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Yale. Economics Ph.D. Alumna, 2nd wife of Richard T. Ely, Margaret Hahn Ely

One can imagine the raised eyebrows when colleagues learned that Professor Richard T. Ely at the tender age of 77 married his former student who was a gentle 32 years old, leaving a 45 year age gap to fill with conjugal bliss. It even became national news when it was reported that Richard T. Ely became father for the fourth and fifth times at ages 78/79, respectively. Robust Professor Ely lived another ten years and his widow Margaret Hale Ely, née Hahn, went on to teach economics at Connecticut College for Women for two decades after his passing. Along the way, she picked up her Yale economics Ph.D. Her retirement years spanned another seventeen years.

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Professor Ely is Married to Former Pupil

Madison—Prof. Richard Theodore Ely, 78, honorary professor of political economy at the University of Wisconsin, was secretly married last summer to Miss Margaret Hahn, 30 [sic, 32 years is correct], once his student at Northwestern university friends here learned today.

The economist and his bride are living at Radburn, N.J., near the Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities established by Dr. Ely several years ago in New York.

He was professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin from 1892 until 1925, when he went to Northwestern. There he met the co-ed destined to become his wife.

In 1933 he received an LL.D. degree from the university.

Before coming to Wisconsin he was head of the department of political economy at Johns Hopkins university for 11 years.

His marriage to Miss Hahn was his second. In 1884 he was married to Miss Anna Morris Anderson, who died in 1923. He has three children, Richard S. Ely, John T. A. Ely and Mrs. Anna Ely Morehouse.

Dr. Ely received his A.B. and A.M. degrees from Columbia university, his Ph.D. at the University of Heidelberg, and another LL.D. from Hobart college.

He was founder of the American bureau of industrial Research, one of the organizers of the American Economics association, first president of the American Association for Labor Legislation, and founder of the Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities.

He has written several books dealing with economics.

Source:  Wisconsin State Journal, December 21, 1931, pp. 1,4.

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L.A. Times exclusive, 1932

Economist Ely Becomes Father
at 79 (sic, should be 78) Years of Age

New York, July 15 (Exclusive)

Prof. Richard T. Ely, the economist, 79 years of age, who last year married Miss Margaret Hahn, still in her early thirties, became the father of an 8-pound son on the 1st, it was learned today.

Prof. Ely proudly confirmed the news at the offices of the Institute for Economic Research, Inc., of which he is the head.

“He’s a fine, big, kicking fellow,” he said. “We named him after William Brewster, a leader in the Mayflower colony and an early ancestor of his.”

Prof. and Mrs. Ely live at Radburn, N.J., the model motor-age real-estate development planned by the professor and financed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and others.

Prof. Ely and the mother of his child, who was born in a Paterson (N.J.) hospital, met at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., where he was teaching in the summer of 1931. She was one of his students, and received a Ph.D. degree at that institution of learning (sic, she did not).

The professor, a noted economist, is the author of a number of books. He came to New York several years ago to establish the institute he heads.

Source: The Los Angeles Times (July 16, 1932), p. 1.

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Associated Press, 1934

Dr. Ely Father Again at 79
Daughter Second Child
Since He Wed Former Pupil in 1931

By the Associated Press.

New York, March 30.–Dr. Richard T. Ely, 79-year-old economist and president of the Bureau of Economic Research, became the father of his sixth child last Wednesday, friends here have learned.

A nine-pound-seven-ounce daughter, named Mary Charlotte, was born to his wife, the former Margaret Hahn of Chicago, in Paterson General Hospital, Paterson, N.J. Dr. Ely will be 80 April 13. Dr. and Mrs. Ely have another child, William Brewster Ely, born in July, 1932. Mrs. Ely is the economist’s second wife. Dr. Ely, founder of the American Economic Association, married her, a former pupil, in 1931.

SourceSt. Louis Post-Dispatch (March 30, 1934), p. 2.

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From the horse’s mouth:
Richard T. Ely’s Memoir
1938

It was at Northwestern, also, that I found the young woman who later became my wife, Margaret Hale Hahn was a member of my round table, a dynamic personality, with many varied interests. She was a Northwestern graduate and had attained distinction in athletics, as well as in scholastic work. She was a member of the debating group and was one of the first women to represent the university in a joint debate with Wisconsin; she was also president of the hockey team and had obtained her letter. We were married in 1931. Her companionship and her vitality have greatly enriched my life. We are now the proud parents of two loverly children, Billy, six, and Mary, four.

Source: Richard T. Ely. Ground Under Our Feet, p. 250.

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Personal and professional timeline of
Margaret Hale Ely, née Hahn

1899. June 29. Born in Ohio to Parents Raymond C. Han and Mary Katruah Hahn née Hale.

1923. B.S. from Northwestern University.

1931, August 8. Marriage to Richard Theodore Ely in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

1932, July 1. Birth of son, William Brewster Ely in Paterson, New Jersey.

1934, March 28. Birth of daughter, Mary Charlotte Ely in Paterson, New  Jersey. [Family residing at 2 Audubon Place, Rayburn, N.J.]

1936, May 12. Third child, stillborn.

1943, October 4. Richard T. Ely dies at home in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

1944. Appointed assistant professor of economics at Connecticut College for Women.

1947. A.M. from Yale University.

1954. Ph.D. in economics from Yale University.

1966. Retires from Connecticut College for Women.

1983, May 24. Died May 24. in Waterford, Connecticut.

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MRS. MARGARET H. ELY
Associate Professor of Economics

Mrs. Margaret H. Ely’s life, on this campus and away from it, has been expressive of a personal philosophy which will continue to pervade her experience after she leaves her position as Associate Professor of Economics at Connecticut. She believes strongly in a commitment to education as a challenge and as a creative process, and she considers the lack of such a commitment the main problem in education today. In accord with this belief, Mrs. Ely has taught the Senior Seminar in Economic Research since she has been here. This course emphasizes creative research and enables students to talk with experts in their particular area. Labor and investment have always been Mrs. Ely’s own favorite areas of interest and instruction. She was originally trained as a banker in the investment division of the Irving Trust Company. In addition to her love of teaching, she has actively extended her own education. Last summer she attended a Contemporary Economics Seminar and this year at Connecticut she has studied mathematical statistics. In the language of economics, Mrs. Ely feels there is a great deal of manpower, the country’s most valuable resource, which is being wasted in the form of the unmotivated student. She believes this situation can be improved and, with this in mind, she intends to continue working in the educational system: We can expect further significant accomplishments by Mrs. Ely, a woman dedicated to her field and her profession.

Source: Connecticut College for Women student yearbook, Koiné 1964, p. 74.

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Retirement note by Connecticut College President

Mrs. Margaret Ely joined the Faculty in 1944 as a recent widow and the mother of two young children. Ten years later she had received her Doctor’s degree in Economics at Yale, created new courses in Labor Economics and Corporations at this college and brought her own children into young manhood and womanhood. She likes to teach the lore of corporations by the case study method. A study of her own case suggests that she is the sort of educated American woman who has demonstrated to the undergraduates of this college that a woman of purpose and courage can do anything she wants to do. Her human warmth and ingenious teaching methods will be available to us for one year more in the absence of her Department Chairman.

SourceConnecticut College Alumnae News, August 1964, p. 19.

Image SourceConnecticut College Alumnae News, August 1964, p. 19. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

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Halle. Economics PhD Alumnus, John Henry Gray (Harvard AB, 1887), 1892

 

The Harvard graduate, John Henry Gray (A.B. 1887), was an instructor of political economy at his alma mater in 1888-1889. His European tour as a graduate student took him from Halle (Germany) to Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. He returned to the U.S. with a doctorate from the University of Halle to begin his academic career at Northwestern. A chronology of his life and subsequent career is included below.

Fun Fact: John Henry Gray donated his private library of about one thousand volumes to Carleton College. It included a third edition of Wealth of Nations.

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John Henry Gray

1859. Born March 11, 1859 at Charleston, Ill.

Prepared for college at State Normal University in Illinois.

1881-1882. Principal of the High School of Centralia, Illinois.

1883. Enters Harvard College. Sophomore year he began his studies of Political Economy.

1887. A.B., magna cum laude.  Harvard with special honors in Political Science. Phi-Beta-Kappa.

1887-1888. Graduate student, Harvard University.

1888-1889. Appointed instructor of political economy following resignation of Professor J. L. Laughlin.

July, 1889. Rogers Fellow of Harvard for graduate study of two semesters at Halle with Professors Conrad and Loening (1889-1890); seven months at Paris (1890-1891), with Levasseur, Leroy-Beaulieu, Sorel, De Foville; one semester at Vienna with Carl Menger, Böhm-Bawerk and v. Miaskowski (1891); and more than a semester in Berlin with Wagner, Schmoller and Gneist (1891-92).

1892. Doctorate awarded by the University of Halle, magna cum laude. Thesis: Die Stellung der privaten Beleuchtungsgesellschaften zu Stadt und Staat. Die Erfahrungen in Wien, Paris und Massachusetts. Jena, 1893.

1892-1907. Professor of political economy and social science, Northwestern University.

1893. Chairman of the World’s Congress Auxiliary on Political Science in Chicago.

1894-1896. Chairman of the municipal committee of the Civic Federation of Chicago.

1902. Consultant to the United States Department of Labor to investigate restrictions of output in Great Britain.

1902. International Cooperative Congress in Manchester, England as representative of the U.S. Commissioner of Labor.

1902. U.S. representative to Congresses of labor, commerce and industry in Düsseldorf (Germany) and Ostend (Belgium).

1905. Member of the National Civic Federation Commission on Municipal Ownership.

1907-1920. Professor of economics, University of Minnesota.

1911-1914. National Civic Federation Commission on Municipal ownership, regulation of public service corporations.

1913. Author of compilation and analysis of all American statutes relating to the regulation of public service corporations.

1914. President of the American Economic Association.

1917-1919. Chief analyst and examiner in the bureau of valuations, Interstate Commerce Commission.

World War I. Lt. Col., U.S. Army and member of the board of appraisers of all property commandeered for the Army.  Second man to enroll in the American Legion.

1920-1925. Professor of economics, Carleton College.

1925-1928. Chief analyst and examiner in the bureau of valuations of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

1928-1932. Head of department of economics in the graduate school of American University.

1929. Joint author with G. W. Terborgh of a study of Urban Mortgages in the United States since 1920.

1933. Co-author with Jack Levin, The Regulation and Valuation of Public Utilities. Harper & Brothers.

1946. Died April 4 in Winter Park, Florida.

Sources:

Personal Notes, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Vol. 3 (Sept., 1892), pp. 112-113.

Jesse S. Robinson. John Henry Gray, 1859-1946. American Economic Review, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Sept. 1946), pp. 664-666.

 

Image Source: University of Minnesota Libraries, UMedia. Gray, John H. webpage.

 

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Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumnus. Ernest H. Hahne, 1930

I have mentioned this before, the papers of the economic historian Earl Hamilton are a grab-bag of essentially unsorted material. Sometimes you find a rough gem to include in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. For this post below we have a brief description of Harvard economic history professor Edwin Francis Gay’s seminar. To complete the post I have uncovered a few career facts about the author of the letter to Earl Hamilton that congratulates him for his memorial article about Gay.

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Ernest Herman Hahne
(b. Oct. 20, 1890; d. November 25, 1952)

1911. University of Nebraska, B.A.

1913. University of Nebraska, LL.B.

1914. Harvard University, A.M.

1916. Doctoral Dissertation in preparation. AER 1916, p. 503: The History of the meat packing industry in the United States.

1930. University of Chicago, Economics Ph.D. “Special Assessment Theory and Practise with Special Reference to Chicago.”

Listed among graduate students of political economy in the 25th year report of the University of Chicago department of political economy:

Academic career:

Taught sociology at the University of Chicago.

Taught economics and sociology at Dakota Wesleyan University (Mitchell, South Dakota)

Professor of economics, Northwestern (1919-1946)

Assistant dean of liberal arts college and director of the summer session at Northwestern.

President of Miami University (Oxford, Ohio)  April 1, 1946- November 25, 1952)

Chairman of the board of the Cincinnati branch of the Cleveland Federal Reserve

______________________

Miami University
Oxford, Ohio

Office of the President

December 22, 1947

Professor Earl J. Hamilton
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois

Dear Earl:

Thanks for the complimentary copy of the memorial you have written on Edwin Francis Gay in the June issue of the American Economic Review. As I read it, it brought back many a fond memory. I don’t know whether I ever told you that I started writing my doctor’s thesis, the history of the parking industry, and Gay recommended that I go to University of Chicago and carry on additional work and get first-hand information there. Therefore I went to Chicago in 1915, eventually to wind up as an assistant in sociology under E. W. Small and Scott E. W. Bedford. I not only took Gay’s courses in economic history but followed them with his course on French and German economists. Most of us were taking the work not only to brush up on continental theory but also to master the languages preparatory to the general exams. We met in Gay’s home. The course was supposed to last about two hours. I doubt if it ever broke up in less than three and a half to four hours. It was a small group that sat at the feet of Gamaliel but it included Rice of Dartmouth, Stehman of Minnesota, Van Sickle of Wabash, and two graduate students who went into business.

