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New York City. Centennial Celebration for Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. 1876

 

For the 1776th artifact to be posted in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror, I decided to search for something related to Adam Smith. I figured the Centennial, Sesquicentennial and Bicentennial of the publication of Wealth of Nations would be good places to start, so I turned to the newspapers.com archive to begin my search. The very first item I came upon was the Centennial Celebration that took place in New York City on December 12, 1876. After reading the New York Times account of the affair, I thought that more might be found in Glory M. Liu’s book Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher Became an Icon of American Capitalism (2022) and sure enough she uses that event as her anecdotal springboard into Chapter 3, “The Apostle of Free Trade”. 

Cringe Moment: John Bigelow found himself as an understudied understudy for no-show Williams College professor Arthur Latham Perry. The role demanded that he comment on the toast to the French liberal economists, predecessors to Adam Smith. Bigelow proceeded to riff on Jean-Baptiste Colbert, poster-child of French mercantilism. I am guessing that few if any of the guests noticed the faux pas.

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The Evening Post
(New York City, December 13, 1876), p. 1.

ADAM SMITH.

Centennial Celebration of the Publication
of “The Wealth of Nations”—
Speeches by William Cullen Bryant, Parke Godwin, David A. Wells, Professor Sumner, Mr. Atkinson and Others

The dinner given at Delmonico’s last evening, to commemorate the Centennial Anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” was attended by about a hundred gentlemen, including many widely known as advocates of free trade. Among the persons present were Parke Godwin, Abraham L. Earle, Arthur G. Sedgwick, Professor W. G. Sumner, Horace White, Cyrus W. Field, William Cullen Bryant, David A. Wells, Edward Atkinson, of Boston, Professor Frank A. Walker [(sic) Gen. Francis Amasa Walker], President Anderson, of Rochester University; Isaac Sherman, Anson Phelps Stokes, William E. Dodge, Jr.; George Walker, Ex Surgeon-General [N.S.] Hammond, J. Crosby Brown, Secretary of State [John E.] Bigelow, Professor Atwater, of Princeton; Mr. Sidney Biddle, Mr. Balch and Mr. Brinton Coxe, of Pennsylvania; M. Henri Cernuschi, of Paris; Professor [Vincent] Botta, Robert B. Minturn, E. L. Godkin, Charles H. Marshall, F. B. Sanborn of Boston, O. C. Marsh, Howard Potter, Fred. Mason of Chicago, and Joseph S. Moore. [Also listed as having attended according to the New York Times (December 13, 1876, p 5): Charles Moran, Dr. M. K. Leverson of Colorado and Henry Arnott Brown]

                  After prayer by the Rev. Dr. Atwater the chair was taken by Parke Godwin, before whom lay an original edition of the “Wealth of Nations.” During the dinner, which was long and elaborate, music was furnished by an orchestra placed in the gallery.

SPEECH OF PARKE GODWIN.

The cloth having been removed, Mr. Godwin spoke as follows:

                  “Gentlemen, it is my duty to speak the prologue to your future performances, and I know no better way than to follow the epilogue in ‘Henry IV.,’ which says: ‘First my fears, then my courtesy and last my speech.’ I am here less because of my ambition, but because of the headlong obstinacy of my friends of the committee.” He then spoke of the large assemblage present in these times of great political excitement and said: “It is not often that men meet to do honor to a book. But we come together to commemorate not a work drawn out of the mysterious wells of the imagination, but a work treating of our every day affairs which has taken its place among the masterpieces of genius. It is just a hundred years since the work on ‘The Wealth of Nations,’ the work of an humble Scotch professor, first appeared. I take it that the only conception of the wealth of nations was that of the resources of a prince who could keep armies and fleets, subsidized allies, and pension a few very poor poets. But that labor was the real wealth, the real source of national power, they hardly conceived. Yet this work, which taught these truths, penetrated the minds of men, and now at this remote day and in this far land we are met to celebrate it as one of the greatest features of our Centennial. What was the secret of the success of this book? It can hardly be said that the author of this work was the originator of any great and important truth. Many of his conclusions had been anticipated in Italy and in England. But the earlier writers had only discovered the germs of the truth. They had not seen it to its efflorescence. The merit of Smith was that he saw the truth in its intrinsic force, he grasped it in its bearings and relations, and he developed it with such completeness and simplicity that he made it plain to the common apprehension, that he made it the property of men in the common walks of life, and not alone of the student in his closet or the speculator in his school. What a grand truth it was that such men as Smith have bequeathed to us! Kant was accustomed to say that true things filled him with awe; first, the view of the starry heavens, and second, the sense of duty in the soul of man. He might have added a third, that of the mysterious means by which the struggles of the soul in the social man is brought to an harmonious end. But what is society at large? Is there not for its stupendous ramifications of interest, for the vast enterprises which span the globe, a power which holds them in its large love and boundless thought? Aye, there is such a power; it is the power of Providence, the power of freedom, freedom of labor, freedom of interchange, which, demanding nothing of governments save the maintenance of justice and peace, is like the principle of attraction which reduces the far-flaming orbs of space into musical chimes, and will reduce our various conflicting arms into perfect order. The signal service of Adam Smith and his coadjutors was to demonstrate that the gospel was right and that human traditions were wrong. By an exposition of the productive efficacy of the co-operation of industrial groups — by a demonstration that all exchanges of products are not a one-sided spoliation, but a two sided benefit, they showed that human interests were reciprocally helpful and not mutually destructive. Attraction, not repulsion, was shown to be the true law of economic relations. When it was once seen that human interests are convergent and not divergent, the practices of individuals and of nations were made to conform to that view. Giant monopolies began to open their shut doors, and an era of emancipated industry and emancipated commerce broke over the world. Political economy, like other sciences, is still immature and imperfect: it has many deficiencies to fill out, many obscurities to clear, many problems to solve. But we who are here tonight know this — that the great beams of the edifice have been raised; that many downtrodden have found solace within the portals of this, the goodliest temple, I think, ever made — a temple in which the worship is the worship of free human uses, full of the profoundest human affections.”

                  The names of invited guest who were prevented from attending, and had sent letters of regret were then read. Among these were Governor Tilden, Lieutenant-Governor Dorsheimer, President Woolsey, President McCosh, Senator Bayard, William R. Morrison, L. Q. C. Lamar, Professor A. L. [Arthur Latham] Perry; the English Minister, Sir Edward Thornton; the Belgian Minister, M. Maurice Delfosse; Charles Francis Adams, Professor H. W. Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, W. Lloyd Garrison, R. H. Dana, Jr., H. W. Olcott and others [Also listed as having sent letters of regret according to the New York Times (December 13, 1876, p 5): President Elliott, President Champin, Charles Elliott Norton, Professor Dunbar, Estis Howe, James Brown].

SPEECH OF JOHN BIGELOW.

The first regular toast was read as follows:

“The Early French Economists” – Lights that preceded and announced the dawn. They were the first to discover and to proclaim that natural laws are a better basis for legislation than arbitrary authority.

