Tag: Taussig

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Economists Fields Harvard

Harvard. Thirteen Economics Ph.D. Examinees, 1908-09.

 

 

This posting lists the five graduate students in economics who took their subject examinations for the Ph.D. at Harvard from March 12 through May 21, 1908. The examination committee members, academic history, general and specific subjects are provided along with the doctoral thesis subject, when declared. Lists for 1903-04, 1904-05, 1905-06, 1907-08, 1915-16, and 1926-27 were posted previously. In the same archival box one finds lists for the academic years 1902-03 through 1904-05, 1906-07 through 1913-14, 1915-16, 1917-18 through 1918-19, and finally 1926-27. I only include graduate students of economics (i.e. not included are the Ph.D. candidates in history and government).

Titles and dates of Harvard economic dissertations for the period 1875-1926 can be found here.

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DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D.

1908-09

Edmund Thornton Miller.

General Examination in Economics, January 7, 1909.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Gay, Sprague, and Mitchell.
Academic History: University of Texas, 1897-1901; Harvard Graduate School, 1902-03, 1907-09; A.B. (University of Texas) 1900; A.M. (ibid) 1901; A.M. (Harvard) 1903. Instructor in Political Science, University of Texas, 1904-; Austin Teaching Fellow (Harvard), 1908-09.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Economic History since 1750. 4. Money, Banking and Transportation. 5. Public Finance and Financial History. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Public Finance and the Financial History of the United States since 1789.
Thesis Subject: “The Financial History of Texas.” (With Professor Bullock.)

 

Charles Edward Persons.

General Examination in Economics, February 25, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Carver, Gay, MacDonald, and Ripley.
Academic History: Cornell College (Iowa), 1898-1903; Harvard Graduate School, 1904-05, 1906-09; A.B. (Cornell College) 1903; A.M. (Harvard) 1905. Instructor in Economics at Wellesley College, 1908-.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Economic History from 1750. 4. Sociology and Social Reform. 5. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Industrial History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “The History of the Ten-Hour Law in Massachusetts.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Frank Richardson Mason.

Special Examination in Economics, May 3, 1909.
General Examination passed May 8, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Bullock, Ripley, Mitchell, and Sprague.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1901-05; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-08; A.B. (Harvard) 1905; A.M. (ibid) 1906. Austin Teaching Fellow (Harvard), 1906-08.
Special Subject: Economic History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “The Silk Industry in America.” (With Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Bullock, and Sprague.

 

Robert Franz Foerster.

Special Examination in Economics, May 12, 1909.
General Examination passed May 21, 1908.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Peabody, Carver, Ripley, and Bullock.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1902-05; University of Berlin, 1905-06 (Winter Semester); Harvard Graduate School, 1906-09; A.B. (Harvard) 1906. Assistant in Social Ethics (Harvard), 1908-09.
Special Subject: Labor Problems.
Thesis Subject: “Emigration from Italy, with special reference to the United States.” (With Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Ripley, and Gay.

 

David Frank Edwards.

General Examination in Economics, May 13, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Carver, Ripley, MacDonald, Mitchell, and Sprague.
Academic History: Ohio Wesleyan University, 1899-1903; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-06; A. B. (Ohio Wesleyan) 1903; A.M. (Harvard) 1906. Teacher, High School of Commerce (Boston), 1907-.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization (and Social Reform). 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 4. Commercial Geography and Foreign Commerce. 5. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: International Trade and Tariff Problems.
Thesis Subject: “The Glass Industry in the United States.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Harley Leist Lutz.

General Examination in Economics, May 14, 1909.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Carver, Gay, MacDonald, and Sprague.
Academic History: Oberlin College, 1904-07; Harvard Graduate School, 1907-09; A. B. (Oberlin) 1907; A.M. (Harvard) 1908. Assistant (Oberlin), 1906-07; Austin Teaching Fellow (Harvard), 1908-09.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750, with especial reference to England. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 5. Public Finance and Financial History. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Public Finance and Financial History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “State Control over the Assessment of Property for Local Taxation.” (With Professor Bullock.)

 

Joseph Stancliffe Davis.

General Examination in Economics, May 17, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Carver, Bullock, Ripley, Mitchell, and Dr. Tozzer.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1904-08; Harvard Graduate School, 1908-09; A. B. (Harvard) 1908; Assistant in Economics (Harvard) 1908-09.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Progress. 4. Money, Banking, and Industrial Organization. 5. History of American Institutions, especially since 1783. 6. Anthropology, especially Ethnology.
Special Subject: Corporations (Industrial Organization).
Thesis Subject: “The Policy of New Jersey toward Business Corporations.” (With Professor Bullock.)

 

James Ford.

Special Examination in Economics, May 19, 1909.
General Examination passed May 16, 1906.
Committee: Professors Carver (chairman), Peabody, Ripley, Taussig, and Bullock.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1901-04; Harvard Graduate School, 1904-06, 1907-09; A.B. (Harvard) 1905; A.M. (ibid) 1906. Robert Treat Paine Travelling Fellow, 1906-07; Assistant, Social Ethics (Harvard), 1907-09.
Special Subject: Social Reform (Socialism, Communism, Anarchism).
Thesis Subject: “Distributive and Productive Coöperative Societies in New England.” (With Professor Carver.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Carver, Peabody, and Taussig.

 

Edmund Ezra Day.

Special Examination in Economics, May 20, 1909.
General Examination passed May 23, 1907.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Ripley, Munro, and Mr. Parker.
Academic History: Dartmouth College, 1901-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-07, 1908-09; S.B. (Dartmouth) 1905; A.M. (ibid) 1906. Instructor in Economics, Dartmouth College, 1907-.
Special Subject: Public Finance and Financial History of the United States since 1789.
Thesis Subject: “The History of the General Property Tax in Massachusetts.” (With Professor Bullock.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Bullock, Taussig, and Ripley.

 

Clyde Orval Ruggles.

General Examination in Economics, May 20, 1909.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Carver, Taussig, Gay, and MacDonald.
Academic History: Hedrick Normal School, 1895-96; Iowa State Normal School and Teachers’ College of Iowa, 1901-06; State University of Iowa, 1906-07; Harvard Graduate School, 1907-09; A. B. (Teachers’ College) 1906; A.M. (State Univ.) 1907.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Sociology and Social Reform. 3. Statistics. 4. Economic History to 1750, with especial reference to England. 5. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Money and Banking.
Thesis Subject: “The Greenback Movement with especial Reference to Wisconsin and Iowa.” (With Professors Andrew and Mitchell.)

 

Edmund Thornton Miller.

Special Examination in Economics, May 21, 1909.
General Examination passed January 7, 1909.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Mitchell, and Sprague.
Committee on Thesis: Professors Bullock, Taussig, and Mitchell.
(See first item for Academic History etc.)

 

Emil Sauer.

General Examination in Economics, May 21, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Carver, Gay, Mitchell, Munro, and Ripley.
Academic History: University of Texas, 1900-03, 1904-05; Harvard Graduate School, 1907-09; Litt.B. (University of Texas) 1903; A.M. (Harvard) 1908.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Statistics. 4. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 5. Transportation and Industrial Organization. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Economic History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “The Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 and the Relations between the United States and Hawaii, 1875-1900.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Charles Edward Persons.

Special Examination in Economics, May 24, 1909.
General Examination passed February 25, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Peabody, Bullock, Ripley, and Sprague.
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Bullock, and Ripley.
(See second item for Academic History etc.)

 

Carl William Thompson.

General Examination in Economics, June 2, 1909.
Committee: Professors Carver (chairman), Taussig, Sprague, Ripley, Cole, and MacDonald.
Academic History: Valparaiso College, 1899-1901; University of South Dakota, 1902-03; Harvard Graduate School, 1903-04; A.B. (Valparaiso) 1901; B.O. (ibid) 1901; A.B. (South Dakota) 1903; A.M. (ibid.) 1903; A.M. (Harvard) 1904. Professor of Economics and Sociology, University of South Dakota.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Sociology and Social Reform. 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 4. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 5. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization.. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: (undecided).
Thesis Subject: (undecided.)

 

Arthur Norman Holcombe.

Special Examination in Economics, June 7, 1909.
General Examination passed April 8, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Bullock, Cole, and Munro.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1902-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-09; A.B. (Harvard) 1906; Assistant in Economics (Harvard), 1906-07; Rogers Travelling Fellow, 1907-09
Special Subject: Public Service Industries.
Thesis Subject: ”The Telephone Situation.” (with Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Ripley, and Munro.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D. 1908-09”.

Image Source:  Harvard Gate, ca. 1899. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.

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Columbia Economists Harvard

Harvard and Columbia. The Role of University Presidents in the US. Economist, 1909.

 

 

Today’s post provides a glimpse of the major American universities as seen by the eyes of an Englishman (presumably F. W. H. was both English and a man). While the article highlights the role played by the university presidents, there are other differences noted, e.g. “all-pervading atmosphere of work” observed in the Harvard Law School and the “much greater popularity of politics and political economy”.

For fun I have appended the short-story referred to in the Economist article: “What the College Incubator Did for One Modest Lambkin.” It provides some nice examples of early 20th century American vernacular. Does anyone out there know what the “Harvard walk” looks like?

 

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AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS.—THE UNIVERSITIES AND THEIR PRESIDENTS.

            Although my primary object in visiting America was to get some insight into the commercial and financial system, and to inform myself about the prevalent notions of commercial policy and monetary reform, it was desirable and even indispensable for the objects I had in view to see as much as possible of University men. If the average American university is less powerful than either Oxford or Cambridge as a medium for colouring society, it is perhaps for that reason a stronger element in the national life. The rather exclusive caste with its innumerable degrees that files out of Oxford and Cambridge is but faintly reproduced in the American system by Harvard and Yale, whose mannerisms are sometimes imitated by the youthful universities of the West, and often caricatured by the American humorist. No one who has read it could easily forget George Ade’s description of the grey-haired agriculturist of the Middle West who took his son to a cheap provincial university in the hope that he would “soak up all the knowledge in the market,” and qualify for an inspectorship of schools [George Ade, Breaking into Society (New York: Harper & Brothers,1904), pp. 21-30.]. When the first vacation came, the old man discovered with horror that his young scholar had only acquired the Harvard walk, a passion for athletics, and the habit of large expenditure upon dress. As a matter of fact, universities like Harvard, Yale, Colombia [sic], Cornell, the John Hopkins at Baltimore, and Jefferson’s University of Virginia, have a very high average standard of work. Diligence, as Mr Bryce puts it, is the tradition of the American colleges, partly because “in all but a few universities the vast majority of the students come from simple homes, possess scanty means, and have their way in life to make.” Even at Harvard, with all its rich endowments, its old traditions, and its association with Boston as the home of American men of letters, there is far less of the dilettantism and indifference to the practical business of life than is to be found in the extravagant sets at our fashionable colleges. But this may be partly due to the absence of the college system—a system which has its advantages as well as its defects.

When Professor Lawrence Lowell, who has just been unanimously elected president of Harvard, took me over the law school, I was immensely impressed by the all-pervading atmosphere of work. The ample libraries were filled not only with books, but with students, all engrossed in study, and each apparently convinced that he had not a moment to lose in the race after knowledge. But then, the Harvard law school is justly famous as the largest and best in the English-speaking world. The connection of law with business and of the universities with law is much more close and more real in the states than at home; the chief reason, I think, being the diversity of State legislation upon which all the corporations depend, and the consequent impossibility of carrying on the business of large concerns without constant advice from lawyers. The reliance of business men upon lawyers brings legal firms into far more intimate relations with business conditions than is the case in our own country. Moreover, as there is no distinction between barrister and solicitor, the eminent pleaders and jurists of the United States are not secluded and screened by an intermediate profession from real contact with their real client.

