The Special Collections Research Center of the University of Chicago Library is putting scans of records from the respective administrations of Presidents Harper, Judson and Burton (1869-1925) on-line (52 boxes of 91 boxes thus far!). For today’s posting I have transcribed the introduction and conclusions of a summary “of the most imperative needs of the Graduate School of Arts and Literature” written in October 1923 as well as the section for the Department of Political Economy. Additionally I provide c.v. data for the economists named published in the Annual Register 1921-22 for the University of Chicago and additional biographical information (obituaries/memorials) to follow their post-Chicago careers.
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The University of Chicago
The Graduate School of Arts and Literature
Office of the Dean
October 30, 1923.
Dean J. H. Tufts,
The University of Chicago.
Dear Dean Tufts:
I enclose a summary of the most imperative needs of the Graduate School of Arts and Literature. I have drawn it up only after a most careful examination of the condition of the Departments. I am convinced that it is only by making the new appointments which I have listed and providing the increases I have indicated that the School can hope to make any appreciable contribution to graduate studies in America or even to hold its own with the other Graduate Schools in the country. In the case of some departments the situation is almost inconceivably bad. It is so bad that it is only by making new appointments of strong men—major appointments that would command attention—and by increasing the salaries of many members of the teaching staff who are being tempted away that we can hope to regain our prestige. I hope that this will not sound like an exaggeration. It is not. It is a lamentable fact that some of the departments that ten or fifteen years ago were famous and attracted graduate students from all parts of the continent are now deplorably weak, while some of the others, though still doing efficient work, have recently suffered serious losses in their teaching staff and are threatened with still more. Let me speak of these in detail.
I. The Weak Departments:
- The Department of Psychology…
- The Department of the History of Art…
- The Department of German….
- The Department of Latin…
- Another notable example of weakness is found in Anthropology…
- The Department of General Literature…
[II.] The Other Departments:
- Romance Languages…
- History…
- Political Economy
The situation here is especially precarious. The instructional staff is an efficient one but extremely difficult to hold. Within recent years three men have gone: Moulton, Hardy and Lyon. Some of the men here now have received tempting offers of positions wither in government bureaus or in industries. The new appointment in Money and Banking is to fill the vacancy caused by Moulton’s going to Washington two years ago. Viner has had more than one call. Good men in Political Economy seem to be increasingly hard to get.
May I remind you also of the fine contribution that this Department, under Mr. Marshall’s inspiration, has made to that cooperative study of economic, social, and political conditions in Chicago that is being carried on by all the departments in the Social Science Group. This whole piece of work is, as you yourself know, a most interesting experiment, and in its detailed analysis of the characteristics of the Chicago community, will in all probability prove to be a model for the study of any large metropolitan area.
I hope you will pardon my writing at such length, but the situation seems to me to be critical. We cannot afford to delay remedial measures. The money that I am asking for is not simply for the University of Chicago, it is for Graduate Studies in the whole Middle West, which looks to Chicago for its teachers. Of all the new appointments that I have urged there is not one that would not influence higher education throughout the Mississippi Valley.
Yours very truly,
[signed]
Gordon J. Laing
Source: University of Chicago. Office of the President: Harper, Judson and Burton Administrations Records 1869-1925. Box 47, Folder 6 “Graduate schools, development, 1914-1924”.
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Charles Oscar Hardy, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Financial Organization in the School of Commerce and Administration. [Resigned]
A.B., Ottawa University, 1904; Professor of History and Economics, ibid., 1910-18; Dean of the College, ibid., 1916-18; Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1916; Lecturer in the School of Commerce and Administration, ibid., 1918-19; Assistant Professor, ibid., 1919-22.
Harold Glenn Moulton, Ph.B., Ph.D., Professor of Political Economy. [Resigned]
Ph.B., University of Chicago, 1907; Assistant in Political Economy, ibid., 1910-11; Instructor, ibid., 1911-14; Ph.D., ibid., 1914; Assistant Professor, ibid., 1914-18; Associate Professor, ibid., 1918-1922; Professor, ibid., 1922.
Leverett Samuel Lyon, A.M., LL.B., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Commercial Organization in the School of Commerce and Administration.
Ph.B., University of Chicago, 1910; LL.B., Chicago Kent College of Law, 1915; Assistant in Commercial Organization in the School of Commerce and Administration, ibid., 1916-17; Instructor, ibid., 1917-19; A.M., ibid., 1918; Assistant Professor, ibid., 1919—; Ph.D., ibid., 1921.
Jacob Viner, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Economy.
B.A., McGill University, 1914; A.M., Harvard University, 1915; Instructor in Political Economy, University of Chicago, 1916-19; Assistant Professor, ibid., 1919—; Ph.D., Harvard University, 1922.
Leon Carroll Marshall, A.M., LL.D., Professor and Chairman of the Department of Political Economy; Dean of the School of Commerce and Administration and of the Graduate School of Social Service Administration.
A.B., Ohio Wesleyan University, 1900; A.B., Harvard University, 1901; A.M., ibid., 1902; Assistant, ibid., 1902-3; Professor of Economics, Ohio Wesleyan University, 1903-7; Assistant Professor of Political Economy, University of Chicago, 1907-8; Associate Professor, ibid., 1908-11; Dean of the School of Commerce and Administration, ibid., 1909—; Professor of Political Economy, ibid., 1911—; Dean of the Senior Colleges, ibid., 1911-20; LL.D., Ohio Wesleyan University, 1918; Dean of the Graduate School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, 1920—.
Source: University of Chicago, Annual Register, 1921-1922, pp. 38, 40, 54, 57.
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Life after the University of Chicago
“In Memoriam: Charles Oscar Hardy, 1884-1948”. American Economic Review, Vol. 39, No. 3 (May, 1949), pp. 478-480.
“Harold Moulton, Economist, Dead. Ex-President of Brookings Institution in the Capital,” The New York Times, December 15, 1965, p. 48.
Engle, N. H., “Leverett Samuel Lyon”, Journal of Marketing, Vol 24, No. 1 (July, 1959), pp. 67-69.
“Dr. Jacob Viner, Economist, Dead: Princeton Professor was U.S. Adviser 4 Decades,” The New York Times, September 13, 1970.
Marshall, Leon Carroll, 1879-1966. Biographical notes. Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC). [Webpage].
Image Source: Leon C. Marshall. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-04113, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.