progress in England. Mr. F. Atherton.
The woolen manufacturer and the tariff. Mr. A. T. Lyman.
British capital and American resources, 1815-1850. Mr. G. S. Callender.
The taxation of sugar in the United States, 1789-1861. Mr. C. S. Griffin.
Recent immigration into the United States. Mr. E. H. Warren.
Apportionments of national bank currency. Mr. T. Cooke.
Some phases of the history of the Union Pacific Railway. Mr. S. P. West.
Some recent phases of economic thought in the United States. Mr. J. A. Tirrell.
The condition of coal-miners in the bituminous districts. Mr. H. E. George.
Certain phases of the history and literature of industrial depression from 1873 to 1886. Mr. C. Beardsley, Jr.
The financial history of the Pennsylvania Railway. Mr. R. D. Jenks.
Some aspects of the financial history of the Union Pacific Railway. Mr. S. P. West.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1897-98, p. 387-388, 391-392.

 

_________________________________________

1897-98

At the joint meetings of the Seminary of American History and Institutions and the Seminary of Economics:

Some results of an inquiry on taxation in Massachusetts. Professor F. W. Taussig.
The Making of a Tariff. Mr. S. N. D. North.
The currency reform plan of the Indianapolis convention. Professor Dunbar.

At the Seminary of Economics:

Trade-unions in Australia. Dr. M. A. Aldrich.
The coal miners’ strike of 1897. Mr. J. E. George.
An analysis of the law of diminishing returns. Dr. C. W. Mixter.
The Secretary of the Treasury and the currency, 1865-1879. Mr. H. C. Marshall.
An inquiry on government contract work in Canada. Mr. W. L. M. King.
The sugar industry in Europe as affected by taxes and bounties. Mr. C. S. Griffin.
The security of bank notes based on general assets, as indicated by experience under the national bank system. Mr. A. O. Eliason.
The inter-colonial railway. Mr. C. E. Seaman.
Some results of the new method of assessing the income tax in Prussia. Dr. J. A. Hill.
Antonio Serra and the beginnings of political economy in Italy. Mr. D. F. Grass.
The American Federation of Labor. Dr. M. A. Aldrich.
The earlier stages of the silver movement in the United States. Mr. Randolph Paine.
The land grant to the Union Pacific Railroad. Mr. R. W. Cone.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1898-99, pp. 400-1.

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1898-99

Fifteen lectures on Life Insurance by Charlton T. Lewis, of New York City.

At the Seminary of Economics: 

Aids in economic investigation. Professor Taussig.
Economic study in England. Dr. O. M. W. Sprague.
The growth and the constituent elements of the population of Boston. Mr. F. A. Bushée (2).
Some operations of the United States Treasury in 1894-96. Professor Taussig.
The Interstate Commerce Act as interpreted by the courts. Mr. F. Hendrick.
The English industrial crisis of 1622. Dr. O. M. W. Sprague.
The earlier history of the English income tax. Dr. J. A. Hill.
The theory of savers’ rent and some of its applications. Dr. C. W. Mixter.
The working of the French Railway Conventions of 1883. Mr. F. Hendrick.
The adoption of the gold standard by England in 1816. Mr. D. F. Grass.

 

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1899-1900, pp. 412, 417.

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1899-1900

Lecture. The United States census. Professor W. F. Willcox, of the Census Office.

At the Seminary of Economics:

Aids in Economic study: (1) Specialized publications in Germany. Professor F. W. Taussig.
(2) English and American literature. Professor Ashley.
(3) American publications. Professor Taussig.
The conference on trusts at Chicago. Mr. John Graham Brooks.
Legislation on combinations and trusts in the United States. Mr. R. C. Davis.
Judicial decisions on statutes relating to combinations and trusts. Mr. R. C. Davis.
The tenement house exhibition, and tenement conditions in Boston. Mr. F. A. Bushée.
The influence of the tariff on the iron and steel industry. Mr. D. S. Bobb.
The duties on wool and their effects, 1870-1899. Mr. F. W. Wose.
The duty on copper and its effects. Mr. W. D. Shue.
The duties on sugar and their effects. Mr. G. H. Johnston.
The economic aspects of close commercial relations with Hawaii. Mr. U. S. Parker.
The discussion of value at the hands of English writers before Adam Smith. Mr. C. Bowker.
The silk manufacture and the tariff. Mr. S. S. Fitzgerald.
The commercial crisis of 1857. Mr. C. Hobbs.
The economic significance of the Hebrew year of jubilee. Mr. R. J. Sprague.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1900-1, pp. 429, 432.

_________________________________________

1900-01

Six lectures on Statistics of Wages, by the Hon. Carroll D. Wright:—

Methods and Difficulties in Collecting Statistics of Wages.
Difficulties and Fallacies in Presentations of Wages.
Chief Sources of Statistical Information on Wages.
Value of the Various Collections of Wages Statistics.
Money Wages as shown by Statistics during last Half Century.
Real Wages for the same period.

At the Seminary of Economics:

The trusts and the tariff. Mr. Charles Beardsley.
Civil service reform in Australia: its successes and its failures. I. Victoria; II. New South Wales. Mr. H. R. Meyer.
The early history of the Standard Oil Combination. Mr. G. H. Montague.
Manufacturing industries in the South End of Boston. Mr. R. F. Phelps .
Notes on a transcontinental journey. Professor Taussig.
Relations of employers and workmen in the Boston building trades. Mr. W. H. Sayward.
Changes in the geographical distribution of the Southern negroes since the Civil War. Mr. R. J. Sprague.
Changes in the tenure and ownership of land in the South since the Civil War. Mr. R. J. Sprague.
The early history of the Erie Railway. Mr. A. J. Boynton.
The early history of banking in Massachusetts. Mr. F. L. Bugbee.
The work of the United States Industrial Commission. Professor E. D. Durand, of Stanford University.
The cotton-seed oil industry. Mr. W. D. Shue.
Combinations in the German iron trade. Mr. E. B. Stackpole.
Are the English payments to mail steamships subsidies? Mr. W. E. Stilwell.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1901-02, pp. 414, 419-420.

 

_________________________________________

1901-02

Seminary in EconomicsMon., at 4.30. Professor Ashley and Asst. Professor Carver.

In the Seminary, the instructors undertake the guidance of students in independent investigation, and give opportunity for the presentation and discussion of the result of investigation. Members of the Graduate School who propose to conduct inquiries having in view the preparation of theses to be presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, may select subjects agreed upon after conference with the instructors, and may carry on investigations on such subjects, as part of the work in the Seminary.
The general meetings of the Seminary are held on the first and third Mondays of each month. The members of the Seminary confer individually, at stated times arranged after consultation, with the instructors under whose special guidance they are conducting their researches.
At the regular meetings, the results of the investigations of members are presented and discussed. The instructors also at times present the results of their own work, and give accounts of the specialized literature of Economics. At intervals, other persons are invited to address the Seminary on subjects of theoretic or practical interest, giving opportunity for contact and discussion with the non-academic world.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Official Register of Harvard University 1901-1902. Box 1. Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of History and Political Science (June 21, 1901), University Publications, New Series, No. 16, p. 48.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Four lectures by Professor Edward A. Ross, on “The Growth and present Stage of the Literature of Sociology”:—

The Building of Sociology.
The Recent Tendencies of Sociology.
The Moot Points of Sociology.
The Desiderata of Sociology.