Another evidence of what may be called the actuality of academic life in America is the much greater popularity of politics and political economy. At Harvard, for example, Professor Lowell’s lectures on politics and Professor Taussig’s lectures on economics are regularly attended by three or four hundred students. The large universities have quite a number of economic lecturers, who often specialize on live subjects, such as railways, banking, or industrial corporations. Thus the students are constantly reminded of the various lines of business into which they can enter in order to earn a living after they have taken their degrees.

Lastly, the American university, while it resembles the Scottish or the German more than the English in many respects, differs from all European institutions in the singular importance that it attaches to the office of president. In the words of Mr Bryce, the position is one of honour and influence: “No university dignitaries in Great Britain are so well known to the public, or have their opinions quoted with so much respect, as the heads of the seven or eight leading universities in the United States.” President Eliot, of Harvard, for example, who has just resigned after a long and brilliant career, and Professor Butler, of Colombia[sic], who is still in the prime of life, are two of the most popular orators in the best sense of the word—one should perhaps say popular instructors—in the United States. Most of the presidents of universities are excellent business men, skilled in the arts of advertising their institution, and of attracting students and endowments. When they happen also to be gifted and erudite, their moral and intellectual influence over public opinion is naturally enormous. I was only when I began to realize all this that I could quite understand why the people one met in Boston and New York were often more excited about the presidential election for Harvard than about the Presidential election for the United States. It is probably not generally known that the president-elect, Professor Lowell, whose recently published work on our Constitution is already a classic, has been a successful director of large cotton mills, and is the sole manager of the Lowell Trust. A scholar and a business man with an aptitude for public speaking and liberal views of education should prove an ideal president for Harvard.

F. W. H.

Source: The Economist, January 16, 1909, pp. 105-6.

Image Source:  Abbott Lawrence Lowell, photographic portrait (1904) in Harvard University Archives Photograph Collection: Portraits; The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, the new President of Columbia University, New York.

 

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What the College Incubator Did for One Modest Lambkin.

from George Ade, Breaking into Society (New York: Harper & Brothers,1904), pp. 21-30.

ONE Autumn Afternoon a gray-haired Agriculturist took his youngest Olive Branch by the Hand and led him away to a Varsity. Wilbur was 18 and an Onion. He had outgrown his last year’s Tunic, and his Smalls were hardly on speaking terms with his Uppers. He had large, warty Hands, which floated idly at his sides, and his Wrists resembled extra Sets of Knuckles. When he walked, his Legs gave way at the Hinge and he Interfered. On his Head was a little Wideawake with a Buckle at the Side. Mother had bobbed his Hair and rubbed in a little Goose-Grease to make it shine. The Collar that he wore was size 13, and called the Rollo Shape. It rose to a Height of a half-inch above his Neck-Band. For a Cravat he had a Piece of watered Silk Ribbon with Butterflies on it.

Wilbur had his Money tied up in a Handkerchief, and he carried a Paper Telescope loaded down with one Complete Change and a Catalogue of the Institution showing that the Necessary Expenses were not more than $3.40 per Week.

As the Train pulled away from Pewee Junction Wilbur began to Leak. The Salt Tears trickled down through the Archipelago of Freckles. He wanted to Crawfish, but Paw bought him a Box of Crackerjack and told him that if he got an Education and improved his Opportunities some day he might be County Superintendent of Schools and get his $900 a Year just like finding it. So Wilbur spunked up and said he would try to stick it out. He got out the Catalogue and read all of the copper-riveted Rules for the Moral Guidance of Students.

The Curriculum had him scared. He saw that in the next four Years he would have to soak up practically all the Knowledge on the Market. But he was cheered to think that if he persevered and got through he would be entitled to wear an Alpaca Coat and a Lawn Tie and teach in the High-School, so he took Courage and began to notice the Scenery.

Wilbur was planted in a Boarding-House guaranteed to provide Wholesome Food and a Home Influence. Father went back after making a final Discourse on the importance of learning most everything in all of the Books.

Nine Months later they were down at the Depot to meet Wilbur. He had written several times, saying that he could not find time to come Home, as he was in pursuit of Knowledge every Minute of the Day, and if he left the Track, Knowledge might gain several Laps on him. It looked reasonable, too, for the future Superintendent of Schools had spent $400 for Books, $200 for Scientific Apparatus, and something like $60 for Chemicals to be used in the Laboratory.

When the Train suddenly checked itself, to avoid running past the Town, there came out of the Parlor Car something that looked like Fitz, on account of the Padding in the Shoulders. Just above one Ear he wore a dinky Cap about the size of a Postage Stamp. The Coat reached almost to the Hips and was buttoned below. The Trousers had enough material for a suit. They were reefed to show feverish Socks of a zigzag Pattern. The Shoes were very Bull-Doggy, and each had a wide Terrace running around it. Father held on to a Truck for Support. Never before had he seen a genuine Case of the inflammatory Rah-Rahs.

Wilbur was smoking a dizzy little Pipe from which the Smoke curled upward, losing itself in a copious Forelock that moved gently in the Breeze. Instead of a Collar, Wilbur was wearing a Turkish Towel. He had the Harvard Walk down pat. With both Hands in his Pockets, the one who had been pursuing Knowledge teetered towards the Author of his Being and said, ” How are you, Governor?”

Father was always a Lightning Calculator, and as he stood there trying to grasp and comprehend and mentally close in, as it were, on the Burlap Suit and the Coon Shirt and the sassy Pipe, something told him that Wilbur would have to Switch if he expected to be County Superintendent of Schools,

“Here are my Checks,” said Wilbur, handing over the Brasses.” Have my Trunks, my Golf Clubs, my portable Punching-Bag, the Suit-Case and Hat-Boxes sent up to the House right away. Then drive me Home by the Outside Road, because I don’t want to meet all these Yaps. They annoy me.”

“You’d better git out of that Rig mighty quick if you don’t want to be Joshed,” said his Parent. “Folks around here won’t stand for any such fool Regalia, and if you walk like a frozen-toed Hen you’ll get some Hot Shots or I miss my Calkilations.”

“Say, Popsy, I’ve been eating Raw Meat and drinking Blood at the Training-Table, and I’m on Edge,” said Wilbur, expanding his Chest until it bulged out like a Thornton Squash.” If any of these local Georgie Glues try to shoot their Pink Conversation at me I’ll toss them up into the Trees and let them hang there. I’m the Gazabe that Puts the Shot. Any one who can trim a Policeman and chuck a Hackman right back into his own Hack and drive off with him doesn’t ask for any sweeter Tapioca than one of these Gaffer Greens. The Ploughboy who is muscle- bound and full of Pastry will have a Proud Chance any time that he struts across my Pathway. In my Trunks I have eight suits a little warmer than this one and 47 pairs of passionate Hose. I’m out here to give the Cornfields a Touch of High Life. It’s about time that your Chaws had a Glimpse of the Great Outside World. Any one who gets Fussy about the Color-Combinations that I spring from Day to Day will be chopped up and served for Lunch. To begin with, I’m going to teach you and Mother to play Golf. If these Mutts come and lean over the Fence and start to get off their Colored- Weekly Jokes we’ll fan the Hill-side with them.”

“What do they teach up at your School — besides Murder?” inquired Father. ” I thought you wanted to be County Superintendent of Schools.”

“I’ve outgrown all those two-by-four Ambitions,” was the Reply. “I’m going to be on the Eleven next Fall. What more could you ask?”

That very week Wilbur organized a Ball Team that walloped Hickory Crick, Sand Ridge, and Sozzinsville. He had the whole Township with him. Every Cub at Pewee Junction began to wear a Turkish Towel for a Collar and practise the Harvard Walk.

MORAL : A Boy never blossoms into his full Possibilities until he strikes an Atmosphere of Culture.

Categories
Economists Fields Harvard

Harvard. Five Economics Ph.D. examinees, 1907-08

 

This posting lists the five graduate students in economics who took their subject examinations for the Ph.D. at Harvard from March 12 through May 21, 1908. The examination committee members, academic history, general and specific subjects are provided along with the doctoral thesis subject, when declared. Lists for 1903-04, 1904-05, 1905-06, 1915-16, and 1926-27 were posted previously. In the same archival box one finds lists for the academic years 1902-03 through 1904-05, 1906-07 through 1913-14, 1915-16, 1917-18 through 1918-19, and finally 1926-27. I only include graduate students of economics (i.e. not included are the Ph.D. candidates in history and government).

Titles and dates of Harvard economic dissertations for the period 1875-1926 can be found here.

______________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D.

1907-08

Walter Wallace McLaren.

Special Examination in Economics, Thursday, March 12, 1908.
General Examination passed April 10, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), McLean (University of Toronto), Gay, Bullock and Munro.
Academic History: Queen’s University (Canada), 1894-99; Queen’s University Theological College, 1899-1902; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-08; A.M. (Queen’s Univ.) 1899; B:D. (ibid) 1902.
Special Subject: Canadian Economic History.
Thesis Subject: “History of the Canadian Tariff.” (With Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Gay, Munro. 

Edmund Thornton Miller.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 6, 1908.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Hart, Ripley, Gay, and Andrew.
Academic History: University of Texas, 1897-1901; Harvard Graduate School, 1902-03, 1907-08; A.B. (University of Texas) 1900; A.M. (ibid) 1901; A.M. (Harvard) 1903.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Economic History since 1750. 4. Money, Banking and Transportation. 5. Public Finance and Financial History. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Public Finance and the Financial History of the United States since 1789.
Thesis Subject: “The Financial History of Texas.” (With Professor Bullock.)

Melvin Thomas Copeland.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 13, 1908.
Committee: Professors Gay (chairman), Taussig, Carver, Hart, Ripley, and Andrew.
Academic History: Bowdoin College, 1902-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-08; A.B. (Bowdoin) 1906; A.M. (Harvard) 1907.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Statistics. 5. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Economic History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “Cotton Manufacturing in the United States since 1860.” (With Professor Taussig.)

Frank Richardson Mason.

Special Examination in Economics, Thursday, May 14, 1908.
General Examination passed May 8, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Carver, Gay, Bullock and Andrew.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1901-05; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-07; A.B. (Harvard) 1905; A.M. (ibid) 1906.
Special Subject: Economic History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “The Silk Industry in America..” (With Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Carver, and Gay.

Robert Franz Foerster.

General Examination in Economics, Thursday, May 21, 1908.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Royce, Carver, Ripley, Gay, and Bullock.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1902-05; University of Berlin, 1905-06; A.B. (Harvard) 1906.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Statistics. 5. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization. 6. Philosophy.
Special Subject: Labor Problems.
Thesis Subject: “Emigration from Italy, with special reference to the United States.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1907-1908”.

Image Source: Memorial Hall, ca. 1900. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.

 

Categories
Bibliography Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Theories of Rent Readings Lists. Taussig, Schumpeter, Alan Sweezy. 1934

 

 

One page containing the course bibliographies for the topics “Urban Rent” and “Broader Aspects of Rent” from Economics 7b, Theories of Value and Distribution, jointly offered by Frank W. Taussig, Joseph A. Schumpeter and Alan R. Sweezy was found in the collection of course syllabi and reading lists in the Harvard Archives. One would have expected that there would have been separate bibliographies prepared for “Wages”, “Profits” and possibly “Interest” for this course on distribution. I find it less likely that the course was a single “topics” course that happened to be focused on “Rent” for the semester. This was confirmed after looking at the final examination questions for the course. 

Note: Alan’s brother Paul did not receive his Ph.D. until 1937 and Alan was given a three-year appointment at the rank of “faculty instructor” beginning in the Fall of 1934 following his previous year as “graduate instructor”. Hence “Dr. Sweezy” clearly refers to Alan. I have appended a 1955 article from the Harvard Crimson about the famous Sweezy-Walsh case for those who might not be familiar with that episode in the history of tenure review procedures.