In the absence of Professor [Arthur Latham] Perry [Williams College], who was expected to respond, Mr. John Bigelow spoke as follows:

                  “I am very sorry that Professor Perry was not able to attend. He was prevented from coming by his modesty, and he has asked me to come here to-night and represent him. I shall do so as well as I may. It is a source of regret to me that I am here in a representative capacity, and shall be unable to do full justice to the early French economists as either Professor Perry or the imaginary Mr. Bigelow you have described would have done. I will only say that they were a very noble set of people. That is all I shall say. I am sure your imaginary Mr. Bigelow could not have described them in fewer words. All the politico-economical teachers have been indebted, more than to any one else, to the man who first classified the industries of France, and by whose work the science of political economy became possible — I refer to Colbert. The work of Colbert in estimating and tabulating the work of every man in France had never been done before. Yet this was essential to the success of politico-economical science. I do not know but Bacon may have anticipated me in this remark, but if he has, so much the worse for Lord Bacon. It is a matter of regret that the Bureau of Statistics in this country has been less useful because of the inexcusable obstinacy of a gentleman present here to-night (Mr. David A. Wells) in resigning its charge. I wish to call attention to one fact in noticing upon this table the original edition of the work of Adam Smith. I don’t know why this work, the natural twin of republican institutions, has never been published complete in this country. My friend on my right says it has been. I can only ask, then, why I have never happened to meet a single copy of an American edition in this country. (A voice — that of Mr. Coxe, of Philadelphia — “An edition was edition was printed in Philadelphia in 1789.”) Then I will modify my remark and ask why we have not had an edition in the current century.” (A voice, “Give it up”) Mr. Bigelow went on to speak of the importance of a proper study of Adam Smith’s method, and said that the great drawback in this country is the waste of power in all the paths of work and business and investigation. He advocated as a great centennial work the publication of a new and complete edition of Adam Smith’s works.

SPEECH OF DAVID A. WELLS.

The second toast was:

“The Wealth of Nations”, — An imperishable monument of human genius, which laid the foundation of a science destined to revolutionize the legislation and practice of nations. At the end of a hundred years it is as instructive in its teachings and as beautiful in style as when it first attracted the attention of the world. Its author, Adam Smith, will be held in honor by his fellow men forever.

David A. Wells made the following response:

                  “Considering the condition of Europe from the time when it first attained a high degree of civilization, there is no question of more interest than that of the relations of nations and men. The prejudices and antagonisms, due to the belief that advantage to one community was necessarily a loss to another, naturally interfered with progress and advancement, and led to the belief, as expressed by Hobbes, that war is the natural condition of man. The restrictions that, until recently, hedged round all trades in Europe, and reduced men to practical slavery, were the outgrowths of this false idea. The right to practice a trade or profession was looked upon as an heirloom, transferred from one to another member of a family.” The results of this system in France and in the country were sketched, and Mr. Wells continued: “In this country, it even happened in 1865, under our absurd revenue law, that it became a question whether a man who mended a carriage had not really manufactured it and made himself liable to a payment of the duties on new carriages. War was often undertaken by European nations as a means of successfully monopolizing trades. It was for this cause that nearly all the battles of the eighteenth century were fought. Our own Revolution is directly traceable to the imposition of duties upon the colonies due to the economic ideas of the times. If Great Britain forbade the colonists to export wool, it made its own subjects liable to capital punishment for exporting wool. John Hancock was the prince of smugglers and was set down for trial at the time of our Revolution. Alexander Hamilton was cognizant of contraband trade by the firm which he formed during his minority. Men like these resisted the government, because they felt that every blow that they struck was a blow for liberty. Mr. Wells then sketched the work of Turgot in France in connection with economic matters. Voltaire and other of Turgot’s contemporaries, he said, supported Turgot in his schemes of economic reforms and foresaw the revolution and the reign of terror which followed after Turgot’s downfall. But afterward there came a compensation in the appearance of Smith’s great work. He then quoted the high praise awarded it by Buckle, Mackintosh and others and said: “The work then done was the greatest ever attempted since the days of Christ and his apostles. Under the light of the teachings of Adam Smith, the golden rule of ‘Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you’ was embodied in the practical affairs of life. People are benefited and never injured by the prosperity of their neighbors; this was the great truth expounded by Adam Smith. There is no class of men that submit quicker to the spirit of the times than the mercantile class, and the spirit of the times always is the aggregation of knowledge. From this point of view and in the light of the work done by Adam Smith, though the world has not recognized the source from which it came, it will be seen that the great Scotchman has fully merited the eulogiums passed upon him. He has done more than all the sleeping[?] statesmen[?] combined have ever attempted[?] to do.” [Three words unclearly printed marked with [?]]

SPEECH OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

The third toast was:

“The Illustrious Teachers of Political Economy” — Say, Ricardo, Malthus, Senior, the Mills, Bastiat, Cairnes, Rossi, Chevalier and Walker, who form a galaxy of bright and shining stars whose places in the heavens will grow brighter with the lapse of time.

In reply William Cullen Bryant spoke as follows:

                  “Mr. President and Gentlemen: Allow me to congratulate you on the occasion which has brought you together. I am glad to see such men assembled for such a purpose — that of commemorating the publication of the great work which first clearly demonstrated to mankind the benefits of a free exchange of commodities between the nations of the world, and the mischiefs of that tyranny which seeks to check this free exchange by the strong arm of the law. The doctrine of free trade, placed on the impregnable basis of fact and reasoning, was twin born with this republic of ours, and I can only wish the republic a like perpetuity with the doctrines.

                  “It is now four years since a concurrence of circumstances, to which I will do no more than allude, had the effect of causing a movement in favor of free trade, which was then in considerable activity and apparently not without effect on the public mind to stagnate and almost to sleep. And what years, my friends, were these: Years of languishing enterprise, years of despairing industry, years of strikes, years of contention between the employers and the employed, years which showed the spectacle of laborers by hundreds looking in vain for occupation, and hunger-pinched families shivering in their unwarmed garrets. All this while the protective system, as it is called, has been in full force. Everything is protected — that is to say, everything imported into the country is taxed as it never was taxed before. If the protective system be the ground of commercial prosperity the country should now be prosperous beyond all its previous experience; our mills, now silent, should be in their fullest activity; our laborers should be in constant employment; not a willing arm should be idle, not a spindle should cease to hum.

                  “Is It not time for a reaction? Are we to go on in this manner indefinitely? We have tried the protective system as fully as is possible; we have tasted its fruits, and they are bitter. Let us now have a season of free exchange I have no doubt, for my own part, that a liberal system of revenue laws, especially combined with a return to specie payments, would make an instantaneous and most fortunate change in the condition of the country. Hundreds of commodities, the raw material of as many forms of industry, would be released from the taxation which now puts them beyond the reach of as many classes of artisans, and new life would be at once communicated to the arts both useful and ornamental. The old handicraft of shipbuilding, which made our barks the wonder of the world for speed and economy of management, would be revived. The very day that such a change in our present unhappy policy received the sanction of the Executive would see the gloom of the times dispelled as suddenly as a bright morning follows a storm, and there is no power able under these circumstances to hold back our people from plunging into enterprises which they now shrink from in despair.