At the Seminary of Economics:

The Rise of the Oil Monopoly. Mr. G. H. Montague.
The Conditions of Employment and Housing of South End (Boston) Factory Operatives. Mr. R. Morris.
Principles Underlying the Demarcation between Public and Private Industries. Mr. R. Morris.
Restriction of Municipal Gas and Electric Plants in Massachusetts. Mr. A. D. Adams.
Economic Conditions in Nicaragua. Dr. C. W. Mixter.
Some Theoretical Possibilities of Protective Tariffs. Professor Carver.
A Study of some Records of the Associated Charities of Boston. Mr. H. R. Meyer.
The Rise and Regulation of Municipal Gas and Electric Plants in Massachusetts. Mr. A. D. Adams.
Le Solidarisme social de M. Leon Bourgeois. Professor Léopold Mabilleau.
A Review of the French and Italian Economic Journals. Professor Ripley, Dr. A. P. Andrew, Mr. C. W. Doten, and Mr. R. F. Phelps.
National Corporation Laws for Industrial Organizations. Mr. James B. Dill.
The Budgetary System of Canada. Mr. R. C. Matthews.
The Elements of Labor and Relief Departments in Railway Expenditure. Mr. A. L. Horst.
The Economics of Colonization. Professor E. A. Ross.
Elizabethan Mercantilism as seen in the Corn Trade. Mr. R. G. Usher.
The Present Position of Economics in Japan. Mr. Nobushiro Sakurai.
The Economic Theories of Josiah Tucker. Mr. Robert Morris.
Urban and Suburban Residence of South End (Boston)
Factory Employés. Mr. R. F. Phelps.
The Recent History of the Standard Oil Monopoly. Mr. G. H. Montague.
State v. Local Control of the Boston Police. Mr. F. R. Cope.
The Laws regulating Muncipal Gas and Electric Plants in Massachusetts. Mr. A. D. Adams.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1902-03, pp. 431, 434-435.

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1902-03

Eight lectures on “Some Leading Principles of Political Economy and Statistics,” by Professor F. Y. Edgeworth, of Oxford University, as follows: —

The Theory of Value applied to International Trade.
The Exceptions to the Rule of Free Trade.
Value in a Regime of Monopoly.
The Value of Land and other Factors of Production.
The Taxation of Urban Site Values.
The Higher Theory of Statistics.
Index Numbers.
Supplementary.

At the Seminary of Economics:

Reports on Current American and English Economic Periodicals, respectively by Messrs. R. W. Magrane and H. M. Kallen.
Gas Profits in Massachusetts. Mr. Alton D. Adams.
Economic Problems and Conditions in the Far Northwest. Professor C. Beardsley.
Report on Economics in Italy. Mr. D. H. Webster.
Reforms in Economic Teaching in the English Universities. Professor F. Y. Edgeworth.
Reports on Current German Periodicals and Literature. Messrs. W. H. Price and G. R. Lewis.
Recent Changes in the Rate of Wages. Dr. E. D. Durand.
Classification of Occupations in Relation to the Tariff. Mr. Edward Atkinson.
A Study of the Boston Ghetto. Mr. H. M. Kallen.
Report on Current French Literature. Mr. A. B. Wolfe.
The Anatomy of a Tenement Street. Mr. H. M. Kallen.
Railroad Reorganization in the United States. Mr. S. Daggett.
The Inclosure Movement and the English Rebellions of the Sixteenth Century. Dr. E. F. Gay.
A Stock Exchange Day. Mr. Sumner B. Pearmain.
The Lodging House Problem in Boston. Mr. A. B. Wolfe.
Jewish Trade Unions in Boston. Mr. Philip Davis.
Economics of the American Corn Belt. Mr. A. J. Boynton.
Movement of Real Estate Values in American Cities. Mr. Henry Whitmore.
Report on Labor Journals and Trades Union Publications. Mr. V. Custis.
Some Phases of the American Copper Mining Industry. Mr. G. R. Lewis.
The Determination of Franchise Values. Mr. C. W. Wright.
Initiation Ceremonies among Primitive Peoples. Mr. D. H. Webster.
The Indebtedness of English Mercantilism to Holland. Mr. E. T. Miller.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1903-04, pp. 466, 469.

_________________________________________

1903-04

At the Seminary of Economics:

A Trip through the Corn Country of the West. Professor Carver.
Early History of Economic Studies in American Colleges. Professor Bullock.
The Growth of Labor Organization in the United States. Professor Ripley.
Industrial Combinations in Germany, with special reference to Coal. Dr. F. Walker.
Our Trade Relations with Canada. Mr. Osborne Howes.
Supervision of National Banks, solvent and insolvent, by the Comptroller of the Currency. Mr. William A. Lamson (H. U. ’81), National Bank Examiner.
The Effect of Trade Unions upon Industrial Efficiency. Mr. Henry White, Secretary of the United Garment Workers of America.
The Financing of Corporations. Hon. Charles S. Fairchild.
A Remedy for Some Industrial Troubles. Hon. William B. Rice.
The Elizabethan Patents of Monopoly. Mr. W. H. Price.
The English Miner in the Middle Ages. Mr. G. R. Lewis.
The Northern Securities Case and the Supreme Court Decision. Mr. E. B. Whitney.
Progress in Manufactures in the United States. Hon. S. N. D. North, Director United States Census Bureau.
The Expansion Periods of 1878-85 and 1897-02 compared. Mr. Sumner B. Pearmain, ’83.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1904-05, p. 457.

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1904-05

Under the auspices of the Department of Economics, Professor W. F. Willcox, of Cornell University, gave three lectures on some results of the United States census enumeration of 1900: —

1. The Population of the United States.
2. Some Statistical Aspects of the Negro Problem.
3. The Birth Rate and Death Rate of the United States.

Three lectures on the “Relations between Trade Unions and Employers’ Organizations,” by Professor John R. Commons, of the University of Wisconsin: —

1. The Teamsters’ Organizations in Chicago.
2. Industrial Organizations in the Window-glass Manufacture.
3. Industrial Organizations in the Stove Manufacture.