 

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*Economics 7b 1hf. Theories of Value and Distribution
[from Course Announcement]

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., at 2, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructors. Professors Taussig and Schumpeter, and Dr. Sweezy.

 

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences during 1934-35 (2nd ed). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXXI, No. 38 (September 20, 1934), p. 126

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Course Enrollment

*7b 1hf. Professors Taussig and Schumpeter, and Dr. Sweezy.—Theories of Value and Distribution.

Total 23: 14 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 5 Others.

 

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1934-1935, p. 81.

__________________________

 

Economics 7b

1934-35 [pencil note]

Urban Rent

E.H. Chamberlin, Monopolistic Competition, appen. D, pp. 200-203
W. C. Clark & J. L. Kingston, The Skyscraper: A Study of the Economic Heighth of Modern Office Buildings, esp. ch. 2, 3, and conclusion.
H. B. Dorau & A. G. Hinman, Urban Land Economics, pp. 158-223. Characteristics of Urban Land. Part V Urban Land Income and Value. (Note: The whole of the book is relevant, but much of it can be skipped over superficially for the problem in hand.)
H. J. Davenport, Economics of Enterprise, ch. 13.
R. M. Haig, “Toward and Understanding of the Metropolis”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February and May 1926
R. M. Hurd, Principle of City Land Values, especially ch. 6.
F. W. Taussig, Principles, vol. 2, ch. 43.
R. T. Ely, Outlines of Economics, 5th ed., ch. 22.

 

Broader Aspects of Rent

J. B. Clark, either Distribution of Wealth, ch. 13, or “Distribution as Determined by a Law of Rent”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 5, 1890-91
F. A. Fetter, “The Passing of the Old Concept of Rent”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 15, 1900-01.
A. S. Johnson, “Rent in Modern Economic Theory”, American Economic Association Publications, 3rd. series, vol. 3(1902).
A. E. Monroe, Value and Income, pp. 65-67, 188-194.
Joan Robinson, Economics of Imperfect Competition, Bk. III, ch. 8, pp. 102-116

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1934-1935”.

Image Sources:  Harvard Class Album.  Taussig (1934), Schumpeter (1939), Alan Sweezy (1929).

 

__________________________

The Sweezy-Walsh Case

Harvard Crimson
January 12, 1955

In a letter elsewhere on the page, Dean Bender rightly points out that the CRIMSON has inadvertently perpetuated an untruth we have long tried to bury. Alan R. Sweezy ’29, it is true, was given a “terminating appointment,” and it was no secret that his views were to the left of most political centers. By working solely from these two facts, some liberals on the Faculty and elsewhere came to a conclusion which was long to prove embarrassing to President Conant. More important, the dropping of Sweezy and the other instructor in the case, J. Raymond Walsh, forced a reform in the University’s appointment system in one of the few instances that the Harvard Faculty has rebelled against its Administration.

Both Sweezy and Walsh were popular and able teachers in the Economics department. Both men held three-year appointments as instructors and when this period was up, In 1937, the Department strongly recommended that both men be retained. When they were not rehired, and when the Administration released a statement that its decision was reached solely on the grounds of “teaching capacity and scholarly ability,” charges accusing the University of various infringements were raised from coast to coast.

The CRIMSON immediately editorialized that, though the University’s statement was “ill-timed and impolitic,” the political views of the two men had nothing to do with the case. By that time, however, alarmists and those Communists who capitalize on such misunderstandings were off and running, joined by friends of the two men who were genuinely confused by the Administration’s actions.

Within a few weeks, the cry about their hue forced Conant to make a special report to the Overseers. The President, who at that time did not enjoy the complete confidence of the Faculty he was later accorded, held fast, arguing that the University cannot appoint a man just because his views are unorthodox. “If academic decisions are to be influenced by the fear of their being misinterpreted as interference with academic freedom,” Conant said, “then academic freedom itself, to my mind disappears.” The New York Herald-Tribune hailed Conant and his stand, describing his as a man “tolerant of everything except intolerance.”

Since even the two principals were now convinced that their politics were not the issue, the outburst began to quiet. But the Faculty, while willing to forgive, could not forget. One hundred and thirty-one of the nonpermanent teaching staff requested an entire investigation of the tenure system. Even if the financial pressures of the depression made it impossible for Conant to keep men like Sweezy, these teachers did not feel that the current methods of selecting permanent appointees were as accurate and well-defined as they might be.

It was significant, and extraordinary, that the appeal for a re-evaluation was not made to Conant but to a committee of eight respected professors including Ralph Barton Perry, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Samuel E. Morison, and Felix Frankfurter. These men wrote to Conant, suggesting what they wanted to study and making it pointedly clear that if they were not authorized to investigate, they would do so anyway.

Two separate reports were issued by this committee, one on Walsh and Sweezy, the second on the entire tenure question. The first recommendation–that the two instructors be re-appointed–was vetoed by the Corporation. The Faculty accepted this action without much comment; by that time, the second report was the chief interest among professors. Published in March, 1939, the report recommended a mathematical evaluation of departments, their concentrators and staffs, with more rigid rules about how often permanent additions could be made to the Faculty.

Conant substantially accepted this report and it was forwarded to the full Faculty and the Corporation which also agreed to its principles. The many complications were referred to the new Assistant Deans of the Faculty, W. C. Graustein and Paul H. Buck. Before his tragic death in an accident, Graustein had worked carefully on the plan and it came to bear his name. Dean of the Faculty Ferguson, who had agreed to hold an Administrative post only during this stormy interim period, soon resigned his position. With the promotion of Paul Buck to the job, the Walsh-Sweezy affair became history and Conant found that he had made his most successful appointment to the Deanship.

 

Categories
Courses Economists Fields Harvard

Harvard. Edward Chamberlin Lobbies to Teach a Graduate Theory Course. 1935

 

 

With the retirements of Charles J. Bullock and Frank W. Taussig in 1935 Edward H. Chamberlin saw his opportunity to start to break out of his designated field box “government and industry” and into “theory”. We have here a letter that Chamberlin wrote to the head of the economics department, Harold H. Burbank. The letter is of the putting-this-conversation-into-the-written-record variety. His deference to Burbank and recognition of the established claims of other colleagues to the theory field are complemented with a dash of false-modesty—“Perhaps I may, however,…put in my own ‘claim’ (if such it may be called) for whatever consideration it deserves.”

In any event, from the subsequent shuffle in instructional assignments for the 1935-36 academic year, we see that Chamberlin succeeded in joining Schumpeter and Leontief at the Harvard theory table.

________________________

Letter from Associate Professor Chamberlin to Chairman Burbank
Requesting to teach a graduate course in theory

 

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

14 Ash Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts
February 26, 1935

Professor H. H. Burbank, Chairman
Department of Economics,
Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass.

 

Dear Burby:

This is to confirm our conversation of the other day. I should like to ask if arrangements could possibly be made at this late date for me to give a graduate half course next year on “Contemporary Value Theory.”

I have been asked by several people recently why it was that, although the theoretical problems which Mrs. Robinson and myself have raised are the subject of lively controversies in numerous other universities, one finds them very much in the background at Harvard. There does seem to be a general interest in the subject, and, since I have a strong continuing interest in it myself, the occasion seems to present itself of offering to graduate students at Harvard a better opportunity than they now have to study and discuss this set of problems and others related to it.

I realize that others than myself have claims to theory courses and that the problems of fitting the members of the Department to courses are not easy. Perhaps I may, however, even for this very reason, put in my own “claim” (if such it may be called) for whatever consideration it deserves. My work in Public Utilities and Industrial Organization could be reduced without difficulty. Donald Wallace could take my part in Economics 49 with Professors Crum and Mason, and, I am sure, would do an excellent job of it. This arrangement, together with a slight reduction in my tutorial load, would give me the time for another half course and I should continue in the undergraduate 4a and 4c. I should have, even then, only one-fifth of my time in theory, the other four fifths in the practical field of government and industry.

You have recently intimated in conversation that I might soon be given a share of the work in theory. I hope it may be next year, and also that a way can be found to arrange for it without interfering with the work which others are now doing or plan to do in the field.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Edward H. Chamberlin

________________________

Copy of letter from Chairman Burbank to Dean Murdock
with changes to 1935-36 course announcements

April 17, 1935

Dear Dean Murdock,

Owing to the retirement of Professor Taussig, several changes in the Course Announcement for the coming year will have to be made. The Department recommends the following:

*Economics 7b1. Theories of Value and Distribution. [listed as “Modern Economic Thought” in Report of the President of Harvard College 1935-36, p. 82; ]

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 11. Associate Professor Chamberlin.
[Replacing Taussig, Schumpeter and Sweezy who taught in 1934-35]

Economics 8a2. Introduction to the Mathematical Treatment of Economics.

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., 4-5. Asst. Professor Leontief.
[Replacing Schumpeter who taught in 1934-35]

Economics 11. Economic Theory.

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Professor Schumpeter.
[Replacing Taussig and Schumpeter who taught in 1934-35]

Economics 14b2. History of Economic Thought since 1776.

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Dr. Monroe.
[Replacing “History and Literature of Economics from the Physiocrats through Ricardo” taught by Professor Bullock in 1934-35. Bullock retired from Harvard September 1, 1935.]

Sincerely yours,

H. H. Burbank

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

 

 

Source: Harvard University Archives, Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950. Box 23, Folder “Course offerings 1926-1937”.

Image Source: Harvard Class Album, 1939.

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. A. Piatt Andrew appointed Director of Mint, Loses Manuscript(s), 1909

 

 

The Harvard assistant professor of economics Abram Piatt Andrew played an enormous role in the preparation of the reports of the National Monetary Commission 1908-11, but today’s post is limited to a newspaper report announcing his appointment as Director of the Mint, a short biographical note from his memorial service from 1938, and a letter (August 14, 1909) from his former teacher and colleague Frank W. Taussig responding to the news of a lost book draft or materials for a manuscript.

It is interesting to read of the data back-up problem a century ago and Taussig’s personal solution (safe deposit boxes in banks!).

Syllabus and links to the readings from his money and banking course at Harvard offered in the Fall semester of 1901.

Note: The American Field Service has a page full of anecdotes from the life of A. Piatt Andrew.

______________________________

Biography

ABRAM PIATT ANDREW, Jr., was born in La Porte, La Porte County, Ind., February 12, 1873; attended the public schools and the Lawrenceville (N. J.) School; was graduated from Princeton College in 1893; member of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1893-98; pursued postgraduate studies in the Universities of Halle, Berlin, and Paris; moved to Gloucester, Mass,, and was instructor and assistant professor of economics in Harvard University 1900-1909; expert assistant and editor of publications of the National Monetary Commission 1908-11; Director of the Mint 1909 and 1910; Assistant Secretary of the Treasury 1910-12; served in France continuously for 4-1/2 years, during the World War, first with the French and later with the United States Army; commissioned major, United States National Army, in September 1917 and promoted to lieutenant colonel September 1918; awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor medal by the Republic of France in 1917 and the distinguished service medal by the United States Government in 1918; elected as a Republican to the Sixty-seventh Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Willfred W. Lufkin; reelected to the Sixty-eighth and to the six succeeding Congresses, and served from September 27, 1921, until his death; delegate to the Republican National Conventions at Cleveland in 1924 and at Kansas City in 1928; member of the board of trustees of Princeton University 1932-36; died in Gloucester, Mass., June 3, 1936; remains were cremated and the ashes scattered from an airplane flying over his estate at Eastern Point, Gloucester, Mass.

