Categories
Harvard Seminar Speakers

Harvard. Economics Seminary. Speakers and Topics, 1914-1915

 

 

 

The economics seminary at Harvard met fourteen times over the course of the 1914-15 academic year.  

An early sighting of Jacob Viner: R. L. Wolf [Robert Leopold Wolf, summa cum laude in Economics, A.B. Harvard 1915] and J. Viner spoke at the Economic Seminary on “The Theory of the Equilibrium of Supply and Demand,” March 29, 1915.

Earlier posts with information on the Seminary of Economics at Harvard:

Seminary of Economics 1897-1898.

Seminary of Economics 1891/92-1907/08.

Seminary of Economics 1913/14.

Request by Radcliffe Women to attend the Seminary of Economics, 1926.

Seminary of Economics 1929-1932.

_______________________

Monday, October 5, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “Studies in Spanish Archives, with Special Reference to the History of the Sheep Owners’ Gild or Mesta.” Mr. Julius Klein [Ph.D. 1915]. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Calendar, Vol. X, No. 2, October 3, 1914.

 

Monday, October 19, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “Combinations in the Book Trade and the Regulation of Retail Prices.” Mr. H. R. Tosdal [Ph.D. 1915]. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Calendar, Vol. X, No. 4, October 17, 1914.

 

Monday, November 2, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “The Contest in Congress between Employers and Trade Unionists.” Mr. P. G. Wright. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. X, No. 6, October 31, 1914.

 

Monday, November 23, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “Cotton Manufacturing in Japan.” Mr. R. J. Ray. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. X, No. 9, November 21, 1914.

 

Monday, December 7, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “The Tin Plate Industry in Wales and in the United States.” Mr. D. E. Dunbar. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. X, No. 11, December 5, 1914.

 

Monday, January 11, 1915

Seminary of Economics. “The Meeting of the American Economic Association.” Professor Carver and Dr. J. S. Davis [Ph.D. 1913]. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. X, No. 16, January 9, 1915.

 

Monday, January 25, 1915

Seminary of Economics. “The Development and Organization of the Grain Trade in Canada.” Mr. W. C. Clark. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. X, No. 18, January 23, 1915.

 

Monday, February 15, 1915 

Seminary of Economics. “Modern Methods of Real Estate Assessment.” Mr. Alfred D. Bernard, of Baltimore, Md. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. X, No. 21, February 13, 1915.

 

Monday, March 1, 1915

Seminary of Economics. “State Board of Conciliation and Arbitration in Massachusetts.” Mr. L. A. Rufener [Ph.D. 1915]. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. X, No. 23, February 27, 1915.

 

Monday, March 15, 1915

Seminary of Economics. “The Struggle in the Colorado Coal Mines.” Mr. J. H. Libby. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. X, No. 25, March 13, 1915.

 

Monday, March 29, 1915

Seminary of Economics. “The Theory of the Equilibrium of Supply and Demand.” Messrs. R. L. Wolf and J. Viner [Ph.D. 1922]. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. X, No. 27, March 27, 1915.

 

Monday, April 12, 1915

Seminary of Economics. “Some Aspects of the Federal Valuation of Railways.” Mr. H. B. Vanderblue [Ph.D. 1915]. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. X, No. 29, April 10, 1915.

 

Monday, May 3, 1915

Seminary of Economics. “The Boston and Maine Reorganization.” Professor Ripley. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. X, No. 32, May 1, 1915.

 

Monday, May 17, 1915

Seminary of Economics. “The German Steel Kartell.” Mr. H. R. Tosdal [Ph.D. 1915]. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. X, No. 34, May 15, 1915.

 

Image Source.  Harvard Square September 23, 1915. “These businesses have weathered decades of change in Harvard Square,” posted at Boston.com.

 

Categories
Harvard Seminar Speakers

Harvard. Economics Seminary and Public Lectures. Speakers and Topics, 1913-1914

The economics seminary at Harvard featured a dozen speakers over the course of the 1913-14 academic year.  The department invited 27 year-old Josef Schumpeter (Theory of Crises) from the University of Vienna.

I have included the dates for two sets of major public guest lectures that were given by Wesley C. Mitchell (Business Cycles) and E. Dana Durand (Anti-trust and regulation), respectively.

Earlier posts with information on the Seminary of Economics at Harvard:

Seminary of Economics 1897-1898.

Seminary of Economics 1891/92-1907/08.

Request by Radcliffe Women to attend the Seminary of Economics, 1926.

Seminary of Economics 1929-1932.

_______________________

Monday, Sept. 29, 1913

Seminary of Economics. Meeting for Organization. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m. All Graduate Students in Economics are invited to attend.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 2. Sept. 26, 1913, p. 7.

Monday, Oct. 20, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “The Administration of the State-Owned Railways of Prussia.” Professor W. J. Cunningham. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 5. Oct. 18, 1913, p. 27.

Monday, Nov. 3, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “The Organization of the Grain Trade on the Pacific Coast.” Mr. Wilfred Eldred. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 7. Nov. 1, 1913, p. 39.

Monday, Nov. 17, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “The German Potash Syndicate.” Mr. H. R. Tosdal. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 9. Nov. 15, 1913, p. 57.

Monday, Dec. 1, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “Pisan Industry in the Early Fourteenth Century.” Mr. F. C. Dietz. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 11. Nov. 29, 1913, p. 65.

Thursday/Friday, Dec. 4/5, 1913

Lectures. “Business Cycles. I and II.” Dr. Wesley C. Mitchell, formerly Professor of Political Economy at the University of California. (I) Emerson A, 4.30 p.m.; (II) Emerson A, 4.30 p.m.
These lectures, though addressed primarily to graduate students of Economics and students in the Graduate School of Business Administration, will be open to the public.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 11. Nov. 29, 1913, p. 66.

Monday, Dec. 13, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “New Jersey Business Corporations and Corporation Policy, 1791-1820.” Dr. J. S. Davis. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 13. Dec. 13, 1913, p. 81.

Monday, Jan. 12, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “The Development of Capital and National Wealth in Germany.” Professor Karl Rathgen, of the University of Hamburg. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 17. Jan. 10, 1914, p. 109.

Monday, Feb. 9, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “Some Aspects of the Quantity Theory of Money.” Professor Anderson. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 21. Feb. 7, 1914, p. 131.

Monday, Mar. 2, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “Some Aspects of the Quantity Theory of Money.” Professor Taussig. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 24. Feb. 28, 1914, p. 153.

Monday, Mar. 16, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “The Theory of Crises.” Professor Josef Schumpeter, of the University of Vienna. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 26. Mar. 14, 1914, p. 167.

Monday, Mar. 23, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “Recent Experience in Railroad Construction Finance.” Professor Ripley. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 27. Mar. 21, 1914, p. 173.

Monday, Apr. 6, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “International Trade Balances.” Dr. G.W. Nasmyth. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 29. Apr. 4, 1914, p. 185.

Monday/Tuesday, Apr. 13/14, 1914

Lectures. “What Shall We do with the Trusts? I. The Necessity of Regulation of Prohibition.” (Emerson D, 8 p.m.)  and II. “Possibility of Preventing Combination and Difficulties of Regulation.” (Emerson D, 11 a.m.) Professor E. Dana Durand, of the University of Minnesota.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 30. Apr. 11, 1914, p. 195.

Monday, May 25, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “United States Forest Policy.” Mr. John Ise. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 36. May 25, 1914, p. 231.

Image Source: Karl Rathgen: Fotosammlung des Geographischen Institutes der Humboldt-Universität Berlin.    Schumpeter: Ulrich Hedtke, Joseph Alois Schumpeter. Archive.

 

 

 

 

Categories
Austria Economists Harvard Seminar Speakers

Harvard. Ludwig von Mises visits the economics department, 1940

“Money as a Dynamic Factor” was the title of the talk given by Ludwig von Mises Thursday evening, December 5, 1940 at the Harvard department of economics. From a memo written by Paul Sweezy [transcribed for the following post] we know that the cocktail committee added sherry and whiskey to the selection of hard drinks served as refreshment that evening.

________________________

Carbon copy of letter from Chamberlin to Mises

November 20, 1940

Dear Dr. von Mises:

            The Department of Economics at Harvard would like to offer their graduate students the privilege of meeting you and hearing you while you are in this country. Would it be possible for you to speak at Harvard on the evening of either December 5 or December 12? If so, I should be glad to receive from you suggestions as to possible subjects. We should hope, too, that you would be able to remain in Cambridge for a day or so in order to give students and others a chance to talk with you informally. An honorarium of $100 will be paid (from which you would be expected to meet your own travelling expenses).

            I very much hope you will be able to accept this invitation.

Sincerely yours,

 

E. H. Chamberlin

Dr. Ludwig von Mises
599 West End Avenue
New York City

________________________

Mises’ Reply to Chamberlin

 Ludwig Mises

New York, Nov. 23, 1940

Dear Professor Chamberlin:

Thank you very much for your kind invitation. I shall be very pleased to address the graduate students of your Department.

            I hope that nothing will prevent me from delivering my address on the first of the two days you suggested in your letter (i.e. December 5) and to have informal talks with the students on the following days.

            Would you consider as a suitable topic for my address: “Money as a dynamic factor”?

Sincerely yours

[signed] L. Mises

________________________

Department Announcement
of Lecture by Mises

Department of Economics

Professor Ludwig von Mises, formerly of the University of Vienna and of the Institute for International Studies at Geneva, will speak on “Money as a Dynamic Factor”, in the Littauer Lounge at 8 P.M., Thursday, December 5 [1940].

(Open to members of the University)

________________________

Thank you note from Mises

New York, December 11, 1940

Dear Professor Chamberlin

Thank you for your kind letter of December 9. May I express once again my gratitude for the warm reception you and your colleagues accorded me. It was a great pleasure to me to have the opportunity to meet the distinguished members of your department.

Sincerely yours

Ludwig Mises

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics. Correspondence and Papers 1930-1961. Box 25 (Visiting Committees-Whippen), Folder: “Possible Visitors to Econ. Department”.

Image Source:  Ludwig von Mises (1935) at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Digital website.

Categories
Harvard Seminar Speakers

Harvard. Report of the Cocktail Committee. Paul Sweezy, 1941

 

Departmental meetings with cocktails! What could possibly go wrong? Paul Sweezy   wrote the following memo that outlined his scheme to collect revenue to balance the budget of the Harvard economic department’s “Cocktail Committee”. While the average outlay of $3 per meeting seems rather modest when deflated by the bar price for martinis at the time, it is interesting to note that the whiskey and sherry expenditure for drinks following Ludwig von Mises’ talk (only sherry?) amounted to more than double the average cost. Quality vs. quantity vs. price? 

Incidentally, I love Sweezy’s distinction between meeting “attendance” and “participation”.

_________________________

Martini: Bar Price in 1940

We again find the quarter [i.e. $0.25] martini a couple years later, in Chicago of 1940, at Gimbel’s Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge, on a block of West Randolph Street not far from the Cook County Court House and Grant Park.

Source: Brent Cox, “How Much More Do Martinis Cost Today?” Posted at The Awl (June 5, 2012).

_________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

CAMBRIDGE, MASSSACHUSETTS

April 17, 1941

Report of the Cocktail Committee

There have been seven regular department meetings for which cocktails have been provided at a total cost of $21.65, or slightly over $3 per meeting.

In addition, at one meeting whiskey was provided and sherry was served at the Mises meeting, making a further cost of $6.57.

There will be two more regular meetings. Budgeting each of these for $3 brings the total outlay of the cocktail committee for the year to $34.22.

It is difficult to know how to apportion this expense most rationally. I suggest that the members of the department who have benefitted from the facilities provided divide themselves into three categories as follows:

(1) Those who have attended regularly and participated freely. $3 each.

(2) Those who have attended regularly and participated moderately, or attended irregularly and participated freely. $2 each.

(3) Those who have derived only occasional benefit. $1 each.

            It this scheme seems reasonable, I shall collect money at the April 22 meeting, or members may leave their contributions with Miss Tatnall. I shall then be in a position to make a final report to the May meeting on the yield of this particular tax system and to make any further recommendations which may be necessary.