I remember writing a term paper for Gay in French history on the origin of the British labor exchanges. I never worked so hard on a paper in my life, but when it came back with the word “Excellent” sighed E.F.G. I felt well repaid. In fact I still have that paper in my library. I prize it highly. All this is simply to say that your admiration of one of Harvard’s greatest teachers does not exceed mine.

Your memorial is splendidly done.

With the Season’s greetings and best wishes from the Hahnes to the Hamiltons,

Cordially yours,
[signed]
Ernest

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archives. Earl J. Hamilton Papers, Box 2, Folder “Correspondence — misc. 1919, Aug. 26; 1920s-1970s and n.d.”

Image Source: Yearbook of Miami University, Recensio 1946, p. 13.

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Columbia. Economics Ph.D. alumnus who killed his Dean and self at Syracuse. Beckwith, 1913

 

Imagine what can possibly go wrong when a narcissist finds himself (herself) terminated from nine jobs over the course of a decade. The worst case scenario of murder-suicide as the culmination of professional decline and fall for the 1913 Columbia Ph.D. alumnus, Holmes Beckwith, is documented below using a few contemporary press accounts. His story was sensational and reported widely across the country.

For this post I have added a chronology along with a pair of genealogical tables to help readers distinguish among the members of the Beckwith and the Holmes families mentioned. Warning: I have encountered numerous errors in the contemporary newspaper accounts.

The final entry included in the post paints a much more sympathetic portrait of Holmes Beckwith, reminding us all of the tragedy of mental illness.

The annual reports of the Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society served as a sort of “Alumni notes” with contact information as well as personal and professional news that were useful in keeping track of Holmes Beckwith’s movements over his brief professional career.

Useful genealogical information found at a roots.web Beckwith page.

Note: Holmes Beckwith does not appear to have been closely related (if at all) to William Erastus Beckwith, husband of 1925 Radcliffe Ph.D. Ethelwynn Rice).

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Chronology

1884. Born October 5 in Haiku, Maui of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Parents: Frank Armstrong Beckwith (1854-1885) and Ellen Warren Holmes.

1900. Lived with his mother (Ellen), sister (Ruth), and aunt (Mary G. Holmes) in Los Angeles.

Holmes went to high school in Los Angeles.

Attended Pacific Theological School at Berkeley, CA, completing about half the course, transferred to University of California.

1906. Address: 2231 Dana St., Berkeley, CA. (Source: Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society)

1907. Address: 2231 Dana St., Berkeley, CA. (Source: Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society)

1908. B.L. from University of California, Berkeley.

Address: 2223 Atherton St., Berkeley, CA. (Source: Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society)

1909. M.L. from University of California, Berkeley.

Address: 2223 Atherton St., Berkeley, CA. (Source: Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society)

1909. June 22. Marriage to Helen Frances Robinson in Berkeley, CA. (Source: Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society)

1910. Address: Columbia University, New York City. (Source: Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society)

1911. Address: Columbia University, New York City. (Source: Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society)

1911. Summer. Research trip to Germany for dissertation.

“To learn at first hand from German experiences, I spent the summer of 1911 investigating industrial education in Germany. The cities visited were selected with a view to their importance industrially and include a number of the chief industrial centers in various lines of manufacture. The following cities were visited: The city State of Hamburg; Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, and Plauen in Saxony; Munich in Bavaria; Mannheim, in Baden; and Berlin, Magdeburg, Frankfort on Main, Coblenz, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Elberfeld, Barmen, Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg, Crefeld, Munchen-Gladbach, Rheydt, and Aachen, in Prussia.” From the Preface of his dissertation.

1911-12. Dartmouth College. Instructor in economics.

Entered Federal service, Children’s Bureau (the Bureau of Education published his dissertation). The Children’s Bureau was established April 9, 1912 by President William Howard Taft. Initially part of the Department of Commerce and Labor. After 1913 it became part of the Department of Labor.

1913. Ph.D. from Columbia University.

German Industrial Education and its Lessons for the United States. Printed in the U.S. Bureau of Education [Department of the Interior], Bulletin No. 19, 1913. [Professor Henry R. Seager acknowledged in the preface]

1913-14. University of California. Assistant in economics and political economy.

“The Rev. F. H. Robinson of 2809 Russell street, Berkeley, his former father-in-law, states that his severity toward the students at that time caused them to demand his resignation.” The San Francisco Examiner. 3 April 1921, p. 8.
“According to colleagues in the department of economics in the university, he was ‘very eccentric.’” Oakland Tribune, Apr. 2, 1921, p. 1.

1914. Address: 3008 Benvenue Ave., Berkeley, CA.  “Mr. Holmes Beckwith is a professor in the State University at Berkeley, Calif., and has recently received the degree of Ph.D.” (Source: Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society)

1914. August-December as bank examiner with the California State Banking Commission.

“Officials of the commission said the bankers complained he ‘lectured them like students’ on the theories of their own business instead of confining himself to the actual examination work”. New York Herald, April 3, 1921, p. 17.

1915. Address: Department of Labor, Washington, D.C. (Source: Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society)

1915-16. Officers’ training camp at Plattsburgh. [according to NYT: discharged for physical disability.] First Lieutenant of artillery (?), U.S. Army. [Note: I have not been able to confirm the reported military service claims yet.]

1916-17. Grinnell College.

“Several years ago a Holmes Beckwith was an assistant professor in the department of business administration at Grinnell college. He was here about a year and was never popular with the students. He left Grinnell about the middle of 1917.” The Gazette (Ceder Rapids, Iowa), April 2, 1921, p. 1.

1917. Address: Department of Labor, Washington, D.C. (Source: Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society)

1918. Address: Department of Labor, Washington, D.C.  (Source: Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society)

1919. Address: 1724 Chicago Ave., Evanston, Ill. (Source: Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society)

1918-19Northwestern University, Assistant Professor of Banking.

“…where he was described as being nervous and erratic.” New-York Tribune April 4, 1921, p. 5.

1919-20. Colorado College, College Springs, CO.

“He had a penchant for telling stories that were considered risqué for a Christian college.” New York Herald, April 3, 1921, p. 17.

1920. Address: 817 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs, Col. (Source: Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society)

1920-21. Syracuse University, College of Business Administration. Instructor in Insurance.

1921. April 2. Suicide (+Murder). See below.

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Cast of relatives
[boldface denotes persons mentioned in the newspaper accounts]

Holmes Beckwith: Father’s side

(Grandparents)
Edward Griffin Beckwith (1826-1909)

(Granduncle)
George Ely Beckwith (1828-1898)
m. Harriet

(father)
Frank Armstrong Beckwith (1854-1885)

m. Ellen Warren Holmes in Montclair NJ

(Aunt)
Martha Warren Beckwith
(1871-1959)
(Aunt)
Mary E. Beckwith (1867-) teacher, artist
Holmes Beckwith
(1884-1921)
m. Helen Frances Robinson in 1909.
(sister)
Ruth Beckwith
(1882-1968)
m. Amasa Archibald Bullock

Note: (Professor) Aunt Martha Beckwith in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. had been a protégé of Columbia anthropologist Franz Boas. She became chair of the Vassar folklore department.

Holmes Beckwith: Mother’s side

(maternal grandparents)
Samuel Holmes (1824-1897) and Mary Howe Goodale (1829-1899)

(mother)
Ellen Warren Holmes (1857-1902) m. Frank Armstrong Beckwith in 1881
(uncle)
David Goodale Holmes (1865-1944) m. Elizabeth Ann Bates (1862-1940) in 1886
(aunt)
Mary Goodale Holmes (1862-1960)

(uncle)
George Day Holmes (1867-1953) m. Julia Georgiana Rogers Baird, (1868-1928) in 1896.

Note: Uncle David Goodale Holmes of East Orange, N.J. was President of the Utility Company, 636 West Forty-fourth Street, New York City according to the report of New York Times, April 4, 1921, p. 17. Uncle George Day Holmes lived with his wife Julia in Montclair, N.J. Since she died in 1928, we can presume she was the ill aunt (presumably Aunt “Hattie”) who was not to be told of Holmes’ death.

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Professor Slays Dean, and Himself
Former U.C. Instructor Ends His Life After Fatal Shooting At Syracuse University; Note Tells of Plans
Dr. Holmes Beckwith, Once Employed As Examiner for State Banking Commission, Well Known in Berkeley

Oakland Tribune
02 Apr 1921, Page 1

By Associated Press.

SYRACUSE, N. Y., April 2. — J. Herman Wharton, dean of the College of Business Administration, Syracuse University, was shot and killed by Holmes Beckwith, professor of financial and insurance subjects, in the college this morning. Beckwith then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide. The shooting occurred in. the office of the School of Administration, in the College of Agriculture building. Professor Beckwith had been unpopular with the students, it was said, and petitions had been circulated among the student body asking for his removal.

Note tells of plan to commit suicide

In a statement issued soon after the shooting, Chancellor Day declared that it was his belief that Dean Wharton died trying to prevent Professor Beckwith from committing suicide. [Later reports note this is incorrect.] This was indicated in a note left for Dean Wharton by Prof. Beckwith, the chancellor said, in which he intimated that he was going to kill himself and referred to alleged unjust treatment of himself based on the fact that he had been dismissed, the dismissal to take effect at the end of the year. Dean Wharton’s chair, a stout one, was broken. He evidently leaped from it when Beckwith tried to kill himself, the gun was turned on him and the dean was shot through the head. Beckwith was shot in the chest. He also stabbed himself to make death certain. [This is apparently incorrect, though he was found to have had knife with him.]

Suicide was once artillery lieutenant

Dr. Beckwith was a first lieutenant, field artillery, in the world war. He joined the Syracuse University Faculty last September [1920]. He was head of the department of finance and insurance. Dean Wharton was a graduate of Syracuse university and has been an instructor there for the last few years. Two years ago he conceived the idea of a college of business administration and he was appointed to carry out the plan.

San Francisco, April 2. — Dr. Holmes Beckwith was an examiner for the State Banking Commission from August to December, 1914, and was dismissed upon complaint of the banks that he was not a proper person for the position, according to the commission’s records. These records show that he obtained the highest marks of those who participated in the test for examiner.

Beckwith was well known on U. C. campus Berkeley, April 2. — Holmes Beckwith was well known in Berkeley. At the University of California, where he was both a student and an instructor, he bore a reputation for being somewhat peculiar. According to colleagues in the department of economics in the. university, he was very eccentric.

Beckwith was a graduate of the State University of the class of 1908 and took his master’s degree a year later. Going East to study, he was granted a doctor of philosophy degree in Columbia in 1913. After receiving the Columbia degree he came to the University of California from Los Angeles to occupy a place on the college faculty. For the college year 1913-14 he was an assistant in economics at the university. He was reappointed for the following year of 1914-15, but did not serve.

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The Philadelphia Inquirer
April 3, 1921, pp. 1, 10.

“Beckwith failed to attend a meeting of the college faculty yesterday afternoon [April 1] and instead sent a letter to Dean Wharton, intended to be read at the meeting. The letter was found on Professor Wharton’s desk today after the murder.”

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Fires Five Bullets into Victim’s Body; Commits Suicide
John Herman Wharton of Syracuse University Slain by Prof. Beckwith in Revenge for Dismissal of Latter — Apparently Crazed by An Obsession of Persecution, as He Had Written of Impending Tragedy.

The Buffalo Times
April 3, 1921 [pp. 21-2.]

By Associated Press.

SYRACUSE, N. Y., April 2. — Dr. Holmes Beckwith, a former United States army lieutenant and California bank examiner, shot and killed his superior, Dean John Herman Wharton at Syracuse University, this morning, before commiting suicide himself, was probably insane as a result of chagrin over losing his position here, according to statements made by the authorities and Chancellor James R. Day of the University late tonight.

That Beckwith had premeditated suicide had not been clearly established, the instructor having left several letters showing his intention in that respect.

At first it was believed that Dr. Wharton had been killed in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Beckwith’s suicide but this theory has now been cast aside.

Shot After Quarrel.