 

Source: Memorial Service Held in the House of Representatives of the United States, Together with Remarks Presented in Eulogy of Abram Piatt Andrew, Late a Representative from Massachusetts. Seventy-fifth Congress, First Session. Washington, D.C. GPO, 1938. Archived transcription at the American Field Service website.

______________________________

DIRECTOR OF MINT
Professor Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr., Appointed by President Taft—Will Resign from Harvard

Cambridge Tribune, August 7, 1909

On Thursday, President Taft sent to the senate the nomination of Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr., of Massachusetts, to be director of the mint.

Professor Andrew was born in La Porte, Ind., on February 12, 1873. His early education was received at the Lawrenceville School, a private institution at Lawrenceville, N. J. In 1894 he was graduated from Princeton University and then studied at Harvard one year, later spending two years more study at Berlin and Paris. In 1900 the degree of Ph.D. was conferred upon him by Harvard, and that same year he was called to that university as an instructor in the department of economics. Since 1903 he has been assistant professor of economics at Harvard, having for several years conducted the general course in economics for a class of more than five hundred students, and also courses on money, the theory and history of money, theory and history of banking and commercial crises.

In 1906 the Minister of Public Instruction in France conferred upon Professor Andrew the title of “Officer d’Academie,” a high honor given by the French people to men of scholarly attainments and notable achievements at home and abroad. It was conferred in this instance for the professor’s work at Harvard and his writings on economics, particularly financial matters.

For a year Professor Andrew has been expert adviser to the National Monetary Commission, the chairman of which is Senator Aldrich, of Rhode Island, and in order to perform this work he had been given a two years leave of absence from his duties at the college. Professor Andrew went abroad last summer with some of the members of the commission, visiting London, Berlin, Paris and other important financial centres of Europe for the purpose of studying their methods of conducting business and to get information regarding the national and other laws governing banks and stock transactions. Since his return to this country Professor Andrew has been in Washington, where he has been in charge of the editing of the commission’s forthcoming report. This report, which will occupy about twenty volumes, will soon begin to issue from the printer’s hands, and it is believed that it will be the most comprehensive and valuable publication dealing with the world’s banking and financial interests ever published. Professor Andrew’s duties at Washington have included arranging for the contribution of special articles by men of the highest standing in their particular lines.

Numerous articles, many of which have since been republished as pamphlets, have been contributed by Professor Andrew to leading publications. Among those which have attracted wide attention was his “Study of Secretary Shaw’s Policies,” issued at the time of the retirement of the former secretary of the treasury. He has published several articles on currency questions as they concern Oriental countries, notably one on the adoption of the gold standard in India. He also wrote a history of the Mexican dollar. One interesting contribution to American financial literature was a pamphlet dealing with the crisis of 1907, in which the author described the different substitutes then used for money, mentioning more than two hundred varieties.

Professor Andrew arrived at his cottage at Eastern Point, Gloucester, where he has spent his summers for eight years on Wednesday, coming on from the capital especially to attend the pageant. He will remain there only a few days before returning to Washington, where he will spend a month or six weeks in completing some of his work with the Monetary Commission before assuming his new duties as director of the mint. He will continue as adviser to the commission. Although only one year of his leave from Harvard has expired, it is probable that Professor Andrew will soon resign as assistant professor of economics, in order that the college may fill his place permanently.

Source: Cambridge Tribune, Vol. XXXII, No. 23, 7 August, 1909, p. 1.

______________________________

Letter from Taussig to Andrew (14 Aug 1909)

Harvard University
Department of Economics
Cambridge, Massachusetts

F. W. Taussig
T. N. Carver
W. Z. Ripley
C. J. Bullock
E. F. Gay
A. P. Andrew
W. M. Cole
O. M. W. Sprague

August 14, 1909

Cotuit, Massachusetts

Dear Andrew:

I have your letter of August 13th, and am truly sorry to hear of the tragedy with your papers. It is nothing less than a tragedy, for however completely one may have the subject at command, the labor of arrangement, compilation, and actual writing must all be done over again. I have been uneasy about my own manuscript, and this summer put it in safe deposit vaults for fear lest possibly my house should burn up. Your mishap almost is like burning your bridges behind you; it is as if you were completely cut loose from your past career.

I note what you say about the memorandum on the work of the Monetary Commission and shall be glad to have it at an early date.

The probabilities are that I shall not spend the coming winter in Cambridge, for Mrs. Taussig’s condition is such that she is ordered away. She spent last winter—as you may remember—in the South and is not so much recovered that a winter in Cambridge can be risked. Although the Departmental situation is by no means such as to make it easy, I am arranging to take a year’s leave of absence. I hope during that time to finish my book and get some other literary chores out of the way. I send you a separate letter on the subject of the Tariff Commission, written in such form that you can show it to Secretary McVeagh and to others to whom you may care to show it.

Very sincerely yours,
[signed]
F. W. Taussig

Enclosure
A. P. Andrew, Esq.

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of A. Piatt Andrew. Box 15, Folder 15.13 “Correspondence. Taussig, F. W.”

Image Source: A. Piatt Andrew at Red Roof, his home in Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1910.  Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of A. Piatt Andrew.(Box 47, folder 9).

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Six Economics Ph.D. examinees, 1906-07

 

 

This posting lists six graduate students in economics who took their subject examinations for the Ph.D. at Harvard from April 4 through May 23, 1907, apparently the entire 1906-07 Ph.D. examination cohort. The examination committee members, academic history, general and specific subjects are provided along with the doctoral thesis subject, when declared. Lists for 1903-04, 1904-05, 1915-16, and 1926-27 were posted previously. In the same archival box one finds lists for the academic years 1902-03 through 1904-05, 1906-07 through 1913-14, 1915-16, 1917-18 through 1918-19, and finally 1926-27. I only include graduate students of economics (i.e. not included are the Ph.D. candidates in history and government).

Titles and dates of Harvard economic dissertations for the period 1875-1926 can be found here.

 

________________________________________

 

DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D.

1906-07

 

Arthur Norman Holcombe.

General Examination in Economics, Thursday, April 4, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Lowell, Bullock, Gay, Ripley, and Andrew.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1902-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-07; A.B. (Harvard) 1906.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. [2. Economic History to 1750.] 3. Economic History since 1750. [4. Sociology and Social Reform.] 5. Public Finance. [6. Modern Government and Comparative Constitutional Law.] Excused from further examination in subjects 2, 4, and 6 on account of having taken Highest Final Honors.
Special Subject:
Thesis Subject: “The Telephone Situation.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Walter Wallace McLaren.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, April 10, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Hart, Bullock, Munro, and Andrew.
Academic History: Queen’s University (Canada), 1894-99; Queen’s University Theological College, 1899-1902; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-07; A.M. (Queen’s Univ.) 1899; B.D. (ibid.) 1902.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Sociology and Social Reform. 3. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 4. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization. 5. The History of Canada. 6. Municipal and Local Government.
Special Subject: Canadian Economic History.
Thesis Subject: “History of the Canadian Tariff.” (With Professor Taussig.)

Frank Richardson Mason.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 8, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Channing, Bullock, Gay, Ripley, and Andrew.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1901-05; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-07; A.B. (Harvard) 1905; A.M. (ibid.) 1906.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Economic History since 1750. 4. Money, Banking and Commercial Crises. 5. Social Reform and Industrial Organization. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: United States Economic History (or Crises?).
Thesis Subject: “The Silk Industry in Europe and America.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Charles Phillips Huse.

Special Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 15, 1907.
General Examination passed May 11, 1906.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Stimson, Taussig, Bullock, and Andrew.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1900-03; Harvard Graduate School, 1904-07; A.B. (Harvard) 1904; A.M. (ibid.) 1906.
Special Subject: Public Finance and Financial History.
Thesis Subject: “Financial History of Boston, 1822-1859, with a Preliminary Chapter.” (With Professor Bullock.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Bullock, Taussig, Ripley.

 

William Jackman.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 22, 1907.
Committee: Professors Gay (chairman), Macvane, Taussig, Bullock, Ripley, and Andrew.
Academic History: University of Toronto, 1892-96; University of Pennsylvania, 1899-1900; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-07; A.B. (Univ. of Toronto) 1896; A.M. (ibid.) 1900.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Statistics. 4. Sociology and Social Reform. 5. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization. 6. English History since 1500.
Special Subject: Modern Economic History of England.
Thesis Subject: “The Development of Transportation in Modern England before the Steam Railway Era.” (With Professor Gay.)

 

Edmund Ezra Day.

General Examination in Economics, Thursday, May 23, 1907.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Channing, Taussig, Bullock, Andrew, and Wyman.
Academic History: Dartmouth College, 1901-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-07; S.B. (Dartmouth) 1905; A.M. (ibid.) 1906.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Statistics. 3. Money, Banking and Crises. 4. Public Finance and Financial History. 5. Industrial Organization and Corporation Finance. 6. American Institutions and Constitutional Law.
Special Subject: Taxation.
Thesis Subject: “Taxation of Corporations in Connecticut and Maine.”(?) (With Professor Bullock.)

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1906-1907”.

Image Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 .

Categories
Curriculum Fields Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Taussig Reports to Alumni About the Special Needs of the Economics Department, 1915

 

A recent post provided Harvard President Lowell’s interpretation (1916) of the results of a recently completed study on economics instruction at Harvard (subsequently published in 1917). In this post we see how Professor Frank W. Taussig spins his reception of the ongoing study for a pitch to Harvard alumni to get over their edifice complexes (i.e. their revealed preference to fund new structures) and to create more endowments to fund graduate students and post-docs who are an important link between the research and instructional missions of the University in general and the department of economics in particular.

______________________________

 

THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS.
PROF. F. W. TAUSSIG, ’79.

The most striking change that has taken place during the last fifty years in the content of the College curriculum has been the dominance acquired by the political and economic subjects. What Greek, Latin, Mathematics were a half-century ago, that Economics, Government, History are now, — the backbone of the ordinary undergraduate’s studies. I will not undertake to say whether on the whole the change is or is not to be welcomed. It has its good sides and its bad sides. In one respect it is undoubtedly good. The main cause behind it is a great awakening of public spirit, — a consciousness that the country is confronted with pressing political and economical problems, and that we must gird our loins to meet them. And an assured consequence will be that the new generation of College men, who are being graduated every year by the thousands and tens of thousands, all trained in these subjects, will constitute a leavening force which must in time affect profoundly and beneficially the conduct of public affairs. At all events, so far as university teachers and administrators are concerned, the plain fact must be faced: instruction in these subjects has to be provided on a large scale.

The responsibility thus devolving on the Harvard Department of Economics among others was impressed on its members by the outcome of the new system of concentration introduced in 1910. It appeared that in some years this department had the largest number of concentrations of any; and in every year the number was very large. Its only rival was the English Department. These figures — familiar enough to Harvard men — set the economists to thinking. Under the able leadership of the chairman, Prof. C. J. Bullock, a deliberate inspection of the Department’s work was decided on. Obviously, the surest way to get at the unvarnished facts was to enlist the services of outside critics. To this end the Department of Education was asked to come to our aid. Its members were invited to attend lectures and recitations, to read examination books and theses, to learn by questionnaires what the students themselves said and thought, to suggest improvements. In addition, some members of the Visiting Committee appointed by the Board of Overseers really visited, attending systematically the exercises in some courses and preparing valuable critical reports. The Educators responded to the appeal with gratifying heartiness, and the two Departments have cooperated cordially in a course of action which is unique in the history of the University.