At the Seminary of Economics:

The Forces in Industrial Consolidation. Mr. V. Custis.
Railroad Reorganization. Mr. S. Daggett.
The Specialized Literature of Economics: Periodicals, Dictionaries, and the Like. I. German Publications. Professor Taussig.
II. English and American. Professor T. N. Carver.
The French Corn Laws from 1515 to 1660. Mr. A. P. Usher.
The Meeting of the American Economic Association at Chicago. Professor Taussig.
Trade Unionism and Politics. Mr. Ray Stannard Baker.
Social Problems of American Farmers. President Kenyon L. Butterfield, of Rhode Island College of Agriculture.
Wool-growing in the United States. Mr. C. W. Wright.
Public Opinion as a Factor in Industrial Consolidation. Mr. V. Custis.
Marx’s Theory of Value. Mr. F. W. Johnston.
The Atchison System. Mr. S. Daggett.
Wool-growing in the United States since 1860. Mr. C. W. Wright.
The Negro in Boston. Mr. J. Daniels.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1905-06, pp. 456-457, 460-1.

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1905-06

Lecture. Followers of Karl Marx. Professor T. B. Veblen, of the University of Chicago.

Lecture. The Diffusion of Economic Knowledge. Professor Simon Newcomb.

At the Seminary of Economics:

Railroad Reorganization, The Philadelphia and Reading R. R. Mr. Stuart Daggett.
The Railway Rate Situation. Mr. C. A. Legg.
Stages of Economic Growth. Professor E. F. Gay.
The Finances of Boston, 1820-1860. Mr. C. P. Huse.
The Intendants and the Organization of the Corn Trade in France, 1683-1715.
Mr. A. P. Usher. Collateral Bond Issues. Mr. Thomas Warner Mitchell.
The Earlier History of the English Post-office. Mr. J. C. Hemmeon.
The Meeting of the American Economic Association at Baltimore. Professor Taussig.
The Organization of a Cooperative Business. Mr. E. A. Filene.
The Development of English Trade to the Levant. Miss G. F. Ward.
The Telephone Situation in Great Britain. Mr. A. N. Holcombe.
Characteristics of Railroad Reorganizations. Mr. Stuart Daggett.
The Distribution of Socialistic Sentiment. Professor T. B. Veblen, of the University of Chicago.
Transportation in Modern England, to 1830. Mr. W. Jackman.
The Dutch-English Rivalry, with Special Reference to Fisheries. Mr. H. L. Drury.
Recent History of the Glass Manufacture in the United States. Mr. D. F. Edwards.
A Discussion of Distribution. Mr. F. W. Johnston.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1906-07, pp. 536-7, 540.

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1906-07

Lectures on Municipal Ownership. Major Leonard Darwin, of London, England, gave a series of lectures on Municipal Ownership: —

1. The Main Issues connected with Municipal Ownership. The Regulation of Private Trade. Municipal Ownership and Local Taxation.
2. English Municipal Statistics. The Probability of Profit-Making by Municipal Ownership. Municipal Management.
3. Municipal Corruption. Wages under Municipal Ownership. The Direct Employment of Labour by Municipalities.
4. Municipal Ownership without Direct Employment. Municipal Ownership and Socialistic Ideals.

Through the courtesy of the National Civic Federation, a series of five public lectures on Socialism and the Allied Social and Economic Questions was given by W. H. Mallock, A.M.

Lecture. The New Interstate Commerce Act. Professor F. H. Dixon.

At the Seminary of Economics:

Impressions of Sociological Study in Foreign Countries. Mr. J. A. Field.
Field Observations on the Tobacco Industry. Mr. S. O. Martin.
The Financial Policy of Massachusetts from 1780 to 1800. Professor Bullock.
The Financial Policy of Alabama from 1819 to 1860. Mr. W. O. Scroggs.
The Finances of Boston, 1820-1860. Mr. C. P. Huse.
Some Aspects of the History of the English Mining Classes. Dr. G. R. Lewis.
Some Aspects of the Early Railway Era in Great Britain. Mr. William Jackman.
Land and Capital. Professor Fetter.
The Theory of Interest. Professor Fetter.
The Beet-Sugar Industry in the United States. Mr. M. H. Salz.
The Recent Tariff History of Canada. Mr. W. W. McLaren.
Commercial Education in American Universities. Mr. F. V. Thompson.
The English Board of Trade during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, and its Records. Mr. J. R. H. Moore.
The Cotton Manufacture in the United States since 1860. Mr. M. T. Copeland.
Some Discoveries in Economic History. M. le vicomte Georges d’Avenel.
A Course of Instruction in Business Management. Mr. H. S. Person.
Bank Reserves in England, Canada, and the United States. Mr. F. S. Mead.
A Journey into the Tobacco-raising Districts of the West and South. Mr. S. O. Martin.
Sketch of the Legislative History of Massachusetts Business Corporations. Mr. W. E. Rappard.
The English Fisheries, 1500-1800. Mr. H. L. Drury.
Municipal Ownership of Telephones in Great Britain. Mr. A. N. Holcombe.
Researches in a Manufacturing Suburb. Mr. E. L. Sheldon.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1907-08, pp. 431, 437-438.

 

_________________________________________

1907-08

Under the auspices of the Department of Economics, Dr. Victor S. Clark gave two lectures on Australian Economic Problems: —

1. Railways: History and Administration.
2. Railways: Description and Statistics.

Dr. Clark also gave two public lectures: —

1. State and Federal Finance in Australia.
2. The Tariff Policy of Australia.

At the Seminary of Economics:

General Principles of Railroad Reorganization. Dr. Stuart Daggett.
The Silk Manufacture. Mr. F. R. Mason.
The Silk Manufacture and the Tariff. Mr. F. R. Mason.
Certain Phases of the Theory of Population since Malthus. Mr. J. A. Field.
The Commercial Use of Credit Instruments previous to 1724. Mr. A. P. Usher.
The Conduct of Public Works in English Towns in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Miss S. L. Hadley.
The Growth of the Knit Goods Industry. Mr. M. T. Copeland.
The Foreign Trade of England during the Thirteenth Century, especially with regard to the Italian. Miss G. F. Ward.
A Statistical Survey of Italian Emigration. Mr. R. F. Foerster.
The Meetings of the Economic and Sociological Associations at Madison. Professor Carver and Mr. J. A. Field.
The Canadian Reciprocity Treaty of 1854. Mr. W. W. McLaren.
Factory Labor in Massachusetts: Legislation and Economic Condition, 1810-1880. Mr. C. E. Persons.
Tax Administration in New York City. Mr. Lawson Purdy.
The Recent History of the Standard Oil Company. Mr. H. B. Platt.
The Wool and Woolens Act of 1867. Mr. P. W. Saxton.
The Causes of the Rise in Prices since 1898. Mr. H. L. Lutz.
The Corn Law Policy in England up to 1689. Mr. N. S. B. Gras.
Agrarian Conditions in Southwest Germany from the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Century. Mr. H. C. Dale.
The Land Policy of Australia. Dr. Victor S. Clark.
Proposed Old Age Pension Legislation in England. Mr. R. M. Davis.
The Anthracite Coal Roads and the Coal Companies. Mr. E. Jones.
The Greenback Movement, with Special Reference to Iowa and Wisconsin. Mr. C. O. Ruggles.
Fibres and Fibre Products. Mr. B. S. Foss.
A Study of the Population of Cambridgeport. Mr. A. J. Kennedy.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1908-09, pp. 450, 455-6.