Coroner C. Ellis Crane, District Attorney Frank Malpass and Chancellor James R. Day are all agreed in the belief that Dr. Wharton was shot following an argument when Beckwith presented a letter in answer to Wharton’s notification that the university would have no need of Beckwith’s services after the close of college in June.

Five bullets were found in Dr. Wharton’s body indicating that Beck with had made sure his superior was dead before he turned his revolver upon himself and committed suicide.

Dean Wharton was in his 32d year and had been an instructor at Syracuse University since his graduation from that institution eight years ago. He was made dean of the College of Business Administration two years ago and Beckwith was one of the instructors under him.

Beckwith had been the butt of several jokes by the college student body during the last year. He had established the practice of locking the doors of the class room at the exact minute passes were due to begin and he would not admit tardy pupils.

He was strict in discipline and in the matter of time devoted to his classes and he had some peculiarities which made him more or less of a victim for students’ pranks and he was decidedly unpopular with them. It is claimed they circulated a petition for his discharge last fall.

University authorities had convinced themselves that Beckwith was a liability rather than an asset and last Monday he received his notification to look elsewhere for a teaching assignment next fall.

He protested but his arguments were without avail.

“Cornered Rat Will Fight.”

Friday night, it has been established, he spent hours in his room writing letters, one of which was addressed to Dean Wharton. It was lengthy document saying among other things, a “cornered rat will fight.”

His uncle Holmes of Montclair, N. J., be notified and that his action be kept from an aunt who is ill.

He wrote two aunts, Dr. Martha Beckwith and Miss Mary Beckwith of No. 50 Market Street, Poughkeepsie. N. Y., and to “Aunt Hattie,” believed to reside in Montclair. The letters thanked the relatives for their love and care assuring them that he loved them.

That he had a rather turbulent career and regarded at least two persons, outside of Syracuse, who had figured in his troubles in the educational world, as being worthy subjects for murder is shown in the story of his life, written under date of March 30, and turned over, according to his written wishes, to Prof. John O. Simmons, a faculty member here.

Discussing his discharge at Colorado College, Dr. Beckwith speaks of a Mr. Howbert, a bank president, apparently one of the board of governors, and writes:

“Mr. Howbert’s anger knew no bounds, I have never met him. I think a man to take the action he did is so unjust he should be shot.”

In his written story of his life he discusses troubles he had at Grinnell College in Iowa, which evidently culminated while he was serving in the army. He wrote:

“I would have murdered Mr. Main who certainly deserves this end in having treacherously betrayed one in his country’s service. Then I would have shot my self.”

Born in Hawaii.

The story of Beckwith’s life shows he was born October 5, 1884, in Kaiku, Island of Maui, then one of the Hawaiian kingdom. His father and grandfather were Congregational ministers and his one sister, Ruth Beckwith Bullock, is a missionary in Siang-Tan, China. He attended the Pacific Theological School at Berkeley, Calif., but did not complete the course. In 1911 he was graduated from Columbia, to which university he transferred in 1908. He married Helen Frances Robinson in California before entering Columbia. They had separated some time ago.

After graduation he spent a short time in Germany and returned to America as a teacher at Dartmouth. He condemned Dartmouth “as the toughest college In America, all men, the dominant element of whom delights in toughness.” He had trouble there, blaming his trouble on Prof. George R. Wicker, of whom he says “this humane cur, Wicker, has since died.”

His story tells of engagements in California, Colorado and Iowa, finally reverting to Syracuse.

Dismissed as Bank Examiner.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., April 2. — Dr. Holmes Beckwith was an examiner for the State Banking Commission from August to December, 1914, and was dismissed upon complaint of the banks that he was not a proper person for the position, according to the commission’s records.

The records show that he obtained the highest marks of those who participated in the test for examiner but was unable to meet the standards of the position in the financial field. Officials of the commission said that the bankers complained that he “lectured them like students” on the theories of their own business instead of confining himself to the actual examination work. He went to the banking commission from the University of California, where he was an instructor in economics and political economy.

Letter Beckwith Wrote Shows He Resented Wharton’s Act

SYRACUSE, April 2. — The following letter, written to Dean Wharton by Professor Beckwith, was found on Dean Wharton’s desk. In it the professor claims that he was in difficulties with the students only because he refused to permit them to run his classes.

“My attitude toward the students is that of seeking their best good,” Professor Beckwith wrote, protesting against his dismissal.

His letter follows:

The School of Business Administration.
John Herman Wharton, Director.
Department of Banking and Finance.

Holmes Beckwith,
Early Childs.
April 1, 1921.

To Dean John Herman Wharton and to whom it may concern:

I received last Saturday morning a letter from you stating that you did not care for further services on this faculty after this year. This was a great surprise to me, despite several conferences we have had in which some friction with students was discussed. I thought the matter was solving itself. I visited you at your home on Monday afternoon, and we discussed the matter, and I protested to you against the injustice done me. This was in vain.

Your only statement of causes was that certain disciplinary troubles and friction had arisen in my classes, and that I was not popular with my students. Now popularity Is NOT always easy to explain, or the lack of it, but certainly a man’s right to his position should not be dependent on such a fickle force. I believe that it is evident in the present case that this unpopularity is due primarily to my maintenance of relatively high scholastic standings, and to my suppressing certain tendencies toward running of the class by students.

The chief trouble was in money and banking class in the first semester. There was a very large registration, yet the whole number only filtered into class days late. This delayed the process of dividing into sections and started a spirit of unrest. Then the students objected to assignments averaging about two hours’ preparation per hour of recitation or lecture, which is I believe a proper standard for bona fide institutions. They walked out in a body on the day of any important game. The net result was, in one direction, that their grades suffered severely, and I had, after very careful consideration, to mark 33 out of 50 as failed. Those who failed, or many of them, I am told, objected seriously to this, and called me unfair.

I deny the charge, and assert that I have tried to be entirely fair throughout, and believe I have been so. I have no motive to be otherwise; and justice means much to me, not only toward myself, but towards others. These facts stated above explain any opposition on the part of any students, I believe sufficiently.

The dean says that other instructors have not had similar trouble. I know positively that some others have had. Though not so much as I. He says “force has its limitations in controlling students, and personality” must be used. I recognize this, and neither used force nor authority exclusively, nor failed to use personality.

Here inconsistency is shown by his suggesting at one time greater strictness, at another time less. My attitude toward my students is that of always seeking their best good. But that best good is not to be sought by slipshodness and making things too easy. I may say, without pressing the point, that a number of the faculty on the hill are too lax in standards, both of scholarship and discipline, seeking and obtaining popularity in degree thereby. These men constitute unfair competition to those of us who try to bring the students to higher levels in these respects. I am not naturally strong as a disciplinarian but with any proper students and any proper administration or support do well.

My subjects are technical and my students find them hard. This explains some of their reasons. They are not as a group, willing to pay the price for this knowledge and ability. Among them, I am glad to say, are some, whose earnestness is excellent and a few quite capable students. The student attitude in my classes, and I believe toward me personally, has been bettering. Dean Wharton did not care to consider this. Syracuse University is notably low in scholarship and low in discipline, honesty and general student morale. These facts are notorious, every faculty man knows and deplores them; many students also.

The dean’s action follows the line of least resistance, and shows little or no principle. It is easier to suit a number of disaffected students than one professor; to do injustice to one and to support that one in maintaining or securing some one higher standard. And certainly as to scholarship, who knows better or as well what is a requisite standard than the specialist in charge?

Such treatment is not new to me. This may seem to excuse the treatment but does not, I leave this point to ethical students. My rights are independent of the misconduct of others, as in the present instance, students or certain students. Unfortunately, by consent of the general student body, or of all in a class, the tone is often given more by the poorer or less desirable student than by the better element. It is the psychology of the mob in a degree. This matter at present is slowly improving in the college, due to student co-operation action.

I have a right to earn my living, to serve and be served. The world owes me a living — provided I can earn it. This right, is independent of whether I am given an opportunity to earn it or not. I am entitled to that opportunity in proportion to my ability. My physical qualifications are admittedly high and there is no criticism, expressed or implied as to them, or as to my technical conduct of teaching, or ability to impart. My recommendations on file in the dean’s office bear sufficient testimony to my ability.

[New York Herald,  Apr 3, 1921, p. 17 reported the previous paragraph followed by the following two paragraphs.]

Even a cornered rat will fight. With others primarily, as I believe, at fault, should I alone bear the burden? I have written a general statement of my earlier experiences, which will aid in interpreting me for any who so desires.”

(This paragraph reported in other accounts as the end of Beckwith’s longer, autobiographical letter) “I shall cease to exist. My consciousness, a function or product, in some sense of my whole organic life, will cease and will remain a memory only. I trust I have bettered the world rather than the reverse. Om mane padne om! (The dew droops slips into the shining sea).”]

What did I mean by claiming right? The cynic denies that there is such a thing. The political scientist sometimes says there are no rights in society, organized as a State, has not formally granted by law.

Unfortunately the right to earn a living is not one of those thus far recognized by law. I believe it is a right notwithstanding. I am not embracing the so-called rights fallacy — or not the fallacious part of it. This fallacy consists in thinking that there are any rights, always and anywhere valid, not dependent on circumstances. Yet the heart of the doctrine is true that right exist, whether men recognize them or not. I consider that rights in the best sense, that is expedient or rational rights, are claims which are within accord with social or public expediency — mine for continuous employment in accord with my abilities and recognition of such abilities? Social interest in this case requires, I believe, administrative support, continuous support, and pressure, to raise the student standard, rather than the ousting of me. I have only asked reasonable standards of them and even compromised to the extent of raising every student 10 per cent, in most classes, who would thereby pass.

The present situation is intolerable to me, in the strict sense. This isn’t largely due to the repetition here of similar treatment elsewhere received. Despite similar injunctions I have arisen, by inherent ability and hard work. I have had so many changes of location, also so many different courses, and developed them so much, by mimeographed notes and otherwise, that I have not had time to write for publication yet. My rise has been due to my ability; the obstacles and injustices due to conditions not primarily my fault.

I have been bruised for others’ iniquities.

I informed the dean that he had made the situation intolerable to me and presented my case, asking for justice. He refused, and said his action was final. I cannot continue thus — subject to lack of confidence of those in authority, worry, depression often-times as now marked, lack of incentive and of hope. Some students and others simply do not like my type of man, or the standards which I represent; though I think and many friends think (I believe) that the type is a high one, of much potentialities of good for the world.

Dean Wharton and some others in authority have given way to this pressure, taking “the easiest way” for them, and in doing so repeatedly confirmed my suspicions that the world, as a whole, as indicated by the attitude of those who control the situation, is unfriendly to me. I cannot be hardly accused of ingratitude if I do not accept this opinion and consider that the world has not even given me a semblance of justice. The dean is fully responsible, as he accepted this proposition. He could support me, and should but refuses. Collectively the students who oppose me (I am glad that that does not include all my students, and I believe the dean underestimates the extent of their loyalty to me) have the main responsibility.

[New York Times, p. 14 includes the following:
“They started this and are about to see their handiwork come to fruition. Perhaps they may earn something from this that will benefit themselves and others. The tyranny of the mob over the individual is here very evident, and the individual is not strong enough to permanently stand against the mob.
I do not believe I have been appreciated. I have not done injustice to anyone. I have fought the good fight and my conscience is clear. I am too idealistical ethically, not philosophically, for my own good. I realize that principle means too much to me. Even a cornered rat will fight. With others, I believe, primarily at fault, should I alone bear the burden.
The law was established to settle quarrels, not to establish justice, which is incidental only. I quote from a prominent New York attorney. Since the world has so greatly failed to give me justice, why would not I, as fully as my power permits, attempt to secure a modicum of justice?
If society would have it otherwise, let them establish it.”]

** ** ** ** ** ** **

Beckwith Butt Of Jokes from First Class Day

SYRACUSE, N. Y., April 2. — Professor Beckwith was the butt of jokes by the students from the first day that he took a class. When he was registering a class in banking and finance, some jokester wrote a fake registration in the name of “Makiswash Blivitz” and turned it in. The professor failed to realize that the name was false, and he put it in his registration book, and never failed to call it out when taking the attendance or calling the roll.

The name of “Blivitz” always drew a laugh from the students. To make their joke more certain, they occasionally imported a law school student, a stranger to Professor Beckwith, who answered to the call of “Blivitz.”

The joke was too good to be retained within the student body. The faculty heard of it, and of course, some of the professors laughed about it, too. Then it reached the ears of Chancellor Day, and he instructed Professor Beckwith to take the name of Blivitz from his lists.

Professor Beckwith refused to do this, however, thinking that some day he would catch the student who sometimes answered to the name and make an object lesson of him. One result was that the newspapers heard of it, and one printed a series of “Blivitz” stories, which annoyed the professor tremendously.