Already this movement has borne fruit; and it will bear still more. The introductory course Economics A (which has successively borne the names Philosophy 6, Political Economy 1, Economics 1, and now Economics A) has been systematically visited. New methods of instruction have been suggested, old methods have been tested, promising devices are on trial. It should be added that the more expensive and effective methods of instruction tried in it, and started even before the educational survey, were made possible only by generous financial support from the Visiting Committee. This is the largest elective course in College, having over 500 students; here is the most important teaching task. In the next tier of courses, two are being conducted on new lines; in these cases on the department’s own initiative rather than in consequence of advice from outside. They are the undergraduate courses on accounting and statistics, in which something closely akin to a laboratory system is being applied. That is, the assigned tasks are done, not in the student’s room and at his own (procrastinated!) hour, but in special quarters equipped for the purpose, at times appointed in advance, and under the supervision and with the aid of well-trained assistants. Other courses, especially those having considerable numbers, are now under similar inspection, and we have every hope that in them also good advice will be secured and good results obtained.

The problems of instruction in this subject, as in so many others, are far from being solved. How far lecture, how far enlist discussion, how far recite? In what way bring it about that the students shall think for themselves? In what way communicate to them the best thinking of others? Almost every department of the University, not excepting the professional schools, is asking itself these questions and is experimenting with solutions. Undoubtedly, different methods will prove advantageous for different subjects. Within the Department of Economics itself there is occasion for variety in methods. Some courses, especially those dealing with matters of general principle and of theoretic reasoning, are best conducted by discussion. Others, dealing with concrete problems, with the history of industry and of legislation, with description and fact, call for a judicious admixture of required reading, lectures, written work. In all, the great thing to be aimed at is power and mastery: training in thinking for yourself, in reaching conclusions of your own, in expressing clearly and effectively what you have learned and thought out. The courses that deal with industrial history, with the labor problems, with railways and combinations, taxation and public finance, money and banking, need something in the nature of laboratory work, such as I have just referred to; an extension and improvement, supervision and systematization, of the familiar thesis work.

Now, throughout all such endeavor and experimentation, the indispensable thing is a staff of capable and well-trained instructors. We need able men, effective personalities. We need them throughout, from top to bottom, — professors, assistant professors, instructors, assistants. The ideal man is one having a good head, good judgment, good teaching power, good presence, good training, the spirit of scholarship and research. Men who possess all these qualities are rare birds; we are in luck when we get the perfect combination. Often we have to accept men not up to the ideal. But we know what we ought to have, and we should strive to get as nearly to its height as we can.

In no subject is there greater need of good teachers and of trained thinkers than in economics. The subject is difficult, and it abounds with unsolved problems. Some things in its domain are indeed settled, — more than would be inferred from current popular controversies or from the differences in the ranks of the economists themselves. But on sundry important topics it is useless to maintain that we have reached demonstrable conclusions. There are pros and cons; conflicting arguments must be weighed; only qualified propositions can be stated. Differences of temperament, of upbringing, of environment, will cause the opinions of able and conscientious men to vary. Hence there is need above all of teachers who can think, weigh, judge; who are aware of the inevitable divergencies of opinion and of the causes that underlie them. There is abundant room for conviction, for enthusiasm, for the emphatic statement of one’s own views. But also there is need, above all in the teacher, of patience, discrimination, charity for those whose views are different.

It is thus of the utmost importance that young men of the right stamp should be drawn into the profession. I say the profession, because it has come to be such. And it is a profession with large possibilities, one that may well tempt a capable, high-spirited, and ambitious young man. Twenty-five years ago, when I was in the early stage of my teaching career, it would have been rash to encourage such a youth to train himself to be an economist. Then academic positions were but ill-paid, and were not held in assured high esteem. The situation has changed. Though salaries are still meager, they are rising; and the public regard for scientific work is increasing for all subjects, and not least for this one. Quite as important is the circumstance that the services of trained economists are now in demand for the public service, and that in this direction there are large opportunities for usefulness and for distinction. The possible range of work has come to be much wider than the academic field. And no large pecuniary bait is necessary to enlist men of the needed quality. Those who are interested primarily in money-making cannot indeed be advised to enter the profession; but they are also not of the sort to be welcomed in it. I am convinced that nowadays there are more young men than ever, in Harvard and elsewhere, to whom something nobler appeals. The spirit of service is abroad in the land, and moves students not only in their choice of college courses, but in their choice of a career. Yet a career should be in sight. There should be a reasonable prospect of promotion, a decent income according to the standards of educated men.

To enlist men of the right stamp in the service of the University there must be still another sort of inducement. There must be a stimulating atmosphere, a pervasive spirit of initiative and research. To mould the thoughts of students and so the opinions of the coming generation is an attractive task; but no less attractive, often more so, — much will depend on temperament, — is the opportunity to influence the forward march of thought, the solution of new problems. As I have just said, economics offers unsolved problems in abundance. There are high questions of theory, concerned with the very foundations of the social order and tempting to the man of severe intellectual ambition. There are intricate questions of legislation and administration, calling for elaborate investigation and pressing for prompt action; these will tempt the man of practical bent. For either sort of work, there must be something more inspiring than the opportunity for routine teaching. The advanced student needs the clash of mind on mind, the companionship of eager inquiry. It is this way that the Graduate School most serves Harvard College, and indeed is indispensable to the College. Without the opportunity and the stimulus of independent scientific work by the graduate students as well as by the teaching staff, it would be hopeless to try to enlist in the University service promising men of the desired quality.

I dwell for a moment on this aspect of the situation, because it is not understood by those among the alumni who believe that too much of the University’s money and too much of the professors’ time are given to graduate instruction. The late Professor Child, one of the most distinguished scholars as well as one of the most delightful men in the annals of Harvard, is said to have remarked that Cambridge would be a most attractive place were it not for the students. The remark reflects the weariness which in time comes over the professor whose teaching is confined to the routine instruction of undergraduates. It is astonishing how much scholarly work of high quality was achieved by Child and others of the older generation, under the untoward conditions of their day; sometimes, there is ground for suspecting, — not, by the way, in Child’s case, — because they simply slighted their routine teaching. Under the new conditions and the new competition in the academic world, we may be sure that if this were the only sort of work expected of the staff, the staff would be made up in the main of men qualified for this work only. It is the opportunity of doing creative work that tempts the highest intellectual ability; and creative work needs a creative atmosphere.

It is to be noted, further, that the source from which Harvard College and all the colleges must draw their teaching staffs is in these graduate schools. The experience of the Department of Economics convinces its members that the only way to secure a good staff of junior teachers, — instructors and assistants, — is to train them in a graduate school. The staff of the Department has been very much improved during the last ten years, and the improvement has come almost exclusively by recruiting from its own advanced students. We are confident that the training we give them is thoroughly good; we even cherish the belief that nowhere else can so good a training be secured. At all events, we try to retain the best of our advanced students in our service; if not indefinitely, at least for considerable stretches of time. And among the inducements which lead them to stay with us are the opportunities not only for teaching, but for research of their own, made possible by a moderate stint of stated work and enriched by the wealth of material in our great library.

What the Department of Economics most needs, then, and indeed what the University most needs in every department, is men. The University must have buildings, laboratories, libraries; but most of all it must have ripe scholars, inspiring teachers, forward thinkers. As it happens, external and mechanical facilities count less in economics than in many other subjects. There is no need of expensive laboratories, such as are indispensable for physics, chemistry, biology, the medical sciences. Like the Law School, we use chiefly collections of books and documents, and convenient lecture and conference rooms. The one fundamental thing is the men, and the one way to get them is to have free money, — enough money to pay good salaries to those on the ground, and to draw to the University the rare genius whenever by good fortune he is to be found. The specific way in which the generous-minded graduate can serve the needs of such a department is by the endowment of instruction and research.

The endowment of instruction ordinarily takes the form of the establishment of a professorship; and this will doubtless remain the most effective way of achieving the end. But there are other ways also. Professor Bullock has recently called attention in these columns to the possibilities of the endowment of economic research. I venture to offer a suggestion for something analogous, — something which may combine the endowment of research with that of instruction, and which has the further merit of not requiring so formidable a sum as is necessary nowadays for the foundation of a professorship. The University has at its disposal a not inconsiderable number of fellowships for training young men of promise. I believe that it could use with high advantage similar posts, more dignified and more liberally endowed, for mature men who are more than promising, — whose powers are proved, whose achievements are assured. Research fellowships they might be called, or professorial fellowships, if you please. An endowment of a moderate amount would enable the incumbent of such a post, if a young unmarried man, to give his whole time to research; if an older man, to limit his teaching hours within moderate bounds and so to give a large share of his time and energy to research and publication. The appointments would be made, I should suppose, for a specified term of years; and they would go preferably to scholars in the full vigor of early manhood. They would be highly honorable, and they would be tempting to men of high ideals and of quality coming up to our own ideals of University service. Will not some of our friends, not of the multi-millionaire class, desirous of doing what they can for our benignant mother, and perhaps of perpetuating a cherished name, reflect on this possibility?

 

Source: The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine. Vol. 24, No. 94 (December, 1915), pp. 274-279.

 

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Seven Personal Reports to the Class of 1879, Frank Taussig. 1882-1914


Serendipity struck again during an unrelated search of hathitrust.org. This time I stumbled across Harvard class reports  (i.e. B.A. cohorts) irregularly submitted by the secretaries of the respective classes and published as part of the annual Harvard commencement exercises (e.g. for the Class of 1879). I decided to sample the reports for the biggest gun in the Harvard economics department at the turn of the 20th century, Frank W. Taussig, and was delighted to find what turns out to be essentially personal notes written to his classmates about the course of  his post-undergraduate career. Today I provide Taussig’s notes from the second through eighth reports of the Class of 1879.

In a later post  I shall provide information about Taussig’s undergraduate life from information culled from the Class of 1879/Secretary’s Report/No. I./1879.

________________________________

1882

[p. 98-99]

FRANK WILLIAM TAUSSIG.

“In September, 1879, I went abroad with E. C. Felton. After spending a few weeks together in London, we separated. I went to Germany, and spent a winter, from October till March, at the University of Berlin, studying Roman Law and Political Economy. In March, I left Germany, and rejoined Felton in Italy. We spent two months together in Italy, and then went to Paris, by way of Geneva. In Paris, in May, we again separated, Felton going to England, on his way home, while I travelled in different parts of Europe, chiefly in Austria and Switzerland. I returned to America in August, 1880. In September, 1880, I went to Cambridge, intending to enter the Law School. The position of secretary to President- Eliot was offered me and accepted. Since this time, I have continued to act as secretary to the President, and have, at the same time, studied for the degree of Ph.D., which I hope to obtain in June, 1883. The special subject which I have studied for the degree has been the History of the Tariff Legislation of the United States. In March, 1882, was appointed instructor in Political Economy, in Harvard College, for the year 1882-83. While in Europe, wrote some articles, which were published in the New York Nation.”

 

Source: Harvard College. Class of 1879. Secretary’s Report. No. II. Commencement, 1882.

________________________________

1885

[pp. 34-35]

EDGAR CONWAY FELTON.

(April 26.)—” You will remember that my communication for the last Triennial Report reached you too late for insertion, so I will begin my contribution to your second report with my graduation.

“In September, 1879, Frank Taussig and I started for Europe together. We stayed in London about a month enjoying ourselves hugely, and among other short excursions going to Oxford, where I had a cousin, an undergraduate in New College, who gave us rather exceptional facilities for observing this the oldest of the English Universities. In London we separated, I going to Paris where I stayed about six weeks, sight-seeing and attending occasional lectures at the University. From Paris I went to Vienna, stopping on the way at Munich. Christmas and New Year’s I was in Vienna with my uncle, who has lived there for about thirty years. Then I went south to Rome, where I found Ned Hale, and many a pleasant walk and talk we had together in the Eternal City. Here Frank Taussig joined me again, having finished a semester at the University, and we started off together, going though the Italian cities, making the tour of the Italian lakes, and crossing into Switzerland by the Simplon. After a short stay in Paris I started for home, taking a run through some of the cathedral towns of England and into Scotland on the way…

 

[pp. 65-66]

FRANK WILLIAM TAUSSIG.