Paul M. Sweezy

 

Source: Harvard University Archives, Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers  (UAV 349.11), Box 10, Folder “Department Meeting Agenda”.

Image Source: Paul Sweezy from the Harvard Class Album 1942.

Categories
Cowles Economists Seminar Speakers

Cowles and IMF seminars on social welfare functions. Abba Lerner, 1952

 

In this post we have material related to a seminar on social welfare functions that Abba Lerner gave on at least two occasions in the fall of 1952–once at the I.M.F. and once at the Cowles Commission. The three items transcribed below come from a single folder in the “Abba P. Lerner Papers” at the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. The first two items are typed notes Lerner kept for himself followed by a page of handwritten notes that presumably were his presentation notes (his class lecture notes are seldom, if ever, more than a page per lesson and often no more than a list of key words). Where I have been forced to guess a word, I use boldface. Simple typos and spelling mistakes have been corrected without fanfare, Lerner was a pretty lousy typist.

Transcribed notes for Abba Lerner’s five lectures about labor (1949) can be found in an earlier post.

__________________________

SOME ASPECTS OF WELFARE ECONOMICS
IMF 9-19-52
[Lerner’s own typed notes, followed by handwritten notes]

Western Humanism—Efficient use of resources for satisfying human wants.

adding utilities, measuring utility, complementarity, weighting

For analysis avoid by indifference curves, more generally, by ordering

For Welfare Economics avoid by social welfare function also an ordering.

Democracy means deriving social decision from individual preferences.

Bergson and Samuelson seem to suggest possibility of getting social ordering from individual ordering

Arrow on the derivation. The Paradox.

More generally. Five conditions. Free choice, positive, irrelevance non-dictatorial, non-imposed.

Serious for Democracy how much consensus is needed? (Single peaked pref[erences]s.)

Much Math. Reviewers gingerly defer and repeat the paradox.

Too loose. Too severe. at the same time.

Voting is weighting. cf. “unweighted index numbers” voting excluded.

If voting should be consistent. 1+1 =1. (single peaked prefs avoid the triangle)

The third postulate. Men, not preferences, born free and equal.

Majority rule not = democracy. (tho not minority rule)

must be checked for significance of the preference to the individual.

PR [preference revelation?] as concentrating of voting.

Scale of ordering.-1-100 (voting by differences between votes)

Republican Editorial after Democratic Conference.

Must weigh individuals. Must allow individuals to weigh their preferences.

voting and pricing

[Bottom half of paper has the following handwritten notes:]

Social Welfare Function vs. process for social division.

One Commodity World

A B C Total
x 3 1 2

6

y

2 3 1 6
z 1 2 3

6

the middle one cannot be the worst

“indifference” [not the same as] “cannot say”

consensus about rules, not content
values vs. prefs?

__________________________

Social Welfare Functions
Discussion at Cowles Commission 10-9-52
[Lerner’s own typed summary of comments he received]

The essence of Democracy is not giving everybody equal influence or voting power but the recognition of uncertainty so that policies can be corrected. Not the determination of policy but the election of official to whom authority can be delegated. Houthakker.

How can the greater needs of some be protected? One cannot rely on those majorities who care little about anything being prevented from oppressing minorities by devoting only a little of their voting power to the oppression—what if there are not many decisions but only one which matters very little to the majority but is very important to the minority? Koopmans

The conditions for a successful democracy do include some restrictions on the preference of the members of society. If conflicts are so strong that they mean more than the preservation of the unity of the society or the keeping of the rules then the democracy cannot persist. Koopmans

Arrow’s third postulate is unnecessarily strong. His purpose would be served by having a social welfare function derived from some set of “complete” private orderings which would then continue to be used even when some of the alternatives have disappeared.  Chairman

Economics is where division between the satisfaction of the desired of different individuals is possible. Each can then get (buy) what he wants without this affecting others. Where there is an indivisibility or a non-separability of the effects on different individuals we have political rather than economic problems. Discussion after the meeting with Colin Clark.

Where there is indivisibility we have to have government and must sacrifice freedom. Colin Clark

 

Source:  Library of Congress. Manuscript Division. Papers of Abba P. Lerner, Box 21, Folder 5 “Welfare Economics, Undated”.

__________________________

The following handwritten sheet was not stapled to the previous two which were stapled together, but it does have what appear to be matching staple holes, as if the notes had been taken and used for another lecture at some other time.

Welfare Economics—Social Welfare Functions
[Lerner’s handwritten notes
(boldface indicates uncertain transcription)]

Present concerns—Sustaining Forces—Psych[ological] Warfare

deeper to Basic Ec[onomic] Analysis, Basic Political Philosophy.

                        Keynes, Adam Smith              Wilson, Jefferson, Socrates

Democratic Society. Voting. Arrow Paradox. Social ordering from individual orderings.

Is democracy possible? (Single peaked pref[erence]s, single commodity)

Political Ec[onom]y—Welfare Economics—preferred in to “Economics”.

conforming

Summation & Measurement of U[tility]. Social Welfare Function. Social States

Behaviorism + ordering OK.

If no comparison unanimity reasoning. voting means comparing – weighting.

Analyze paradox — inconsistent w[eigh]ting 1 + 1 = 1. (all preferences born equal)

(unweighted)

1 + 1 = 2 give rank ordering (not reasonable—adjust pref[erence]s equal)

\left( \text{another case  }xyz\text{  or  }zxy\,\,\to \,\,\bar{x}\bar{z}\,,\,\bar{z}\bar{y}\text{  but  }xy \right)

diff[erent] low votes is the influencing power not [number] of votes (cf P.R. [preference revelation?] etc) or majority rule

add cardinal utilities (which must also be comparable) to get social ordering

How much for each individual? How democratic

S.W. Function really impor[tant]. But do we need one?

All we need is a democratic decision

Equal influence — given a democratic result

Principle of relevance—different use of voting power. Not a S.W. Function

Inconsistency ceases to be irrational—diff[erent] circumstances

 (games, influence, voting, force, smudged-word)

Over-ambition—cf compensation issue “can’t tell” or “indifference”

output and distribution.

Democracy depends on multiplicity of items.

Consensus + Possibility of Democracy.

 

Source:  Library of Congress. Manuscript Division. Papers of Abba P. Lerner, Box 21, Folder 5 “Welfare Economics, Undated”.

__________________________

From the Cowles’ record of Commission Seminars

Oct. 9 [1952] Abba P. Lerner, Roosevelt College, “Social Welfare Functions”

Source: Yale University. Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics. Webpage: Commission Seminars, 1943-1955.

Image Source: Publicity photo of Abba Lerner as Guest Speaker February 25, 1958 in the Beth Emet 1958 Forum. Library of Congress. Papers of Abba P. Lerner, Box 6, Folder 8.

 

Categories
Economists Harvard Seminar Speakers

Harvard. Members of the Economics Seminary, 1897-1898

 

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has posted the names and topics for presentations from 1891/92 through 1907/08 from Harvard’s Seminary in Economics. These lists were published in the Harvard Catalogues for the following academic years, providing us with the actual names and topics. I came across the following announcement for the academic year 1897/98 that provides a bit more information about the presenters but also shows us that there were a couple of deviations from the original, planned schedule. When I compared the members to the list of Harvard economics Ph.D.’s for the 1875-1926, I was somewhat surprised that the majority of presenters did not go on to complete Harvard Ph.D.’s. I decided to track down everyone listed as a member of the seminary in 1897-98, to see what I could find. Actually, I found quite a lot to include in this post.

_________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
SEMINARY IN ECONOMICS.
[Announced]
1897-98.

INSTRUCTORS.

Professor C. F. Dunbar, 14 Highland St.
Professor W. J. Ashley, 6 Acacia St.
Professor Edward Cummings, Irving St.
Professor F. W. Taussig, 2 Scott St.

MEMBERS.

Morton A. Aldrich, A.B. (Harvard), Ph.D. (Halle). Henry Bromfield Rogers Memorial Fellow. 24 Thayer Hall.

Subject: The History of the American Federation of Labor.

Frederick A. Bushée, B.L. (Dartmouth). University Scholar. 7 Wendell St.

Subject: The Growth and Constitution of the Population of Boston.

Ralph W. Cone, A.B. (Kansas Univ.), A.B., A.M. (Harvard). University Scholar. 23 Hilton.

Subject: Railway Land Grants, with special reference to the Pacific railways.

Adolph O. Eliason, L.B. (University of Minnesota), A.B. (Harvard). 34 Divinity Hall.

Subject: The Distribution of National and State Banks [in] the United States, with special regard to the States of the Northwest.

John E. George, Ph.B. (North Western Univ.), A.M. (Harvard). Paine Fellow. 10 Oxford St.

Subject: The Condition and Organization of Coal Miners in the United States.

D. Frederick Grass, Ph.B. (Iowa Coll.). 14 Shepard St.

Subject: Antonio Serra, and the Beginning of Political Economy in Italy.

Charles S. Griffin, A.B. (Kansas), A.B., A.M. (Harvard). Assistant in Political Economy. 43 Grays Hall.

Subject: The Taxation of Sugar and the Sugar Industry in Europe and America.

W. L. Mackenzie King, A.M., LL.B. (Univ. of Toronto) Townsend Scholar. 14 Sumner St.C

Subject: The Clothing Trade and the Sweating System, in the United States, England, and Germany.

H.C. Marshall, A.B. (Ohio Wesleyan), A.B., A.M. (Harvard). Henry Lee Memorial Fellow. 29 Grays Hall.

Subject: History of Legal Tender Notes after the close of the Civil War.

Randolph Paine, Senior in Harvard College. 32 Mellen St.

Subject: The Growth of the Free Silver Movement since 1860.

C. E. Seaman, A.B., (Acadia), A.B., A.M. (Harvard). Assistant in Government. 31 Holyoke St.

Subject: The Intercolonial Railway of Canada.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1897-1898”.

_____________________________

Report of the actual meetings of the Seminary of Economics, 1897-98

At the joint meetings of the Seminary of American History and Institutions and the Seminary of Economics: —

Some results of an inquiry on taxation in Massachusetts. Professor F. W. Taussig.

The Making of a Tariff. Mr. S. N. D. North.

The currency reform plan of the Indianapolis convention. Professor Dunbar.

At the Seminary of Economics: —

Trade-unions in Australia. Dr. M. A. Aldrich.

The coal miners’ strike of 1897. Mr. J. E. George.

An analysis of the law of diminishing returns. Dr. C. W. Mixter.

The Secretary of the Treasury and the currency, 1865-1879. Mr. H. C. Marshall.

An inquiry on government contract work in Canada. Mr. W. L. M. King.

The sugar industry in Europe as affected by taxes and bounties. Mr. C. S. Griffin.

The security of bank notes based on general assets, as indicated by experience under the national bank system. Mr. A. O. Eliason.

The inter-colonial railway. Mr. C. E. Seaman.

Some results of the new method of assessing the income tax in Prussia. Dr. J. A. Hill.

Antonio Serra and the beginnings of political economy in Italy. Mr. D. F. Grass.

The American Federation of Labor. Dr. M. A. Aldrich.

The earlier stages of the silver movement in the United States. Mr. Randolph Paine.

The land grant to the Union Pacific Railroad. Mr. R. W. Cone.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1898-99, pp. 400-1.

_____________________________

Economic Seminar Members

 

 

Morton Arnold Aldrich.
(b. Jan. 6, 1874 in Boston; d. May 9, 1956 in New Orleans)

If you had to pick one individual most responsible for the founding of the A. B. Freeman School of Business [at Tulane University], that individual would be Morton A. Aldrich, the business school’s first and longest-serving dean. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard with a PhD from Germany’s University of Halle, Aldrich joined Tulane in 1901 as an assistant professor of economics and sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences, and he wasted little time making his intentions known. A 1902 article in the Times-Picayune describes a lecture in which Aldrich declared Tulane’s intention to establish a College of Commerce. “In New Orleans, it is unfortunate that so many businessmen come from the North and from abroad,” Aldrich is quoted as saying. “We are glad to have them, to be sure, but would it not be more satisfactory if we could educate Louisianians to become leaders to a greater extent?”