                  “Yes, my friends, the time for a reaction has arrived, and we are determined that it shall have a fair field. Free trade has slept while its enemies have been performing their unhappy experiments upon the public welfare, and now we look to see it rise invigorated by its long slumber. Let me say here that I am in favor of protection, but protection of a kind very different from that which for many years past has dealt so cruelly with the interests of the country. I am for protecting the consumers — the class whose numbers are counted by millions — I am for protecting this class in its natural and proper right to exchange what it produces in whatever market it can exchange them to most advantage. I am for rescuing it from the hands into which it has fallen, and which plunder it with as little remorse as the rovers of the Barbary States in the early part of this century pillaged the merchant ships that entered into their seas.

                  “Depend upon it, my friends, this is a righteous contest on our part, and a blessing will rest upon it. I have been long a soldier in this war, and have never grown weary of it. I may I not see the day of triumph, but many of you will. The torch which I have borne for more than fifty years I shall pass to abler, doubtless, though not more faithful hands, assured that it will yet shed it rays on a glorious victory.”

SPEECH OF EDWARD ATKINSON.

The following was the fourth toast:

“Commercial freedom, or the unfettered intercourse of nations” — A glorious principle that has taken its place by the side of the freedom of the press, the freedom of speech and the freedom of assemblage, and which, like them, has demonstrated its claims to our regard by the blessings which have everywhere accompanied and followed its practical applications.

Edward Atkinson replied to this and said the charter of the Pennsylvania Railroad forbade it to build locomotives, although it allowed it to repair them, for fear of interfering with the interests of the factories. This prohibition is, however, got over by the company considering the brass label on the locomotives to be the locomotives themselves. He then said:

                  “The nation was now struggling against evils within which once it struggled against from without. The two great questions of the hour were evils of bad money and bad taxation. This nation might soon hope for freedom from the first, and ere long from the second. The advocates of protection now admitted that free trade was something to be desired, but claimed It was impracticable and artificial. Freetraders believed it natural. Differences now between the two parties were only regarding time and method. The question now arose, could the freetraders unite with protectionists in some compromise that would not demand a sacrifice of principle. He thought they could. The protectionists no longer based their legislation and claims upon the principles of protection, but upon principles of general utility. No one now demanded on principle more than a moderate taxation for the expenses of government, and he thought that very soon the statesmen might take the place of economists. The nation was stronger than its leaders, and order would soon come out of chaos. The admirable advantages of England should be considered; and if the advocates of free trade would only act with moderation and caution, they could soon obtain their end, practically at least.”

                  Remarks were also made by Brinton Coxe, of Philadelphia, who spoke of the progress which the principles of Adam Smith were making in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, that Middle Age castle of Protection.

SPEECH OF PROFESSOR SUMNER.

The next toast was:

“International freedom” — The liberty of trade and intercourse which, within the domain of the United States, prevails over so many thousand square leagues of territory, which has been so fruitful a source of prosperity, union peace and rapid development needs but to be applied to our foreign relations to establish our rightful position among the nations in wealth, in power, in influence and in the happiness of the people.

                  Professor W. G. Summer responded, saying that old dogmas were disappearing, utopian hopes are vanishing and positive methods are replacing them. Political economy is capable of positive and beneficial resalts. Among us economic problems are practical questions, and we are forced to turn our attention from science to the practical benefits of its old and familiar consequences to our country. This ought to be the work of politicians and statesmen, that the largest amount of human happiness may be directly produced therefrom.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The last toast given was:

“The Science of Political Economy” — It demonstrates morals. It proves that diligence, economy, prudence, truth and justice are not only among the canons of the moral law, but are also the means of a sound and stable public prosperity.

This was ably responded to by Professor Anderson. [see following item]

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Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY: December 15, 1876), p. 4.

Dr. [Martin Brewer] Anderson
on Free Trade

Our report of the free-trade dinner at Demonico’s last evening requires to be supplemented by an outline of the interesting and effective remarks of President Anderson, of Rochester (N.Y.) university. He considered free trade in its moral aspects, and said that he regarded free exchange as one of the fundamental principles underlying human society, the same as the freedom of opinion and of labor. Free trade is as worthy and important an object of human endeavor as the doctrines of the declaration of independence. No bargain is either good or safe which does not confer a benefit upon both the seller and buyer, and the moral element in trade must be taken into account to secure permanent prosperity. He eulogized the abstract thinkers of the world and eloquently set forth the benefits conferred upon mankind by Adam Smith in the field of trade, Jeremy Bentham in the field of criminal law, and also cited other examples. He spoke of his own labors as a teacher of political economy, and said that during the last fifteen years he had permitted no young man to leave the institution of which he had charge who did not possess a clear notion of the fundamental doctrines of free trade. He then made the practical suggestion that an efficient free-trade club ought to be organized in this city for the purpose of free discussion. He said that economic truth propagates itself under proper conditions, and he would have the free-trade work of the colleges supplemented by systematic organization, so that young men may be preserved in economic faith and so that the influence of free-traders of all classes may be made effective.

Image Source: Adam Smith, 1723-1790. Political economist by James Tassie (1787). National Galleries of Scotland, Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

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Curriculum Dartmouth Economists Undergraduate Williams

Williams College. Political Economy and Law 1794-1894. Bullock, 1904

 

Before he accepted an appointment to assistant professorship at Harvard in 1903, Charles Jesse Bullock was Orrin Sage professor of history and political science at Williams College. He published a short history of the first hundred years of course offerings in political economy, political philosophy/theory, constitutional law and international law at Williams in 1904. 

Bonus material: links have been added to the key texts identified by Bullock.

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Other Williams College
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The History of Economic and Political Studies
in Williams College

C. J. Bullock, Assistant Professor of Political Economy, Harvard University; late Orrin Sage Professor of Political Economy in Williams College

Historical and political studies seem to have been almost wholly neglected in the American colleges of the colonial epoch. In this direction the first serious impulse came from the stirring discussions of the Revolutionary period and of the years that witnessed the adoption of the Federal Constitution. In 1784 the first law school was established at Litchfield, Connecticut; and during the next twenty years lectureships or professorships of law were created in various institutions. Before this movement had spent its force, political philosophy, political economy, and, in some cases, history had benefited by the interest thus aroused, so that one or more of these subjects found a place in the curricula of many colleges.

The “Free School” at Williamstown was transformed into Williams College in 1793, at the very time when our institutions of higher education were beginning to recognize the importance of training young men for the legal profession, the service of the State, or the common duties of citizenship. In the first invoice of books purchased for the college library, political and historical works were well represented; and upon October 20, 1794, Hon. Theodore Sedgwick, at that time a member of Congress, was appointed Professor of Law and Civil Polity. It does not appear that Mr. Sedgwick ever entered upon the work of his professorship — a fact which may be readily explained by his absorption in the duties of public life or by the meagre resources of the college; but it is interesting to note that this was the first professorship which the trustees attempted to establish.