Another thing for which the professor became noted was that he operated his classes under lock and key. As soon as the bell rang for a class he locked the door, and if a student came late he was admitted by the professor himself.

It was also noticed by the students that if Professor Beckwith’s class concluded its work a few minutes ahead of time he always held them in the class room until the exact minute scheduled for closing of classes.

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Murder and Suicide Verdict Given in Syracuse Tragedy
Dr. Wharton, Victim of Radical Professor’s Bullet,
Was About to Marry a Rich Woman, Friends Say

New York Tribune
April 4, 1921 [p. 5]

SYRACUSE, N. Y., April 3. “Murder and suicide” was the coroner’s verdict to-day in the double tragedy at Syracuse University yesterday when Professor Holmes Beckwith shot and killed Dean John Herman Wharton, of the College of Business Administration, and then, reloading the gun, fired two bullets into his own body, killing himself.

Beckwith fired five bullets into the body of the dean as it lay on the floor turned the revolver on himself and fell ten feet away.

Professor Wharton’s body was removed to his home in Clarendon Street where funeral services will be held. Beckwith’s body has been claimed by David G. Holmes, of East Orange, N.J., an uncle.

Authorities are still delving into the mass of letters, papers, essays and other documents left by the murderer in his home and sent, to various friends and college associates, most of them; written after he had been asked to resign from the Syracuse faculty at the end of the college year. It was learned to-day that Dr. Wharton was about to be married. So far as can be learned he had not given out the name of his prospective bride even among his intimate friends. The woman is understood to have been of independent means. Beckwith’s last literary effort, his life story, given to the public by Professor J. O. Simmons, reveals the entire philosophy of the assassin, American-born in Hawaii, intellectual apostate Christian, athletic dilettante, reader of strange tongues, sociologist, egoist, professed lover of humanity, army officer, dabbler in Far East religions, radical, atheist, murderer and self-slayer.

Among his effects was found a snap-shot photograph of his father and former President Taft as classmates at Yale, where they wore contestants for the presidency of the class.

That the crime was premeditated shown by Beckwith’s own writings. Desperate because of repeated failures to hold a place in the teaching profession, having been dismissed in disgrace from all of the nine places he had he since graduation from the University of California ten years ago, he determined to leave a world in which could not succeed and to take the man he held responsible for his latest failure along with him.

On several other occasions, when he had been dismissed from college faculties, he had planned murder, sometimes suicide in addition. Once was at Northwestern University at Evanston, Ill., where he was described as being nervous and erratic.

_________________________

Suicide and Deathwished in Biography
Slayer in Syracuse Tragedy Was Obsessed With Belief of Persecution at Hands of University Executives
Had Murder of His Employees [sic] in Mind Frequently and Brooded Over Trouble With Wife, His Writings Reveal

Oakland Tribune (California). April 3, 1921, p. 33.

By Universal Service. Leased Wire to Tribune.

Syracuse, N.Y., April 2. —

That death and suicide ran continuously through the mind of Dr. Holmes Beckwith of the college of business administration of Syracuse University, who today shot and killed Dean John Herman Wharton, and then committed suicide, is shown in his farewell biography.

That document shows:

First, that Dr. Beckwith had in his mind the murder of President John Hanson Thomas Main of Grinell College.

Second, that Dr. Beckwith thought that President Irving Howbert, of the First National Bank of Colorado Springs “should be shot.”

Third, that Dr. Beckwith considered the late Dr. George Ray Wicker, his superior at Dartmouth, a “human cur” and a man “who would stab his best friend in the back if he saw an advantage in it.”

Suicide Obsessed by Idea of Persecution

Dr. Beckwith finally was crazed by the obsession that he was the target for persecution at nearly every college where he taught, and this was aggravated by mourning for his wife, who had divorced him and whom, he believed, had married again.

Dr. Wharton had advised Dr. Beckwith that his services would be no longer required at Syracuse after June.

Dr. Beckwith, a native of the Hawaiian Islands, was a former bank examiner in California and expert in finance and statistics. Before coming to Syracuse Dr. Beckwith was professor of similar subjects at Colorado college, Colorado springs. Also he was formerly with Iowa State University [sic, Grinell college] and the school of commerce at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. He had degrees of bachelor of law and master of law at the University of California and doctor of philosophy from, Columbia University.

In his farewell biography Dr. Beckwith says:

“In 1909, before going to Columbia I had married Helen Frances Robinson of Berkeley a fellow philosophical student. We also went to Germany together. On return from Germany we settled at Hanover, N.H., where I had a position as instructor in economics in Dartmouth college.

“The start here was extremely unfortunate, as Dartmouth is the toughest college in the country. I had some disciplinary trouble with my students. Another element was the personality of the professor in charge of the beginning course, in which all my work lay. He, Professor George Ray Wicker, is a bright man, an idealist in the abstract, but as my office mate stated, he would “stab his best friend in the back if he saw an advantage in it. He sought my discharge and evidently demanding it from his chief, I was left to shift for myself.”

Wife Finances Him When Out of Work

Later, the Beckwiths landed in New York, “broke.” Beckwith details:

“Karl and his wife, Sadie Robinson, my wife’s first cousin, took us in and got Helen a position as his secretary in a war relief organization. She financed us in the main, all that year, aided by the proceeds or sale of my share and by realty dividends. My wife deserves all credit for this aid, aptly given to a hard-pressed husband.

“In August, 1916, I went to Plattsburgh officers’ training camp at infantry. I then left to take a position as assistant professor of business administration in Grinnell college, Grinnell, Iowa. An affair had developed between Karl Robinson and my wife. She later ceased to love me and the upshot prolonged over a number of heart-rending years (for we had been for years very well and thoroughly married) was that my former wife is now Mrs. Karl Davis Robinson of New York City; the former Mrs. Robinson is now alone with two children; and I am alone. In this matter I may say that the guilty pair have, I believe, the sympathy of no one who knows the case, though their families can not fail to regard them as still blood relations and friends. I am, I am glad to say, still enrapport with my wife’s family and especially, good friends with her mother.”

Then came a period of military service. Discharged for disability, Beckwith went back to Grinnell. The instructor was met with a refusal of his old berth on the faculty. Beckwith held President Main responsible.

“I would have murdered Mr. Main, who certainly deserves this end in thus treacherously betraying one in his country’s service,” he writes.

Colorado College Afford Trouble

Next came his connection with Colorado college. He styles President Diniway as “a weak, unscrupulous man, the tool of the trustees.” He claims President Irving Hawbert, of the Colorado Springs First National bank, demanded his discharge because Beckwith used another bank than his.

An atheistical religious lecture also was involved in the controversy, Beckwith says: “Mr, Judson M. Bemis, self millionaire and founder of the department in which I taught, learned of the religious lecture, took violent opposition thereto and had his private detectives look up all the incumbents of the department chair.”

In conclusion, Beckwith says:

“The world as a whole has not given me justice, or anything like justice. I am comforted in a measure by the loyalty and appreciation of some friends. But it seems that the employing class, the executives who hold my fate in their hands, have been notably unfriendly as a class. Injustice rankles; it cuts like a knife. The worry, the fears, the uncertainty, the depression due to the injustice and lack of appreciation, the constant moves, the lack of incentive to good work, are not permanently endurable. They must end—in some way.”

_________________________

Beckwith Leaves Estate To Aunt; Gives Sister Only $10

Buffalo Courier, April 9, 1921 p. 2

Syracuse, April 8. – Prof. Holmes Beckwith, who shot and killed Dean Wharton and himself at Syracuse university last Saturday, leaves practically his entire estate, valued at $4,500, to an aunt, Mrs. Mary G. Holmes of Los Angeles. The will was filed for probate by David G. Holmes of East Orange, N. J., an uncle, today. A sister, Ruth B. Bullock, doing missionary work in China, is cut off with $10 because, “in my years of severe trouble she, unsister-like, gave me no economic aid and only scant sympathy.”

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Report from the Hawaiian Children’s Society, 1922

Holmes Beckwith.–The tragic circumstances attending the death of Holmes Beckwith may lead those who did not personally know him to misunderstand his life and character. It was perhaps to the completely feminine control under which he grew up that he owed a sensitiveness almost woman-like. His exacting Puritan ancestry gave him his habit of introspection and his dependence upon an absolute justice which never allowed him the relief of compromise. Intellectually he was as honest and open as the sun. He loved to be out of doors, had disciplined his body to long tramps and his mind to the love of solitude in the open. Yet he was the most social of beings. He was a quick and accurate observer; as a boy of eleven he knew the rigging of every craft in New York harbor. His habit of systematic thinking made him able, without practical experience, to grasp difficult technical subjects with astonishing readiness and clearness and to delight in such acquisition. He collected and sorted knowledge as other men collect objects of value. He was gentle with women. Children adored him. A fellow-boarder who knew him during his last year at Syracuse writes of “his fidelity to intellectual honesty and industry, with an eye single to the welfare of humanity which was his guide and passion in all he said and did,” of “his character sound to the core, the high aspirations, the honesty, simplicity and courage, together with a warm heart, zeal for service and brilliant intellect.” She says, “He cared more for religion even in these last years, than for anything else in the world.”

A friend and fellow-student in his university days writes, “No man held in reverence a higher standard of right in private and in public. He was not like other men, nor did he know men well enough to make allowances for their weaknesses. He applied to them the same rigid exactness he did to himself. His fine strong life and adherence at all costs to what he felt right and true will leave a lasting impression on all students he has studied with. He was always so genuinely interested in every detail of life, and without a cantakerous feeling in the world, was so frank and open and free, I shall always be his debtor. I can see him now as he swung along fast, yet firm down a street, every nerve and both eyes intent on his present plan I can hear his hearty greeting: ‘Hello, Arch, how do you function in your philosophic soul?’ He never lost one whit of his direct boyish appeal and immediate contact with everyone. He took every one straight into his thought just as he tried to get straight into theirs.” Those who knew and appreciated his brilliant capacities and un swerving honesty of life and purpose, and who watched his brave struggle with those inherent difficulties of temperament which blocked his progress among men, can say with confidence that his life was at no moment an unworthy one; and the tragedy of his death was such that those who best knew the circumstances and who suffered most directly from them, have attached to him no blame.

Source: The Seventieth Annual Report of the Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society, 1922, pp. 68-69.

_________________________

Image Source: Pittsburgh Press (April 6, 1921), p. 36.

Categories
Cambridge Chicago Economists LGBTQ Northwestern

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, “gay godfather” and mentor. Roger Weiss, 1955

Milton Friedman wrote a recommendation for two University of Chicago economics graduate students to receive fellowships from the Earhart Foundation in 1953. Friedman’s letter was transcribed for the previous post that focussed on Gary Becker, who was the unambiguous first choice in Friedman’s eyes. In addition to adding to our stock of economics Ph.D. alumna/us stories, Economics in the Rear-View Mirror introduces the LGBTQ label here with Friedman’s second candidate for an Earhart Foundation fellowship, Roger William Weiss (Chicago, Ph.D., 1955). 

_____________________

Roger William Weiss. (1930-1991) Dissertation “Exchange Control in Britain, 1939-1952”, Ph.D. awarded Winter Quarter 1955.

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AEA Profile from 1969

WEISS, Roger William, academic; b. Bronxville, N.Y., 1930 stud., Northwestern U., 1946-48; M.A., U. Chicago, 1951, Ph.D. 1955; stud., Cambridge U., Eng., 1951-52. COC.DIS. “The British Exchange Controls, 1939-52,” 1954. PUB. “Economic Nationalism in Britain in the Nineteenth Century” (H.G. Johnson, Ed.), Econ. Nationalism in Old and New States, 1967; The Economic System, 1969; “The Case for Federal Meat Inspection Examined,” Jour. Of Law and Econs., Oct. 1964. RES. American Colonial Monetary System. Asst. prof., Vanderbilt U., 1953-57; pres., N. Weiss & Co., Inc., 1957-63; asso. Prof., U. Chicago since 1966. ADDRESS 1415 E. 54th St., Chicago, IL 60615.

Source: The American Economic Review, Vol. 59, No. 6, 1969 Handbook of the American Economic Association (Jan., 1970), p. 467.

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U. of Chicago obit for Roger W. Weiss

Roger Weiss, AM’51, PhD’55, professor in the social sciences since 1963, died March 7. His specialty was the role of economics in the arts and the international trade of art works. His books included The Economic System and The Weissburgs: A Social History, a history of his own family. He was also a member of the governing board of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Survivors include his mother, Irene, and a brother, John.