 

 

Categories
Economists Stanford

History of Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. From Report to Ford Foundation, 1954

Having most recently posted brief histories of the behavioral sciences as reported by Harvard and Chicago to a larger Ford Foundation Project that was completed 1953-4, I simply couldn’t resist going the extra mile to add the corresponding chapter for Stanford University’s contribution to the project here. I have added boldface to highlight economics-specific information for those of you historians of economics in a hurry.

________________________________

[p. 6]

Chapter 3
The Development of the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford

I. PRIOR TO THE SECOND WORLD WAR

A. Teaching. When instruction at the University began, in 1891, there were at Stanford only three departments—History, Psychology, and Economics and Social Science—embracing the field of the behavioral sciences. The last of these had three divisions: I. Political Economy, Statistics and Finance; II. Sociology; and III. Political Science. Thus all the present behavioral science departments except Journalism were present in some form or other from the very start. The Economics Department retained its conglomerate character as the haven of incipient departments until the Second World War.

In the next year, 1892, there were added two new departments — Education and Law — which for a period of years were closely related to the original three. The Department of Law was not conceived on a merely vocational basis, but listed among its “ultimate aims” the furnishing of “such instruction in the elementary principles of Anglo-American law as may properly form a part of the education of an American citizen”; the furnishing of “such instruction in commercial law as may be adapted to the needs of those who intend to become merchants, bankers, brokers, etc. or to follow other lines of business”; the providing “for students intending to enter the public service, adequate instruction in public and international law”; and the furnishing “to students of political and social science, training in special branches of law related to such subjects”.1 The Department of Education in its very first year listed at least one course, “Studies on Children”, that was [p. 7] substantially a psychology course, and over the many succeeding years such courses were increased in number and scope as the Department developed into a School.

The “charter members” of the Stanford faculty in the behavioral sciences included at least two eminent figures. Andrew Dickson White, who had been President of Cornell from 1866-1885 and Minister to Germany from 1879-1881, was the first Professor of History. His service at Stanford was interrupted from 1892-1894 while he was President Cleveland’s Minister to Russia and in 1896 while he served on the Venezuelan Commission. The first Professor of Law was Benjamin Harrison, who came to his chair at Stanford immediately on taking his leave of the Presidency of the United States in 1893. The original Professor of Psychology, Frank Angell, continued in his chair until 1921 and was the last of the “charter” faculty in the behavioral sciences to retire. Amos Griswold Warner, first Professor of Economics, had been Superintendent of Charities in Washington, D. C. The stamp of his influence was reflected in the curriculum for most of the years following until the Second World War, particularly in the emphasis on social institutions, on reform and remedial legislation, and on charities and humanitarianism.

Stanford was coeducational from the start; in fact, the first person awarded the Ph.D. degree in the behavioral sciences was a woman, Mary Roberts Smith, who received her degree in Sociology in the year 1896. The first doctorate in any field had been awarded two years before in Geology. In the very first academic year, nine behavioral science degrees were awarded, 8 in History and 1 in Economics and Social Science. There were 63 student majors in the behavioral sciences that year—1 in Psychology, 49 in History, and 13 in Economics and Social Science. At the second commencement 4 students of History and 1 in Economics and Social Science were granted master’s degrees, the first in the departments’ history. The first class to complete four years’ residence, 1894-95, graduated 31 in behavioral sciences: [p. 8] 20 A.B.’s and 1 M.A. in History, 6 A.B.’s in Economics and Social Science, and 4 A.B.’s in Law.

The curriculum of the first year, especially in History and in Economics and Social Science, reflected the major concerns and horizons of that age. The Psychology Department offered only two courses, Elementary and Advanced Psychology. The History Department offered courses in Greek, Roman, and Medieval History, the History of the Christian Church, of the English Constitution, of the French Revolution, of the Pacific Slope, and American Political History — a historical diet confined largely to the history of Western Europe and Anglo-America. The History Department listed three courses for graduate students with this explanation: “The courses offered to graduate students are especially designed to afford a training in methods of historical research, through the use of original materials. The results of such investigations are presented in the seminary, to which these courses are tributary. No attempt, however, is made sharply to separate the undergraduate from the graduate department. Graduates will often find it to their advantage to take courses designated for undergraduates; while undergraduates with adequate preparation may, by invitation of the professor, be admitted to courses primarily designed for graduates.”2 The problem of graduate courses has, it can be seen, been with us from the beginning. The fuzziness of disciplinary lines is reflected in the first list of courses in the Department of Economics and Social Science. As a matter of interest it is reproduced here.

  1. Principles of Political Economy. Elementary course.
  2. Advanced Economic Theory: Bimetallism, Railway Transportation, etc.
  3. A History of Tariff Legislation in the United States.
  4. Taxation and Finance.
  5. Statistics: History, Theory, and Technique.
  6. [p. 9] Social Science: with special reference to Public Charities and the Management of Penal Institutions.
  7. A Study of Industrial Corporations.
  8. A History of Agriculture and Prices.
  9. Commercial Relations of the United States.
  10. History of Economic Theories.
  11. Civil Service Reform in England and the United States.
  12. Sociology
  13. Land and Land Tenure. The Australian System of Registration.
  14. Method in Domestic Consumption.
  15. Communism and Socialism.
  16. Co-operation: Its History and its Influence.
  17. A History of Industry, including Trade Unions, Guilds, Factory Systems, Strikes, Arbitration, Labor Organizations, etc.
  18. Municipal Administration: the Natural Monopolies, Police, Taxation, etc.
  19. Railroad Management: A Course offered in cooperation with the Engineering Department.
  20. City and State Politics.
  21. A History of Estates and Land Tenure in California.
  22. Recent Social Reform.

 

There were many changes during the University’s first fifty years. One of the early changes occurred in 1899 in the Department of Law. In that year the departmental objective was redefined: “This Department offers such courses in Law as are usually given in professional law schools.”3 in that year a three-year program leading to the Bachelor of Laws degree was inaugurated, and the A.B. in law was soon thereafter abandoned.

The changing names of the Department originally called Economics and Social Science reflect its changes in personnel and curriculum. Sociology courses waxed and waned several times in its history. Political Science ran a more even course, but it also virtually disappeared in the years from 1902 until 1908. The following table summarizes the development of this department.

Department Title:   Years

Department of Economics and Social Science:   1891-1894
Department of Economics and Sociology:   1895-1901
Department of Economics and Social Science:   1902-1911
[p. 10]
Department of Economics:   1912-1914
Department of Economics and Political Science:   1915-1918
Department of Economics:   1919 – date
Department of Political Science:   1919 – date
Division of Sociology, Department of Economics:   1926 through 1940

While the Department of Psychology expanded very slowly in its first thirty years under Professor Angell, the psychology offering in the Department of Education4 flourished in the earlier years (1897-1903) under Professor Edwin Diller Starbuck and later (1910-1921) under Professor Lewis Madison Terman. On Professor Angell’s retirement in 1921, President Wilbur designated Professor Terman head of the Department of Psychology, after which date the department grew rapidly in personnel, in curriculum, and in enrollment. Whereas in the preceding years the psychology curriculum in the Department of Education had rivaled that of the department proper in every respect, thereafter the Psychology Department was dominant.