Aldrich was a man of contradictions. He was a worldly and erudite scholar yet at the same time an everyman who enjoyed swapping stories with trappers and fishermen at his camp on Lake Pontchartrain. Aldrich prided himself on his ability to get along with everyone, and it was that knack for bringing disparate groups together that ultimately helped him found Tulane’s College of Commerce and Business Administration.

In 1902, business education was still viewed by many as vocational training, a field not worthy of a university of Tulane’s stature. But even if there had been more widespread support for business education within the university, Aldrich still faced obstacles. Tulane President Edwin Alderman informed Aldrich in no uncertain terms that the cash-strapped university simply did not have the resources to establish a new college.

Undeterred, Aldrich turned his attention to the business community. In 1909, he founded the Tulane Society of Economics, which sponsored lectures that highlighted the intersection of economic theory and business practice. Many of the city’s most prominent businessmen became members of the society. In 1912, Aldrich drafted a tax reform proposal for the state of Louisiana that further established his reputation in the business community. A year later, he became a charter member of the New Orleans Association of Commerce, a new organization established to help promote the city’s economic interests. With the membership of the Association of Commerce in his corner, Aldrich realized he finally had the business support he had been cultivating for the previous 10 years.

In 1913, the Association of Commerce sent a letter to Tulane President Robert Sharp asking the university to establish a College of Commerce. Sensing the shift is public sentiment regarding business education, Sharp did not rule out the creation of a commerce college. Instead, he simply said that Tulane did not have the money. That response set in motion a whirlwind of activity at the Association of Commerce. By the fall of 1914, the association presented Tulane with a plan to underwrite the cost of establishing a business college. The Board of Tulane endorsed the proposal, and Sharp appointed Aldrich as the first dean of the newly formed Tulane University College of Commerce and Business Administration.

Aldrich went on to serve as dean of the college for 25 years. In that time, he built the college from a small, part-time program to a successful degree-granting institution with 871 students spread across day and evening programs. He also personally hired each of the college’s full-time professors—the so-called “Nine Old Men” of the business school—who would serve as the core of the faculty for the next 40 years.

In a very real sense, Aldrich helped to transform Tulane from a 19th century liberal arts college to a modern 20th century university with academic divisions spanning a variety of fields and disciplines.

Besides being a significant figure in business education at Tulane, Aldrich was also a pioneer in business education nationally. He helped to establish the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), which today is the leading worldwide accrediting organization for business schools, and he served as the organization’s secretary for the first six years of its existence.

Aldrich stepped down as dean in 1939 when he reached the mandatory faculty retirement age of 65. Although he was honored by alumni on several occasions and remained friends with Tulane President Rufus Harris, he never returned to campus.

Aldrich died in New Orleans on May 9, 1956.

Each week during our Centennial Celebration, the Freeman School is highlighting some of the well-known and not-so-well-known people who helped to make the first 100 years of business education at Tulane University so special.

Source: From the Morton A. Aldrich webpage at the Freeman School of Business – Tulane University Centennial website (2013).  Morton A. Aldrich from the 1915 edition of the Jambalaya student yearbook.

Dissertation (Halle-Wittenberg, 1897)

Morton Arnold Aldrich, Die Arbeiterbewegung in Australien und Neuseeland. (Published by Barras, 1897).

 

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Frederick Alexander Bushée
(b. July 21, 1872 in Brookfield, VT; d. Apr. 4, 1960 in Bolder, CO)

Harvard 1902 doctoral dissertation: Ethnic factors in the population of Boston. New York, Macmillan (London, Sonnenschein), 1903, 8°, pp. viii, 171 (Publ. Amer. Econ. Assoc., ser. 3, 4: no. 2). Preliminary portion pub. as “The growth of the population of Boston,” in Publ. Amer. Statist. Assoc., 1899, n. s., 6: 239-274.

Image Source:  University of Colorado yearbook Coloradoan 1922 (Vol. 24), p. 32.

Timeline from:
Reminiscence of the Bushees by Earl David Crockett, the son of Bushee’s successor at the University of Colorado

1872, July 21. Born in Brookfield, Vermont.
1894. Litt. B. Dartmouth College.
1894-95. Resident South End House, Boston.
1895-96. Hartford School of Sociology.
1896-97. Resident South End House, Boston.
1897-1900. Graduate student, Harvard University.
1898. Harvard University, A.M.
1900-01. Collège Libre des Sciences Sociales, Collège de France, Paris; University of Berlin.
1901-02. Assistant in Economics, Harvard University.
1902. Harvard University, Ph.D. in Political Science.
1902-03. Instructor in Economics and History in the Collegiate Department of Clark University.
1903-08. Assistant Professor in Economics, Clark University.
1907-08. Instructor in Economics and Sociology, Clark University.
1910-12. Professor of Economics and Sociology at Colorado College.
1912. Hired by University of Colorado. Boulder, Colo.
1916. Professor of Economics and Sociology, and Secretary of the College of Commerce, University of Colorado. Boulder, Colo.
1925-32. Professor of Economics and Sociology, and Acting Dean of the School of Business Administration, University of Colorado. Boulder, Colo.
1939. Retired.
1960, April 4. Died in Boulder, Colorado.

Robert Treat Paine Fellowship
1899-1900

Frederick Alexander Bushée. Litt.B. (Dartmouth Coll., N.H.) 1894, A.M. 1898.—Res. Gr. Stud., 1897-99.—University Scholar, 1897-98; Townsend Scholar, 1898-99. Student of Economics, at this University.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1898-1899, p. 149.

 

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Ralph Waldo Cone
(b. April 21, 1870 in Seneca, KS; d. January 2, 1951 Kansas City, MO)

A.B. Univ. Kan. 1895; A.B. Harvard 1896.; A.M. Harvard 1897.

1899-1906. Assistant Professor of Sociology and Economics. University of Kansas.

1907-Associate Professor of Sociology and Economics.

1910 U.S. Census listed as professor, starting with the 1920/30/40 U.S. Census listed as farmer.

1910/11 University of Kansas Annual Catalogue (p. 194) lists Associate Professor Cone as “resigned”, probably as announcement for 1911/12.

Image Source: University of Kansas. The Jayhawker. Yearbook of the Senior Class, 1906. P. 20.

 

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Adolph Oscar Eliason
(b. May 26, 1873 at Montevideo, Minn; d. April 27, 1944 at Ramsey, Minn.)

Image Source: Harvard College Class of 1897, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Report.
1896-97 Harvard. A.B.; A.M. 1898; Litt. B. (Univ. of Minn., 1896); Ph.D. (Univ. of Minn., 1901)

“After graduating from Harvard I received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota in 1901. I then entered the banking business, being connected with the Bank of Montevideo, Minn., was identified with other business activities, and served as president of the Montevideo Commercial Cub. I lectured on banking at the University of Minnesota, and wrote some monographs on this subject…”

Source: Harvard College Class of 1897. Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report [Number VI, 1922], pp. 173-174.

Ph.D. Thesis, University of Minnesota.

Adolph O. Eliason. The Rise of Commercial Banking Institutions in the United States. 1901.

Another Publication

Adolph O. Eliason. The Beginning of Banking in Minnesota, read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council of the Minnesota Historical Society, May 11, 1908.

 

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John Edward George
(b. May 12, 1865 near Braceville, IL; d. Jan. 18 1905)

Born 12 May 1865, near Braceville, Ill. Prepared in Grand Prairie Seminary, Onarga, Ill. Entered college on state scholarship. Ph.B. Hinman; Sigma Alpha Epsilon; Phi Beta Kappa. Member of United States Life-Saving Crew; Cushing prize in Economics. 1896-97, student at Harvard University on Chicago Harvard Club scholarship. 1897, A.M., ibid. 1897-98, Robert Treat Paine Fellow at Harvard University; reappointed in 1898, with leave to study abroad. 1899, Ph.D., University of Halle, Germany. Instructor in Economics and History, Grand Prairie Seminary, 1895-96; secretary and statistician of Improved Housing Association, Chicago, 1899-1900; Instructor in Roxbury Latin School, Boston, Mass., 1900; Instructor in Political Economy, Northwestern University, 1900-01; Assistant Professor, 1901–. Member of American Economic Association.

Source: Northwestern University. Alumni Record of the College of Liberal Arts, 1903, p. 257.

Ph.B. (Northwestern Univ., 1895). John Edward George. The Saloon Question in Chicago. American Economic Association, Economic Studies. Vol. II, No. 2 (April, 1897).

“Mr. George’s essay was awarded the Cushing prize, offered in Northwestern University, for the best essay on the subject.”

John E. George. The Settlement in the Coal-Mining Industry. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 12, No. 4 (1898), pp. 447-460.

Robert Treat Paine Fellowship
1897-98.

John Edward George. Ph.B. (Northwestern University) 1895, A.M., 1897.—Res. Gr. Stud., 1896-97.—Scholar of the Harvard Club of Chicago, 1896-97.—Student of the Ethical Problems of Society, at this University.
Now continuing his studies in Germany.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1897-1898, p. 142.

Robert Treat Paine Fellowship
1898-99.

John Edward George. Reappointed.
Ph.B. (Northwestern Univ., Ill.) 1895, A.M., 1897.—Res. Gr. Stud., 1896-98.—Non-Res. Stud., 1898-99.—Student of the Ethical Problems of Society, at this University (1897-98) and in Germany (1898-99).
Engaged in sociological investigation, in Chicago. 

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1898-1899, p. 149.

Passport application
(sworn Boston, June 29, 1898)

John Edward George for a passport for self and wife. Born near Braceville, Illinois on May 12, 1865. “I follow the occupation of student at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.” Intend to return to U.S. in a year.  Stature 5 feet 7 ¾ inches.

Ph.D. dissertation, 1899

Die Verhältnisse des Kohlenbergbaues in den Vereinigten Staaten, mit besonderer Bezugnahme auf die Lage der Bergarbeiter seit dem Jahre 1885. Halle a.S. (Frommann in Jena), 1899.

1900 U.S. Census. Cambridge, Irving Street.

Listed as visitor (with his wife Adda G., born Sept. 1874 Illinois) of Harvard Professor Charles Eliot Norton.

Obituary

DR. JOHN EDWARD GEORGE DEAD.
Former Professor of Economics at Northwestern University Succumbs After Long Illness.
Chicago Tribune (Friday Jan 20, 1905), p. 5.

Dr. John Edward George, who was compelled to resign his position as assistant professor of economics at Northwestern university because of illness two years ago, died of heart trouble at the Wesley hospital Wednesday night.

He was graduated from Northwestern in 1895, and during the following two years studied at Harvard and then at the University of Halle, where he received the degree of doctor of philosophy. He became a member of the faculty of Northwestern in 1900.

Dr. George was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Phi Beta Kappa fraternities and of the American Economic association. It was in the publications of the last named organization that he won a name that has hardly been excelled by so young a student of economics. Ile left a widow and one daughter. The funeral will be held In the town of his birth, Braceville, Ill., Saturday afternoon.

 

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Donald Frederick Grass
(b. May 5, 1873 in Council Bluffs, IA; d. Oct. 2, 1941 in Sacramento, CA)

Donald Frederick Grass, Ph.D.  Professor of Business Administration. 923 Seventh
Ph.B., Grinnell; A.B., A.M., Harvard; Ph.D., Stanford. Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Grinnell, Second Semester, 1917; Associate Professor, 1918; Professor of Business Administration, 1919—.

SourceGrinnell College Bulletin, Vol. XX, No. 1 (May, 1922), p. 17.

The decade 1900-1909

From his 1902 Iowa marriage record one finds that he was working as a bank cashier in Macedonia, Iowa.

Entries for “Donald Frederick Grass” in the Stanford Alumni Directory (1920)

“Assistant Professor of Economics. At Stanford 1910-17.” (p. 31)

“Ph.D. Econ., May ’14; A.B. and A.M., Harvard, ’98 and ’99; PhB., Grinnell College, ’94. m. March 30, 1904, Minnie Jones. Professor of Business administration, Grinnell College. Residence, 923 Seventh Ave., Grinnell, Ia.” (p. 234)

Source: Stanford University. Alumni Directory and Ten-Year Book (Graduates and Non-Graduates) III. 1891-1920.