Source: University of Chicago Magazine, Vol. 83, No. 5, June 1991, p. 44.

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Roger Weiss and his partner, Howard Brown, in the University of Chicago gay community

Roger Weiss AM 1951, PhD 1955. Professor in the College and division of social sciences. Partner Howard Mayer Brown (1930-1993), Ferdinand Schevill distinguished service professor of music.

Professors Howard Brown and Roger Weiss were “out” by many standards. The University agreed to a “spousal hire” for the couple in the 1960s, and the two hosted parties for gay students and faculty in their home until Roger’s death in 1991, and Howard’s death in 1993. Bob Devendorf (AB 1985, AM 2004) remembered Howard and Roger as “gay godfathers” and mentors, while John DelPeschio (AB 1972) treasured the intergenerational community they fostered: “I felt as if I were entering a more adult world.”

However, Brown and Weiss’ refusal to participate in political actions and “come out” in the broader public sphere sometimes frustrated younger gay men like Wayne Scott (AB 1986, AM 1989), as he describes in this article. Jim McDaniel (AB 1968) remembers Howard saying “I don’t really care what anybody knows, I just care what I have to admit.”

Source: Closeted/OUT in the Quadrangles. A History of LGBTQ Life at the University of Chicago

 

Image Source: Senior year picture of Roger W. Weiss from the 1946 Hyde Park High School Yearbook, The Aitchpe.

 

Categories
Economists Harvard Northwestern Socialism Sociology Wellesley

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, later NLRB judge. Charles E. Persons, 1913

 

The 1913 Harvard economics Ph.D. alumnus we meet today managed to cross at least one Dean and later one of his bosses in a government job (see below). Indeed his argumentative nature gets noted in Richard J. Linton’s History of the NLRB Judges Division with Special Emphasis on the Early Years (August 1, 2004), p. 10:

As Chief Judge Bokat describes in his March 1969 oral history interview … some of the judges did not sit silently at such conferences. He reports that Judge Charles Persons was one who would argue vociferously with, particularly, Member Leiserson. …Judge Bokat tells us that there would be Judge Persons, who was not a lawyer (and neither was Member Leiserson), debating legal issues with Leiserson in the presence of several who were lawyers.

 

In case you are wondering: Charles Edward Persons does not appear to be closely related (if at all) to his contemporary, Warren Persons, an economics professor at Harvard at the time.

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Charles Edward Persons
Vital Records

Born: July 17, 1878 in Brandon, Iowa.

Spouse: Margaret Murday (1888-1956)

Son: William Burnett Persons (1918-1992)

Daughter: Jean Murday Persons (1922-1994)

Died: April 1, 1962

BuriedArlington National Cemetery

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Academic and Public/Government Career Timeline

1903. A.B. Cornell College, Iowa.

1905. A.M. Harvard University.

1907-08. Wellesley. Instructor in Economics.

Industrial History of the United States. (One division, three hours a week; one year) 9 students enrolled: 4 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 1 Sophomore.

1908-09. Wellesley. Instructor in Economics.

Industrial History of the United States. (One division, three hours a week; one year) 5 students enrolled: 3 Seniors, 2 Juniors.
Industrial History of England. (One division, three hours a week; one semester) 18 students enrolled: 5 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 6 Sophomore.
Socialism. (One division, three hours a week; one semester) 14 students enrolled: 5 Seniors, 9 Juniors.
Labor Movement in the Nineteenth Century. (One division, three hours a week; one semester) 16 students enrolled: 7 Seniors, 3 Juniors, 6 Sophomores.
Selected Industries. (One division, one hour a week; one year) 52 students enrolled: 2 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 38 Sophomores, 6 Freshmen.
Municipal Socialism. (One division, three hours a week; one semester) 7 students enrolled: 2 Seniors, 5 Juniors.

1909-10. Princeton. Preceptor in History, Politics and Economics.

1910-11. Northwestern. Instructor of Economics.

1913. Ph.D. (Economics). Harvard University.

Thesis title: Factory legislation in Massachusetts: from 1825 to the passage of the ten-hour law in 1874. Pub. in “Labor laws and their enforcement,” New York, Longmans, 1911, pp. 1-129.

1913-16. Washington University, St. Louis. Assistant/Associate Professor of Sociology.

Principles of Economics, Elements of Sociology, Labor and Labor Problems, Population Problems, Social Reform, Sociology Seminar.

1917-20. U.S. Army.

Persons, Charles Edward, A.M. ’05; Ph.D. ’13. Entered Officers’ Training Camp, Fort Riley, Kans., May 1917; commissioned 1st lieutenant Infantry August 15; assigned to 164th Depot Brigade, Camp Funston, Kans.; transferred to Company K, 805th Pioneer Infantry, August 1918; sailed for France September 2; returned to United States June 27, 1919; ill in hospital; discharged January 31, 1920. Engagement: Meuse-Argonne offensive.   Source: Harvard’s Military Record in the World War, p. 751.

1920-26. Professor and Head of Economics, College of Business Administration, Boston University. Boston, Mass.

Persons refused to support a student volunteer (Beanpot) candy sale project in 1922 pushed by the Dean to fund a Business College War Memorial. Persons believed “that the quality of the candy to be sold had been misrepresented, and also … that a disproportionate share of the profits would go to one or more persons teaching in the College of Business Administration and actively concerned in the management of the sale.”

Sabbatical year 1927-28.  (June 16, 1927) informed by Dean it would be inadvisable for him to return after his sabbatical year. He fought the Dean and the Dean won…

Source: Academic Freedom and Tenure, Committee A. Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors, Vol. 15, No. 4 (April 1929), pp. 270-276.

 

1927-28. Harvard. Lecturer.

Economics 6a 2hf. Trade Unionism and Allied Problems.

1928-29. Harvard. Lecturer.

Economics 6a 1hf. Trade Unionism and Allied Problems.
Economics 6b 2hf. Labor Legislation and Social Insurance.
Economics 34 2hf. Problems of Labor.

ECONOMICS PROFESSOR IS GIVEN FEDERAL POSITION
C.E. Persons Appointed Expert on Economics of Unemployment

Professor Charles E. Persons, for the past year lecturer in the Department of Economics here has been appointed Expert on the Economics of Unemployment in the Federal Bureau of the Census. He will take up his new duties immediately.

At Harvard Professor Persons gave courses in Trade Unionism and Labor Legislation. In his previous career, aside from service in the United States Army during the war, he has been a member of the faculties of Wellesley College and of Princeton, Northwestern and Washington Universities. At the Bureau of the Census Professor Persons will have general supervision of the census of unemployment and of special studies subsidiary thereto.

Source: The Harvard Crimson, November 15, 1929

 

Row Over Census Of Jobless In U. S. Bureau Is Revealed
Dispute Led Up To Resignation Of Professor Persons, Expert Economist—June 26 Statement Believed Not To Give True Insight Into Situation

The Baltimore Sun, July 9, 1930, p. 2.

Washington, July 8. The census of unemployment, started in the belief it would throw light on a distressing public problem, threatens to involve the Hoover Administration in another controversy.

The question is being asked in many quarters as to whether the unemployment census is to be a real statistical investigation designed to bring out every possible fact or merely a routine enumeration, the result of which are to be used a far as possible to bolster up business confidence.

Two developments have brought this issue to the front. One is the disclosure that an expert economist employed last November to direct the unemployment census has resigned after prolonged disagreement with officials of the Census Bureau. The other is the preliminary unemployment count released through the Department of Commerce on June 26. Careful analysis of this statement has convinced more than one observer that it tells only a part of what it purports to tell.

Expert Economist Resigned

The resignation of the expert economist, Prof. Charles E. Persons, formerly of Boston University and more recently of Harvard University, occurred in May, but the controversy which led up to the resignation is only now coming to light.

The details of the row remain to be disclosed. The Census Bureau declines to say anything about the matter, except that Professor Persons resigned and that his resignation was not requested. Professor Persons likewise refuses to discuss the incident.

It is known, however, that prolonged friction preceded the decision of Professor Persons to quit and the impression grows that the economist was not allowed a free hand to pursue such statistical inquiries as he believed to be necessary.

Covered Only One Phase

Although the census statement on unemployment of June 26 was issued more than a month after Professor Persons left the service, an analysis of that statement throw an interesting light on the uses to which the results of the enumeration of jobless are being put.

The unemployment census includes two schedules, one in which persons capable of work but having no jobs are listed, and another which include persons having jobs but laid off as a result of business depression or for other causes.

The statement of June 26 covers only the first schedule. It finds there were 574,647 jobless persons among 20,264,480 persons enumerated. But it takes no account of the large number of persons actually idle, though technically in possession of jobs, for the reason the statement does not, in the opinion of not a few who have studied the subject, give an accurate picture of the unemployment situation.

Information Only Partial

Its finding that only two per cent of the enumerated population are unemployed is regarded as affording no true insight into the actual extent to which men and women are out of work, and there is a disposition in some quarters to criticize the issuance of such partial information. This disposition is underlined by the fact that the figures, as disclosed, fit in with the general policy of optimism on which the Administration has embarked.

The Census Bureau, in its statement, alluded to the partiality of its figures. It says that no records from the second schedule are yet available but there is no mention of this fact in Secretary Lamont’s rosy statement that the preliminary figures “applied to the whole population show much less unemployment than was generally estimated.”

Would Not Justify Optimism

Outside the Census Bureau it is believed that had the enumeration included both schedules in the unemployment census the result would have been much different and much less useful in supporting the optimism with which the Administration approaches this subject.

There is also a disposition in unofficial quarters to question the Census Bureau’s decision to base the percentage of unemployment on population.

It is pointed out that only about one in five of the total population is actually employed as a wage earner, and that a true percentage of unemployment would be based on the number of persons capable of work and not on the total population. On the basis of working population, the percentage of unemployment as found by the Census Bureau’s own figures would be ten percent, instead of two.

 

After Persons’ Census Resignation

HAVERHILL—Charles E. Persons, former director of federal census on unemployment at Washington, was appointed district manager of Haverhill Shoeworkers’ Protective Union.

Source: The Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts), December 6, 1930, p. 20.

 

HAVERHILL, Aug 9—Charles E. Persons, N.R.A. labor advisor, visited this city yesterday in a two days’ survey of shoe centers of Massachusetts preparatory to hearings which will be held shortly in Washington on the proposed code for the shoe industry…

Source: The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts), August 9, 1933, p. 15.

 

Charles E. Persons was identified as assistant to F. E. Berquist, chairman of the research and planning division of the national NRA headquarters.

Source:  The South Bend Tribune (South Bend, Indiana), September 18, 1934, p. 3.

 

Last-stage.

1937-1949. (Date entered on duty: June 1, 1937) National Labor Relations Board Judge (trial-examiner).

Likely final case as trial examiner found in September 29, 1949 Olin Industries, Inc. (Winchester Repeating Arms Co Division). [Commerce Clearing House, Chicago. National Labor Relations Board—Decisions].

Source: See, Richard J. Linton, Administrative Law Judge (Retired), National Labor Relations Board. A History of the NLRB Judges Division with Special Emphasis on the Early Years (August 1, 2004).

______________________

Chronological List of Publications
[with affiliations at the time of publication]

Chapter 1 “The Early History of Factory Legislation in Massachusetts” in Persons, C. E., Parton, Mabel, and Moses, Mabelle. Labor Laws and Their Enforcement with Special Reference to Massachusetts. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1911.

[Charles E. Persons, formerly Henry Bromfield Rogers Memorial Fellow, Harvard University, Instructor in Economics, Northwestern University.]

 

Marginal Utility and Marginal Disutility as Ultimate Standards of Value, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 27, No. 4 (August 1913), pp. 547-578.

[by Charles E. Persons, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.]

 

Women’s Work and Wages in the United States, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 29, No. 2 (February 1915), pp. 201-234.

[by C. E. Persons, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.]

 

Estimates of a Living Wage for Female Workers, Publications of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 14, No. 110 (June 1915), pp. 567-577.

[by Charles E. Persons, Associate Director of the School for Social Economy, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.]

 

Teaching the Introductory Course in Economics, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 31, No. 1 (November 1916), pp. 86-107.

[by Charles E. Persons, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.]

 

Review of Outlines of Economics by Richard T. Ely et. al. The American Economic Review, Vol. 7, No. 1 (March 1917), pp. 98-103.

[by Charles E. Persons, Washington University.]

 

A Balanced Industrial System—Discussion [of Professor Carver], The American Economic Review, Vol. 10, No. 1, Supplement, Papers and Proceedings of the Thirty-second Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (March 1920), pp. 86-88.

[by Charles E. Persons, Columbus, Ohio.]