(February 8.)—” I have lived in Cambridge since the date of the last Class Report. In 1882 I was appointed instructor in Political Economy in Harvard College, and devoted my time for the year 1882-3 entirely to teaching, and work of that kind. In the course of that year I published an essay on ‘Protection to Young Industries as Applied in the United States,’ which gave the results of investigations in the economic history of the country in the years 1789-1830. In June, 1883, I received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Harvard University.

“In the fall of 1883 I entered the Harvard Law School with the intention of taking the regular three years course, and of practising after I got through the school. At the same time I continued my connection with the college as instructor in Political Economy, having been re-appointed to that office. I gave a course on the Tariff History of the United States, a subject to which I have given special attention. During the past year (1884-5) I have continued my studies in the Law-School as a second-year student, and have also continued as instructor in the college, giving the same course as in the previous year.

“In 1884, I wrote an introductory notice to the English translation of Laveleye’s ‘Elements of Political Economy,’ and added a supplementary chapter on some economic questions of present practical importance. In 1885 I published a second small volume on economic history, this being a ‘History of the Existing Tariff. It gives an account of the tariff legislation of the country from 1860 to 1883, with more or less comment from the point of view of one who adheres to the principle of free trade. I have written occasionally for the newspapers, on economic questions, chiefly for the Boston Herald and Advertiser, and a little for the New York Nation. I have been, and am still, a member of the committee to edit the Civil Service Record, a monthly paper published for the promotion of civil service reform, and have written regularly for it.”

Is a member of the Massachusetts Reform Club, and of the Cobden Club. Since April 1 has conducted the course on American History in the college during the absence of Hart.

 

Source: Harvard College. Class of 1879. Secretary’s Report. No. III. Commencement, 1885.

________________________________

1890

[p. vi-viii]

…In 1886 our classmate Taussig was appointed Assistant Professor of Political Economy, a signal honor for so young a man, the next to the youngest in the class. In April of that year a movement was started in the class to raise funds to equip a special library and reading-room for the Political Economy department of the college, the money to be used under Taussig’s direction. Six hundred and seventy-five dollars and seventy cents was raised and formally presented to the President and Fellows of Harvard College, and gratefully accepted by them.

The names of the subscribers are as follows, the subscriptions ranging from one to one hundred dollars: Almy, Andrews, Amen, Baily, Baylies, Bissell, Brooks, Burr, Carey, Cary, Churchill, R. W. Ellis, Evans, Felton, Gilbert, Hale, S. H. Hill, Hoadly, Holmes, Hubbard, Hudson, Hyde, Keene, Kidder, C. J. Mason, McLennan, Rindge, Sheldon, Somerby, St. John, H. Stetson, Taussig, Thorp, Trimble, Urquhart, Warren, Wright.

In June, 1887, Taussig furnished the following account of the way the money had been used and the practical working of the room:

“Of the sum contributed by members of the class ($675.70), about $400 has so far been expended for books. We have gone slowly in buying books, as needs change from time to time and better selection was likely to be got by buying when a want arose, rather than by anticipating wants. A considerable number of books will probably be added next year, but even as it stands, the collection is fairly complete for certain courses, and is exceedingly useful. It contains the works of the classic economists, like Adam Smith, Ricardo, Malthus most of them in duplicate; and also the works of the leading economists of more recent times, such as Cairnes, Sidgwick, Marshall, Jevon, Rogers, Walker, among English writers; Wagner, Cohn and Schoenberg, among German; and Bastiat and Leroi-Beaulieu among French. Many of these also are duplicated. There is a good working collection on tariff and financial matters for the United States, on railroads and on economic history in general. A considerable number of dictionaries and books of reference have been put in, such as ‘Lalor’s Political Science Cyclopaedia,’ the French ‘Dictionnaire d’Économie Politique,’ McCulloch’s “Commercial Dictionary,’ Kolb’s ‘Condition of Nations.’

“In addition there are a number of government publications, which are by no means the least useful part of the library. Besides the statistical abstracts of the United States, England and France, there are sets of United States Census Reports (including a full set of the census of 1880), Massachusetts Census Reports, the Finance Reports (U. S.) since 1870, Reports of the Comptroller of the Currency since 1876, the Statutes at Large, a full set of the Massachusetts Labor Reports, documents and reports on railroads and tariff legislation, and important foreign documents, such as the well-known British Reports on the Depreciation of Silver (1876) and on Railroads (1881). Among the periodicals kept on file are the Financial Chronicle, The Railroad Gazette, The Political Science Quarterly and our own [Quarterly] Journal of Economics.

“The library has undoubtedly been of great service to instructors and students. It has been very freely used by the latter, and it has been a frequent and pleasant experience to hear their expressions of acknowledgment of the aid and pleasure it has given them.

“It is interesting and significant that a similar plan is to be put in operation next year in the department of American History and Politics. A Working Library is to be provided, and will probably be put in the room now used for the Political Economy Library, so that the two will be used together. The money comes in a way from our class, being given in memory of our classmate, Glendower Evans, whose death last year made so sad a gap in our ranks.”

Each volume bears a neat book plate stating that it is given by members of the Class of 1879 to the Political Economy Department.

 

[pp. 86-88]

FRANK WILLIAM TAUSSIG

(Cambridge, April 2.)—”In 1885-86 I took my third year at Harvard Law School, receiving the degree of LL. B. in June, 1886. But some months before this I had been offered and had accepted an appointment as Assistant Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University, and in the fall of 1886 entered on the duties of that position. Since then I have lived the uneventful life of a college teacher. I was so fortunate as to be appointed just in time to take part in the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the University, and, being then the youngest member of the faculty, seem to have a better chance than any other member of taking part in the 300th anniversary when that comes around.

“On June 29, 1888, I was married at Exeter, N. H., to Edith Thomas Guild, of Boston, daughter of George Dwight Guild, of the class of ’45, and of Mary Thomas Guild (now Mrs. William H. Gorham). On May 3, 1889, we had born a son, William Guild Taussig. During the past summer (1889) we have built a house on land formerly belonging to Professor Norton, off Kirkland Street, and hope to live here in peace and quiet for many years to come.

“In connection with my teaching work, I have written and published on economic topics. Most of my writing has been for the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which was established by the University in 1886. In 1888 I published a volume entitled, ‘The Tariff History of the United States,’ made up, with revisions and additions, of the two smaller books published previously (on ‘Protection to Young Industries’ and on the ‘History of the Present Tariff’), and of the two other essays on tariff history mentioned in the subjoined list, which I have prepared at the request of our inquisitive Secretary. During the year 1889-90, in the absence of Professor Dunbar, I have edited the [Quarterly] Journal of Economics.

“In 1888 I was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. I am also a member of various scientific societies, to which my work naturally leads me, such as the American Economic and Historical Associations and the Political Economy Club. The list of my publications since 1885, not including minor articles in periodicals, is, in chronological order:

( 1) “Translation, with comment, of Wagner on the Present State of Political Economy; Quarterly Journal of Economics, October, 1886.

(2) “The Southwestern Strike of 1886; ibid., January, 1887.

(3) “Translation of Soetbeer’s Materials on the Silver Question, undertaken for the government, and published in Mr. Edward Atkinson’s Report on Bi-metallism, 1887.

(4) “A Suggested Re-arrangement of Economic Study; Quarterly Journal of Economics, January, 1888.

(5) “The Tariff of 1828; Political Science Quarterly, March, 1888.

(6) “The Tariff, 1830-1860; Quarterly Journal of Economics, April, 1888.

(7) “The Tariff History of the United States; New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1888.

(8) “How the Tariff Affects Wages; The Forum, October, 1888.

(9) “Some Aspects of the Tariff Question; Quarterly Journal of Economics, April, 1889.

(10) “Political Economy and Business; The Harvard Monthly, June, 1889.

(11) “Workmen’s Insurance in Germany; The Forum, October, 1889.

(12) “The Silver Situation in the United States; Quarterly Journal of Economics, April, 1890.

“I have also done a good deal of miscellaneous editorial work on the Quarterly Journal of Economics in arranging letters and appendix matter, and in writing notes and memoranda, and have written occasionally for the Nation and other papers. My address is 2 Scott Street, Cambridge, Mass.”

 

Source: Harvard College. Class of 1879. Secretary’s Report. No. IV. Commencement, 1890.

________________________________

1895

[pp. 95-8]

FRANK WILLIAM TAUSSIG.

(Florence, Italy, April 9.)—Since our last report, my life has moved in the easy current of the University stream, in which it seems likely to remain for the rest of my days. In 1892 I was promoted from the Assistant Professorship, which I then held, to a Professorship of Political Economy, and in the following year was made Chairman of the Department of Economics. As the tenure of a professorship is for good behavior, and as I trust I shall neither behave ill nor become useless to the University, I may hope to live in Cambridge and work for Harvard until I die.

“Among domestic happenings, I can report the birth of a second child, Mary Guild Taussig, on May 8, 1892.

“Becoming entitled, under the University regulations, to a sabbatical year, I determined to take advantage of the opportunity, and accordingly am spending this year (1894-95) in Europe. We left home in early October, and sailed direct for the Mediterranean. After a stop at Gibraltar and a glimpse of Spain, we proceeded to Naples, and remained for over two months in Southern Italy. I took a flying trip to Sicily, but spent most of the time with my family at the Island of Capri, which I can recommend to weary travelers in search of quiet and peace, beautiful scenery, healthful air, and quaint people. Thence we moved to Rome, where another two months passed pleasantly and where I learned something of Italian public affairs and of Italian economic literature. During the winter I have added to my professional equipment by acquiring a reading knowledge of Italian. We are in Florence at this writing and shall move north with the season.

“Among other happenings which have left an impression in my memory, I mention a trip to Washington in 1892, as member of a committee sent from Boston to protest against threatened legislation for free silver. I got a glimpse of President Harrison and of other prominent public men, which was interesting and instructive. Of a very different sort, but no less interesting, and much more satisfactory in its tangible results, was a trip to the woods of Maine in the summer of 1894, with R. W. Lovett, ’91, during which I first experienced the delights of trout fishing.

“In University politics, I am a firm advocate of the shortening of the College course to three years, and of the modification of the admission requirements in such manner as no longer to give Greek any preference or premium among the subjects that may be offered by candidates. On the vexed athletic question I have made a confession of my faith in an article in the Graduate Magazine for March of this year. In University finances I am a firm believer in the endowment of higher education in general, of Harvard University in particular, and of the Political Economy Department of Harvard University in special particular. In politics I am a disgusted independent, awaiting the appearance of a new party that shall stand squarely on the platform of a moderated tariff, sound money, and, above all, civil service reform and honest government. I may mention here that in 1893-94 I was a member of the School Committee of the City of Cambridge, and should have gladly continued to fill that modest public office had not the sabbatical vacation made it necessary for me to resign.

