A later memoir composed by E. R. A. Seligman was published in 1929 in German: Felix Meiner, ed. Die Volkswirtschaftslehre der Gegenwart: Selbstdarstellungen, Leipzig. According the U.S. Library of Congress record, three volumes were originally projected in this series. It appears that only two were ever published. [Vol. 1, 1924]: Eduard Bernstein, Karl Diehl, Heinrich Herkner, Karl Kautsky, Robert Liefmann, Heinrich Pesch S.J., Julius Wolf. [Vol. 2, 1929]: Irving Fischer [sic], Achille Loria, Franz Oppenheimer, Edwin A. Seligman, Camillo Supino, Leopold v. Wiese.
A typed English draft copy of Seligman’s memoir (39 pages) is located in the Columbia University Archives: Joseph Dorfman papers, Box 52, Folder “E. R. A. Seligman, Biography published (in German) Volkswirtschaftslehre, Leipzig, 1931 [sic]”. This copy has been edited by Pier Francesco Asso and Luca Fiorito and published:
Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman (2006), Autobiography, in Warren J. Samuels (ed.) Documents from and on Economic Thought (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Volume 24 Part 3) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.149 – 187.
The short posting below along with the portrait comes from Seligman’s entry in the second volume of the reference work Universities and their Sons published in 1899.
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SELIGMAN, Edwin Robert Anderson, 1861-
Born in New York City, 1861; received his early education privately and at the Columbia Grammar School; A. B., Columbia, 1879; studied abroad during 1879-82; attended Columbia Law School and Columbia School of Political Science in 1882-84; A.M., 1883; LL.B., 1884; Ph.D., 1885; appointed Prize Lecturer on History of Political Economy at Columbia School of Political Science, 1885; Adjunct Professor of Political Economy, Columbia, 1888; Professor of Political Economy and Finance, 1891; has been on Board of Editors of Political Science Quarterly since 1886; Editor of Columbia Series in History, Economics and Public Law since 1891.
EDWIN ROBERT ANDERSON SELIGMAN, Ph.D., Professor at Columbia, was born in the City of New York April 25,1861. His father, Joseph Seligman, a native of Germany, had been educated in German Universities as a physician, but came to the United States as a young man and engaged in business in New York, ultimately founding the banking firm of J. & W. Seligman & Company. The subject of this sketch was educated at home until the age of eleven, under the direction of Horatio Alger, Jr., the celebrated author of fiction for the young. In 1872 he entered Columbia Grammar School, meanwhile studying French, German and music under private tutors. Graduating from there in 1875, he entered Columbia, taking his degree in 1879. In the same year he went abroad, and passed the three following years in the study of history, political science and jurisprudence in Paris and at the Universities of Berlin, Heidelberg and Geneva. He returned to America in 1882, and for two years attended Columbia Law School and Columbia School of Political Science, taking the degree of Master of Arts in 1883 and that of Bachelor of Laws in 1884. In July 1885 he was appointed Prize Lecturer on the History of Political Economy in the Columbia School of Political Science, receiving the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Three years later he was made Adjunct Professor of Political Economy in the University, and in 1891 was promoted to the Professorship of Political Economy and Finance. Professor Seligman is the author of many works dealing with subjects connected with his profession. Among the most important are: Progressive Taxation in Theory and Practice [1894]; Essays in Taxation (now in second edition); The Shifting and Incidence of Taxation (now in second edition) [first edition 1895; fourth edition, 1903; seventh edition 1915; eighth edition 1913; ninth edition 1921]; Owen and the Christian Socialists [1886]; Railway Tariffs and the Inter-state Commerce Law [1887], Two Chapters on the Mediaeval Guilds of England [1887]; Finance Statistics of the American Commonwealths; The Commercial Policy of the United States of America, published in the Schriften des Vereins für Socialpolitik of Germany in 1892; and numerous articles in the leading scientific journals of this country and abroad. He has been a member of the Board of Editors of the Political Science Quarterly since 1886, and Editor of the Columbia Series in History, Economics and Public Law since 1891. He has also been since 1895 one of the Board of Managers of the School of Classical Studies in Rome. He married April 4, 1888, Caroline Beer. They have two children. Professor Seligman is the member of very many clubs and organizations, principally scientific, among them the Arts, Authors’, City and Political Economy Clubs, the Phi Beta Kappa, the Columbia Alumni Association, the American Economic Association, of which he was Treasurer from 1888 to 1892, the British Economic Association, the American Statistical Association, the American Historical Association, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the American Geographical Society, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Society of American Sculptors, the Society for Ethical Culture, the Archaeological Institute, the University Settlement Society, the New York Philharmonic Society. He is also a corresponding member of the Russian Imperial Academy of Science. He is deeply interested in the betterment of the condition of the poor in New York City, and was formerly on the Board of Managers of the Charity Organization Society. He is still a member of that Society, is President of the Tenement House Building Company, Chairman of the Committee on Education of the Educational Alliance, a member of the Sanitary Aid Society, of which he has been Secretary, a member of the People’s Institute, and of the Social Reform Club. He is a staunch friend of good government, and has taken an active part in the various movements looking to the overthrow of Tammany Hall, having been a member of the Committee of Seventy in 1895 and the Committee of Two Hundred and Fifty in 1897, the first of which brought about the election of William L. Strong as Mayor of New York City on a reform platform. He is also a member of the Civil Service Association, and of the Excise Reform Association. Professor Seligman also sympathizes with the University Extension work, and is a member of the University Settlement Society.
Source: Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2 (1899), pp. 484-6.