TurnerFJ Archives - Economics in the Rear-View Mirror

While there is an understandably greater interest in the lives of the academic celebrities of yore, Economics in the Rear-view Mirror will continue from time to time to add biographical information for the less prominent economists in the history of the academic pursuit of fame and distinction. In an important sense all but a handful of our sisters and brothers will have their names and contributions remembered two generations after their deaths anyway. The lives and careers of Ph.D. economists are varied, and our series of “Meet an Economics Ph.D. Alumnus/a” is intended to provide a sample to illustrate that variation.

In this post you will meet John Giffin Thompson, a Wisconsin Ph.D. (1907).

Note: Not to be confused with John Gilbert Thompson (1895-1940) who was a normal school (i.e. two year college to train teachers) principal who went on to work as an economist in industry.

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Remembered by a friend

Rauchenstein, Emil. “John Giffin Thompson 1873-1959.” Journal of Farm Economics 41, no. 4 (1959): 871–871.
JSTOR: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1234868

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John Giffin Thompson

1873. Born on a farm July 17 near Cambridge in Guernsey County, Ohio.

1900. A.B. College of Wooster (Ohio).

1902-04. Scholarship and a fellowship for graduate work in economics and history at the University of Chicago. A.M. in 1904.

1905-07. Assistant in Political Economy at the University of Wisconsin. Officers and Graduates of the University of Wisconsin, 1849-1907, p. 49.

1907. Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin.
Thesis. The Rise and Decline of the Wheat-Growing Industry in Wisconsin (1907). Published in the Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, No. 292. Economics and Political Science Series, Vol. 5, No. 3, (May 1909), pp. 295-544.
In the preface he thanks Professor Henry C. Taylor (Political Economy) and Professor Frederick J. Turner (American History) “for reading the manuscript and for scholarly and pertinent criticism of the same.”

1907-1917. Instructor. University of Illinois. Vergil V. Phelps (ed.), University of Illinois Register, Listing the 35,000 persons who have ever been connected with the Urbana-Champaign Departments including officers of instruction and administration and 1397 deceased (1916). P. 662.

1908. Aug 5. Married Dora Lena Robb (b. 1875, d. 1960). According to her obituary in The Times Recorder, Zanesville, Ohio of Aug. 3, 1960, she lived last 40 years in Washington D.C. Active member of the Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church there. John and Dora had no children.

1912. Thompson, John G. [Review of Principles of Rural Economics, by T. N. Carver], Journal of Political Economy, vol. 20, no. 3, 1912, pp. 289–94.
JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1820280

1913. Thompson, John G. [Review of English Farming, Past and Present, by R. E. Prothero]. Journal of Political Economy, vol. 21, no. 5, 1913, pp. 469–74.
JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1820027 .

1914. Thompson, John G. [Review of The Granger Movement: A Study of Agricultural Organization and Its Political, Economic, and Social Manifestations, 1870-1880, by S. J. Buck]. Journal of Political Economy, vol. 22, no. 5, 1914, pp. 495–98.
JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1819167

1915. Thompson, John G. [Review of The Ownership, Tenure and Taxation of Land, by T. Whittaker]. Journal of Political Economy, vol. 23, no. 2, 1915, pp. 191–94.
JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1819132

1916. Thompson, John G. “The Nature of Demand for Agricultural Products and Some Important Consequences.” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 24, no. 2, 1916, pp. 158–82.
JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1822553

1918-21. Taught Sunday-school class to about 25 young adults (obit), many U. of Illinois staff.
From Rauchenstein’s obit for Thompson (1959).
JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1234868

1918. Draft Registration card (Sept. 12^th 1918) reports present occupation “Economic research”, employer “none”.

1920. U.S. Census. John G. Thompson age 46 “Investigator, Economic Research”, wife Dora R. Thompson, age 44.

1921. Thompson, John G. “Mobility of the Factors of Production as Affecting Variation in Their Proportional Relation to Each Other in Farm Organization.” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 29, no. 2, 1921, pp. 108–37. [Author identification: “John G. Thompson, Van Nuys, Cal.”]
JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1822700

1921. “Private Research. 503 W. High, Urbana, Ill.” The University of Wisconsin. Alumni Directory, 1849-1919. P. 338.

1921. Moved with wife to Washington to continue his research at the Library of Congress according to Rauchenstein (1959).