 

Recent Textbooks, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 34, No. 4 (August 1920), pp. 737-756.

[by Charles E. Persons, Boston University, College of Business Administration.]

 

Review of Elementary Economics by Thomas Nixon Carver. The American Economic Review, Vol. 11, No. 2 (June 1921), pp. 274-277

 

Review of Principles of Economics by F.M. Taylor. The American Economic Review, Vol. 12, No. 1 (March 1922), pp. 109-111.

[by Charles E. Persons, Boston University, College of Business Administration.]

 

Review of Principles of Economics by Frank W. Taussig, Vol. II (3rd ed. revised). The American Economic Review, Vol. 12, No. 3 (September 1922), pp. 474-475

[by C. E. Persons, Boston University.]

 

“The Course in Elementary Economics”: Comment, The American Economic Review, Vol. 13, No. 2 (June 1923), pp. 249-251.

[by Charles E. Persons, Boston University, College of Business Administration.]

 

Review of Practical Economics by Henry P. Shearman, The American Economic Review, Vol. 13, No. 3 (September 1923), pp. 471-472.

[by Charles E. Persons, Boston University, College of Business Administration.]

 

Labor Problems as Treated by American Economists, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 41, No. 3 (May 1927), pp. 487-519.

[by Charles E. Persons, Boston University.]

 

Unemployment as a Census Problem, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 25, No. 169, [Supplement: Proceedings of the American Statistical Association] (March 1930), pp. 117-120.

[by Charles E. Persons]

 

Credit Expansion, 1920 to 1929, and its Lessons, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 45, No. 1 (November 1930), pp. 94-130.

[by Charles E. Persons, Washington, D.C.]

 

Census Reports on Unemployment in April, 1930, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 154, The Insecurity of Industry (March 1931), pp. 12-16.

[by Charles E. Persons, Ph.D. District Manager, Show Workers’ Protective Union, Haverhill, Massachusetts]

 

Review of Labor and Other Essays by Henry R. Seager. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 41, No. 1 (February 1933), pp. 121-123.

[by Charles E. Persons, Economic Research Bureau, Wellesley, Mass.]

 

Calculation of Relief Expenditures, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 28, No. 181, Supplement: Proceedings of the American Statistical Association (March 1933), pp. 68-74.

[by Charles E. Persons, Bureau of Economic Research, Haverhill, Mass.]

Image Source: Application for U.S. Passport 17 May 1915 to go to England for “scientific study”

Categories
Amherst Barnard Berkeley Brown Chicago Colorado Columbia Cornell Dartmouth Duke Harvard Illinois Indiana Iowa Johns Hopkins Kansas M.I.T. Michigan Michigan State Minnesota Missouri Nebraska North Carolina Northwestern NYU Ohio State Pennsylvania Princeton Radcliffe Rochester Stanford Swarthmore Texas Tufts UCLA Vassar Virginia Washington University Wellesley Williams Wisconsin Yale

U.S. Bureau of Education. Contributions to American Educational History, Herbert B. Adams (ed.), 1887-1903

 

I stumbled across this series while I was preparing the previous post on the political economy questions for the Harvard Examination for Women (1874). I figured it would be handy for me to keep a list of links to the monographs on the history of higher education in 35 of the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. Maybe this collection will help you too.

Contributions to American Educational History, edited by Herbert B. Adams

  1. The College of William and Mary. Herbert B. Adams (1887)
  2. Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia. Herbert B. Adams (1888)
  3. History of Education in North Carolina. Charles L. Smith (1888)
  4. History of Higher Education in South Carolina. C. Meriwether (1889)
  5. Education in Georgia. Charles Edgeworth Jones (1889)
  6. Education in Florida. George Gary Bush (1889)
  7. Higher Education in Wisconsin. William F. Allen and David E. Spencer (1889)
  8. History of Education in Alabama. Willis G. Clark (1890).
  9. History of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education. Frank W. Blackmar (1890)
  10. Higher Education in Indiana. James Albert Woodburn (1891).
  11. Higher Education in Michigan. Andrew C. McLaughlin. (1891)
  12. History of Higher Education in Ohio. George W. Knight and John R. Commons (1891)
  13. History of Higher Education in Massachusetts. George Gary Bush (1891)
  14. The History of Education in Connecticut. Bernard C. Steiner (1893)
  15. The History of Education in Delaware. Lyman P. Powell (1893)
  16. Higher Education in Tennessee. Lucius Salisbury Merriam (1893)
  17. Higher Education in Iowa. Leonard F. Parker (1893)
  18. History of Higher Education in Rhode Island. William Howe Tolman (1894)
  19. History of Education in Maryland. Bernard C. Steiner (1894).
  20. History of Education in Lousiana. Edwin Whitfield Fay (1898).
  21. Higher Education in Missouri. Marshall S. Snow (1898)
  22. History of Education in New Hampshire. George Gary Bush (1898)
  23. History of Education in New Jersey. David Murray (1899).
  24. History of Education in Mississippi. Edward Mayes (1899)
  25. History of Higher Education in Kentucky. Alvin Fayette Lewis (1899)
  26. History of Education in Arkansas. Josiah H. Shinn (1900)
  27. Higher Education in Kansas. Frank W. Blackmar (1900)
  28. The University of the State of New York. History of Higher Education in the State of New York. Sidney Sherwood (1900)
  29. History of Education in Vermont. George Gary Bush (1900)
  30. History of Education in West Virginia. A. R. Whitehill (1902)
  31. The History of Education in Minnesota. John N. Greer (1902)
  32. Education in Nebraska. Howard W. Caldwell (1902)
  33. A History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania. Charles H. Haskins and William I. Hull (1902)
  34. History of Higher Education in Colorado. James Edward Le Rossignol (1903)
  35. History of Higher Education in Texas. J. J. Lane (1903)
  36. History of Higher Education in Maine. Edward W. Hall (1903)

Image Source: Cropped from portrait of Herbert Baxter Adams ca. 1890s. Johns Hopkins University graphic and pictorial collection.

Categories
Chicago Economics Programs Northwestern

Northwestern. Robert J. Gordon selling Graduate Economics Program, 1977

 

The following soft-smile-hard-sell advertisement directed to potential applicants for the graduate economics program at Northwestern University was found in the economics department records of M.I.T. These notes were written by M.I.T. Ph.D. (1967) Robert J. Gordon who was then serving as the director of graduate admissions in economics for Northwestern in 1977-78. Gordon had been appointed professor of economics at Northwestern in 1973. This document provides a fascinating comparative glimpse of economics programs and locations as seen at that time.

Pro-tip:  Robert J. Gordon has shared his personal archive of “Photos of Economists”  on-line.

___________________

INFORMAL NOTES ON GRADUATE ECONOMICS AT NORTHWESTERN

Robert J. Gordon
Director of Graduate Admissions in Economics, 1977-78

To supplement the rather formal compilation of admissions and degree requirements contained in the pamphlet “Graduate Program in Economics, 1977-78”, I have put together a more informal set of observations on economics and graduate student life at Northwestern. Just as television commercials are no longer inhibited in naming competitors, I have included a few comparisons between Northwestern and some of the other departments to which you may be planning to apply. My comments on other departments are entirely personal based on my years as a student or faculty member at Harvard, M.I.T., and Chicago, and on the academic “grapevine” as regards other schools. In no sense do these subjective comparisons represent an “official view” of anyone in the administration of the Department of Economics or Northwestern University, nor would my colleagues necessarily agree with them.

I. WHO SHOULD APPLY TO NORTHWESTERN?

Universities in the United States are currently awarding roughly 2,000 M.A.’s and about 850 Ph.D.’s in Economics every year. Taking account of voluntary and involuntary dropouts, this suggests that about 2,500-3,000 candidates enter graduate school in Economics every year, and that the number of applicants is even larger. Both the applicants and the graduate schools are diverse in quality, and the admissions process can be described as an exercise in “matching” wherein the best schools attempt to select the best candidates, the next-best schools attempt to find the next-best candidates, and so on down the line. As long as a fee is charged for an admission application (currently $25 at Northwestern), potential applicants must carry out what economists call a “cost-benefit” analysis when deciding how many and which schools should be applied to. Too many applications may waste fees, but too few applications may lead to unanimous rejections. The best strategy is to realize that admissions committees are imperfect judges of your own “true quality”, and in some cases you also may over- or underrate yourself. To protect yourself against mistakes, it is best to apply not only to schools at your own perceived quality level, but also somewhat above and below. (In a recent survey 57 percent of the respondents rated themselves in the top ten percent of their class!)

Rating Department “Quality”

While a number of different characteristics are relevant to the final choice, faculty quality is the most important single criterion by which alternative graduate programs should be judged. Among the advantages provided by faculty members who are widely regarded in the profession as among the best in their field are not only correct and current courses, but also guidance in Ph.D. dissertations and knowledge of the most promising areas for student research, the ability to win research grants which in most cases provide funds for student research assistantships, and finally, widespread professional contacts to aid students in the job market.1

_______________

1By the way, there is currently no problem in finding jobs after graduate school in Economics. This contrasts with other disciplines, particularly the humanities, history, and sociology, where jobs are scarce and some Ph.D.’s are unemployed. The healthier job market in Economics is explained by the large demand for Ph.D. economists in business and government which supplements the demand by colleges for teaching posts.

_______________

The already high quality of the Northwestern faculty has been supplemented in the last few years by the arrival of three new full professors who are both relatively young and are regarded as among the top economists in their respective fields—Marc Nerlove (winner in 1969 of the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark award for the best American economist under the age of 40), Frederick Scherer, and myself. Since the most recent official survey to determine the ranking of Northwestern relative to other economics departments is more than five years out of date, there is no accurate information available which is both objective and current.

As a substitute I can provide the results of my own subjective but detailed evaluation, which is current as of Fall 1976 (e.g., it takes account of the movements of J. Stiglitz from Stanford to Oxford and Michael Rothschild from Princeton to Wisconsin). In consultation with several highly regarded economists, all permanent faculty members in the top 18 U.S. departments have been rated with a “quality score” ranging from one (low) to 10 (superman), and the total scores in each department of the faculty members rating “5” or above have been added up.2 An attempt has been made to include members of business schools known to play a major role in graduate economics education. For most departments official faculty lists have been obtained to insure completeness.

_______________

2Note that this technique gives a premium to large departments, partially explaining the “victory” of Harvard over M.I.T.

_______________

Department

Rating Points

Citations3

1.

Chicago 152 (1574)
2. Harvard 147

(1472)

3.

M.I.T. 139 (1241)
4. Yale 122

(598)

5.

Northwestern 97 (401)
6. Princeton 96

(362)

7.

Pennsylvania 93 (509)
8. Wisconsin 85

(587)

9.

Berkeley 75 (420)
9. Stanford 75

(402)

11.

Minnesota 72 (209)
12. U.C.L.A. 70

(344)

13.

Rochester 43
14. Columbia 41

(454)

14.

Maryland 41 (276)
16. Michigan 40

17.

Carnegie-Mellon 38
18. Brown 23

_______________

3Numbers in parentheses are faculty citations in the 1973-74 Social Sciences Citation Index.

_______________

It would appear that there are four departments in the top category, and then a group of “next best” from ranks 5 through 12 which are very close together in total points. If you think rather highly of yourself, it is probably worthwhile to apply to at least one department in the “top four,” but keep in mind that the total number of first-year students in these departments is only about 135 out of the 2,500-3,000 students who enter graduate school in economics each year. Most students will want to apply to one or more of the “next best,” whether they are top students who want a safety valve, or whether they evaluate themselves at “next best,” or whether they think of themselves as “third best” but are willing to take a chance that an admissions committee in the second tier might overrate them.

Comparisons Among Departments

Selection of a choice among the “top four” depends on your abilities and tastes. M.I.T. is almost universally praised for the quality of its faculty, its devotion to the teaching of graduate students, and for its physical facilities, but it can accept only about 35 out of roughly 350 applications, and students without excellent mathematical training will feel left behind. Harvard has a senior faculty which is tops in fame and reputation but which is frequently criticized as aloof and inaccessible not only to students but even to junior faculty members; classrooms and faculty offices are in several buildings with no natural physical focal point for students; but on the other hand the attractions and convenience of Cambridge have appeal. At Chicago the faculty is better at teaching than at Harvard, is much more accessible, and in many fields of economics is more innovative than at M.I.T.; compared to M.I.T. Chicago’s disadvantages are huge first-year classes (55-80 is typical) and the neighborhood (crime is a problem, and also there is much less to do in Hyde Park as compared with Cambridge, so one is dependent on downtown Chicago, which is very difficult to reach by public transportation from Hyde Park at night). I lack personal experience at Yale—the problems which recur in “grapevine” conversations is the physical and social separation between the faculty in the Cowles foundation and in the rest of the departments, the aloofness of many faculty members, and the disadvantages of living in New Haven. On the other hand, some ex-graduate students claim that the Department/Cowles split does not affect them, even if it has disadvantages for faculty members.