In 1795 the first laws for the government of the college were adopted. From these we learn that the studies of the fourth year were “metaphysics, ethics, history, the law of nature and nations, civil polity, and theology.” Thomas Robbins, a member of the class of 1796, writes in his diary, under the date of January 1st of his senior year, “Reciting now Paley’s Moral Philosophy”; and under the date of March 22d, “Began to recite Vattel.” Instruction in these subjects was given by President Fitch, as we learn from a letter* written by a member of the class of 1802 who says, “Those students who were instructed by him during their senior year will never forget the ability and interest with which he explained and illustrated the writings of Locke, Paley, and Vattel.”

* [Calvin] Durfee, History of Williams College, p. 77.

The facts just mentioned are sufficient to establish the character of the instruction given in political philosophy and international law; concerning the study of history, however, no evidence is now available. Paley’s Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, published in England in 1785 and republished in Boston ten years later, devotes one entire book — the sixth — to the philosophy of the State, and treats of such subjects as forms of government, civil liberty, and the administration of justice. This book was used for many years at Williams, as elsewhere. Its author was a conservative by temperament, and a friend of the established social and political order; and these qualities would naturally commend his writings to such an ardent Federalist as President Fitch, who was greatly disturbed over the revolutionary movement in France and the rise of Jeffersonian democracy in the United States.† In his baccalaureate sermon of 1799, Dr. Fitch warned the graduating class that “every civil and religious institution is threatened with ruin,” that “the principles of deism, atheism, and disorganizing politics have of late years made rapid strides,” and he urged his hearers to oppose manfully the progress of these destructive tendencies.

† Cf. [Arthur Latham] Perry, Williamstown and Williams College, pp. 230-233.

This arrangement of studies probably remained unchanged for many years. The College Laws of 1805 repeated the provisions of those adopted in 1795; the Laws of 1815 are more general in their terms, but prescribe that history and the law of nations shall be included in the curriculum. These subjects, undoubtedly, fell to the charge of the president. In 1812 Hon. Daniel Dewey was appointed Professor of Law and Civil Polity, but it is not known that he ever gave regular instruction in the college, although his name appeared in the catalogue until his death in 1815. The laws of the latter year state merely that “the Professor of Law shall occasionally deliver lectures to the senior sophisters or to all the students.”

In 1822 the catalogue of the college contains for the first time a statement of the courses of instruction. From it we learn that history was one of three subjects studied during the third term of the sophomore year, and that Tytler’s Elements of History was used as a text-book. In the senior year Paley’s [Moral and] Political Philosophy was studied during the second term, and Vattel’s Law of Nations during the third. Altogether, one third of the instruction for three terms, or about one twelfth of the college course, was devoted to these three subjects. History was probably taught by one of the two tutors who had charge at this time of most of the studies of the lower classes; the senior courses were conducted chiefly by the president.

In 1827 William Porter [Rev. William Augustus Porter, b. 1798; d. 1830] was called to a newly established chair of Moral Philosophy and Rhetoric, and he appears to have relieved President Griffin of most of the instruction of the senior year.* Paley’s Moral and Political Philosophy was now replaced by Say’s [Treatise on] Political Economy, of which an American translation had appeared in 1821; Vattel’s Law of Nations, however, was retained several years longer. History held its place in the third term of the sophomore year.

*Memoir of W. A. Porter, p. 41.

In 1828 a Manual of Political Economy, by Willard Phillips, was published at Boston, and this work was immediately introduced in the place of Say’s treatise. When we recall that in this year the passage of the “Tariff of Abominations” stimulated excited discussions of the tariff question, and that Phillips was an advocate of protectionism, we may venture upon the conjecture that Professor Porter was dissatisfied with the teachings of Say concerning freedom of trade. At any rate Phillips’ Manual continued to be used in the college for a number of years. When Mark Hopkins was called to the chair of Moral Philosophy in 1830, Paley’s work was reintroduced, but only to supplement and not to displace Phillips and Vattel.

In 1835 Joseph Alden was called to a new professorship of Rhetoric and Political Economy, and more adequate provision was made for instruction in political and economic science. In his inaugural address in 1836, President Hopkins alluded to the recent introduction of the study of political economy, and expressed the hope that means could be provided for instruction in constitutional law. For this a place was found in the same year, when Professor Alden discarded Vattel and introduced [Joseph] Story on the Constitution [Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Abridged by the author for the use of Colleges and High Schools, 1833)]. The sophomore course in history remained as before, and, after a time at least, came under the charge of Professor Alden. In 1837 the course in political economy was shifted to the first term of the junior year, and in 1840 Wayland’s well-known treatise [Francis Wayland, The Elements of Political Economy (1837)]was introduced as a text-book. Professor Alden was a Jeffersonian Democrat and a free trader, but seems to have made more of his lectures upon the United States Constitution* than of his work in history and political economy. In 1843 a course in American history was introduced in the second term of the junior year, and in 1844 this was placed among the studies prescribed for sophomores. Two years later, however, this subject dropped out of the curriculum.

* Cf. A. L. Perry, Miscellanies, p. 142. Williamstown, 1902.

At this point it will prove interesting to compare the development of political and economic studies at Williams with their history at a sister institution, Dartmouth College.†

† See J. F. Colby, Legal and Political Studies in Dartmouth College, Hanover, 1896.

At Hanover these studies were first introduced in 1796, under the stimulus of the same influences that were felt at Williams in the previous year. In Dartmouth the juniors were given instruction in Paley’s Moral and Political Philosophy by the professor who had general charge of that class; while the seniors, under the guidance of President Wheelock, studied Burlamaqui’s Principles of Natural and Politic Law [1792], of which an American edition had been published at Boston in 1793. In 1804 the course in political philosophy was transferred to the charge of the Professor of Divinity, and in 1823 to the Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy. In 1822 instruction in constitutional law was given to the seniors, and in 1828 a chair of Moral Philosophy and Political Economy was created. Professor Roswell Shurtleff, the incumbent of this chair, introduced Say’s Political Economy in the place of Burlamaqui’s [Principles of] Natural and Politic Law; and continued for a decade the use of Paley’s Political Philosophy and the Federalist. In 1838 Paley was replaced by Wayland’s Moral Philosophy [The Elements of Moral Science, 5th ed. (1837)], and in 1842 a course in Kent’s Commentaries on American Law [2nd ed., 1832: Vol. I ; Vol. II ; Vol. III ; Vol. IV] was offered to seniors. Some years later the latter work was displaced by Story’s well-known treatise. The general similarity of development in the two institutions is emphasized by the fact that Dartmouth, in 1808, made unsuccessful efforts to establish a professorship of law.

At Williams the next important event was the resignation of Professor Alden in 1852. After an interval of a year, Arthur Latham Perry was called to a professorship of History and Political Economy; and commenced those studies, especially in the field of political economy, which soon brought him a national reputation and secured distinguished recognition in France and England. Although compelled by the poverty of the college to give instruction in German and in Christian Evidences for many years, he soon built up a strong department of history and political economy. To the sophomores he gave instruction in history, at first for one and later for two terms, introducing newer and better text-books, as they appeared, in place of the wretched treatise by Tytler. To the juniors he offered a course in political economy for which he published, in 1865, the first of his well-known books, Elements of Political Economy. In addition, Professor Perry continued the work in constitutional law which had been begun by his predecessor. This study was, in 1859, transferred to the junior year, where it long remained; at the outset Story’s work was used as a text, but in time the instruction came to be given by lectures. Upon an average, during the period from 1857 to 1887, the three subjects above mentioned occupied about one-eighth of the entire college course, and until the latter year they were required of all students.*

* Cf. A. L. Perry, Miscellanies, pp. 141-148.