1922. “The Cityward Movement” Journal of Farm Economics, Vol. IV No. 2 (April, 1922), pp. 65-79. [Author identification “John G. Thompson, Washington, D.C.”, Professor Carver identified in the discussion of the paper on page 79.]
JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1229697

1925. “Urbanization and Rural Depopulation in France,” Journal of Farm Economics, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Jan., 1925, pp. 145-151. [Comment on paper by Asher Hobson, “Some Economic and Social Phases of French Agriculture,” JFE (July 1924), 233-244.]
JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1230080

1927. Urbanization. Its Effects on Government and Society. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company. [Note: middle name is misspelled on the title page “Giffen” instead of “Giffin”.] https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015014331105

https://archive.org/details/urbanizationitse00thom

1930. U.S. Census. Living in Washington DC. “Research. Social Science”.

1940. U.S. Census. Living with John’s sister Bessie in Washington DC. at 1319 E. Capitol. John “Private Research, Library”.

1950. U.S. Census. Living just with wife Dora R. at 1319 E. Capitol.

1959. Died. Obituary in Evening Star, Washington, D.C. January 3, 1959, p. 26.

Thompson, John G. of 1319 East Capitol St., on January 1, 1959, husband of Dora Roob Thompson, brother of Ralph E. Thompson of Cambridge, Ohio, and uncle of Mrs. Hiram T. Dale, Mrs. William P. Simmonds, Robert E., Dr. James M. and the Rev. David M. Thompson. Services at Chambers’ Funeral Home 517 11^th St., s.e. on Saturday, January 3, at 7 p.m. Services and interment Cambridge, Ohio on Monday, January 5, at 1:30 p.m.

Image Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries Website. “View, UW-Madison, 1907” by Harley DeWitt Nichols.

From the Forward by Everett E. Edwards

…No one is better qualified to outline this story than Henry C. Taylor — the first professor of agricultural economics in a land-grant institution, the author of the first American textbook dealing with the principles of agricultural economics, and the organizer and first Chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics in the U. S. Department of Agriculture. In addition to this intimate and first-hand knowledge of the field is the fact that the Taylors had at their command the time, the resources, and the skill to see that the task be adequately done. The story is not only interestingly told, it is well documented….

The project of writing the history of the development of agricultural economics owed much to the fact that the senior author
has had a lifelong interest in history and the historical method as a medium of approach to the social sciences. I do not know when
Clio won Taylor as a disciple. Certainly his association with Richard T. Ely and Frederick J. Turner at the University of Wisconsin in the 1890’s stimulated that interest. His studies in the London School of Economics, and in the University of Berlin at the turn of the century, gave further emphasis to the importance of the historical approach to the problems of a dynamic agriculture. While in Europe, he tried his skill in the use of the method by searching for pertinent material and writing the history of the decline of landowning farmers in England and along with that the constructive work of the English in solving the problems of equitable relations between landlords and tenants.

In his pioneering in the teaching of agricultural economics at the University of Wisconsin, Taylor emphasized the historical method. He required his promising graduate students to familiarize themselves with the method — to go to the history department and take a seminar in research methods with W. L. Westerman or F. J. Turner. It was Taylor who emphasized both the historical and the geographical methods in the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and from that day to this the Bureau has had a unit serving as a clearing-house on historical matters. But Taylor used other methods also. He was eclectic. He used the survey, accounting, and statistical techniques along with inductive and deductive analysis. Another of Taylor’s qualifications came from his pioneer experience in the field of agricultural economics and his participation for fifty years in the historical development depicted in this book.

In 1939 the Bureau of Agricultural Economics in co-operation with the Office of the Under Secretary of Agriculture, M. L. Wilson, held a conference to evaluate the historical work done in the Department and draw up a prospectus for future research. H. C. Taylor participated in that conference, which resulted in the suggestion that the history unit of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics initiate a research project devoted to the history of agricultural economics. Anne Dewees was assigned to execute this new project for which she had special qualifications. Trained and experienced as a research librarian, she had the capacity to unearth and gather pertinent data for the project. She was able to see, evaluate, and group ideas and facts in historical relation. She had also an appreciation of the importance of accuracy of quotation and of fact….

Everett E. Edwards
History Section
Bureau of Agricultural Economics
Washington, D. C.
January, 1952

Image Source: Henry C. Taylor from http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/November04/Gleanings/recentmeetings.htm at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine (snapshot from November 12, 2004).