Listed as Instructor in the Department of Economics and Social Science at Stanford 1912/13
Source:  Graduate Study 1912-13. Bulletin of Leland Stanford Junior University, No. 63 (April 1913), p. 28.

Listed as Assistant Professor 1916/17.
Source:  Graduate Study 1916-17. Bulletin of Leland Stanford Junior University, No. 92 (June 16, 1913), p. 34.

Sept. 12, 1918 Draft Registration Card

Donald Frederick Grass. b. May 5, 1873
Present Occupation: Professor at Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa
Nearest relative: wife Minnie Grass (also residing at 1120 Broad St. Grinnell, Iowa).

Obituary
reported in The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) October 3, 1941, Friday. Page 6.

“Donald F. Grass, professor emeritus of business administration at Grinnell college, died Thursday in Sacramento, California, according to word received here Friday morning.
Professor Grass retired from the Grinnell faculty in June. He and Mrs. Grass had been living with a daughter in Sacramento.
He came to Grinnell as an assistant professor of business in 1917. In 1919 he became a full professor and was made head of the department, a post he held until he retired.”

Image Source: Donald F. Grass in the Grinnell college yearbook The Cyclone 1931, p. 12.

 

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Charles Sumner Griffin
(b. Oct. 15, 1872 in Lawrence, KS; d. Sept. 10, 1904 at Hakone, Japan.)

Charles Sumner Griffin, A.B. (Kansas, 1894), A.B. (Harvard, 1895), A.M. (Harvard). Assistant in Political Economy.

Passport application. June 1898

Charles Sumner Griffin, born at Lawrence, Kansas on 15 October 1872, occupation student.

Charles Sumner Griffin.
Lawrence Daily Journal
October 15, 1904, p. 1.

The receipt of letters giving the circumstances of his death make it possible to write a full and final account of the life of our late friend and former townsman, Professor Charles S. Griffin. The first twenty-two years of his life were spent In Lawrence where he was born, October 15th, 1872. He received his early education in the schools of this city, graduating from the high school in 1890. He entered the university of Kansas the next autumn and received his bachelor’s degree in 1894 and with it membership in the Phi Beta Kappa society. He entered Harvard university the following fall and received the Harvard A. B. in ’95, the A.M. in ’96. In 1897 he was appointed instructor in economics In Harvard and the next year received a traveling fellowship. After holding this for one year and while still abroad he was appointed, on the nomination of the Harvard authorities, professor of political economy and finance in the Imperial University of Tokio, where he had completed five years of service at the time of his death.

Although he had been in Lawrence but little since his graduation ten years ago, Professor Griffin was well known to all but the most recent comers, having assisted his father, Mr. A. J. Griffin, in his business. Personally he was serious yet at the same time genial and he had a circle of staunch friends among the best of his instructors and his classmates. While he did not learn easily his earnestness and persistence won for him in all the institutions he attended a reputation for solid and reliable scholarship.

His special study at Harvard was the sugar industry, and his two papers on this subject, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, were regarded by Professor Taussig and other authorities as real contributions to knowledge. He had published also in Japan an edition of Rlcardo’s Essays on Currency and Finance, Tokio 1901. Notes on Commercial Policy and Modern Colonization, pp. 130, and Notes on Transportation and Communication, pp. 215, the latter two printed privately at Tokio, 1902. In March in this year the N. Y. Evening Post printed an article by Professor Griffin on the present situation in Japan. For several years he had been preparing to write a Financial History of Japan Previous to the Present Era. To this end he had diligently applied himself to the acquisition of the written and printed languages and was making rapid progress. During the summer just past he had with him on his vacation two Japanese students who were assisting him in the difficult task of learning the Japanese characters, of which there are some ten thousand, and indexing appropriate literature for him. It is not known whether his work on the history had progressed far enough to leave any portion of it in shape for publication, but It is feared not.

Mrs. A. J. Griffin and Miss Edith Griffin visited Mr. Griffin in 1900 and found him happily situated and enthusiastic over the country and his work. In July, 1901 he was married to Mary Avery Greene, daughter of Rev. Daniel C. Greene, the first missionary sent to Japan by the American Board, and to them had been born two children, Charles Carroll and Mary Avery. Professor Griffin spent his summer vacation on the shore of Lake Hakone, about sixty miles from Tokio. As the vacation was almost over, the family was to take a last picnic tea on the shore of the beautiful lake, half an hour from the village. Before tea Mr. Griffin went to the water’s edge for a plunge. He dived in and rose but once. Either he was seized with a cramp or was, stunned by a blow on the head. He was unable to grasp an oar thrown to him and sank before his wife’s eyes in thirty feet of water By the time the body was recovered life was extinct although military surgeons from the near by hospital worked over it for four hours. He was buried September 11, on the top of a hill near the village of Hakone, the coffin decked with Japanese and American flags and covered with flowers, among them a cross sent by Japanese veterans to whom he had endeared himself. The Episcopal service was read and two of Professor Griffin’s favorite hymns sung, one of them a portion of Whitter’s “The Eternal Goodness” containing the stanza,

“I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air,
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.”

Although there is no present palliative for the sense of loss both to his friends and to the world of learning, the memory of Charles Griffin will long remain a grateful inspiration to those who knew him well. His career, though brief, brings honor to his parents, his native city, his alma mater and his state. W.H.C.

 

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Joseph Adna Hill
(b. May 5, 1860, Stewartstown, New Hampshire; d. December 12, 1938 in Washington, D.C.)

Passport application: September 1889. Permanent residence at Temple in New Hampshire, occupation: student. About to go abroad temporarily, to return within three years.

1892 Ph.D. Dissertation

Joseph Anna Hill. Das “Interstate Commerce”-Gesetz in den Vereinigten Staaten. Halle a.S : Frommannsche Buch dr. in Jena, 1892.

1894 translation of Cohn’s History of Political Economy

Gustav Cohn. A History of Political Economy, translated by Joseph Adna Hill. Published as a Supplement to the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March 1894. [Volume One, Book One, Chapter Three, pp. 91-181 of Cohn’s System der Nationalökonomie, 2 vols. pp. 649 and 796. Stuttgart, 1885.]

 Taught Professor Dunbar’s course in 1896

[Economics] 82. Dr. J. A. Hill.—History of Financial Legislation in the United States. Hf. 2 hours, 2d half-year

Total 64: 5 Graduates, 22 Seniors, 18 Juniors, 6 Sophomores, 4 Law, 9 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1895-1896, p. 64.

Dr. Joseph Adna Hill, Census Bureau Aide, Dies Here at 78
Held Post of Chief Statistician of Research Division Since 1933

Dr. Joseph Adna Hill, 78, chief statistician of the Division of Statistical Research, Census Bureau, died last night of a heart attack at his home 1826 Irving street N.W. Dr. Hill had been engaged in statistical work at the bureau since 1898. He was named chief statistician of a division there in 1909. In 1921 he was appointed assistant director of the 14th census, and in 1930 was made assistant director for the 15th census. He had been chief statistician of the Division of Statistical Research since 1933. He was chairman of the committee appointed by the Secretaries of State, Commerce and Labor to determine immigration quotas.

Dr. Hill was an uncle of Gen. John Philip Hill, former Representative from Maryland and former United States district attorney of that State, who lives here at the Army and Navy Club. Other survivors include a brother, the Rev. Dr. Bancroft Hill of Vassar College and two other nephews. Dr. Eben Clayton Hill, Baltimore physician, and Bancroft Hill, president of the Baltimore Transit Co. Dr. Hill was unmarried.

Secured Ph.D. in Germany.

Born in Stewartstown, N. H., Dr. Hill was a son of the late Rev. Dr. Joseph Bancroft Hill and the late Mrs. Harriet Brown Hill. He prepared for Harvard University at Exeter Academy. He was graduated with an A. B. from Harvard in 1885, received an M.A. degree there in 1887 and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Halle, Germany, in 1892. He lectured at the University of Pennsylvania in 1893 and was an instructor at Harvard University in 1895.

Last year Dr. Hill represented this country at a statistical conference in Athens. Greece. Prominently identified with many organizations, Dr. Hill was a member of the American Economic Association. the American Statistical Association, serving the latter as president in 1919, and the International Statistical Institute. He also belonged to the Cosmos Club here, the Harvard Club of New York and the Harvard Club of Boston.

Active as Harvard Alumnus.

Dr. Hill had continually maintained an active interest in Harvard University, where his father was graduated in 1821 and his grandfather, the Rev. Dr. Ebenezer Hill, was graduated there in 1786. Dr. Hill was a cousin of the historian and diplomat, George Bancroft, who served as Secretary of the Navy under President Polk.

Active as a writer, Dr. Hill was author of the “English Income Tax,” 1899; “Women in Gainful Occupations,” 1929, and had contributed to economic journals and prepared census reports on illiteracy, child labor, marriage and divorce, etc. Dr. Hill formerly lived at No. 8 Logan Circle, until moving, a short while ago, to his Irving street home.

Funeral arrangements were to be announced later.

Source: Evening Star, Washington, D.C. December 13, 1938, page 10.

 

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Willian Lyon Mackenzie King
(b. Dec. 17, 1874 in Berlin, Ontario; d. July 22, 1950 at Kingsmere, Quebec )

A.B. University of Toronto, 1895; LL.B. University of Toronto, 1896; A.M. University of Toronto, 1897; A.M. Harvard University, 1898.

Harvard Ph.D. Thesis title (1909): Oriental immigration to Canada. Pub. in “Report of the royal commission appointed to inquire into the methods by which Oriental labourers have been induced to come to Canada,” Ottawa, Government Printing Bureau, 1908, pp. 13-81.

 

1921–1926, 1926–1930 and 1935–1948. Prime Minister of Canada.

Industry and humanity: a study in the principles underlying industrial reconstruction (Toronto, 1918) was King’s report to the Rockefeller Foundation.

Image Source: “William Lyon Mackenzie King” in Wikipedia.

 

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Herbert Camp Marshall
(b. March 8, 1871 at Zanesville, OH; d. May 22, 1953, Washington, DC)

A.B. Ohio Wesleyan University, 1891; A.B. Harvard University, 1894; A.M. Harvard University, 1895.

Harvard 1901 Ph.D. thesis title: The currency and the movement of prices in the United States from 1860 to 1880.

A Later Publication

Herbert C. Marshall, Specialist in Economic Research, Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Retail marketing of meats : agencies of distribution, methods of merchandising, and operating expenses and profits.  U. S. Department of Agriculture. Department Bulletin No. 1317 (June, 1925).

Obituary
The Times Recorder (Zanesville, OH)
May 25, 1953

Dr. Marshall Succumbs Friday

Dr. Herbert C. Marshall, 83, retired economist of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, died Friday at his home in Washington, D.C. He was a native of Muskingum county.

Dr. Marshall, a brother of Carrington T. Marshall of Columbus, a former chief justice of the Ohio Supreme court, and of Charles O. Marshall of Pleasant Valley, was born in Falls township and was a graduate of Zanesville high school.

He also was graduated from Ohio Wesleyan university and received several degrees from Harvard.

He spent his boyhood in Muskingum county but had not resided in the area since that time.

He practiced law in New York city until 1916, when he Joined the federal department of agriculture, a post he held until he retired in 1941.

He was a member of the New York Bar association, the American Economics society, Phi Beta Kappa, the Harvard club of Washington and the Cosmos club of Washington.

His wife, the former Mary Emma Griffith, died in 1925.

In addition to Carrington and Charles O. Marshall, he is survived by another brother, Leon C. Marshall, of Chevy Chase, Md., and a daughter, Miss Eleanor Marshall of Washington.

Funeral services will take place in Washington but burial will be in the Bethlehem cemetery between Pleasant Valley and the Newark road.

 

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Charles Whitney Mixter
(b. Sept. 23, 1869 in Chelsea, MA; d. Oct. 21, 1936 in Washington, D.C.)

A.B. Johns Hopkins University (Md.), 1892; A.M. Harvard University, 1893.