One of the present behavioral sciences originated at Stanford in the humanities curriculum. In 1908 the Department of English Literature and Rhetoric announced that “students preparing for journalism may substitute for the more advanced courses in literature, courses in Advanced Composition, History, Economics and Social Science.”5 In 1910 Everett Wallace Smith gave a course in News Writing in this department. In 1917 Journalism became a sub-division of the Department of English. It became the Division of Journalism in 1920, and in 1924 the Division was transferred from the Department of English to the jurisdiction of the newly organized School of Social Sciences.6

[p. 11] In the years following upon the First World War there were two major additions to the behavioral science resources of Stanford, both deriving from the interests and activities of her most celebrated alumnus, Herbert Hoover. These were, of course, the Food Research Institute established in 1921 and the Hoover War Library established in 1924. “The Food Research Institute is organized under a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York for the purpose of studying the production, distribution, and consumption of food,” declared the Annual Register of 1922. “The Hoover War Library is a collection of materials for research in the causes, conduct, and results of the Great War, covering also the period of reconstruction since the end of the war. These materials are of all kinds and from all the nations of the world, whether belligerent or neutral, but special efforts have been made to secure those which will be useful in research along the lines of non-military history and on social, economic, and governmental problems.”7

There was also expansion in this post-war period in the direction of a required course for freshmen not intent upon a behavioral science major. In 1923, Professor Edgar Eugene Robinson of the History Department was made director of an interdisciplinary program in Citizenship. It consisted of “a general introductory course required of all students in their first year. Designed to present the salient features in the bases and background of present-day society; to consider the place of education in modern life and the political equipment of the citizen; and to examine in detail the fundamental political, social, and economic problems of the American people.”8 Lectures were given by professors in such fields as History, Geology, Law, Philosophy, Political Science, Mechanical Engineering, Education, and Psychology. These were supplemented by smaller discussion groups. In 1935 [p. 12] Citizenship gave way to the History of Western Civilization under the jurisdiction of the Department of History, by this time headed by Professor Robinson, as the course required of all freshmen. It retained the technique of combining lectures with discussion sessions.

One may perhaps summarize the growth of the faculty over the University’s first fifty years by citing some of the better-known names among them. The Department of History included such regular members as Max Farrand, Ralph Haswell Lutz, Edward Maslin Hulme, Thomas Andrew Bailey, and George Vernadsky, and such visitors as Carl Lotus Becker, Guy Stanton Ford, Ralph Henry Gabriel, Samuel Flagg Bemis, and Carlton J. H. Hayes. The Department of Psychology had Walter R. Miles, Lewis Madison Terman, Calvin B. Stone, and Ernest Hilgard as members, and Karl Buhler, Albert Edward Michotte, Kurt Lewin, and Edwin G. Boring as visitors. The Economics Department claimed among its number Thorstein Veblen, Alvin Saunders Johnson, Harley Leist Lutz, Bernard Francis Haley, Joseph Stancliffe Davis, and Theodore Harding Boggs, and among its visitors Frank Albert Fetter, John Maurice Clark, Charles Jesse Bullock, Alvin Harvey Hansen, Jacob Viner, and Fritz Machlup. The political scientists included such permanent professors as Westel Woodbury Willoughby, Burt Estes Howard, Victor J. West, Edward Angell Cottrell, Thomas Swain Barclay, Hugh McDowall Clokie, and Charles Fairman, and such guests as James Wilford Garner, Arthur N. Holcombe, Francis William Coker, Edward Samuel Corwin, Harold Hance Sprout, Arthur W. MacMahon, Henry Russell Spencer, Peter H. Odegard, William Anderson, Clyde Eagleton, James Kerr Pollock, and Leonard Dupee White.9 Among the sociologists there were Charles N. Reynolds and Richard LaPiere. From 1907 to 1914 George H. Sabine was a member of the Department of Philosophy.

The office of Executive Head of the Department was first mentioned in the Annual Register of 1913-1914. It was early established that the Stanford [p.13] policy was to have a permanent department head rather than a rotating one, except in the Food Research Institute. The Department of Economics had two permanent heads in the period from the beginning of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War, Murray Shipley Wildman (1915-1930) and Bernard Francis Haley (from 1931). History had four chairmen: Edward Benjamin Krehbiel (1913-1914), Ephraim Douglas Adams (1914-1922), Payson Jackson Treat (1922-1930), and Edgar Eugene Robinson (from 1930). Psychology had two chairmen: Frank Angell (1913-1922) and Lewis Madison Terman (from 1922). Political Science also had two: Victor J. West (1919-1927) and Edwin Angell Cottrell (from 1927). The Food Research Institute had three joint directors, who rotated the executive directorship among them – Alonzo Engelbert Taylor, Carl Lucas Alsberg, and Joseph Stancliffe Davis. In 1942 the present director, Merrill Kelley Bennett became executive director. There were two chairmen of the Hoover War Library: Ephraim Douglass Adams (1923-1924) and Ralph Haswell Lutz (from 1924), as there were in the School of Social Sciences—Murray Shipley Wildman (1923-1930) and Edwin Angell Cottrell (from 1930)–and in the Department of Journalism— Everett Wallace Smith (1927-1933) and Chilton Rowlette Bush (from 1933).

Until the year 1908-1909 the History Department had the greatest enrollment of student majors. In that year the Economics Department overtook History and with the exception of a few years immediately following has remained the largest department in terms of total enrollment in the behavioral sciences area. The History Department, however, continued to have the greatest enrollment of graduate students throughout this period. From the beginning, the Psychology Department had the smallest enrollment in the behavioral sciences area. When the Political Science Department was established in 1919, it immediately exceeded the Psychology Department in enrollment. From the year 1922 on—the first of Professor Terman’s chairmanship—the number of graduate students was higher [p. 14] in proportion to undergraduates in the Psychology Department than in any other behavioral science department.

The table which follows summarizes the degrees granted by the several behavioral science departments in the first fifty years of Stanford’s history, and in the case of Ph.D.’s through the academic year 1952-1953.

A.B.’s M.A.’s Ph.D.’s
 

Depart-ment

Prior 1920 1921-1940 Prior 1920 1921-1940 Prior 1920 1921-1940 1941-1953
Econo-mics 600 2998 34 82 4 41 14
History 708 917 90 223 2 55 63
Journal-ism 8 317 0 20 0 0 0
Food Research 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Inter-national Relations 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Political Science 7 1000 1 138 0 33 26
Psycho-logy 31 303 1 70 1 49 64
Sociology & Anthro-pology * 159 * 22 1 12 9
Social Sciences 0 1161 0 9 0 1 0

*Prior to 1928, Sociology A.B.’s and M.A.’s were included as Economics Degrees.