In 1871 Orrin Sage, a Massachusetts manufacturer, gave the college $50,000 as an endowment for Professor Perry’s chair. In part, at least, this action was the result of the attacks which had been made from time to time upon Professor Perry’s views concerning the injustice and inexpediency of the protective tariff. The trustees of the college had at all times upheld the independence of the department of political economy, but the gift was prompted by a desire to place the chair upon the most secure foundation possible. So far as freedom of teaching is concerned, few, if any, American colleges can boast of better traditions.

In 1882, with the coming of the elective system, there was established an elective course in European history, conducted by a new instructor. This marked the beginning of the separation of the departments of history and political economy, which became complete when, in 1890, an endowment was received for a chair of American History. In the following year Professor Perry closed his long term of faithful service to the college, and John Bascom was made acting professor upon the Orrin Sage foundation, which was thereafter devoted to the department of political economy. Thus at the close of the first century of its existence, Williams College had created two independent departments for the studies in which, at the outset, the president had instructed the seniors during the last half of the collegiate year.

With the history of the last decade it is not the purpose of this paper to deal. Suffice it to say that the establishment of new chairs of Political Science and of European History has enabled the college to extend and to specialize instruction in these subjects, so that now four professors are cultivating the field where Professor Perry labored so long and so successfully as Professor of History and Political Economy. In all this the college is but meeting the demands of the times for more extensive instruction in political and economic studies. To-day, as in 1794, it is attempting, so far as its resources permit, to prepare young men for the intelligent exercise of the rights and duties of citizenship; and now, as formerly, it seeks to prescribe, for students or teachers, no tests of political or economic orthodoxy. With such a record of honorable achievement, the college faces hopefully the educational demands of the twentieth century.

Source: Charles Jesse Bullock, “History of economic and political studies in Williams College.” Education, Vol. XXIV (May, 1904), pp. 532-537.

Image Source: From the title page of A History of Williams College by Calvin Durfee (1860).

 

Categories
Economists Teaching Undergraduate Williams

Williams. Leading Author of Political Economy Textbooks, Arthur Lathan Perry (1830-1905)

 

An earlier post mentioned the late 19th century economics textbook writer, Arthur Latham Perry, whose writings in the United States were rated by leading publishers in third/fourth place (behind Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill) in 1876. This post provides some biographical information, links to most editions of his three textbooks and two prefaces that describe his personal intellectual development as an economist. 

More about the economics professor Arthur Latham Perry:

Joseph Dorfman. Economic Mind in American Civilization, vol. 3 1865-1918. New York: 1949. pp. 56-63.

Stephen Meardon. A Tale of Two Tariff Commissions and One Dubious “Globalization Backlash”. Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department Working Paper 476 (November 2002), pp. 14-19.

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Perry, Arthur Latham (1830-1905)
By Patrick J. McCurdy (Class of 2002)

Arthur Latham Perry, Williams Class of 1852, was born on February 27, 1830 and died on July 9, 1905. He was raised in poverty in New Hampshire but was able to attend Williams College, where he was one of the founders and charter members of the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity.

After graduating, he taught in Washington for a year but returned immediately when offered a position at Williams as professor of history and political economy. He taught these subjects from 1854 to 1891. While at the college he also taught German language and literature 1854-1868. As a professor of Political Economy, 1859-1899, he wrote many textbooks and monographs and was considered a leading expert in the field of free trade.

For several years he toured the country during his summer holidays, giving lectures on the principle of free trade for The American Free Trade League. He also wrote important history books on Williamstown and Williams College, Origins of Williamstown (1894) and Williamstown and Williams College (1898).

In 1891 Professor Perry retired and acted as a consultant to the governors of Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut. It was for his great devotion to Williams College that the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity house was named in honor of him.

Perry married Mary Brown Smedley, whose ancestors were some of the first settlers of Williamstown and famous leaders of the Revolutionary War.  With her he had five sons and one daughter: Bliss, Arthur, Walter, Carroll, Lewis and Grace.  Papers for years to come would describe the brothers as a member of an old and distinguished Williamstown family.”

Source: Williams College. Special Collections Website: Perry, Arthur Latham (1830-1905) webpage.

Image Source: Arthur Latham Perry. Miscellanies. Williamstown, Mass.: Published by the Author, 1902).

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Arthur Latham Perry
Links to Editions of his Three Text-books in Political Economy

Perry, Arthur Latham. Elements of Political Economy (New York: Charles Scribner and Company). 1st ed. (1866); 2nd ed. (1867); 4th ed. (1868); 5th ed. (1869) ; 6th ed. (1871); 7th ed. (1872); 10th ed. (1873); 11th ed. (1874); 13th ed. (1875); 14th ed. (1877);  15?th ed. (1878);
Title shortened to Political Economy: 18th ed. (1883); 19th ed. (1887); 20th ed. (1888); 21st ed. (1892); 22nd ed. (1895).

Perry, Arthur Latham. An Introduction to Political Economy (New York: Scribner, Armstrong, & Company). 1st ed. (1877); 2nd ed. (1880).

Perry, Arthur Latham. Principles of Political Economy. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons). 1st ed. (1891);

________________________

Arthur Latham Perry, LL.D.
Orrin Sage Professor of History and Political Economy in Williams College

PREFACE
14th edition (1877) of Elements of Political Economy

THE good reception given to my book in its previous editions by many practical teachers, as well as by the general public, has prompted me to subject it to another thorough revision, by verifying former statements of fact and introducing many new ones to bring the book abreast of the present time, and by enlarging the discussion of principles at some points and curtailing it at others in the interest of symmetry and completeness; and prompts me also to write, even at this late day, a preface to the book, since I have grounds for believing that some of its friends may be pleased to learn of the circumstances under which it was originally written.

I had taught Political Economy in this Institution [Williams College] for ten or twelve years without ever forming any purpose to try my hand at a treatise on the subject. I had used for my teachers and guides the English writers, particularly Smith, Ricardo, Senior, and Mill; and had familiarized myself also with the American writers, particularly Carey, Wayland, Bowen, and Bascom. Almost from the outset of my studies, however, and increasingly as the years went by, I felt a dissatisfaction with what seemed to me to be the lack of scientific generality common to nearly all these writers. I could see no solid reason why economical discussions should be confined to tangible commodities, and not include as well personal services rendered for pay, and also credits of all kinds. I discussed this point repeatedly with Professor Bascom, at that time my colleague, and my mind had almost reached the conclusion in which it has now rested for many years, when my late friend Amasa Walker, who was even then a political economist of reputation, although he had not yet published his “Science of Wealth,” recommended to me Bastiat’s “Harmonies of Political Economy.” I had scarcely read a dozen pages in that remarkable book, when, closing it, and giving myself to an hour’s reflection, the field of Political Economy, in all its outlines and landmarks, lay before my mind just as it does to-day. I do not know how much I brought to this result, and how much towards it was derived from Bastiat. I only know that from that hour Political Economy has been to me a new science; and that I experienced then and thereafter a sense of having found something, and the cognate sense of having something of my own to say. This was in 1863.