1897 Harvard Ph.D.

Thesis title: Overproduction and overaccumulation: a study in the history of economic theory.

Edited Work

John Rae. The Sociological Theory of Capital, being a complete reprint of the New Principles of Political Economy, 1834Edited with biographical sketch and notes by Charles Whitney Mixter, Ph.D., Professor of Political Economy in the University of Vermont. New York: Macmillan, 1905.

OBITUARY
The Burlington Free Press (Oct. 22, 1936), p. 14

Charles Whitney Mixter, for nine years a member of the University of Vermont faculty, died at a hospital in Washington, D. C., on Tuesday evening. [October 20]

Dr. Mixter was born in Chelsea, Mass., in 1867. He received his early education at Thayer Academy and Williston Seminary, and received his A.B. degree from John Hopkins University in 1892.

This was followed by graduate studies at Berlin, Goettingen and Harvard, from which he received his doctorate in 1897. Then followed a series of teaching positions: Assistant in economics at Harvard, 1897-98; Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., 1899-1900; instructor in economics, Harvard, 1901-1903; professor of economics, University of Vermont, 1903-1912.

Then Dr. Mixter served as efficiency expert for Towne and Yale at New Haven, Conn., and later for several manufacturing concerns in New Hampshire. For a year he was professor of economics at Clark University, and for a brief period he was an investigator in the service of the United States Chamber of Commerce.

For the last 13 years he had been connected with the tariff commission in Washington.

Professor Mixter had an unusually fertile mind, was an accomplished scholar in his special field, and widely read in related subjects. he became an enthusiastic student of scientific management introduced by the late Frederick W. Taylor and an active exponent of the system. He was a member of the leading economic organizations and a frequent contributor to economic journals.

He was a strong advocate of free trade. Interment was made in Plymouth, Mass.

 

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Simon Newton Dexter North
(b. Nov. 29, 1848 in Clinton, NY; d. Aug. 3, 1924 in Wilton, CT)

S. N. D. North. Old Greek: An Old Time Professor in an Old Fashioned College. New York, 1905.  The story of his father Edward North, Professor of Ancient Languages in Hamilton.

Obituary, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.)
August 4, 1924, p. 7.

SIMON D. NORTH, EX-OFFICIAL DIES
Former Director of Census Succumbs in Summer Home in Connecticut.

Word was received here last night of the death in Wilton, Conn., of S. N. D. North, former director of the United States Census Bureau and a resident of this city for more than 25 years. Mr. North was accustomed to going to Connecticut each summer, and, with his wife, Mrs. Lillian Comstock North, he was spending the summer there. He lived at 2852 Ontario road here.

Mr. North first came to this city as chief statistician of manufacturers for the twelfth census, and in 1903 he was made director of the census. He had been prominently connected with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, with headquarters here, since that organization’s foundation.

Born at Clinton, N. Y.

Simon Newton Dexter North was born in Clinton, N. Y., November 29. 1849. He was the son of Dr. Edward and Mrs. Mary F. Dexter North. He was graduated from Hamilton College in 1869 and received an LL.D. degree from Bowdoin in 1902 and later the same degree from the University of Illinois in 1904. He was married to Miss Lillian Sill Comstock of Rome. N. Y., July 8, 1875.

He was a prominent newspaper man and was well known in journalistic circles. He was editor of the Utica Morning Herald from 1869 to 1886 and the Albany (N. Y.) Express from 1886 to 1888. He also was prominently connected with business organizations, having been secretary of the National Association of Woolen Manufacturers at Boston and editor of that organization’s quarterly bulletin from 1888 to 1903. He also had served as a member of the United States Industrial Commission and as president of the New York State Associated Press.

Wrote Many Pamphlets.

Mr. North was a member of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Cosmos Club and the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity of New York. He also was editor of several historical magazines, of industrial publications and numerous memoirs and pamphlets. Outstanding among these were his works, “An American Textile Glossary” and “A History of American Wool Manufacture.” In addition to this, he wrote many pamphlets and delivered lectures on economics. He was for many years a member of the board of trustees of the National Geographic Society.

Besides his wife, he is survived by a son, Dexter North of the United States Tariff Commission, and two daughters, Mrs. Eloise C. Jenks of Philadelphia and Miss Gladys North. No definite arrangements have been made for the funeral, but interment will be in Clinton, N. Y.

 

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Randolph Paine
(b. 
Nov 3 November 1873 in Denton, TX; d. June 13, 1937 in Dallas TX)

Harvard A.B. 1898; Harvard LL.B. 1901

1900 U.S. Census.

Randolph Paine: Born Nov 1873 in Texas. Residing in Cambridge, Mass

Harvard Law School.  

Paine, Randolph, A.B. 1898, Denton, Tex. 32 Mellen St.

Source:  Harvard University Catalogue 1898/1899, p. 130.

1910 U.S. Census.

Randolph Paine:  36 years old, born in Texas. Attorney. Living in Dallas, Texas. Wife Maude

Obituary
Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, TX) June 14, 1937, p. 5

Former Denton Man Dies in Dallas

Randolph Paine, 63, veteran Dallas attorney, who was born in Denton in 1873, died in a Dallas hospital Sunday after a brief illness. He had retired from active law practice four years ago…Surviving Paine are his widow and three sons, Dr. John R. Paine of Minneapolis; Henry C. Paine and Roswell Paine, both of Dallas.

 

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Charles Edward Seaman
(b. Oct. 4, 1866 in Picton, Canada; d. Aug. 19, 1937 in Los Angeles)

A.B. 1892, Acadia. A.B. 1895 and A.M. 1896 Harvard.

University of Vermont

Officers of Instruction and Government, 1901. Professor of Political Economy and Constitutional Law. University of Vermont.  p. 33.

Instructor:  1900-01 of Political Economy and Constitutional Law. University of Vermont., p. 21

Source: General Catalogue of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College. 1791-1900.

 

Ariel vol. 17 (1904) University of Vermont yearbook

Charles Edward Seaman, A.M., 49 Williams St. Professor of Political Economy and Constitutional Law, 1901; and Dean of the Department of Commerce and Economics. Instructor of Political Economy and Constitutional Law, 1900-01.

Declaration of Intention for Naturalization.
Los Angeles County. 18 September 1908.

Charles Edward Seaman aged 41 years, occupation retired. Born in Picton, Canada on 4th day of October 1866. Residing at 2151 Harvard Blvd, Los Angeles.

Married into a wealthy Indiana family

Charles Edward Seaman and Florence Leyden DePauw married 10 Sept 1902 in Marion, Indiana.

From obituary [ Los Angeles Express, Apr. 2, 1913] for wife’s mother (Frances Marion DePauw, widow of Washington Charles DePauw who endowed DePauw university at Greencastle, Ind.): “Mrs. DePauw is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Charles Edward Seaman, 2151 Harvard boulevard, whose husband formerly held the chair of economics in the University of Vermont.

1913 Harvard University Alumni directory

Charles Edward Seaman, 2151 Harvard Blvd. Los Angels, CA.

Obituary
August 19, 1937. The Los Angeles Times, p. 42

Seaman. August 19, Charles Edward Seaman, beloved husband of Florence De Pauw Seaman and loving father of Mrs. William D. Witherspoon and Mrs. James H. Meriwether. Services at the residence, 2151 South Harvard Boulevard, Saturday at 2:30 p.m.

 

 

Categories
Johns Hopkins Seminar Speakers

Johns Hopkins. Economic Seminary. Participants, Presenters and Topics, 1926-27

 

The graduate economic seminary at Johns Hopkins University kept good records of the weekly sessions so that we know the names of all the presenters and their topics. I have added the academic backgrounds from the published Johns Hopkins Circular for graduate students either attending or presenting.

The economic seminary schedule for the following years have also been posted:

1903-1904
1904-1905

1922-1923
1923-1924
1924-1925
1925-1926
1926-1927

_____________

POLITICAL ECONOMY
The Economic Seminary

“The students following Political Economy as a principal subject for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy met weekly under the direction of Professors Hollander and Barnett. The work of the year centered in the investigation of representative forms of industrial development in the United States, and in the analysis of significant activities of American labor organizations…”

Source: The Johns Hopkins University Circular, Annual Report of the President of the Johns Hopkins University 1926-1927, (October 1927, Vol. 46, No. 385), p. 63.

_____________

MEMBERS OF THE ECONOMIC SEMINARY
1926-1927

[B = School of Business Economics; BE = Evening courses in Business Economics; E = School of Engineering; G = Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; SE = Social Economics; T = College for Teachers. The small “s” following a capital letter indicates a special student. Roman numeral indicates year of residence.]

Allen, George Levis. (G) I. S.B. Washington University 1905. Political Economy.

Allen, Paul Stephen (BE).

Adams, Beatrice. (SE) (G) II. A.B. Newcomb College, Tulane University 1925. Political Economy.

Black, Stanley.

Goodnow, Elinor Root (SE) (G) II. A.B. Vassar College 1913. Political Economy.

Hart, William Sebastian. (G) III. A.B. Johns Hopkins University 1924. Political Economy.

Helbing, Albert Theodore. (G) III. Ph.B. Denison University 1923. Political Economy.

Hodgkins, Alton Ross. (G) I. A.B. Bates College 1911; A.M. American University 1926. Political Economy.

Lampen, Dorothy. (BE) (Ts) (G) I. A.B. Carleton College 1926. Political Economy.

McCulloch, Mary W. C. (SE) (G) II. Political Economy.

McDaniel, J. Milton. (G) II. A.B. Johns Hopkins University 1924. Political Economy.

Morrissy, Elizabeth. (Gs) VI. A.B. Beloit College 1908; A.M. Johns Hopkins University 1922. Political Economy.

Murchison, Lucia. (SE) (GE) II. A.B. Agnes Scott College 1922. Political Economy.

Powlison, Keith Eon. (G) III. A.B. Columbia College 1922. Political Economy.

Rea, Leonard Owens. (G) III. A.B. Johns Hopkins University 1924. Political Economy.

Reid, Gertrude. (SE) (G) II. S.B. Elmira College 1925. Political Economy.

Schneider, David Moses. (G) III. E.E. University of Kieff [sic, Kyiv] 1921. A.M. Johns Hopkins University. Political Economy.

Snoke, M. Elsie S. (Mrs.) (SE)

Street, Helen Merryman. (SE) (G) II. A.B. Salem College 1921. Political Economy.

Taylor, Lyra. (SE) (G) II. LL.B. Victoria College, Wellington (New Zealand). Political Economy.

Van Hall, Madeleine W. (SE) (G) II. A.B. Radcliffe College 1925. Political Economy.

Walker, Mabel L. (S) (G) I. A.B. Barnard College 1926. Political Economy.

Wine, Helen. (SE) (G) II. A.B. Western Maryland College 1923. Political Economy.

Faculty

Dr. Professor Jacob Harry Hollander, Professor of Political Economy

Dr. George Ernest Barnett, Professor of Statistics

Dr. William O. Weyforth, Associate Professor of Political Economy

Dr. George Hilles Newline, Associate Professor of Accounting

Dr. Broadus Mitchell, Associate in Political Economy

Miss Theo Jacobs, Associate in Social Economics

Dr. George Heberton Evans, Jr., Instructor in Political Economy

 

Seminar Presentations 1926-27

October 6, 1926

The session’s first meeting of the Seminary was held on October 6. Members of the staff gave informal accounts of their summer activity.

October 13, 1926

Professor Hollander read a paper on “The Royal Commission on Indian Currency”.

October 20, 1926

Professor Barnett read a paper on “Family Allowances”.

October 22, 1926

Incident to the Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of the University, the Department of Political Economy held a reunion of alumni Friday afternoon, October 22. The meeting was held in the Seminary Room. Professor Hollander presided. He told in outline the history of the Seminary under the seeral professors and lecturers who have directed its work. He then called upon old members of the seminary to give their reminiscences of work in the department.