“The tale of my interests and activity is best told by my publications. Residing, as I do, far away from home, I cannot give any such a complete list of them as the ever methodical Almy would wish, but can recall enough to indicate what subjects have occupied my attention. In 1892 a second edition of my ‘Tariff History of the United States’ was published, in review and much enlarged form. In 1891 (I am not sure of the exact date) appeared a monograph on the ‘Silver Situation in the United States,’ first issued by the American Economic Association, and afterwards published in a second and enlarged edition by the firm of Putnam’s. I have contributed freely to periodicals, and especially to the Quarterly Journal of Economics, published by the University. In that journal I recall the following papers: ‘A Contribution to the Theory of Railway Rates,’ 1891; ‘Reciprocity,’ 1892; ‘The Duties on Wool and Woolens,’ 1893; ‘The Wages-Fund Doctrine at the Hands of German Economists,’ 1894. I gave aid and comfort to the enemy in 1893 by contributing to the Yale Review an article on ‘Recent Investigations on Prices in the United States.’ In 1894 there appeared, simultaneously in the Economic Journal of England and the Political Science Quarterly of New York, a paper on ‘The Tariff of 1894.’ My very last article is on ‘II Tesoro degli Stati Uniti’ (The Treasury of the United States), which appeared in the Giornale degli Economisti in March, 1895. This I will confess not to have written in Italian; it was translated from my manuscript. I may mention that in 1890-91 this same Italian Giornale degli Economisti had an article of mine on the McKinley tariff act, which was afterwards translated in the English Economic Journal, and finally became the basis of the chapter on the tariff of 1890 in the second edition of my ‘ Tariff History.’ During this winter (1894-95) I have been at work completing a book on ‘Some Aspects of the Theory of Wages,’ which I hope to give to the press on my return home in the autumn.

“I am the American correspondent of the British Economic Association, and in that capacity have contributed various shorter articles to the journal published by that Association. I am told that the position as correspondent has caused me to be regarded in some quarters as a suborned and traitorous enemy to American prosperity, but I am content to accept it as an honorable appointment from a body of distinguished men of science.

“My address is 2 Scott street, Cambridge, off Kirkland street, where classmates who may pilgrimize it to Cambridge will always be welcome.”

 

[pp. 134-5]

Taussig.—

“The Tariff History of the United States.” First edition, New York, 1888; second revised and enlarged edition, New York, 1892. (Of this volume, two parts had previously appeared in independent form; an essay on “Protection to Young Industries, as Applied in the United States,” in two editions, Cambridge, 1883, and New York, 1884; and a “History of the Present Tariff, 1860-1883,” New York, 1885. The other parts of the volume had also been previously published in the form of periodical articles for the Quarterly Journal of Economics and for the Political Science Quarterly. All were revised for the first and second editions of the book.)

“The Silver Situation in the United States.” First edition, Baltimore, 1892 (in the publications of the American Economic Association); second revised and enlarged edition, New York, 1893.

“Introductory Note and Supplemental Chapter to Laveleye’s Elements of Political Economy,” New York. 1884.

“Translation of Soetbeer’s Materials toward the Elucidation of the Economic Questions Affecting the Precious Metals,” undertaken for the Department of State. U. S. Senate Executive Documents, Fiftieth Congress, first session, No. 34, pp. 57-286, 1888.

“The Southwestern Strike of 1886,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, January, 1887.

“Prices in Great Britain, Germany, France and the United States,” (with J. L. Laughlin), Quarterly Journal of Economics, April, 1887.

“The Tariff Literature of the Campaign of 1888,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, January. 1889.

“A Contribution to the Theory of Railway Rates,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, July, 1891.

“Reciprocity,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, October, 1892.

“Recent Literature on Protection,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, January, 1893.

“The Wages Fund Doctrine at the Hands of German Economists,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, October, 1894.

“Recent Discussions on Railway Management in Prussia,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, October, 1894.

“How the Tariff Affects Wages,” Forum, October, 1888.

“Political Economy and Business,” Harvard Monthly, June, 1889,

“Workmen’s Insurance in Germany,” Forum, October, 1889.

“The Working of the New Silver Act of 1890,” Forum, October, 1890.

“La Tarifa McKinley,” Giornale degli Economisti, January, 1891. “The McKinley Tariff Act,” a translation of the preceding; Economic Journal, July, 1891.

”The Homestead Strike,” Economic Journal, June, 1893.

“Why Silver Ceases to be Money,” Popular Science Monthly, Sept., 1893.

“Results of Recent Investigations on Prices in the United States,” Yale Review, November, 1893. Also printed in the Bulletin of the International Statistical Institute.

“The United States Tariff of 1894,” published simultaneously in the British Economic Journal for December, 1894, and in the Political Science Quarterly of New York, for December, 1894.

“II Tesoro degli Stati Uniti,” Giornale degli Economisti, April, 1895.

In addition various articles and book reviews in the Nation, book reviews in the Political Science Quarterly, and notes and memoranda in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

 

Source: Harvard College. Class of 1879. Secretary’s Report. No. V. Commencement, 1895.

________________________________

1900

[pp. 99-100]

FRANK WILLIAM TAUSSIG.

(Cambridge, May 4.)—”My last biographical instalment for our reports was written in April, 1895, at Florence, Italy, in the course of a sabbatical year spent abroad. I returned to Cambridge in September of 1895, and since then have been steadily in academic harness; and the happenings in my life have been such as naturally come to a University Professor. I have had plenty of work to do in teaching, for the resort of students to the department of political economy is large and growing. The introductory course (what used to be Political Economy —now Economics) has over 500 students, and the more advanced courses have numbers in proportion. The lectures to these 500 men — the instruction is now in good part by lectures — I find a serious tax on my strength, but also a great source of satisfaction, since they give an inspiring opportunity of reaching the mass of the undergraduates.

“A good part of my time of late years has been given to my editorial duties on the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the University’s publication in my subject. In 1896, Professor Dunbar resigned from the post of editor, to which I was appointed by the corporation. The Journal attained high repute among students of economics under Professor Dunbar’s management, and it is my endeavor to maintain the standard which he set. I have also acted, since 1896, as Chairman of the Publication Committee of the American Economic Association, and in that capacity have had still further editorial and administrative work to do. In 1897 I was appointed by Governor Wolcott member of a commission to examine and report upon the laws on taxation in the State of Massachusetts, and, being chosen Secretary of the commission, gave much time and labor to its investigations. Indeed, the report of the commission, though it presented, of course, not my own conclusions but those of the commission as a whole, was drafted almost entirely by myself, and occupied me throughout the summer of 1897. In the winter of 1897, and again in 1898, I was sent to the Indianapolis Monetary Convention as delegate from the Boston Merchants’ Association. In 1896 I was elected a member of the School Committee of the City of Cambridge, and have served on the committee since that date.

“This year (1900) wrote three considerable articles in consecutive numbers of the Quarterly Journal of Economics,— two on the ‘Iron Industry of the United States,’ one on the ‘New Currency Act’ wrote another article on the ‘Currency Act’ for the British Economic Journal; prepared an article on ‘Tariffs’ for the new edition of the Cyclopedia Britannica; and delivered a Commencement Address on ‘Education for the Business Man’ before the University of Missouri, on July 4th.

“I append a list of my writings [see Bibliographical Record], which indicates what subjects have chiefly engaged my attention.”

Married in 1888: one son, three daughters.

 

[p. 130]

Taussig.—

“Wages and Capital: An Examination of the Wages Fund Doctrine,” New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1896.

Also, new editions of older books:

“The Silver Situation in the United States,” third enlarged edition, New York, Putnam’s, 1896.

“The Tariff History of the United States.” Fourth enlarged and revised edition, New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1898.

Articles in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, published for Harvard University:

“The Employer’s Place in Distribution” ; Vol. X., October, 1895.

“Rabbeno’s ‘American Commercial Policy'”; Vol. X., October, 1895.

“The International Silver Situation”; Vol. XI., October, 1896.

“The Tariff Act of 1897”; Vol. XII., October, 1897.

“The United States Treasury in 1894-96” ; Vol. XIII., January, 1899.

“The Iron Industry in the United States: I. A Survey of Growth; II. The Working of Protection”; Vol. XIV., February and August, 1900.

“The Currency Act of 1900 ” ; Vol. XIV., May, 1900.

”Bond Sales and the Gold Standard,” Forum, November, 1896.

“The United States Tariff Act” (of 1897), British Economic Journal, December, 1897.

“The Taxation of Securities” (an address delivered at the University of Michigan), Political Science Quarterly, March, 1899.

“The Problem of Secondary Education, as Regards Training in Citizenship,” Educational Review, May, 1899.

“Charles Franklin Dunbar” (an obituary sketch), Harvard Monthly, February, 1900.

 

[p. 137]

MARRIAGE AND BIRTH RECORD

TAUSSIG EDITH THOMAS GUILD Exeter, N.H., June 20, 1888
William Guild Cambridge, Mass., May 3, 1889.
Mary Guild Cambridge, Mass., May 8, 1892.
Catharine Crombie Cambridge, Mass., Dec. 8, 1896.
Helen Brooke Cambridge, Mass., May 24, 1898.

 

 

Source: Harvard College. Class of 1879. Secretary’s Report. No. VI. Commencement, 1900.

________________________________

1905

[pp. 112-3]

FRANK WILLIAM TAUSSIG (Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 10). “I am sorry to say that I have not much to show for the last five years. In 1901 I felt seriously the strain of overwork, and was compelled to spend two years in complete idleness. I went abroad with my family in the autumn of 1901, expecting to need only one year for recovery; but a second year proved to be needed, and it was not until 1903 that we returned. We spent the first winter at Meran, in the Austrian Tyrol, the summer of 1902 in Switzerland, and the greater part of the winter of 1902-03 on the Italian Riviera. In the autumn of 1903 I resumed my work in the University, and was able to carry on my teaching work, but not to do a great deal besides. During the current academic year (1904-05), I have been able to accomplish more, but do not yet feel that I have recovered full working strength.

“In the course of 1899-1900 I published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics two articles on the ‘Iron Industry in the United States,’ and a third article on the ‘Currency Act of 1900.’ These were the last things I was able to achieve for a considerable time. In 1904 I was elected President of the American Economic Association, and prepared a presidential address, which was delivered at the meeting of the Association at Chicago in December, 1904, on the ‘Present Position of the Doctrine of Free Trade.’ Having been re-elected President of the Association, I am now preparing a second address, to be delivered in 1905. I resumed the editorship of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which continues to flourish, and holds, I believe, no unworthy place among the publications of the University.

“In 1901 the title of my post in the University was changed, or rather my appointment was changed. Having previously simply been Professor of Political Economy, I was made Henry Lee Professor of Economics. The Lee professorship was founded by the widow and children of the late Colonel Henry Lee, and is the first endowed professorship established at the University in my subject.”

 

Source: Harvard College. Class of 1879. Secretary’s Report. No. VII., 1905.

________________________________

1914

[pp. 293-8]

FRANK WILLIAM TAUSSIG, son of William and Adèle (Würpel) Taussig, was born at St. Louis, Missouri, December 28, 1859. He entered Harvard from Washington University in October, 1876, as a sophomore.

In September, 1879, he went abroad with E. C. Felton. After a few weeks together in London they separated, and Taussig went to Germany, where he remained until March, 1880, studying Roman law and political economy at the University of Berlin. In March he again joined Felton, and spent the next two months with him in Italy and at Paris. In May they again separated, and Taussig traveled for a time in Europe, chiefly in Austria and Switzerland. During his stay in Europe he wrote several articles for the New York Nation. He returned to America in August, and in September went to Cambridge, intending to enter the Law School; but the position of secretary to President Eliot was offered him, and he accepted it and at the same time began study for the degree of Ph.D., selecting as his special subject the history of the tariff legislation of the United States. In March, 1882, he was appointed instructor in political economy at Harvard for the year 1882-83. He resigned his secretaryship and during the next year devoted all his time to his teaching and the work connected with it. “In the course of that year,” he wrote, “I published an essay on ‘ Protection to Young Industries as Applied in the United States,’ which gave the results of investigations in the economic history of the country in the years 1789-1830. In June, 1883, I received the degree of Ph.D. from Harvard University.” In the fall of 1883 he entered the Harvard Law School, “with the intention of taking the regular three years’ course and of practising after I got through the School.” At the same time he continued his work as instructor in political economy, giving a course on the tariff history of the United States. “In 1884 I wrote an introductory notice to the English translation of Laveleye’s ‘Elements of Political Economy’ and added a supplementary chapter on some economic questions of present practical importance. In 1885 I published a second small volume on economic history, this being a ‘ History of the Existing Tariff.’ It gives an account of the tariff legislation of the country from 1860 to 1883, with more or less comment from the point of view of one who adheres to the principle of free trade.” He wrote at this time occasionally for the Boston Herald and Advertiser and for the Nation and was a member of the committee to edit the Civil Service Record, a. monthly paper published for the promotion of civil service reform, and wrote regularly for it. He joined the Massachusetts Reform Club and the Cobden Club. During the spring of 1885 he conducted the course on American history at Harvard in the absence of A. B. Hart, ’80, the regular instructor.