Subsequently I learned much from Bastiat. It is a pleasure to acknowledge, in the amplest manner, one’s indebtedness to such a quickening writer as he is; and whoever will compare carefully with his book the following chapters on Value and Land, will see how much I have profited by his discussions; and he will also see that I have made an independent, not a servile, use of them. I dare to hope that the relations of utility to value are even more clearly and ultimately put than he has put them. Not to have availed myself of the truths which he has actually established would be as unjust to science, as not also to have endeavored, in the chapters on Exchange and Foreign Trade to execute the commission which he left to his readers in these words:

“I hope yet to find at least one among them who will be able to demonstrate rigorously this proposition: the good of each tends to the good of all, as the good of all tends to the good of each ; and who will, moreover, be able to impress this truth upon men’s minds by rendering the proof of it simple, lucid, and irrefragable.”
[Sterling’s Translation of the Harmonies, page 92.]

Under the impression that I could now say something about Political Economy that the public might be willing to hear, I wrote over my initials a series of articles for the “Springfield Republican,” which attracted attention, and brought me letters alike from friends and from entire strangers, – notably from the late Sidney Homer of Boston, whose name I shall always hold in grateful remembrance for this and other reasons, – urging me to continue to write on this subject, and suggesting that a formal treatise might be acceptable to the public. Thus solicited and encouraged, – Mr. Bowles kindly adding his voice to the rest, — I ventured with diffidence upon the composition of this book. It was not at all the primary purpose to prepare a text-book for the use of college students. I thought, indeed, that I might use the book with my own classes; but the general public was in my eye throughout. The supposed needs of merchants’ clerks and farmers’ sons, for example, influenced the matter and form much more than those of people intellectually further advanced. Indeed, there was, for this reason, in the first edition, a familiarity of phrase and illustration which justly elicited criticism, and which has since been gradually eliminated. While the original design, to be intelligible to all classes of readers, may doubtless have betrayed me at times into too familiar a style, it has continued, nevertheless, to control the form of every new and every altered paragraph.

That which is original in my book is perhaps rather to be sought for in the book as a whole than in the specific parts of it. The entire plan is different from that of any book published prior to 1865. I attempted a self-consistent and symmetrical development of the one idea of Value in each of the three forms in which it manifests itself. That the outline at least is complete, is confirmed by the fact that I have found no occasion since for any other chapters than the sixteen originally sketched. I dropped entirely the long-maintained distinctions between the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth. So far as I know, I was the first to drop the technical use of the term Wealth, – a term that has always proved an invincible foe to every one trying to wrestle with it scientifically: even Bastiat, athlete as he was, was floored in this encounter. I believe that new light has been thrown on the value of land, on the delicate relations between money as a medium and money as a measure, on the whole line of objections to free trade, and on the nature of property as related to every form of taxation. The historical chapters of the book cost me very great labor. In sketching the history of American tariffs, I had not before me the tracks of even a solitary pioneer. The same remark applies in the same degree to the chapter on Currency in the United States, – a subject that has since been worthily developed into a volume by my friend Professor Sumner of Yale College. In the opening chapter on the History of the Science, I was aided somewhat by the Introductory Discourse prefixed by Mr. McCulloch to his edition of Adam Smith, and also somewhat by the article “Political in the New American Cyclopedia; but all the quotations from the classical writers, as well as those from Locke, Hume, and Bastiat, were made at first hand.

Two or three editions of the present treatise had been issued before I had seen any of the books of Henry Dunning Macleod, and to the numerous points of our independent coincidence have been added, in my later editions, many points of information in matters of fact, and some distinctions in matters of science, for which I wish here to express in general my obligations to him. Mr. Macleod, in the first volume of his “Principles of Economical Philosophy.” has done me the great honor to associate my name with Condillac, Whately, Bastiat, and Chevalier, — the heads of the third great school in Political Economy. His own name is more worthy than mine, and more likely than mine, to stand permanently in that distinguished list.

The most recent writers, whom I have consulted, and to whom I feel under obligations, – and every writer who is both competent and earnest puts his readers under obligations of some sort, — are ,Governor Musgrave of South Australia, Professors Price and Jevons of England, and General Walker of New Haven; the points of the latter in respect to the so called wages-fund have led me to modify my previous views on that subject.

I can not conclude this preface without expressing my sense of indebtedness to the successive classes of intelligent young men, to whom I have presented, and with whom I have discussed, now for almost a quarter of a century, the facts and principles of this fascinating science. It seems to me as if every possible objection to the leading points in this book has been raised, at one time or another, in my own lecture-room. Sometimes I have been convicted of error in minor points, and many times been fortified in the truth, through an attempt to remove objections started thus by students. Nearly every one of the objections to free exchange answered in the chapter on Foreign Trade was broached in this way; and I deem it of the greatest advantage to any political economist, — an advantage to which Adam Smith himself was much indebted, – to have the opportunity to test views and theories over and over again in the presence of fresh and bright minds. It has not infrequently happened in my experience that new light has been thrown out upon a subject by a young man just grasping the thought for the first time.

A. L. P.

Williams College,
July 4, 1876.

Source: Arthur Latham Perry. Elements of Political Economy, 14th edition (1877), pp. v-xi.

________________________

Arthur Latham Perry, LL.D.
Orrin Sage Professor of History and Political Economy in Williams College

PREFACE.
Principles of Political Economy (1891)

It is now exactly twenty-five years since was published my first book upon the large topics at present in hand. It was but as a bow drawn at a venture, and was very properly entitled “Elements of Political Economy.” At that time I had been teaching for about a dozen years in this Institution the closely cognate subjects of History and Political Economy; cognate indeed, since Hermann Lotze, a distinguished German philosopher of our day, makes prominent among its only five most general phases, the “industrial” element in all human history; and since Goldwin Smith, an able English scholar, resolves the elements of human progress, and thus of universal history, into only three, namely, “the moral, the intellectual, and the productive.”

During these studious and observant years of teaching, I had slowly come to a settled conviction that I could say something of my own and something of consequence about Political Economy, especially at two points ; and these two proved in the sequel to be more radical and transforming points than was even thought of at the first. For one thing, I had satisfied myself, that the word “Wealth,” as at once a strangely indefinite and grossly misleading term, was worse than useless in the nomenclature of the Science, and would have to be utterly dislodged from it, before a scientific content and defensible form could by any possibility be given to what had long been called in all the modern languages the “Science of Wealth.” Accordingly, so far as has appeared in the long interval of time since 1865, these “Elements” were the very first attempt to undertake an orderly construction of Economics from beginning to end without once using or having occasion to use the obnoxious word. A scientific substitute for it was of course required, which, with the help of Bastiat, himself however still clinging to the technical term “Richesse,” was discerned and appropriated in the word “Value” ; a good word indeed, that can be simply and perfectly defined in a scientific sense of its own; and, what is more important still, that precisely covers in that sense all the three sorts of things which are ever bought and sold, the three only Valuables in short, namely, material Commodities, personal Services, commercial Credits. It is of course involved in this simple-looking but far-reaching change from “Wealth” to “Value,” that Economics become at once and throughout a science of Persons buying and selling, and no longer as before a science of Things howsoever manipulated for and in their market.