Following the meeting in the Seminary Room, Professor Barnett entertained the alumni of the Departments of Political Economy, History and Political Science at tea in the Historical Library. Those attending the reunion of the Department are as follows:

Victor Rosewater William A. Wetzel Alfred B. Morton
A. Herbert Fedder James W. Chapman William O. Weyforth
Joshua Bernhardt Broadus Mitchell G. H. Evans, Jr.
M. A. Mechanic A. M. Sakolski L. Owens Rea
G. H. Newlove Edward W. Bemis Dorothy Lampen
K. Morimoto David A. McCabe Albert T. Helbing
Robert Merrick L. F. Schmeckebie George L. Allen
B. W. Arnold Theo Jacobs J. Milton McDaniel
D. M. Schneider

At eight o’clock in the evening, fifty past members of the Seminary and members of their families were guests of Professor Hollander at dinner at his home. Several were present who had not found it possible to attend the afternoon meeting.

October 27, 1926

Dr. Mitchell read a paper on “Installment Buying”.

November 3, 1926

Mr. Powlison read a paper on “Substitution of Other Materials for Wood and Their Relation to the Lumber Industry”.

November 10, 1926

Mr. Helbing read a paper on “The Metal Trades Department of the American Federation of Labor”.

November 17, 1926

Mr. Schneider read a paper on “The Workers’ Party and the Furriers’ Union”.

November 24, 1926

Dr. Evans read a paper on “History of Preferred Stock”.

December 1, 1926

Miss Jacobs read a paper on “Trade Unions and Social Work”.

December 8, 1926

Dr. Newlove read a paper on “Graduate Schools of Business”.

December 15, 1926

Mr. Rea read a paper on “The Financial History of Baltimore Since 1900”.

Christmas Recess.

January 5, 1927

Professor Barnett read a paper on “The Validity of the Index Numbers of the Cost of Living”.

January 12, 1927

Miss Taylor read a paper on “Juvenile Courts in the United States”.

January 19, 1927

Miss Adams read a paper on “A Survey of the Hospitals of New Orleans”.

January 26, 1927

Mr. Schneider read a paper on “The Workers’ Party and the Miners’ Union”.

February 2, 1927

Miss Morrissy read a paper on “Unemployment Insurance in the Clothing Industry”.

February 9, 1927

Professor Hollander read a paper on “The Theory of a Universal Glut”.

February 16, 1927

Dr. Mitchell read a paper on “The Industrial Revolution in the South”.

February 23, 1927

Miss Lampen read a paper on “Land Reclamation in the West”.

March 2, 1927

Mr. Helbing read a paper on “The Union Label Trades Department and the Railway Employees Department of the American Federation of Labor”.

March 9, 1927

Miss Walker read a paper on “Finances of Public Libraries”.

March 16, 1927

Mr. Newman read a paper on “The Conception of Income”.

March 23, 1927

Dr. Weyforth read a paper on “The McFadden Bill”.

March 30, 1927

Mr. Hodgkins read a paper on “Baltimore’s Trade with South America”.

April 6, 1927

Professor Hollander read a paper on “John Bates Clark as an Economist”. Professor Barnett read a paper on “The Theory of the Entrepreneur”.

April 13, 1927

Mr. Newman read a paper on “Significance of Depreciation as Applied in the Administration of Federal Income Tax”.

April 20, 1927

No meeting. — Easter Recess

April 27, 1927

Miss Reid read a paper on “An Index of Dependency in Baltimore”.

May 4, 1927

Miss Streett read a paper on “Hospital Facilities for Negroes in Baltimore”.

May 11, 1927

Miss Van Hall read a paper on “Domestic Difficulty Cases of the Family Welfare Association”.

May 18, 1927

Miss Wine read a paper on “The Intake of the Family Welfare Association”. Miss Murchison read a paper on “A Study of Juvenile Gonorrheics in Baltimore”.

(last meeting)

Sources:   

Johns Hopkins University. Eisenhower Library, Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy, Series 1. Minutes of the Economic Seminary, 1892-1951. Folder “1922-1940”.

The Johns Hopkins University Circular, University Register, 1926-27, (February 1927, Vol. 46, No. 378). For full names and educational backgrounds of students in the seminar.

The Johns Hopkins University Circular, Annual Report of the President of the Johns Hopkins University 1926-1927, (October 1927, Vol. 46, No. 385), pp. 63-64. List of names and topics for seminar speakers without dates.

Image Source:  Jacob Harry Hollander (ca. 1918) from Johns Hopkins University, Sheridan Libraries’ graphic and pictorial collection.

 

Categories
Harvard Seminar Speakers Sociology Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Social Influences on Economic Actions, outline and readings. Musgrave and Spechler, 1973

 

The outline below for an ambitious Harvard course organized jointly by Richard Musgrave and Martin C. Spechler in 1973 comes from John Kenneth Galbraith’s papers. Galbraith was invited to give a lecture on institutional economics and a couple of pages of keywords in the folder would appear to confirm that Galbraith indeed lectured on the topic.

Biographical information for Richard Musgrave was provided a few blog postings ago. Martin Spechler too was a Harvard alumnus (indeed all three of his academic degrees come from that institution) and so I’ll first insert the chronology of his academic jobs so one can meet another economic Ph.D. alumnus. Spechler’s main research field was comparative economic systems complemented by a strong interest in the history of economics (see the link to his 2007 c.v. below). 

______________________

Martin C. Spechler (b. January 25, 1943, New York City)

A.B. in Social Studies (1964), A.M. in Economics (1967), Ph.D. in Economics (1971). Harvard

1965-1971. Harvard. Teaching fellow in economics and social studies.
1971-1973. Harvard. Lecturer on economics and on social studies.
1971-1974. Harvard. Head tutor in economics.
1973-1975. Harvard. Assistant professor of economics.
1974-1980. Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Department of Economics, lecturer.
1980-1982. Tel Aviv University. Department of Economics and School of General History. Senior lecturer (acting).
1982-1983. University of Washington, Seattle. School  of International Studies. Visiting associate professor.
1983-1984. University Iowa, Iowa City. Visiting associate professor.
1984-1986. Indiana University, Bloomington. Visiting associate professor of economics and research associate, West European Studies.
1986-1990. Indiana University, Indianapolis. Associate professor of economics
1990-. Indiana University, Purdue University, Indianapolis. Professor of economics.

Source:  Martin C. Spechler c.v. (December 2007).

______________________

ECONOMICS 2080
Tentative Lecture Schedule
[1973]

1. September 27 Spechler on Marxism
2. October 4 Unger on Weber
3. October 9 (Tues.) Galbraith on institutionalism
4. October 18 Duesenberry on consumer behavior
5. October 25 (?) on entrepreneurs
6. November 1 M. Roberts on government bureaucracy
7. November 8 J. Bower on corporate organization
8. November 15 Doeringer on workers and unions
9. November 20 (Tuesday) Bowles (?) on Marxian theory of the state
10. November 29 D. Bell (?) on elite theory
11. December 6 J. Q. Wilson on pluralism
12. December 13 Hirschman on trade policy
13. December 20 Musgrave on objectivity in economics and social science

 

Harvard University
Economics 2080

Social Influences on Economic Action
Fall Term, Thursday 4-6

Martin C. Spechler
Holyoke 833, Office; 10-12 (daily)

Richard Musgrave
Littauer 326

            Designed to be taken in one semester to be followed by a seminar, this course examines the social context of economic activity. It covers theoretic and applied writings in several significant traditions: Marxist, Weberian, institutionalist, and liberal. The list includes a more thorough reading of Marx and Weber than is usually available elsewhere and articles reporting contemporary research of a scale suitable for dissertations. Since certain topics of interest, such as stratification, are treated elsewhere in the Economics or allied departments, the range of topics is intentionally incomplete. But each topic includes competing paradigms and case studies making use of them. Each topic takes off from the limits of conventional economics to show that different assumptions and procedures show promise of answering important questions about economic life.

It is envisioned that the course will be taught during the first year in a conference format, with guest lecturers but with one or two Department members responsible for the entire course and always present in class. The course will culminate in the writing of a long (30-40 pages) case study, employing some or all of the theoretical perspectives which have been presented. There will also be a shorter paper early on to fix the theoretical perspectives in mind.

The course is intended for graduate students with some preparation in economics. To facilitate discussion, one might have to limit enrollment, though a diverse group would be highly desirable.

Works marked (*) are assumed as background; those marked (**) are supplementary.

A. The Content and Limits of Modern Economics: A Point of Departure

*Lord Robbins, An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (2nd ed. 1935).

Emile Gruenberg, “The Meaning of Scope and External Boundaries of Economics.”

Kenneth E. Boulding, “The Verifiability of Economic Images.” Both in Sherman Roy Krupp, The Structure of Economic Science. (Prentice Hall, 1966), pp. 129-165.

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Analytical Economics (Harvard University Press, 1966), Part I (especially pp. 92-129).

B. Three Social Perspectives on Economic Action

What are the hallmarks of “modern” — now misleadingly termed “Western” — society? What changes in productive relations, in ethos, and in political arrangements favored its development? This section examines in depth three major interdisciplinary systems which undertake to define, explain, and analyze the working of modern society, particularly the limits placed on the market by social forces.

Week 1 (September 27) Marxism

Karl Marx, “Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy”

________, “Estranged Labor”

________, “Private Property and Communism”

________, “The Power of Money in Bourgeois Society”

________, “The German Ideology”, Part I

________, “Wage Labor and Capital”

________, “Capital”, Vol. 1 (selections) all in The Marx-Engels Reader (ed. By Robert C. Tucker), Norton Publ., pp. 306 [30-36 intended?], 56-83, 110-164, 167-317, 577-588.

Friedrich Engels, “Letters on Historical Materialism” in Tucker, ed., pp. 640-651 and 661-664.  OR

Ernest Mandel, Marxist Economic Theory, Vol. I, chapters 5, 11; Vol. II, 12-14.

Week 2 (October 4) Weber

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, entire.

________, The Religion of China, IV, V, and VIII.

________, *General Economic History, Part IV

“Power, Capitalism and Rural Society in Germany,” and “National Character and the Junkers,” all in Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, pp. 159-195, 363-395.

Week 3 (October 11) Institutionalism

Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, in Max Lerner, The Portable Veblen (Viking pb) chapters IV, VI.

________, “On the Merits of Borrowing,” from Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution, pp. 349-363 in M. Lerner, The Portable Veblen, op. cit.

________, The Theory of Business Enterprise, chapters III, IV, VII.

John Kenneth Galbraith, Economics and the Public Purpose (Houghton-Mifflin, 1973), chapters V, IX-XIV, and XIX.

Possible paper topics (illustrative only) for section B. Due October 18:

Paper: What do Marxist, Weberian, and Historical-institutional theories have to say about kinds of modern economies which have developed in the world?

**England, 1642-1851

David Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, introduction and chapter 1.

Barrington, Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, chapters I and VI.

E.J. Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire, chapters 1-7.

**Japan and China Compared

M. J. Levy, “Contrasting Factors in the Modernization of China and Japan,” in Simon Kuznets, Economic Growth: Brazil, India, Japan (Duke, 1955), pp. 496-536.

Henry Rosovsky, “Japan’s Transition to Modern Economic Growth, 1868-1885,” in Henry Rosovsky (ed.) Industrialization in Two Systems: Essays in Honor of Alexander Gerschenkron (Wiley, 1966). Bobbs-Merrill Reprint No. Econom-264.

Thomas C. Smith, “Japan’s Aristocratic Revolution,” Yale Review V (50), 1960-61, pp. 370-83, reprinted in R. Bendix and S.M. Lipset, Class, Status and Power (2nd ed.), pp. 135-40. The samurai class as modernizers.

Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins, op. cit., IV, V, VIII, IX. Particular attention to feudal land patterns as an obstacle to economic and political modernization.

or R.H. Tawney, Land and Labour in China (Octagon, 1964)

or Johannes Hirschmeier, The Origins of Entrepreneurship in Meiji Japan (Harvard, 1964).

**Indonesia, 1945-

Clifford Geertz, Peddlers and Princes (Chicago, 1963). An excellent example of economic anthropology in the Weberian tradition.
[Other suggestions and bibliography available from the instructors.]