It is noteworthy that the number of A.B.’s in Psychology increased ten times in the inter-war years as compared with the first thirty years, and the A.B.’s in Economics six times in the same period, in spite of the fact that in the later period such new departments and programs as Political Science, Sociology, and Social Sciences siphoned off elements among the students previously included under Economics. Growth in terms of the number of advanced degrees awarded is similarly reflected in comparing the two periods—with the single exception of the number of Ph.D.’s granted in Economics between 1941 and 1953. Whereas the average had earlier been [p. 15] about two Economics Ph.D.’s a year, in the more recent period it has declined to slightly more than one per year.

In all the fields there has been a great increase in the number of courses given. In the inter-war years the departments began to classify their course offerings both as to level of complexity and as to subject matter. The establishment of the lower division and the increase in the size of the faculty were among the factors leading to this change. It is also possible to detect changes in emphasis in the course offerings of the departments over the years, reflecting both the development of the subject matter of the several fields and the shifting interests of individual faculty members.

In the field of psychology, for example, in the first thirty years the courses primarily bore such all-embracing titles as Elementary, Advanced, Experimental, Applied, Systematic, Comparative, and Social Psychology and Psychological Literature. Child psychology and testing were offered in the School of Education. After the First World War, statistics, physiology, clinical psychology, child psychology, and testing, personality measurement, and vocational guidance were emphasized in the curriculum.

Throughout the first fifty years of Stanford’s history the economics curriculum was dominated by courses on economic institutions as opposed to economic theory. Courses on railroads, corporation finance, money and banking, economic history, labor legislation, accounting, insurance, tax procedure and the like comprised the major part of the offering. Secretarial training was also included in the economics curriculum. It is apparent that the primary objective of this department was to afford apprenticeship to a business career. In the later years of this period, however, there was an increase in the offering of theoretical [p. 16] courses such as capital and income, production economics, mathematical economics, value and distribution, and the history of economic thought.

Perhaps the most striking changes in emphasis over the years occurred in the history curriculum. The early emphasis on Rome, the Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance, and British constitutional history was supplemented in the first decade of the century by courses in International Law, Diplomatic History of the United States, and the Westward Movement in the United States, and such courses in the history of the Far East as the History of Australasia, the Philippines, and Tropical Colonization in the Far East. In 1911 there were added a course on Spain and Spanish America and one on international conciliation, and in 1913 the first courses in Japanese history. After the war there appeared courses in the Slavic nationalities, Russia, the Baltic States, the World War, and the Paris Peace Conference. As the number of courses on modern Europe, the history of the United States, Latin America and the Far East increased, Greek and Roman history were taken over by the Classics Department; international law and conciliation were taken over by the Department of Political Science and the School of Law; and the Middle Ages and the History of the Christian Church assumed-a lesser role.

When political science was still a part of the Economics Department, such courses as the theory of the state, methods of legislating, administration of states, cities, and towns, practical politics, modern federal government, and political theory were offered. The History Department, as has been noted, offered courses in the international field. When the Department of Political Science was organized after the war, the course offering fell into the following general areas: elementary courses in American government and state and local government, comparative government, political theory, political parties, administration, relation of [p. 17] government and industry, and international relations. As early as 1924 there was a course in quantitative measurements in public administration, and in the following year there was a course in political statistics. In 1928 a course in public law was offered for the first time. With the exception of the statistical courses, these general areas have continued to be the principal ones in the political science curriculum.

Throughout the first fifty years of the University’s history, the sociology curriculum was combined with Economics. There is, however, evidence of the development of the subject matter during this period. In the nineties there were courses in static and dynamic sociology (using as texts Herbert Spencer and Lester F. Ward), in social pathology, charities and corrections, penology, and even statistics and sociology. Static and dynamic sociology disappeared, but charities, causes of poverty, and courses of that type persisted into the war years. After the war the character of the courses changed. Problems of Poverty, of Child Welfare, Crime as a Social Problem, and Care of Dependents were courses given in the early twenties. Later, courses in population, rural society, social organization, and sociological theory were added to the curriculum, and from this developed an emphasis that persisted until the Second World War. In 1937 a course in Cultural Anthropology was included in the sociology offering, marking the beginning of anthropological instruction.

We have already noted the beginnings of Journalism in the English Department, with one course in Newswriting in 1910 supplemented in 1912 by one in Current Newspapers. By 1916 there were eight courses covering newswriting, analysis, reporting, editing, management and advertising. In 1920, as we have seen, Journalism was recognized as a Division of English and, in 1925, of the School of Social Sciences. From this time the curriculum continued to grow—with courses in geographical, [p. 18] sociological and legal aspects of journalism, techniques of propaganda and investigative methods in journalism.

From its inception the Food Research Institute offered a course in Food Research Problems. In 1934 a course for upper division students in The World’s Food was added, and in 1940 there was a considerable increase in the number of courses offered, including Consumption Economics, Commodity Prices, American Agricultural Policy, Foreign Agricultural Policy, and Agriculture and the Business Cycle.

In 1931 the Hoover Library offered a course in Problems of Research. By 1937 this had been expanded to include directed research in such special fields as the World War and Reconstruction, Austria-Hungary, the Bolshevik Party and the Third International, Soviet Policies and the Civil War, Housing in the United States, History of International Relations since 1914, European Totalitarianism, and the German Revolution, 1918-1919.

 

B. Research Institutes and Grants. The establishment of the Hoover War Library just after the First World War inaugurated the first major research development in the behavioral sciences at Stanford. The Annual Report of the President for 1920 notes that:

The Hoover War Library has grown steadily during the year through gifts and purchases. Professor E. D. Adams and Professor Ralph Lutz have been actively engaged in assembling and classifying this notable collection. Several students have already entered the University in order to do research work with the help of this collection and it is inevitable that there will be a considerable increase in the number of such students from year to year.10

In the following year the plans for establishing the Food Research Institute were announced.

[p. 19] During the year the final plans for the organization of the Food Research Institute of Stanford University have been consummated. The general terms of this gift are as follows: A contract was drawn up between Stanford and the Carnegie Corporation of New York in which the University agreed to set up the research organization ‘to study the problems of the production, distribution and consumption of foodstuffs’, to appoint 3 scientists as Directors who shall determine the research pursuits and be Professors with teaching a secondary aspect of their duties, appoint a 7 man Advisory Committee, furnish housing etc. free, and disburse the money.11

The Corporation agreed to supply $54,000 from July 1, 1921, to June 30, 1922; $66,000 from July 1, 1922, to June 30, 1923; and $73,000 annually for the next eight years. Two years before the expiration of the contract a conference would be held to determine the Institute’s future status.