For another thing, before beginning to write out the first word of that book, I believed myself to have made sure, by repeated and multiform inductions, of this deepest truth in the whole Science, which was a little after embodied (I hope I may even say embalmed) in a phrase taking its proper place in the book itself, — A market for Products is products in Market. The fundamental thus tersely expressed may be formulated more at length in this way: One cannot Sell without at the same instant and in the same act Buying, nor Buy anything without simultaneously Selling something else; because in Buying one pays for what he buys, which is Selling, and in Selling one must take pay for what is sold, which is Buying. As these universal actions among men are always voluntary, there must be also an universal motive leading up to them; this motive on the part of both parties to each and every Sale can be no other than the mutual satisfaction derivable to both; the inference, accordingly, is easy and invincible, that governmental restrictions on Sales, or prohibitions of them, must lessen the satisfactions and retard the progress of mankind.

Organizing strictly all the matter of my book along these two lines of Personality and Reciprocity, notwithstanding much in it that was crude and more that was redundant and something that was ill-reasoned and unsound, the book made on account of this original mode of treatment an immediate impression upon the public, particularly upon teachers and pupils; new streaks of light could not but be cast from these new points of view, upon such topics especially as Land and Money and Foreign Trade; and nothing is likely ever to rob the author of the satisfaction, which he is willing to share with the public, of having contributed something of importance both in substance and in feature to the permanent upbuilding of that Science, which comes closer, it may be, to the homes and happiness and progress of the People, than any other science. And let it be said in passing, that there is one consideration well-fitted to stimulate and to reward each patient and competent scientific inquirer, no matter what that science may be in which he labors, namely, this: Any just generalization, made and fortified inductively, is put thereby beyond hazard of essential change for all time; for this best of reasons, that God has constructed the World and Men on everlasting lines of Order.

As successive editions of this first book were called for, and as its many defects were brought out into the light through teaching my own classes from it year after year, occasion was taken to revise it and amend it and in large parts to rewrite it again and again; until, in 1883, and for the eighteenth edition, it was recast from bottom up for wholly new plates, and a riper title was ventured upon, — “Political Economy,” — instead of the original more tentative “Elements.” Since then have been weeded out the slight typographical and other minute errors, and the book stands now in its ultimate shape.

My excellent publishers, who have always been keenly and wisely alive to my interests as an author, suggested several times after the success of the first book was reasonably assured, that a second and smaller one should be written out, with an especial eye to the needs of high schools and academies and colleges for a text-book within moderate limits, yet soundly based and covering in full outline the whole subject. This is the origin of the “Introduction to Political Economy” first published in 1877, twelve years after the other. Its success as a text-book and as a book of reading for young people has already justified, and will doubtless continue to justify in the future, the forethought of its promoters. It has found a place in many popular libraries, and in courses of prescribed reading. Twice it has been carefully corrected and somewhat enlarged, and is now in its final form. In the preface to the later editions of the ” Introduction ” may be found the following sentence, which expresses a feeling not likely to undergo any change in the time to come: — “I have long been, and am still, ambitious that these books of mine may become the horn-books of my countrymen in the study of this fascinating Science.”

Why, then, should I have undertaken of my own motion a new and third book on Political Economy, and attempted to mark the completion of the third cycle of a dozen years each of teaching it, by offering to the public the present volume? One reason is implied in the title, “Principles of Political Economy.” There are three extended historical chapters in the earlier book, occupying more than one-quarter of its entire space, which were indeed novel, which cost me wide research and very great labor, and which have also proven useful and largely illustrative of almost every phase of Economics ; but I wanted to leave behind me one book of about the same size as that, devoted exclusively to the Principles of the Science, and using History only incidentally to illustrate in passing each topic as it came under review. For a college text-book as this is designed to become, and for a book of reading and reference for technical purposes, it seems better that all the space should be taken up by purely scientific discussion and illustration. This does not mean, however, that great pains have not been taken in every part to make this book also easily intelligible, and as readable and interesting as such careful discussions can be made.

A second reason is, to provide for myself a fresh text-book to teach from. My mind has become quite too thoroughly familiarized with the other, even down to the very words, by so long a course of instructing from it, for the best results in the class-room. Accordingly, a new plan of construction has been adopted. Instead of the fourteen chapters there, there are but seven chapters here. Not a page nor a paragraph as such has been copied from either of the preceding books. Single sentences, and sometimes several of them together, when they exactly fitted the purposes of the new context, have been incorporated here and there, in what is throughout both in form and style a new book, neither an enlargement nor an abridgment nor a recasting of any other. I anticipate great pleasure in the years immediately to come from the handling with my classes, who have always been of much assistance to me from the first in studying Political Economy, a fresh book written expressly for them and for others like-circumstanced; in which every principle is drawn from the facts of every-day life by way of induction, and also stands in vital touch with such facts (past or present) by way of illustration.

The third and only other reason needful to be mentioned here is, that in recent years the legislation of my country in the matter of cheap Money and of artificial restrictions on Trade has run so directly counter to sound Economics in their very core, that I felt it a debt due to my countrymen to use once more the best and ripest results of my life-long studies, in the most cogent and persuasive way possible within strictly scientific limits, to help them see and act for themselves in the way of escape from false counsels and impoverishing statutes. Wantonly and enormously heavy lies the hand of the national Government upon the masses of the people at present. But the People are sovereign, and not their transient agents in the government; and the signs are now cheering indeed, that they have not forgotten their native word of command, nor that government is instituted for the sole benefit of the governed and governing people, nor that the greatest good of the greatest number is the true aim and guide of Legislation. I am grateful for the proofs that appear on every hand, that former labors in these directions and under these motives have proven themselves to have been both opportune and effective; and I am sanguine almost to certainty, that this reiterated effort undertaken for the sake of my fellow-citizens as a whole, will slowly bear abundant fruit also, as towards their liberty of action as individuals, and in their harmonious co-operation together as entire classes to the end of popular comforts and universal progress.

A. L. PERRY.

Williams College,
November 25, 1890.

Source: Preface to Arthur Latham Perry, Principles of Political Economy (New York: Charles Schribner’s Sons), pp. vii-xii.

 

 

Categories
Economists Williams

Great-Granddad of Sam Bowles who encouraged Arthur L. Perry to write an economics textbook, 1860s.

 

That the economist Sam Bowles of the Sante Fe Institute and the CORE Project comes from a distinguished New England family is well-known. Today while tracking down different editions of the economics textbook written by the Williams College professor, Arthur Latham Perry, I stumbled upon his acknowledgement of the encouragement given him by the editor of the Springfield Republican, Samuel Bowles, to write an economics textbook. Putting on my genealogical gumshoes, I checked that the two Sams of the case were indeed related. It wasn’t hard work. This post shares the result of my queries.