C. How do Consumers, Workers, and Entrepreneurs form their Preferences for Market Activities?

This section examines the empirical evidence to date on the relative role of material incentives and job characteristics on productivity, on the effects of advertising on consumer attitudes, and on the relationship between historical experience and decisions about the future.

Week 4 (October 18) Consumer Behavior

*Robert Ferber, “Research on Household Behavior,” American Economic Review, Vol. 52 (1962), pp. 19-63. Reprinted in A.S.C. Ehrenburg and F.G. Pyatt, Consumer Behavior (Penguin, 1971).

*Karl Marx, “Alienated Labor,” and “Needs, Production, and the Division of Labor,” from Early Writings, ed. J. B. Bottomore, pp. 120-134.

*James S. Duesenberry, Income, Saving, and the Theory of Consumer Behavior, chapters I-IV.

J.K. Galbraith, The Affluent Society, (Revised edition), chapter 11.

Lester Telser, “Advertising and Cigarettes,” Journal of Political Economy (October, 1962), pp. 471-99).

Tony McGuiness and Keith Cowling, “Advertising and the Aggregate Demand for Cigarettes: An Empirical Analysis of a U.K. Market,” paper no. 31, Centre for Industrial Economic and Business Research, University of Warwick, England. On reserve in Littauer.

Lester D. Taylor and Daniel Weiserbs, “Advertising and the Aggregate Production Function,” American Economic Review, (September 1972), pp. 642-55.

George Katona, Burkhard Strumpel and Ernest Zahn, Aspirations and Affluence (McGraw-Hill, 1971), chapters 6-12. The effects and causes of consumer attitudes in the United States and Western Europe.

Week 5 (October 25) Entrepreneurs

Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, (Harper Torchbook, 1962), chapter XI-XIV.

Thomas C. Cochran, “Cultural Factors in Economic Growth,” and David Landes, “French Business and the Business Man: a Social and Cultural Analysis,” in Hugh G.J. Aitken, Explorations in Enterprise (Harvard University Press, 1965), pp, 122-38, 184-209.

Alexander Gerschenkron, “Social Attitudes, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development,” in Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Harvard, 1962), pp. 52-71. [note: workers’ attitudes will be discussed in week 8.]

D. How Do Large Organizations Behave?

The opportunities created by market power and the size of the hierarchy in modern economic bureaucracies probably allowed behavior far from the competitive norm. What are the elements of structure, control, and attitudes which influence corporate behavior? The readings include the Weberian, and the “bureaucratic politics” points of view; and the case comparisons include the U.S. Navy, French enterprise, the Society of Jesus, the Soviet industrial planning system, and the most important American public enterprise.

Week 6 (November 1) Government Bureaucracy

Max Weber, “Bureaucracy,” in Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber, pp. 196-244.

Charles Lindblom, “The Politics of Muddling Through,” Bobbs-Merrill Reprint, Public Administration Review XIX (Spring, 1959), pp.79-88: why strict means-end rationality is impossible in government bureaucracies.

A. Wildavsky, The Politics of the Budgetary Process, (Little, Brown, 1964) chapter 2.

Stanley Surrey, “Congress and the Tax Lobbyist: How Tax Provisions Get Enacted,” Harvard Law Review (1957), pp. 1145-70.

Sandford F. Borins, “The Political Economy of ‘The Fed,’” Public Policy (Spring, 1972), pp. 175-98.

Sanford Weiner, “Resource Allocation in Basic Research and Organizational Design,” Public Policy (Spring, 1972), pp. 227-55.

Benjamin Ward, The Socialist Economy: A Study of Organizational Alternatives, chapters 5 and 6.

The latter considers whether socialization, such as occurs in the Jesuits and the Navy, would overcome some of the control anomalies which have frustrated Soviet planning.

**Joseph Berliner, Factory and Manager in the U.S.S.R. (Harvard, 1957); a classic on informal organizations versus system goals.

Week 7 (November 8) Corporate Organization

A Harvard Business School case will be distributed for discussion.

*R.H. Coase, “The Nature of the Firm,” Economica, (1937) reprinted in G. J. Stigler and Kenneth Boulding,Readings in Price Theory (AEA, 1952), pp. 331-351.

Armen A. Alchian and Harold Demsetz, “Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization,” American Economic Review (December, 1972), pp. 777-95.

Philip Selznick, Leadership in Administration (Row Peterson, 1957), chapter 4.

David Granick, Managerial Comparisons of Four Developed Countries (MIT, 1972), chapters 1-5, 9-13.

**Alfred Chandler, Jr. Strategy and Structure, chapters 1-3, 5-7, conclusion.

**Philip Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots (Harper pb, 1966).

**Michelle Crozier, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon (Phoenix pb, 1964).

**Alfred Chandler. Pierre Dupont and the Modern Corporation.

Joseph L. Bower, “The Amoral Organization,” in R. Marris and E. G. Mesthene, Technology, the Corporation, and the State (forthcoming) or Harvard Business School 4-372-285.

Week 8 (November 15) Workers and Unions

Victor Vroom,”Industrial Social Psychology,” in Gardner B. Lindzey and Elliott Aronson, eds., The Handbook of Social Psychology, Vol. V. (2nd ed.), 1969, pp. 196-248.

Work in America, report of a Special Task Force to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (MIT Press, 1973), chapters 1, 2, 4, 5.
Mancur Olsen, Logic of Collective Goods (paperback, rev. ed., 1971), chapter III, pp. 66-97.

Suggested:

**John Goldthorpe et al., The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure, Cambridge University Press, 1969, pb).

**Andre Gorz, A Strategy for Labor (Beacon pb., 1968), chapter 4.
Leonard Goodwin, Do the Poor Want to Work? (Brookings, 1972).

E. Does Economic Power Give Rise to Political Power?

            Marxist, elite and pluralist theorists all answer differently as to under what circumstances market power and material privilege are translated into political power and what sorts of groups (classes, corporations, trade associations, ideological coalitions, parties) contend for ascendancy. The readings examine such mechanisms as control of mass media, the common training and outlook of American and European elites, pressure group influence on Congressional elections, and the weakening of countervailing interests.

*Otto Eckstein, Public Finance (2nd ed.), chapters 1-2.

Week 9 (November 20, Tuesday) Marxian Theory of the State

Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society (Basic Books), entire.

Week 10 (November 29) Elite Theory

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, chapters 1-13.

G. William Domhoff, Who Rules America? (Spectrum pb. 1967), 1-5, 7.

Week 11 (December 6) Pluralism

Arnold M. Rose, The Power Structure, (Oxford pb, 1967), pp. 1-10, 15-24, 26-39, 70-78, 89-127, 131-133.

**J.K. Galbraith, The New Industrial State, chapters I-IX, XXV, and XXXV: A strong statement of the technological impetus towards convergence.

**Walter Adams, “The Military-Industrial Complex and the New Industrial State,” American Economic Review (May, 1968), pp. 652-665.

Stanley Lieberson, “An Empirical Study of Military-Industrial Linkages,” American Journal of Sociology, (1971), pp. 562-82.

George J. Stigler, “The Theory of Economic Regulation,” Bell Journal of Economic and Manag. Sci., (Spring, 1971), pp. 3-17.

Joseph C. Palamountain, Jr., The Politics of Distribution (Harvard University Press, 1955), II, IV, VII, VIII.

J.Q. Wilson, “Politics of Business Regulation” (revised ed.), mimeographed.

Week 12 (December 13) Trade Policy

Raymond A. Bauer, Ithiel de Sola Pool, and Lewis Anthony Dexter, American Business and Public Policy, The Politics of Foreign Trade (Aldine, 2nded., 1972), Parts II, IV-VI.

F. Validation of Theories about Economic Action

Week 13 (December 20) Objectivity in Economics and Social Science

*Milton Friedman, “The Methodology of Positive Economics.”

Max Weber, “The Meaning of ‘Ethical Neutrality’ in Sociology and Economics,” and “’Objectivity’ in Social Science and Social Policy,” in Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences (Free Press, 1949), pp. 1-112.

Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge Cambridge University Press pb. (Essays by T.S. Kuhn, S.E. Toulmin, K.R. Popper, and I. Lakatos), pp. 1-24, 39-59, 91-196.

Term papers due by January 17.

SourceJohn Kenneth Galbraith Personal Papers. Series 5 Harvard University File, 1949-1990, Box 521, Folder “[courses]: Economics 280: Musgrave Lecture. 9 October 1973”.

Image Source: Martin C. Spechler from the Department of Economics webpage, Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis archived at the Wayback Machine (February 18, 2003).

 

 

Categories
Columbia Seminar Speakers Socialism Undergraduate

Columbia. Socialist speakers and undergraduate debates on socialism, 1910-11

 

In the current political times younger citizens see the pathology of centrally-planned, authoritarian socialism à la Stalin as being as distant as the pathology of authoritarian manifestations of capitalism.  “Democratic socialism” has become again a rallying cry, a progressive, small-d “democratic” alternative to the mixed capitalist economy status quo. This is not unlike the debate about socialism on campus and at the ballot box in the years before the first world war. With this in mind, I thought it would be interesting to trawl through the Columbia Spectator for a few years (1910-11) to read articles in which the word “socialism” appears. These articles can be read below.

My own favorite item in this post is the description of an invited speaker, a graduate of Barnard College’s (first) class of 1893,  the suffragette  Jessica Garretson (later “Finch” and then “Cosgrave”), as “the woman of Carnegie Hall fame who is responsible for the statement that ‘Rich girls turn to Socialism as flowers to the sun'”–not quite an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backstory but times have changed.

______________________

SOCIALISM LECTURE FRIDAY INSTEAD

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 141, 6 April 1910, p. 2.

Instead of lecturing yesterday as Spectator announced he would, Mr. Eugene V. Debs will talk Friday. As candidate of the Socialist Party for President in 1908, Mr. Debs is well fitted for his subject, Socialism. Seats in Earl Hall will be reserved until 4 o’clock, after which the public will be admitted.

______________________

DEBS CHAMPIONS SOCIALISM
Twelve Hundred People Greet Famous Socialist at Lecture in Horace Mann Auditorium

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 144, 9 April 1910, pp. 1,5.

Before the largest audience that has listened to a lecture at Columbia University since Professor James of Harvard delivered the first of his famous lectures on pragmatism and before the most enthusiastic audience that has crowded a Columbia lecture room in many a day, Eugene V. Debs three times candidate for President of the United States on the Socialist Ticket spoke yesterday for an hour and a half on the work to which he has dedicated his life —Socialism.

The lecture was scheduled to take place in Earl Hall, but long before 4 o’clock it became evident that the auditorium in that building would be altogether too small. It was crowded by half past three. At the last moment, therefore, the lecture was changed to the Horace Mann Auditorium which seats between one thousand and twelve hundred people. It was none too large. When Mr. Debs entered, promptly at 4 o’clock, there was scarcely a seat to be had. His entrance was greeted with an enthusiastic burst of applause that lasted several minutes, and which was renewed a moment later, when, after being introduced by G. T. Hersch ’10L, president of the Socialist Society, the speaker rose to begin his address. Mr. Debs presents a striking figure—tall with a large, narrow very bald head, keen eyes and long, bony arms and fingers which he uses with great effect. His simplicity and sincerity were apparent from the outset.

The speech itself was a memorable one, and one which those who heard it will not soon forget. Mr. Debs began, almost academically with an account of Industrial Era which succeeded the Age of Feudalism, but presently warming to his subject he swept on, carrying with him an audience that listened attentively to every word. Although the speech was essentially a serious one and reached at times depths of pathos hard to surpass, it was relieved ever and again by touches of a dry, quaint humour of which Mr. Debs is a master —a humour so keen that it not only caused the audience to laugh but provoked several times spontaneous bursts of applause.

“Socialism,” said Mr. Debs, “is a scientific analysis of present and past conditions, and a forecast of what, from those conditions, is bound to come. We are not endeavoring to foist Socialism on Society, and we are merely preparing it for its peaceful entrance.” The account of present day conditions was forceful without oratory. Debs told of having seen father carrying the dinner pail to the child who worked in the factory, because the present system of production demands cheap labor. Coming from a man who at thirteen was working on a railroad, and at sixteen was firing a freight engine, the facts seemed all the more forceful.