The Annual Report12 went on to state that

Dr. Alonzo E.Taylor, Dr. Carl L. Alsberg, and Dr. Joseph S. Davis have been appointed as Directors of the Institute. The Advisory Committee is made up as follows: Mr. Herbert Hoover, Mr. A. R. Howard, of the American Farm Bureau; Dr. John C. Merriam, President of the Carnegie Institution of Washington; Mr. George C. Roeding, Mr. Julius Barnes, President William M. Jardine, of the Kansas State Agricultural College; President of the Carnegie Corporation, President of Stanford University. One of the original buildings in the Inner Quadrangle, formerly occupied by the Department of German, has been set aside for the use of the Directors. The Hoover War Library, which formed the main center of attraction for the Food Research Institute, is being assembled on one floor of the stacks of the new Library with an adjacent special reading room for the use of the members of the Food Research Institute and faculty and students of the Departments of History and Economics. The Food Research Institute constitutes one of the most notable opportunities for research of a wide scope that has come to any university in America within recent years.

In 1924, the specific plans for the Hoover War Library were announced.13

[p. 20] The Hoover War Library is a separate gift and has special endowment funds for the maintenance of certain of its features. It is under the general administration of the University Librarian.

In order to make it possible to:

a. secure acquisitions in the many different fields touched upon by the Library,
b. care for the interests of graduate students and others using the facilities of the Library, and
c. determine upon the lines of development,

Directors of the Hoover War Library are to be appointed with a relationship to the Library similar to that of a departmental faculty …

Many additions have been made to the collection during the course of the year. Mr. Hoover has increased his personal gifts until they now total about $90,000 in cash expended. The Directors of the library are making every reasonable effort to make it one of the great war collections of the world.

When the time came for renegotiation of the original contract of the Food Research Institute, the Carnegie Corporation acted by granting $750,000 in 1931 to provide a permanent endowment. In the brochure of the Institute describing its activities and publications14 its financial history is described as follows:

The [Carnegie] Corporation guaranteed funds for a period of ten years, while Stanford University undertook to provide quarters and facilities for the Institute and accorded it departmental status. Financial support is at present derived jointly from endowment granted by Carnegie Corporation to Stanford University in continuing support of the Institute, from University appropriations, and from short-term grants provided by foundations and other private organizations.

In 1939, the plans for building the Hoover Library building were announced

For some years we have been accumulating funds for the construction of the Hoover Library Building. With the original funds, the gift of $50,000 from Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the $300,000 from the Belgian- American Educational Foundation, Inc.,in hand, the university architects prepared plans for a monumental structure… It is anticipated that the building will be completed in 1940.15

[p. 21] With the completion of this building the two principal research facilities of Stanford’s first fifty years, and, indeed, in the lifetime of the University were solidly established.

The major grants for behavioral science research in the years prior to the Second World War, aside from those for the Hoover Library and the Food Research Institute, were the Laura Spellman Fund of the Rockefeller Foundation, which amounted to $454,838.49; funds to Professor Terman for his studies of intellectually gifted children—$60,673.29 from the Commonwealth Fund and $26,000 from the Carnegie Corporation; and funds for sex research granted to Professors Stone, Miles, and Terman by the Academy of Sciences, amounting to $73,298.73.

The principal publication output of the Hoover Library comprised a series of eighteen books of collected documents, memoirs, and special studies, and those of the Food Research Institute included seventeen volumes of Wheat Studies, three monographs in the Grain Economics Series, seven Fats and Oils Studies, and nine Miscellaneous Publications. The publications resulting from the Laura Spellman Fund are tabulated in Appendix I to Chapter 14.

[p. 22]

II. SINCE THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Since the Second World War the following major ohanges in the behavioral science field have occurred at Stanford:

 

A. New Departments and Agencies Established. The Department of Sociology and Anthropology was set up on an independent basis in 1948. Previously sociology had been under the Department of Economics. Anthropology teaching had begun with the arrival at Stanford in 1945 of Felix M. Keesing, who was to be appointed three years later as head of the new joint department. Other major additions to the staff in this area included Paul Wallin (appointed in 1942) in sociology and Bernard J. Siegel (appointed in 1947) and Bert A. Gerow (appointed in 1948) in anthropology.

The Department of Statistics was established in 1949 under the chairmanship of Albert H. Bowker. It quickly became a major center for research, which two years later was institutionalized as the Laboratory of Applied Mathematics and Statistics. Important staff appointments included Meyer Abraham Girshick (1948), Herman Chernoff (1951), and Charles E. Stein (1953).

In 1943 two professors of geography were brought to Stanford on a permanent basis. Seven years later, geography was established as a separate department under the chairmanship of C. Langdon White.

In 1951 the Committee for Research in the Social Sciences (CRISS) was set up as an inter-departmental body for the initiation, screening, and coordination of social science research. In the following year Alfred de Grazia, of the Political Science Department, was appointed its first executive officer, (see Chapter 8,III).

 

B. Remade Departments. In the years following 1945, first under the chairmanship of Bernard P. Haley and later under that of Edward S. Shaw, [p. 23] the Economics Department was restaffed with a series of outstanding younger scholars. The result has been a “planned” and well-integrated staff. The present national reputation of the department, particularly in the field of economic theory, largely dates from this period. The major additions to the staff, with their dates of appointment, are as follows: Tiber Scitovsky (1946), Lorie Tarshis (1946), Melvin W. Reder (1947), Moses Abramovitz (1948), Paul A. Baran (1949), Kenneth J. Arrow (1949).

A similar expansion tool: place in the Department of Psychology following the appointment of Ernest R. Hilgard as executive head in 1945. Here the chief additions to the staff now at associate or full professor rank included: Lois Meek Stolz (1945), Donald W. Taylor (1.945), Clarence L. Winder (1948), and Douglas H. Lawrence (1949). Last year Robert R. Sears was called to Stanford from a Harvard professorship to succeed Professor Hilgard as head of the department following the latter’s appointment as Dean of the Graduate Division.

The expansion of the Psychology Department was in three directions: (1) the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program supported by the Veterans Administration and the Public Health Service; (2) the nursery school and child development laboratory; (3) the Office of Project Research, as a “holding company” and initiator of research sponsored by the government and the foundations (see Chapter 8,V).

 

C. Changes in Other Behavioral Science Areas. Both History and Political Science have recently acquired new chairmen. In 1952 Thomas A. Bailey was appointed executive head of the former department and James T. Watkins IV of the latter. Today, of the behavioral science departments, only Journalism is under its pre-war head.

Of recent years the Department of History has pursued a vigorous policy of recruiting its staff from highly diversified academic and [p.24] geographical backgrounds. Areas in which substantial new staff recruiting has taken place include Far Eastern History—Claude A. Buss (1946), Arthur F. Wright (1947), and Thomas C. Smith (1948)—and United States history— John C. Miller (1949), Frank Freidel (1953), and Don E. Fehrenbacher (1953).

In Political Science, eight out of ten staff members of the rank of assistant professor and above are post-war appointees. Concurrently the Department has supplemented its earlier emphasis on international relations with added attention to public administration and political behavior.