About the economics professor Arthur Latham Perry:

Joseph Dorfman. Economic Mind in American Civilization, vol. 3 1865-1918. New York: 1949. pp. 56-63.

Stephen Meardon. A Tale of Two Tariff Commissions and One Dubious “Globalization Backlash”. Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department Working Paper 476 (November 2002), pp. 14-19.

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Samuel Bowles, Great-Grandfather of economist Samuel Stebbins Bowles
(b. 9 Feb 1826; d. 16 Jan 1878)

Arthur Latham Perry’s expression of gratitude to Samuel Bowles
Preface to Elements of Political Economy (4th ed.)

Samuel Bowles of the “Springfield Republican” invited me, in 1864, to write a series of articles for his paper on some of the topics of Political Economy. These articles met the eye and the approbation of Sidney Homer of Boston, and of Amasa Walker of North Brookfield. Both these gentlemen communicated to me by letter their desire that I would continue to address the public on those subjects. Thus encouraged, and wishing also to furnish myself and other practical teachers with a manual in which the principles of the science should be laid down as I understand them, I proceeded to write this book. But the hazards of publication were not to be run without subjecting the work to the critical eye of a competent thinker. President Woolsey of Yale College very kindly rendered me this service.

To these four gentlemen, then, each of whom I am happy to reckon as my friend, is this fourth edition very cordially dedicated. My sense of obligation to many other friends, and to a generous public also, is expressed in an endeavor to make the book more worthy than before of their continued favor.

A.L.P.

Williams College, February, 1868.

Source: Arthur Latham Perry, Professor of History and Political Economy in Williams College. Elements of Political Economy (4th ed.), p. iii. New York: Charles Scribner and Company, 1868.

Biography: George S. Merriam. The Life and Times of Samuel Bowles (Volume I; Volume II). New York: The Century Co., 1885.

Image Source: Portrait of Samuel Bowles. Mason A. Green. Springfield, 1636-1886. History of Town and City (Boston: C.A. Nichols & Co., 1888), following p. 542.

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Charles Allen Bowles, Grandfather
(b. 19 Dec 1861; d. 14 Nov 1933)
&
Chester Bliss Bowles, Father of economist Samuel Stebbins Bowles
(b. 5 Apr, 1901; d. 25 May 1986)

Charles A. Bowles, Obituary

Charles P. Harris of Morris inn, West street, has received word of the death Friday at his home in Springfield, Mass., of his brother-in-law, Charles Allen Bowles, 71, second and last surviving son of Samuel Bowles. He was the grandson of the elder Samuel Bowles, founder of the Springfield Republican.

Besides his wife, Mrs. Nellie Seaver Harris Bowles, a daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Joel B. Harris of Rutland, Mr. Bowles leaves a daughter, Miss Dorothy Bowles of Springfield; two sons, Charles Allen Bowles, jr., of Springfield and Chester Bliss Bowles of New York: two sisters, Mrs. William H. King of Winnetka, Ill., and Mrs. Ruth S. Baldwin of New Canaan, Conn., and four grandchildren.

Mr. Bowles was born in New York December 19, 1861. He was a graduate of the Sheffield Scientific school of Yale university in the class of 1883. For many years he was in business in Springfield.

Source: Rutland Daily Herald (Rutland Vermont). 20 November 1933, p. 10.

 

Charles A. Bowles House, 81 Mulberry Street, Springfield, MA, ca. 1938-39.

This massive house is one of Springfield’s finest examples of Colonial Revival architecture, and was designed by Guy Kirkham, one of the city’s leading architects of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Completed in 1894, it was among his earliest works, and was designed for Charles A. Bowles, a paper manufacturer whose father, Samuel Bowles, had been the prominent editor of the Springfield Republican from 1851-1878. Charles’s older brother Samuel succeeded their father as editor after his death in 1878, but Charles went into the manufacturing business instead. He attended Sheffield Scientific School at Yale for a year, but did not graduate. Instead, he worked briefly for the Pennsylvania Railroad before entering the papermaking industry in 1884.

In 1885, at the age of 24, he married Nellie S. Harris of Rutland, Vermont, and early in their marriage they lived in a house nearby at 34 Avon Place. By the time they moved into this house on Mulberry Street in 1894 they had two children, Charles and Dorothy, and they would have one more son, Chester, who was born in 1901. During this time, Charles went into business for himself, becoming a partner in the firm of Dexter & Bowles, which sold paper pulp and other supplies for paper manufacturers.

Charles Bowles lived here until his death in 1933, but Nellie was still living here with her daughter Dorothy when the first photo was taken at the end of the 1930s. Dorothy was in her early 40s at the time, and she worked as a dressmaker, with a shop on Vernon Street. She lived here in this house until her mother’s death in 1943, and she subsequently moved to a house on Maple Court. In the meantime, Charles and Nellie’s older son, Charles, Jr., lived here with his parents until his marriage in 1917, and he and his wife Helen lived in Springfield’s Forest Park neighborhood until his death in 1946.

It was Charles and Nellie’s youngest child, Chester, who would go on to have the most prominent career, becoming a successful politician, diplomat, and advertising executive. He grew up here in this house and lived here until the mid-1920s, around the time that he married his first wife, Julia Fisk. He briefly worked as a reporter for the Springfield Republican from 1924 to 1926, but he saw limited opportunities for himself in a newspaper that was crowded with other family members. So, he moved to New York City and, in 1929, established the advertising agency of Benton & Bowles, which would go on to become highly successful in the early years of radio advertising. The firm introduced soap operas to radio programming, largely in an effort to advertise to housewives who listened to the radio at home, and during the 1930s the company’s clients included General Foods, Bristol-Myers, Colgate, Dr. Pepper, Prudential Life Insurance, Columbia Records, and Procter & Gamble.

However, Bowles left the advertising industry in 1941, and he went on to become a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration during World War II. From 1943 to 1946 he served as the administrator of the Office of Price Administration, and then served one term as governor of Connecticut from 1949 to 1951. Later in 1951, he was appointed as ambassador to India, and served until the end of Harry Truman’s administration in 1953. He served one term in Congress, from 1959 to 1961, and after being defeated for re-election he was appointed Under Secretary of State by John F. Kennedy. In 1963, Kennedy appointed him as ambassador to India again, and Bowles went on to serve in this capacity until the end of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency in 1969.

By the time Bowles was in the midst of his political and diplomatic career, his childhood home here on Mulberry Street had been converted into apartments. It would remain a multi-family home until 1991, when it was severely damaged by a fire that gutted the back of the house and destroyed much of the roof. For the next decade, the house stood vacant and exposed to the elements, and was nearly demolished by the city several times. However, it was sold in 2000 and restored the following year, earning an award from the Springfield Preservation Trust in the process. Today it hardly looks any different from when the Bowles family lived here 80 years ago, and it still stands as one of the finest homes in the Ridgewood Local Historic District.

Source: Derek Strahan, “Charles A. Bowles House, Springfield, Mass” at the Lost New England Website (Feb. 23, 2018)

Image Source: Samuel Bowles (2015). Wikimedia.