How does Northwestern compare with its competitors in the “next best” group? Stanford, Berkeley, and U.C.L.A. are obviously superior in climate but suffer from other disadvantages. Because the Stanford campus is so vast, there is no university shopping district within easy walking distance, and the attractions of Palo Alto are uninterestingly suburban, with the delights of San Francisco 35 miles away and accessible only by car. Berkeley is a much better place to live, both more interesting by itself and closer to San Francisco, but the department itself is large and impersonal, with long corridors of closed office doors, and the mathematical economists are off across the campus in a separate building. Princeton is located in a posh expensive small town 45 miles from New York, which is therefore less accessible than Boston from Cambridge, San Francisco from Berkeley, or Chicago from Evanston. Pennsylvania is located in a relatively unattractive section of Philadelphia and faculty houses are widely dispersed (as is true at Harvard and M.I.T.), which inhibits the faculty from lingering after seminars and from giving post-seminar cocktail parties. I lack close familiarity with U.C.L.A., Penn, and Minnesota and won’t cast further aspersions, other than to note that they are all relatively large and impersonal universities.

Northwestern combines a number of advantages—a high-quality faculty which is extremely accessible to students both individually and in group seminars, together with a location which combines the best features of small-town and large-city living. Another significant strength is the relatively prosperous budgetary situation at Northwestern, which is currently allowing the Economics Department to embark on a major program of hiring new tenure and nontenure faulty members. It is likely that by the time current applicants arrive here, the relative ranking of Northwestern’s Economics Department will have risen even higher relative to the many universities which are currently suffering from tight budgets.

 

 II. ASPECTS OF GRADUATE LIFE AT NORTHWESTERN

Courses and Seminars

The Ph.D. program typically takes four years, divided into an initial two-year period devoted mainly to courses, followed by two additional years devoted to attending seminars, finding a thesis topic, and writing the dissertation. There is a single written general examination (“prelim”) in economic theory (three hours for macro and three hours for micro), which most students take after their first year of courses. The process of learning at Northwestern does not consist of rote learning or indoctrination, but rather a process by which the student is first trained in the tools of theoretical, mathematical, and statistical analysis, and then is exposed to the frontiers of economic science and urged to use his tools to help resolve controversies and contribute to the advance of knowledge.

The process by which a student arrives at a dissertation topic generally begins in the second year of class work. Unlike many graduate schools, where the general exam process continues to the end of the second year and sometimes beyond, at Northwestern most students enter the second year of classes with their general exam behind them and can concentrate on finding a special field of interest. Second year classes are usually small enough to allow students to participate actively in discussion and to encourage the faculty both to assign term papers and to read them carefully. Second-year term papers are a “proving ground” where students can experiment with possible thesis topics. Under a new system, students are required to give a paper in a field “workshop” after they are finished taking the courses their primary field sequence.

A formal requirement for admission to Ph.D. candidacy, in addition to the written general examination on economic theory, is an oral qualifying examination on the dissertation, which is usually taken during the third year. The purpose of the exam is to ascertain whether the dissertation topic chosen by the student is feasible. Usually the exam consists of a discussion of a brief written thesis proposal which a candidate submits to the faculty committee of examiners.

At many graduate schools there is no formal program for third and fourth year students, who simply “disappear” in the library or their homes and are unavailable for conversation and consultation with each other. At Northwestern, on the other hand, there is an active workshop program to provide forums where graduate students are exposed to new ideas and have a chance to see each other regularly. A centerpiece is the Tuesday night student- faculty seminar, where students present both early and finish versions of their dissertation research, with a substantial cross-section of the faculty attending regularly to provide advice and criticism. Research seminars in macroeconomics and labor, in applied micro economics, industrial organization and in mathematical economics (in collaboration with faculty members at the Graduate School of Management) meet regularly for presentation and discussion of papers by faculty, students, and visitors. These seminars are not only a major channel of communication between faculty and students, but are also an important method of intellectual interchange among faculty members. In addition, there is a regular visiting speakers program, in which well-known faculty members from other universities are invited to Northwestern to present talks on their research Evanston’s location also facilitates additional informal seminars by visitors who are traveling through the Chicago area.

Particular Strengths

Although the Economics Department teaches graduate courses in all of the major fields of economics, it has particular areas of strength in which faculty members are currently making a major research contribution:

Microeconomic Theory
Mathematical Economics
Econometrics
Theoretical and Applied Macroeconomics
Labor Economics
Public Finance
Managerial Economics and Industrial Organization
Transportation and Urban Economics
Economic History
Medical Economics
Economics of Population and the Family

Faculty and Student Accessibility

Faculty-student contact is unusually good at Northwestern for a number of reasons. Although the classes in economics theory in the first quarter are fairly large, since some management school students are required to attend, for the remaining two quarters of the first year the theory classes typically contain only 25. Second-year class enrollments are often in the range of 5 to 10, allowing a workshop atmosphere and considerable faculty attention to the individual student term papers and research projects. Most of the faculty live close to the Evanston campus and typically hold open cocktail parties in their homes after seminars by visiting speakers. After the Tuesday night faculty-student seminar, both students and faculty regularly adjourn to a local pub (this never happens at M.I.T., Harvard, or at other departments where faculty residences are located in distant suburbs). Many third-and fourth-year students have offices adjoining faculty offices and see their faculty neighbors regularly during coffee breaks. Another advantage promoting easy interaction is the relative youth of many of the tenured faculty, in contrast to the older “stars” at some other departments who spend more time consulting in Washington than talking to their students.

Easy contact among students is even more important than faculty-student contact in the first year, when students need to get to know each other and form into small study groups. This is facilitated at Northwestern by a graduate student lounge in the basement of 1922 Sheridan Rd. (the main economics building), where coffee is available and students are encouraged to study or talk between classes. Another convenience is the Library, completed in 1970 and about a 3-minute walk from the main department building. A special feature of the uniquely designed library is the divisional arrangement of books and journals in three research towers, one for the social sciences. On each of the circular levels of the research towers, ranges of books in specialized journals are placed in a radial pattern. At the periphery of each circle surrounding the collections is a repeating series of carrels, typing rooms, graduate and faculty studies, and seminar rooms in close proximity to the main body of printed materials needed by the various disciplines. (The computer center is also a great advantage, as it is relatively well-run and provides fast 15-20 minute “turnaround time” except in peak weeks at the end of the quarter).

Faculty and Courses in the Graduate School of Management

Although other universities also have business schools, of course, Northwestern’s provides a particular asset because of its unusual orientation toward economics and because of the unusually close contact between members of the Economics Department and the Management School. Economics topics covered in Management School courses include optimization theory and techniques, decision-making under uncertainty, models of production and technology, models of financial decision-making, and others. Management School courses are open to economics students, and dissertation committees often include Management School members.

Research Centers

Several “centers” headed by Department faculty members support and encourage research in their areas, provide offices and secretarial help, and arrange seminars by resident faculty, students, and visitors. Research Centers have been established in mathematical economics, transportation economics, and urban affairs.

 

III. ADMISSIONS AND FELLOWSHIPS

The formal admissions procedure is described in the “Graduate Program” pamphlet. Prospective applicants should note that they are required to submit scores from the Graduate Record Examination only for the verbal and quantitative aptitude tests and not for the advanced test in economics. This is consistent with our desire to encourage applications from those who have not chosen to major in economics as undergraduates. Our interest is in finding motivated, intelligent students with enough quantitative aptitude to understand economics theory and enough curiosity about the world around them to do creative economic research.

All available criteria are used by the Admissions Committee (myself and a few colleagues) to evaluate each applicant — undergraduate grade record, letters of recommendation, the applicant’s score on the Graduate Record Examination, and special factors. No arbitrary boundaries are established for grades or GRE scores. Applicant should encourage those writing letters of recommendation to be as specific as possible, a process which can be facilitated if applicants confer with the letter writers regarding their strengths and weaknesses. Applicants who have any unique qualifications or wish to explain “soft spots” in their grade record are encouraged to file supplementary statements with their applications.

Since first-year calculus is essential and second-year calculus is extremely useful for the study of economics, prospective applicants who have not yet taken these courses for credit are urged to do so at some time between now and their arrival at graduate school (wherever they choose to attend). The summer before arrival is an excellent time to take an extra course, and second-year calculus should receive top priority.

The selection of fellowship winners—for both university and department fellowships—is made by the Admissions Committee shortly after the admissions decision. A number of fellowships are also available under a Rockefeller-sponsored Northwestern Program in the Economics of Population and Household Behavior. To maximize their chances of receiving support, applicants are urged to apply for several of the fellowships awarded by outside foundations, businesses, and government agencies. Do not despair if you do not receive the fellowship, for there are several other alternatives. Most obvious is the student loan program, through which students can borrow money to cover most or all of their tuition (for details, see the Northwestern Graduate School Catalog). A substantial portion of the loan funds is available at three percent interest, which in these days of inflation represents a negative “real” rate of interest. Remember also that inflation reduces the real value of the principal to be repaid. Other sources are part-time academic year jobs, research assistantships for faculty members (usually reserved for students in the third and fourth year), and support from parents and/or spouse (now that women have been liberated, the Ph.T. Degree—“putting hubby through”—has been supplemented by the Pw.T,—“putting wife through”). We do not at present normally award teaching assistantships to first-year students.

 

IV. LIVING IN EVANSTON AND CHICAGO

Evanston

Evanston is the first suburb north of Chicago along Lake Michigan, and the Evanston-Chicago boundary is located 9.5 miles north of the Chicago “Loop.” Despite its proximity to Chicago, Evanston’s aesthetic attractions are immediately apparent when one crosses north over the city line. All of it streets are lined with unusually grand old shade trees; street lights are old-fashioned; the downtown shopping area is free of overhanging neon signs and decorated by city-maintained flowerbeds; and the lakefront is lined with the bicycle path, parks, and beaches where swimming is safe in unpolluted water.

With a population of about 80,000, Evanston is about the same size as Berkeley and Cambridge and shares their advantage of combining the convenience and call of a relatively small self-contained city with the entertainment and cultural attractions of a large urban center. Its residents include not only students and professors, but also sizable numbers of lawyers, architects, and other professionals who help to support groups and organizations in music, politics, and other areas. Student housing is available both in private and university-owned buildings (see the Graduate School Catalog for details), and most students are able to live within a short walk or bicycle ride from Northwestern’s lakefront campus.

Evanston’s downtown shopping area begins immediately south of the campus, with a group of books stores located across the street from the main university administration building. Shopping opportunities are unusually diverse for a city of Evanston’s size, with several branches of downtown department and specialty stores, large supermarkets and small “gourmet” food shops, and a variety of shops selling both standard and esoteric clothes, furnishings, and other items.

Transportation within Evanston is easy whether or not students own cars. Parking is available on side streets and in public parking garages downtown. Since most side streets are relatively free of traffic, many students prefer to rely entirely on bicycles for travel within Evanston. The public transit fare is subsidized by the City Council at 25¢ for travel within Evanston on four bus lines and on the rapid transit stations which shuttle at five-minute intervals along a north-south axis which skirts the western boundary of the campus and continue south to the Chicago border and on to downtown Chicago  (see below).

Many Evanston residents formerly lived in the Hyde Park and South Shore districts of Chicago—adjacent to the University of Chicago—but moved north to escape the South Side crime problem. Evanston is fortunate in its low crime rate, less than half the rates recorded in Berkeley and Cambridge in the 1970-73 period, and is a place where both students and faculty feel perfectly free to walk out at night. The only noticeable disadvantage of life in Evanston is the climate between November 15 and March 15, when the average daily high-temperature is about 35 degrees (i.e., five degrees colder than New York). Average annual snowfall is a bit more than in New York and a bit less than in Boston. The weather during the rest of the year similar to that in the northeastern quadrant of the U.S. Over all the weather is obviously no match for Berkeley, about the same as Boston and decidedly better than Madison or Minneapolis.

Chicago

From the Northwestern campus the center of Chicago is 25 minutes by car via Lakeshore Drive, and is almost easily accessible via rapid transit trains which stop twice at the western edge of the campus and reach the “Loop” in 30 minutes during rush hours, and about 40 minutes at other times. These times overstate the duration of travel to many restaurants, theaters, and clubs, the majority of which are located on the North Side of the city, i.e., between the “Loop” in the Evanston border. Trains run all night, and at most hours their frequency is every five to ten minutes.

