My serious blog work has regrettably kept me lately from adding more to the series of “Funny Business” posts in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. So as a late St. Nicholas present for 2020, I give you today’s post “What are economic historians made of?” composed by the University of Minnesota economic historian, Herbert Heaton.
Chapters from Heaton’s textbook Economic History of Europe (Revised, 1948) were assigned in the first economic history course I ever took; Harry Miskimin at Yale (Fall Semester, 1971) taught that class.
Heaton began his Presidential address before the Economic History Association with the following “foul doggerel” based on the children’s rhyme about “Snips and snails / And puppy dogs’ tails” (boys) and “Sugar and spice / And everything nice” (girls) and published in The Journal of Economic History, vol. 9, Supplement: The Tasks of Economic History (1949), pp. 1-18.
Heaton was the chair of the University of Minnesota’s history department from 1954 until 1958 when he retired. His short obituary in the New York Times (Jan. 26, 1973) also noted that Heaton was a visiting professor at Princeton in 1939-1940.
Of further interest
Heaton, Herbert. Edwin Gay, A Scholar in Action (1952).
Herbert Heaton papers at the University of Minnesota.
Biographical leads
Bourke, Helen. Heaton, Herbert (1890-1973). Australian Dictionary of Biography.
King, Jack. Herbert Heaton: A Scholar ‘Exiled’. History of Economics Review, Winter 2006
_____________________
What are economic historians made of?
Open fields and lord’s domains,
Venice loses, Antwerp gains.
Gold and silver that were Spain’s,
Factories, slums, and smelly drains.
Oople1 profits, workers’ chains,
Secular trends, depression pains.
Westward movements cross the plains,
Marx, Max Weber, Sombart, Keynes,
That’s what economic historians are made of.1That is the English pronunciation of “entrepreneurial.”
_____________________
Biographical Snapshot from 1931
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
HERBERT HEATON
Fellow: Awarded 1931
Field of Study: Economic History
Competition: US & Canada
Born: 06-06-1890
Died: 01-24-1973As published in the Foundation’s Report for 1931–32:
HEATON, HERBERT: Appointed to complete collection of material in Yorkshire and London for a volume on the Industrial Revolution in the Yorkshire woolen and worsted industries; tenure, twelve months from August 1, 1931.
Born June 6, 1890, in England. Education: University of Leeds, B.A., 1911, M.A., 1912, D.Litt., 1921; University of Birmingham, M. Com., 1914.
Assistant Lecturer in Economics, 1912–14, University of Birmingham; Lecturer in History and Economics, 1914-16, University of Tasmania; Lecturer in Economics, 1917-25, University of Adelaide; Head of Department of Economic and Political Science, 1925-27, Queen’s University, Canada; Professor of Economic History, 1927—, University of Minnesota.
Publications: History of the Yorkshire Woolen and Worsted Industries from the Earliest Times to the Industrial Revolution, 1920; Modern Economic History, with Special Reference to Australia, 1921. Articles in Thoresby Society Transactions, Economic Journal, Journal of Economic and Business History, Economic History Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Australian Economic Record, American Economic Review, Dalhousie Review, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, Journal of Canadian Bankers Association, Queen’s Quarterly, Minnesota History, Virginia Quarterly Review. Contributor to Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences.
Source (also source of the image): John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Fellows page for Herbert Heaton.