In June, 1886, he graduated from the Law School, with the degree of LL.B. Meanwhile he had been offered and had accepted an appointment as assistant professor of political economy at Harvard, and in the fall of 1886 entered on the duties of that position. “Since then,” he wrote in 1890, “I have lived the uneventful life of a college teacher. … In connection with my teaching work, I have written and published on economic topics. Most of my writing has been for the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which was established by the University in 1886. In 1888 I published a volume entitled ‘The Tariff History of the United States,’ made up, with revisions and additions, of the two smaller books published previously . . . and of the two other essays on tariff history” (on “The Tariff of 1828,” published in the Political Science Quarterly for March, 1888, and “The Tariff, 1830-1860,” published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics for April, 1888). During the year 1889-90, in the absence of Professor Dunbar, he edited the [Quarterly] Journal of Economics. In 1888 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He had also become a member “of various scientific societies, to which my work naturally leads me, such as the American Economic and Historical associations and the Political Economy Club.”

In 1892 he was made professor of political economy at Harvard and, in the following year, chairman of the department of economics. In 1892 he went to Washington as a member of a committee sent from Boston to protest against threatened legislation for free silver. “I got a glimpse of President Harrison and of other prominent public men, which was interesting and instructive. Of a very different sort, but no less interesting and much more satisfactory in its tangible results, was a trip to the woods of Maine in the summer of 1894 with R. W. Lovett, ’91, during which I first experienced the delights of trout fishing.” The year 1894-95 he spent in Europe with his family, remaining for two months in southern Italy and then passing two months in Rome before going further north. He continued to contribute freely to various periodicals, especially to the Quarterly Journal of Economics. “I gave aid and comfort to the enemy in 1893 by contributing to the Yale Review an article on ‘Recent Investigations on Prices in the United States.’ . . . My very last article,” he wrote from Florence, Italy, in April, 1895,” is on ‘ II Tesoro degli Stati Uniti’ . . . which appeared in the Giornale degli Economisti in March, 1895. This I will confess not to have written in Italian; it was translated from my manuscript.” In 1890-91 he had published an article in the Giornale on the McKinley tariff act, which was afterwards translated in the English Economic Journal, and finally became the basis of the chapter on the tariff of 1890 in the second edition of his

“Tariff History.” As the American correspondent of the British Economic Association he had contributed various articles to the journal published by the association. “In politics,” he wrote at this time, “I am a disgusted independent, awaiting the appearance of a new party that shall stand squarely on the platform of a moderated tariff, sound money and, above all, civil service reform and honest government…. In 1893-94 I was a member of the school committee of the city of Cambridge, and should have gladly continued to fill that modest public office had not the sabbatical vacation made it necessary for me to resign.”

In 1896 Professor Dunbar resigned as editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and Taussig was appointed by the President and Fellows to succeed him. In the same year he was made chairman of the Publication Committee of the

American Economic Association, involving much editorial and administrative work. In 1897 he was appointed by Governor Wolcott member of a commission to examine and report upon the laws on taxation in the State of Massachusetts, and as secretary of the commission gave much time and labor to its investigations. The drafting of its report was almost entirely his work and occupied him throughout the summer of 1897. In the winter of 1897, and again in 1898, he was sent to the Indianapolis Monetary Convention as delegate from the Boston Merchants’ Association. In 1896 he had been elected again a member of the school committee of Cambridge, and was still serving on the committee when he wrote for the Class Report of 1900. Besides articles in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, he had written an article on the “Currency Act” for the British Economic Journal, had prepared an article on “Tariffs” for the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica and had delivered a commencement address on “Education for the Business Man” before the University of Missouri, July 4, 1900. In 1901 he was appointed to the newly established Henry Lee professorship of economics, founded in memory of the late Colonel Henry Lee by his widow and children, and the first endowed professorship established at Harvard in the department of economics. That year the strain of overwork compelled him to go abroad for rest. After two years in Europe with his family he returned, and in the fall of 1903 resumed work in the University. In 1904 he was elected president of the American Economic Association, and at its annual meeting at Chicago in December, 1904, delivered an address on ” The Present Position of the Doctrine of Free Trade,” which was printed in the Publications of the Association, February, 1905. He was reelected president of the Economic Association, and at the annual meeting in December, 1905, delivered an address on “The Love of Wealth and the Public Service,” which was printed in the Publications of the Association, February, 1906, and also in the Atlantic Monthly for March, 1906.

He writes, July 28, 1912, “My life during the past seven years has been quiet, the winters at work in Cambridge, the summers spent at our house at Cotuit. I continue to conduct nearly the same courses as in previous years, and give a large part of my energy to Economics I, the first course in the subject, and now the largest elective course on the College list. It is the policy of our department, and indeed of the College in general, not to put the much frequented general courses into the hands of young instructors, but to keep them under the older and more experienced members of the teaching staff. Not a few descendants of ’79 have sat under me during the past decade. In the spring of 1912 I took a brief journey to Europe as representative of the Boston Chamber of Commerce at an international meeting at Brussels. There is to be an International Congress of Chambers of Commerce in Boston in September, 1912, and I have been asked to act as chairman of the Committee on Programme for that congress. For the settlement of the programme it was necessary that some one should meet the representatives of the other countries taking part in the congress, and I was asked to appear for the Boston Chamber. I had a pleasant journey, spending a couple of weeks in London and there seeing something of men in public life. Among publications the chief has been my ‘Principles of Economics,’ in two volumes, published by Macmillan in the autumn of 1911. It is the result of many years of teaching and reflection, and its writing has occupied most of my spare time since our last report.”

He was married at Exeter, New Hampshire, June 20, 1888, to Edith Thomas Guild of Boston, daughter of George Dwight Guild of the Class of ’45 and Mary Thomas Guild, now Mrs. William H. Gorham. She died April 15, 1910. Their children are: William Guild, born at Cambridge, May 3, 1889; Mary Guild, born at Cambridge, May 8, 1892; Catharine Crombie, born at Cambridge, December 8, 1896; and Helen Brooke, born at Cambridge, May 24, 1898.

Taussig’s address is 2 Scott Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Source: Harvard College. Class of 1879. Secretary’s Report. No. VIII. Commencement, 1914.

Image Source: Frank Taussig from Harvard Album 1900.

Categories
Fields Harvard

Harvard. Subjects Chosen by Economics Ph.D. Candidates for Examination, 1905

 

This posting lists seven graduate students in economics who took their subject examinations for the Ph.D. at Harvard between December, 1904 and June, 1905.  The examination committee members, academic history, general and specific subjects are provided along with the doctoral thesis subject, when declared. Lists for 1903-04,  1915-16, and 1926-27 were posted previously. In the same archival box one finds lists for the academic years 1902-03 through 1904-05, 1906-07 through 1913-14, 1915-16, 1917-18 through 1918-19, and finally 1926-27. I only include graduate students of economics (i.e. not included are the Ph.D. candidates in history and government).

Titles and dates of Harvard economic dissertations for the period 1875-1926 can be found here.

______________________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D.

1904-05

 

Stuart Daggett.

General Examination in Economics, Thursday, December 1, 1904.
Committee: Professors Taussig, Ripley, Carver, Gay, and Andrew.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1899-1903; Harvard Graduate School, 1903-05; A.B. (Harvard) 1903; A.M. (ibid.) 1904.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Sociology and Statistics. 3. Money, Banking and Commercial Crises. 4. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization. 5. History of American Institutions. 6. English Economic History to 1800.
Special Subject: Transportation.
Thesis Subject: “Railroad Reorganization.” (With Professor Ripley.)

Lincoln Hutchinson.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, April 12, 1905.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Emerton, Bullock, Gay, Andrew, and Sprague.
Academic History: University of California, 1882-84, 1887-89; Harvard University, 1892-Jan. 1894, 1898-99; Ph.B. (Univ. of Calif.) 1889; A.B. (Harvard) 1893; A.M. (ibid.) 1899.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Money, Banking and Commercial Crises. 4. Public Finance and Taxation. 5. Commercial Geography. 6. History of Political Institutions in Mediaeval Europe, including England.
Special Subject: International Trade: its History, Theory, and Present Position.
Thesis Subject: “Ten Years’ Competition (1894-1903) for Markets in Brazil and the River Plate.”

Lincoln Hutchinson.

Special Examination in Economics, Monday, April 24, 1905.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Gay, Andrew, and Sprague.
(See above.)

Joseph Clarence Hemmeon.

General Examination in Economics, Friday, May 26, 1905.
Committee: Professors Carver (chairman), Macvane, Hart, Bullock, Gay, and Sprague.
Academic History: Acadia College (N.S.), 1894-98, 1902-03; Harvard Graduate School, 1903-05; A.B. (Acadia) 1898; A.M. (ibid.) 1903; A.M. (Harvard) 1904.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Modern Economic History of Europe and Economic History of the United States from 1789. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Public Finance and Financial History. 5. Modern Government. 6. History of England since 1685, and History of the United States since 1763.
Special Subject: Sociology and Social Reform.
Thesis Subject: Not yet announced.

Vanderveer Custis.

Special Examination in Economics, Wednesday, June 7, 1905.
General Examination passed May 20, 1904.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Bullock, Sprague, and Wyman.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1897-1901; Harvard Graduate School, 1901-04; A.B. (Harvard) 1901; A.M. (ibid.) 1902.
Special Subject: Industrial Organization.
Thesis Subject: “The Theory of Industrial Consolidation.” (With Professor Ripley).

James Alfred Field.

General Examination in Economics, Monday, June 12, 1905.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Carver, Gay, Castle, and Dr. Munro.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1899-1903; Harvard Graduate School, 1903-05; A.B. (Harvard) 1903.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History. 3. Sociology. 4. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization. 5. The Sociological Aspect of the Evolution Theory. 6. International Law.
Special Subject: Sociology.
Thesis Subject: (Not yet announced.)

Albert Benedict Wolfe.

Special Examination in Economics, Monday, June 19, 10 a.m. 1905.
General Examination passed May 11, 1904.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Carver, Bullock, and Andrew.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1899-1902; Harvard Graduate School, 1902-04; A.B. (Harvard) 1902; A.M. (ibid.) 1903.
Special Subject: Modern Economic Theory.
Thesis Subject: “The Lodging House Problem in Boston, with some Reference to Other Cities.” (With Professor Ripley).

William Hyde Price.

Special Examination in Economics, Tuesday, June 20, 1905.
General Examination passed April 13, 1904.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Carver, Bullock, and Gay.
Academic History: Tufts College, 1897-1901; Harvard Graduate School, 1901-05; A.B. (Tufts) 1901; A.M. (ibid.) 1901; A.M. (Harvard) 1902.
Special Subject: English Economic History of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.
Thesis Subject: “The English Patents of monopoly, 1550-1650.” (With Professor Gay).

 

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1904-1905”.

Image Source:   Harvard University. Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates, 1636-1920. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1920. Front cover.