Until six years ago I had never been to Chicago and had an irrational fear of the unknown Midwest, which may be shared by some prospective applicants from the East and West Coasts. My years of sampling Chicago’s attractions have converted me, and perhaps you will be interested in some personal opinions and comparisons:

    • The main aesthetic attractions are (1) the Loop and Near North Side, containing some of the best urban architecture in the world, in (2) the 20-mile bicycle path along the lake front, which is a continuous band of parks, beaches, and yacht harbors.
    • The major museums are all very large and among the top two or three in the country, including the Art Institute, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Planetarium, the Aquarium, and the Museum of Science and Industry, the latter having special appeal for any economist interested in the history of technical change and in “how things work.” There are smaller art galleries as well, and a local “school” of modern art, which I saw exhibited in Mexico City as “La Nueva Escuela de Chicago.”
    • In New York visiting concerts of Georg Solti with the Chicago Symphony have become, according to the New York Times, the “most eagerly anticipated musical events since Toscanini.” The Symphony plays three concerts a week during the academic year at Orchestra Hall in the “Loop” and frequent concerts during the summer at the Ravinia Festival in a suburb a few miles north of Evanston. The Lyric Opera presents a three-month season in the fall and shares with San Francisco the top rank among US opera companies outside of New York. There are several local chamber music groups and a long list of touring concert artists, including the major New York ballet companies, which perform throughout the year. There are also three full-time FM classical music stations.
    • The “club scene,” both night clubs and coffee houses, is unsurpassed among cities outside of New York, and the blues and folk music offerings surpass New York. Each Friday a free newspaper, the Reader, lists about 150 blues, folk, rock, and jazz acts appearing in local clubs.
    • Speaking of newspapers, the Chicago Tribune has dropped its conservativism of the Col. McCormick days and was recently named one of the country’s 10 best by Time. Its local news and features are excellent, although it still can’t compare for national and international news with the New York Times (the latter is flown in daily for purchase at Evanston newsstands or for home delivery).
    • In the restaurant category Chicago ranks after New York, San Francisco, and perhaps New Orleans. Its best are not as good as in those three cities, but that doesn’t matter much for students who can’t very often afford $50 French dinners. More important and interesting is Chicago’s strength, the hundreds of inexpensive “storefront ethnic” restaurants, many of which are in the north part of Chicago close to Evanston. Take your choice among German, French Provincial, East European Italian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, Thai, Japanese, Indian, Mexican, Cuban, and Peruvian.
    • Cheap entertainment is available at the student-run film societies at Northwestern, other colleges, and the Art Institute, and at a number of commercial theaters on the north side of Chicago which only charge $.75 or $1.00 for a double bill of second- or third-run features.
    • While the quantity of live drama is no match for New York, there is a surprisingly broad offering by two accomplished professional repertory groups, a number of “off-Broadway” and experimental groups, and both pre- and post-Broadway touring shows. In recent years a number of shows have “graduated” to New York after starting here.

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Obviously the preceding notes will only begin to answer your questions. Write me for any additional information you need. I’ll respond without delay if I know the answer or else I’ll find a colleague who can advise you. I can also arrange for a current graduate student to provide more information on student reactions.

 

Source: M.I.T. Archives. Records of the Department of Economics. Box 3, Folder “Quality Rating.”

Image Source: Robert J. Gordon at First Bank of Japan Monetary Conference, June 1983. Detail from picture with James Tobin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Berkeley Carnegie Institute of Technology Chicago Cornell Duke Economics Programs Harvard Illinois Indiana Iowa Johns Hopkins M.I.T. Michigan Minnesota Northwestern NYU Ohio State Pennsylvania Princeton Stanford UCLA Vanderbilt Wisconsin Yale

Economics Departments and University Rankings by Chairmen. Hughes (1925) and Keniston (1957)

 

The rankings of universities and departments of economics for 1920 and 1957 that are found below were based on the pooling of contemporary expert opinions. Because the ultimate question for both the Hughes and Keniston studies was the relative aggregate university standing with respect to graduate education, “The list did not include technical schools, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology, nor state colleges, like Iowa State, Michigan State or Penn State, since the purpose was to compare institutions which offered the doctorate in a wide variety of fields.” Hence, historians of economics will be frustrated by the conspicuous absence of M.I.T. and Carnegie Tech in the 1957 column except for the understated footnote “According to some of the chairmen there are strong departments at Carnegie Tech. and M.I.T.; also at Vanderbilt”.

The average perceived rank of a particular economics department relative to that of its university might be of use in assessing the negotiating position of department chairs with their respective university administrations. The observed movement within the perception league tables over the course of roughly a human generation might suggest other questions worth pursuing. 

Anyhow without further apology…

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About the Image: There is no face associated with rankings so I have chosen the legendary comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello for their “Who’s on First?” sketch.  YouTube TV version; Radio version: Who’s on First? starts at 22:15

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From Keniston’s Appendix (1959)

Standing of
American Graduate Departments
in the Arts and Sciences

The present study was undertaken as part of a survey of the Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania in an effort to discover the present reputation of the various departments which offer programs leading to the doctorate.

A letter was addressed to the chairmen of departments in each of twenty-five leading universities of the country. The list was compiled on the basis of (1) membership in the Association of American Universities, (2) number of Ph.D.’s awarded in recent years, (3) geographical distribution. The list did not include technical schools, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology, nor state colleges, like Iowa State, Michigan State or Penn State, since the purpose was to compare institutions which offered the doctorate in a wide variety of fields.

Each chairman was asked to rate, on an accompanying sheet, the strongest departments in his field, arranged roughly as the first five, the second five and, if possible, the third five, on the basis of the quality of their Ph.D. work and the quality of the faculty as scholars. About 80% of the chairmen returned a rating. Since many of them reported the composite judgment of their staff, the total number of ratings is well over 500.

On each rating sheet, the individual institutions were given a score. If they were rated in order of rank, they were assigned numbers from 15 (Rank 1) to 1 (Rank 15). If they were rated in groups of five, each group alphabetically arranged, those in the top five were given a score of 13, in the second five a score of 8, and in the third five a score of 3. When all the ratings sheets were returned, the scores of each institution were tabulated and compiled and the institutions arranged in order, in accordance with the total score for each department.

To determine areas of strength or weakness, the departmental scores were combined to determine [four] divisional scores. [Divisions (Departments): Biological Sciences (2), Humanities (11), Physical Sciences (6), Social Sciences (5)]….

… Finally, the scores of each institution given in the divisional rankings were combined to provide an over-all rating of the graduate standing of the major universities.

From a similar poll of opinion, made by R. M. Hughes, A Study of the Graduate Schools of America, and published in 1925, it was possible to compile the scores for each of eighteen departments as they were ranked at that time and also to secure divisional and over-all rankings. These are presented here for the purpose of showing what changes have taken place in the course of a generation.

The limitations of such a study are obvious; the ranks reported do not reveal the actual merit of the individual departments. They depend on highly subjective impressions; they reflect old and new loyalties; they are subject to lag, and the halo of past prestige. But they do report the judgment of the men whose opinion is most likely to have weight. For chairmen, by virtue of their office, are the men who must know what is going on at other institutions. They are called upon to recommend schools where students in their field may profitably study; they must seek new appointments from the staff and graduates of other schools; their own graduates tum to them for advice in choosing between alternative possibilities for appointment. The sum of their opinions is, therefore, a fairly close approximation to what informed people think about the standing of the departments in each of the fields.

 

OVER-ALL STANDING
(Total Scores)

1925

1957

1.

Chicago

1543

1.

Harvard

5403

2.

Harvard

1535

2.

California

4750

3.

Columbia 1316 3. Columbia 4183
4. Wisconsin 886 4. Yale

4094

5.

Yale 885 5. Michigan 3603
6. Princeton 805 5. Chicago

3495

7.

Johns Hopkins 746 7. Princeton 2770
8. Michigan 720 8. Wisconsin

2453

9.

California 712 9. Cornell 2239
10. Cornell 694 10. Illinois

1934

11.

Illinois 561 11. Pennsylvania 1784
12. Pennsylvania 459 12. Minnesota

1442

13.

Minnesota 430 13. Stanford 1439
14. Stanford 365 14. U.C.L.A.

1366

15.

Ohio State 294 15. Indiana 1329
16. Iowa 215 16. Johns Hopkins

1249

17.

Northwestern 143 17. Northwestern 934
18. North Carolina 57 18. Ohio State

874

19.

Indiana 45 19. N.Y.U. 801
20. Washington

759

 

ECONOMICS

1925

1957

1. Harvard 92 1. Harvard

298

2.

Columbia 75 2. Chicago 262
3. Chicago 65 3. Yale

241

4.

Wisconsin 63 4. Columbia 210
5. Yale 42 5. California

196

6.

Johns Hopkins 39 5. Stanford 196
7. Michigan 31 7. Princeton

184

8.

Pennsylvania 29 8. Johns Hopkins 178
9. Illinois 27 9. Michigan

174

10.

Cornell 25 10. Minnesota 96
11. Princeton 23 11. Northwestern

70

12.

California 22 12. Duke 69
13. Minnesota 20 13. Wisconsin

66

14.

Northwestern 18 14. Pennsylvania 45
15. Stanford 17 15. Cornell

32

16.

Ohio State 15 16. U.C.L.A.

31

According to some of the chairmen there are strong departments at Carnegie Tech. and M.I.T.; also at Vanderbilt.

 

Source:  Hayward Keniston. Graduate Study and Research in the Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania (January 1959), pp. 115-119,129.

 

 

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economists Gender Northwestern Social Work

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. Alumna, Helen Fisher Hohman, 1928

 

We have just met Helen Fisher Hohman’s husband Elmo Paul Hohman by way of his Northwestern reading list on labor problems that somehow found its way into the Harvard course syllabi archives. Helen herself went on to get a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1928 (Elmo was teaching at Northwestern) and her dissertation won the distinguished Hart, Schaffner and Marx competition over Simon Kuznets’ dissertation that was given honorable mention. 

One wonders what Helen Fisher Hohman’s career path might have looked like had she been born to a later cohort. It would be nice if we could find a picture of her, maybe some descendent will stumble upon this page and share with Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

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Helen Fisher Hohman

1916. B.A. University of Illinois.

1919. A.M. Columbia University.

1919. New York School of Social Work (completed two year program).

1920. Assistant in the economics department, Vassar College.

1921-22. Instructor of economics at Simmons College.

1928. Ph.D. University of Chicago. Thesis: The Trade Board Acts and the Social Insurance Acts in Relation to a Minimum Standard of Living in Great Britain: A Study in Attitudes toward Poverty and Methods of Dealing with It, 1880-1926.

Received first prize in the Hart, Schaffner and Marx competition in 1928 (honorable mention went to Simon S. Kuznets for his “Secular Movements in Production and Prices”)

1931. Edited Essays on Population and other papers by James Alfred Field. (Chicago: University of Chicago).

1933. The Development of Social Insurance and Minimum Wage Legislation in Great Britain: A Study of British Social Legislation in Relation to a Minimum Standard of Living. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

1940.  Old Age in Sweden: A Program of Social Security. U.S. Social Security Board.

Source:  Kirsten Madden. Women economists of promise? Six Hart, Schaffner and Marx Prize winners in the early twentieth century. Chapter 13 in Kirsten Madden, Robert W. Dimand (eds). Routledge Handbook of the History of Women’s Economic ThoughtLondon: Routledge, 2018.
Also: Simmons College yearbook Microcosm 1922, p. 38.

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1940. Helen Fisher Hohman was listed as Consultant, Bureau of Research and Statistics [Social Security Board]; and Lecturer in the Division of Social Work, Northwestern University.

Source:  Helen Fisher Hohman. Social Democracy in Sweden. Social Security Bulletin, Vol.3, No. 2. February 1940, pp. 3-10

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Obituary of Helen Hohman (nee Fisher)
August 2, 1894 – December 18, 1972

Mrs. Helen Fisher Hohman, 78, of 606 Trinity Ct., Evanston, former professor of economics at Northwestern University and an authoress, died yesterday in the infirmary of Presbyterian Home, Evanston.

Mrs. Hohman, who taught at N. U. during World War II, wrote the book “British Insurance and Minimum Wage Legislation in Great Britain,” which won a Hart, Schaffner and Marx prize in 1928. Survivors include her husband, Elmo; a daughter, Mrs. Rene Wadlow; and two grandchildren. Private services will be held.

Transcribed from Chicago Tribune, December 19, 1972 by Marsha L. Ensminger

Source:  Genealogy Trails History Group for Washington County, Illinois.