The immediate post-war years saw the Hoover Institute and Library expanding its interests in new areas to which the Second World War had given increased importance. Whereas the pre-war collections had been heavily concentrated on Central and Eastern Europe, the Far East and, to a lesser extent, the Middle East now became areas of major interest. In 1941, the Hoover Library holdings on Asia and the Middle East consisted only of materials relating to mandates or colonies of European powers. Virtually none of this material was in the vernacular languages of these areas.

Since 1945, the Hoover Library has been making a systematic effort to collect and preserve the sources for the political, social, and economic history of Asia and the Middle East during the twentieth century, together with relevant background materials. The political and social movements of the twentieth century—nationalism, communism, religious movements with political significance, etc.—have formed the basis for the collections. The Chinese collection now numbers some 34,000 volumes; the Japanese collection, some 20,000 volumes; the Middle East collections, principally in Turkish and Arabic, some 8,000 volumes; the South Asian, and Southeast Asian collections are much smaller. These new interests have been reflected in the appointment of highly-trained scholars to serve as curators for the new collections—Christina P. Harris (Middle [p. 25] East), Mary C. Wright (China, Southeast Asia, and South Asia), and Nobutaka Ike (Japan).

Experiments in the application of newer techniques of behavioral science have constituted much of the post-war research in the Hoover Institute. The leading project, Revolution and the Development of International Relations (RADIR), was supported by the Carnegie Corporation.

 

D. Related Professional Schools. A further sign of the post-war tendency toward growth and change can be seen in the appointment of new deans for the School of law (Carl B. Spaeth, 1946), the School of Medicine (Windsor C. Cutting, 1953), and the School of Education (I. James Quillen, 1953).

 

E. Conclusion: Prospects for Continued Development. It is the conviction of the committee responsible for the present survey that the above evidences of development and branching into new fields of teaching and research represent the dominant tendency in Stanford today. The growth potential of the University is apparent in nearly all areas of behavioral science interest. The purpose of the present study is to look ahead on the basis of the foundations now in existence—bearing constantly in mind that for a comparatively small university the most advisable course is considerable specialization within departments rather than an effort to cover all fields equally.

 

[NOTES]

  1. Annual Register, 1892-93, p. 72.
  2. Annual Register, 1891-92.
  3. Annual Register, 1899-1900, p. 98.
  4. Became School of Education in 1917.
  5. Annual Register, 1908-09, p. 89.
  6. Established in 1924.
  7. Annual Register, 1924-25, p.240
  8. Annual Register, 1923-24.
  9. These twelve men are all former presidents of the American Political Science Association, as was W. W. Willoughby, mentioned earlier.
  10. Annual Report of the President, 1920, p. 28.
  11. Annual Report of the President, 1921, p.7.
  12. Ibid., p. 9.
  13. Annual Report of the President, 1924, p.3.
  14. Stanford University Press, 1948, p. 2.
  15. Annual Report of the President, 1939, p. 14.

 

Source: The Stanford Survey of the Behavioral Sciences. Report of the Executive Committee and Staff, July 1954.

Image Source: Library of Congress. Encina Hall, Leland Stanford Junior University (1898).

 

 

 

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Top Eleven Economics PhD Programs in US, 1934

A listing of 22 U.S. graduate programs in economics judged by majority vote of a jury of 54 individuals (identified by name) to be adequately staffed and equipped for work leading to the doctorate in Economics. Eleven of those programs were designated to be “distinguished”.

________________________________

Excerpt from:

American Council on Education.
Report of Committee on Graduate Instruction.
Washington, D. C., April 1934.

…In preparing a list of graduate schools the following procedure was followed:

  1. A list of 50 fields of knowledge in which it seemed possible to study the graduate work was prepared. The study as concluded covered only 35 fields.
  2. A list of the 50 fields was sent to the Dean of the graduate school of every institution known to be offering work for the doctorate. The Dean was requested to check the fields in which graduate work for the doctorate was offered, to indicate the number of doctorates conferred in the last 5 years, and to submit a list of the graduate faculty in each field. The responses of the deans varied in accuracy and comprehensiveness.
  3. From the reports of the deans, supplemented by study of catalogs, lists of institutions offering graduate work for the doctorate in each field, were prepared, complete so far as our information went.
  4. The secretary of the national learned society in each field was requested to provide a list of 100 well-known scholars distributed, as far as possible, among the various special branches of the field.
  5. To each of these scholars was sent a list of all the institutions offering work for the doctorate in the field with their respective graduate staffs in the field. Each scholar was requested to check those institutions which in his judgment had an adequate staff and equipment to prepare candidates for the doctorate; and to star the departments of the highest rank, roughly the highest 20 per cent.
  6. The returns from these scholars were summarized, and those institutions accorded a star by the majority voting were placed in the starred group; those checked by a majority, but failing of a majority of stars, were placed in the group of those adequately staffed and equipped….

…Many votes on departments came in too late for inclusion in tabulations.

[…]

ECONOMICS
100 ballots sent out.
61 returns; majority, 31 votes.
535 doctorates were conferred in the period 1928-1932: 53 institutions offered work for doctorate.

Composite ratings were made from reports of the following persons: James W. Angell, George E. Barnett, J. W. Bell, A. B. Berglund, Roy G. Blakey, E. L. Bogart, O. F. Bouche, F. A. Bradford, T. N. Carver, J. M. Clark, Clive Day, F. S. Deibler, Paul Douglas, F. A. Fetter, Irving Fisher, F. B. Garver, Carter Goodrich, C. E. Griffin, M. B. Hammond, Alvin Hansen, C. D. Hardy, B. H. Hibbard, H. E. Hoagland, Grover G. Huebner, John Ise, Jens Jensen, Eliot Jones, Edwin Kemmerer, James E. LeRossingnol, H. L. Lutz, David McCabe, H. A. Millis, Broadus Mitchell, Wesley C. Mitchell, H. G. Moulton, C. T. Murchison, E. G. Nourse, E. M. Patterson, Carl Plohn, C. O. Ruggles, W. A. Scott, Horace Secrist, S. H. Slichter, T. R. Snavely, W. E. Spahr, R. A. Stevenson, G. W. Stocking, Frank P. Stockton, H. C. Taylor, Jesse Tullock, Francis Tyson, Jacob Viner, G. S. Watkins, A. B. Wolfe.

The jury named above has by a majority vote approved the following institutions as adequately staffed and equipped for work leading to the doctorate in Economics, starring which it considers most distinguished:

Brown University

*

University of Chicago

*

Columbia University University of Illinois

*

Cornell University University of Iowa

*

Harvard University—Radcliffe College

*

University of Michigan
Johns Hopkins University

*

University of Minnesota
New York University University of Missouri
Northwestern University

*

University of Pennsylvania
Ohio State University University of Texas

*

Princeton University University of Virginia
Stanford University

*

University of Wisconsin

*

University of California

*

Yale University

[…]

 

Source: Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library. William Vickrey Papers, Box 35, Folder “510.7/1934/Am3”.