The Socialist leader related his experience with the “Four Hundred,” some of whom he once had occasion to address. “They wanted to see what kind of an animal I was,” he said. I had great notoriety at the time —and they had great curiosity. They were all attired in evening dress. The ladies wore what, for some mysterious reason, they called full dress. As I looked into their empty faces, I thought, ‘How artificial they seem.’ If you would have perfect social standing you must be useless.”

After a summary of the unfavorable conditions with which the workingman is now oppressed, including child labor, disinterestedness of the employer, and the prevalent desire for cheap labor, Mr. Debs outlined the hopes of Socialism. Under this system he declared that every man and woman would be given the opportunity to work for the common good. Education and cultivation of the arts would be taken up by every individual. This would be possible because by co-operation instead of competition, the child would not be forced to work, and the workingman not ground under the heel of the individual capitalist. The exploitation of the minority at the expense of the majority would thus give place, by a common awakening, to a state where co-operation, instead of competition would be an economic rule.

Most interesting was the speaker’s comparison of the Socialists of today with the men who led the agitation for the American Revolution. “Undesirable Citizens,” then, all of them—Samuel Adams, the arch incendiary—Tom Paine, vilified as a destroyer of Society —Jefferson, branded as a traitor. “I wonder,” said the speaker, “if the aristocratic Daughters of the Revolution could by some miracle come face to face with their revered forefathers as they were in their own time, whether they would not disown them. Those visionary agitators were disreputable then. They are only respectable now because they are dead, and because the world moved up to where they stood. John Brown and the other abolitionists he cited as a further example—as people with a vision of better things who stood up for their convictions and were despised in their generation. “When John Brown was hung they called him a monster, ten years later he was a fanatic, ten years more and he was misjudged, and now only recently the State bought the old John Brown homestead and the Governor, on the occasion of its dedication, said that ‘the spot where his dust reposes is the most sacred in this commonwealth.'”

“One word,” said Mr. Debs, “I want to leave with you young men and women. It is this, Nothing is more glorious than to stand up for convictions, when the world disagrees with you. If your last friend deserts you, you will be in better company than you were before.”

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DEBATING IN CLASSROOM
Novel System to be Inaugurated Under Auspices of Barnard Literary Association

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 144, 9 April 1910, p. 1.

Barnard Literary Association in [col]laboration with Dr. Agger of the Economics Department has formulated a plan of compulsory participation in debating; this experiment to become immediately effective in certain economics classes. In conjunction with Drs. Agger and Mussey, the project has been evolved, including all members taking Economics 2. The system will work as follows: A subject for debate will be chosen, probably on some aspect of socialism. Then during class hours every member of the class will have to speak extemporaneously for five minutes on the subject selected. The individual men will not be told beforehand on what side they will talk, so the speeches will be entirely impromptu. These five minute talks will be so to speak, the preliminaries. All the members of the class will act as judges, and at the conclusion of the trials they will vote for the four best men to comprise the team.

This arrangement will be conducted in both, Dr. Aggers and Dr. Mussey’s classes and after each section has chosen its team, a formal debate will be held, probably in Earl Hall. The whole affair will be conducted under the auspices of Barnard Literary Association. A committee on arrangements has been appointed, consisting of C.J.W. Meisel ’11, R.R. Stewart ’11, R.C. Ingalls ’12, and E.W. Stone ’11, ex-officio. To further stimulate student interest, the society has made appropriations in order to present prizes to the winning team.

Dr. Agger is very enthusiastic about the new plan, and predicts great results for the future. It is a most happy circumstance that a debating society should take charge of this undertaking, and by the co-operation of faculty and the undergraduates, student interest in debating cannot fail to be evoked. A new era for debating is dawning. If this experiment proves as successful as it is expected to, it will undoubtedly be extended to other courses in economics and politics, and will become a permanent feature of the curriculum.

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INTERSECTION DEBATE SOON
Both Teams Selected Yesterday

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 164, 3 May 1910, p. 1.

Arrangements for the intersection debate which is being conducted by the Barnard Literary Association, are rapidly progressing. The subject, as the poster on the society’s bulletin board in Hamilton Hall announces, is Socialism.

Yesterday, Dr. Agger’s morning and afternoon sections each selected a team. Ten men spoke before each class and five were chosen by vote of the class. The morning section picked the following men: L.K. Frank ’12, W.M. Delerick ’12, S.R. Gerstein ’11, C.J.W. Meisel ’11, W.W. Pettit (Pg), while the other section is to be represented by I.[?] J. Levinson ’12, W.A. Scott ’11, S.M. Strassburger ’11, W. MacRossie ’11, J. Levy ’11. All these men must meet in 205 West Hall at 11:55 today in order to choose sides for the semi-finals to be held tomorrow. The team that wins will debate the same subject with Professor Mussey’s section.

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DO WE WANT SOCIALISM?
Students in Economics 2 to Decide Question in Debate Held Under Auspices of Barnard Lit.

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIII, Number 168, 7 May 1910, p. 3.

Those who are interested in Economics will have an excellent opportunity of hearing a debate on Socialism next Monday at 3 p.m. in 301 Hamilton Hall. The question reads, “Resolved that the common ownership of all the means of production will promote social welfare.” The debaters are all members of the classes in Economics 2. As the course is a very popular one, it is given in three sections, two of which are conducted by Dr. Agger and the other by Professor Mussey. Last Monday Dr. Agger’s sections held their preliminaries and each selected a team. On Wednesday these two teams met, and the judges unanimously decided in favor of the negative team, which consisted of S. M. Strasburger ’11, G. W. Scott ’11, and S. J. Levinson ’12, of the afternoon section. The team representing the morning section was composed of the following men: L. K. Frank ’12, S. R. Gerstein ’11, W. W. Pettit (T. C.), and W. M. Dederick ’12. The decision was based upon the preparation shown, and skill in delivery. The judges also selected Strassburger, Pettit and Levinson as the best speakers, and these men will represent Dr. Agger’s sections against Professor Mussey’s next Monday. Professor Mussey’s section has also chosen a team consisting of S. I. Fried ’12, E. V. Broderick ’12, and W. S. Dakin (T. C.)

The debate next Monday promises to be one of the most interesting ever heard on the Campus. It is the first time that debate has ever been introduced into the class-room as part of the work. The planning, and the making of arrangements for this debate was done by Barnard Literary Association in collaboration with Professor Mussey and Dr. Agger. The members of the winning team are to receive appropriate prizes donated by the association. An invitation to be present has been extended to the students taking Economics 2, in Barnard College. The debate will be open to any one in the University.

Not only have the men on the teams shown unusual interest in the contest but all the men in the various sections are very enthusiastic as to the undertaking. Professor Beard of the Politics Department thinks the scheme is an admirable one, and is anxious to extend it to his field. It may also be possible to introduce class-room debate into the various courses in Philosophy.

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SOCIALISTS RESUSCITATED
Open Meetings Planned

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 16, 15 October 1910, p. 6.

Earl Hall yesterday afternoon was the scene of the Socialist Club’s meeting.

The work for the present year was decided upon, and it was planned to hold a series of open meetings, similar to those of last year, which were addressed by such men as Charles Edward Russell, the present Socialist candidate for Governor, Lincoln Steffens and Eugene V. Debs. There will also be the regular club meetings, with speakers of equally independent ideas but of less wide reputation.

The study and discussion of the principles of Socialism necessary for the formation of an intelligent opinion upon this world-wide movement, will also be continued in the hope that the student body’s interest in public affairs may not only be stimulated, but also educated

The next meeting of the club will be on Wednesday, October 19, at 4:15 p m., in room A, Earl Hall. All those who are interested in the radical political thought of the present day are cordially invited to co-operate with the club, while those who are interested it the investigation of social problems are urged to become members.

Mrs. Florence Kelly, in all probability, will speak in the auditorium of Earl Hall on Thursday, November 10.

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INSTRUCTION IN SOCIALISM
Series of Essays Planned

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 20, 20 October 1910, p. 1.

Something which is both novel and valuable was adopted by the Socialist Club at its meeting yesterday afternoon. This is a scheme for instructing the members in the fundamental principles of Socialism by having a graded series of essays read at the respective meetings.

Plans were also laid to have Mr. Russel, the Socialist Gubernatorial candidate make a campaign speech at the University sometime before election day and also to get Mrs. Finch up on the Campus. Mrs. Finch is the woman of Carnegie Hall fame who is responsible for the statement that “Rich girls turn to Socialism as flowers to the sun.”

On account of the unavoidable detention of N. Levey ’10L, who was to have read a paper entitled “The Original Intention of the Framers of the Constitution,” J. H. Henle ’12 spoke for a short time on the same topic with which he was thoroughly familiar. He pointed out that, while the Radicals in the colonies dictated the Declaration of Independence, it was the Conservatives who controlled the Constitutional Convention. He said in part: “Authentic reports show that behind closed doors, under a pledge of secrecy, they deliberately planned to protect the wealthy and those of higher understanding. Hamilton, in James-fashion, said in convention, that the constitution proposed would be almost impossible of amendment and, in the Federalist papers, that it was easy of amendment. The Supreme Court was effectively put in absolute control by an arbitory vetoing power and the entire government was made as indirect as it could possibly be—the House of Representatives being the only rope thrown out to the Radicals. The main point of interest is the striking contrast between the unpublished speeches of all the members in the convention with the stated views of the same men in the Federalist papers.”

An open discussion followed. The next meeting of the club will be in Earl Hall, room L, on Friday, October 28.

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About Jessica Garretson Finch

Source: Webpage History of Finch College

JESSICA GARRETSON earned her B.A. as one of the seven women in Barnard College’s first graduating class in 1893. Looking back on the four years she studied there, she said she considered them a waste of time, and observed that her college education had prepared her for one thing – to be a tutor in Greek! After marrying James Finch and receiving her law degree from New York University in the same month that she gave birth to a daughter, she decided to establish a post-secondary school for women that was “different,” and she did! The Finch School opened in 1900 with 13 students. Its curriculum was oriented toward the practical, with as many workshops, studios and practice rooms as classrooms. As enrollment grew, additional room was needed, and by 1904, with grants she had received and a hefty mortgage she arranged for the construction of the building on 78th Street known to many Finch women as the Academic Building. There, in addition to an academic faculty, most of whom were visiting professors from Columbia University, were actors from the New York stage, Seventh Avenue fashion designers, performing instrumentalists, singers, poets and politicians.

MEANWHILE, MRS. FINCH BECAME MRS. [John O’Hara Cosgrave in 1913] COSGRAVE. Her first marriage ended in divorce soon after the turn of the century. In 1913 she married the distinguished journalist, John O’Hare Cosgrave, who proposed to her during the intermission of a Carnegie Hall concert.

PREPARATION FOR THE “RECURRENT CAREER” was at the heart of Jessica Cosgrave’s educational philosophy, and along with her intense interest in “current events” (a term she coined), became the inspiration for the Finch curriculum. Women’s lives, she said, are unlike men’s lives; women’s lives have distinct phases. Therefore, a woman should be in school until she is 22; for the next three or four years she should launch into the first phase of her career; in her mid twenties she will marry, put aside her career and devote her energies to raising a family, four children was the ideal number. At about age 40, with her children in school, a woman should resume her career and, Mrs. Cosgrave advised, seriously consider entering politics.

IN ADDITION TO RUNNING WHAT WAS THEN TERMED “a fashionable school for girls,” Jessica Cosgrave worked energetically from 1900 on for two “causes”; Women’s Suffrage and Socialism. She was quoted in a NEW YORKER magazine “Profile” by Angelica Gibbons in 1946 as saying, “If there is any sensation more exquisite than walking up Fifth Avenue to music in a parade for an unpopular cause, I don’t know what it is.” She said that in one of the suffrage parades “People on the sidelines become impassioned to the point of throwing rotten vegetables and eggs at the ladies as they passed.” Angelica Gibbs goes on to note that this experience proved so invigorating to Jessica Cosgrave that after marching, most of the way up Fifth Avenue, she dropped out of line, took a cab back to the starting point, and “hoofed it all the way up again with another contingent.”

JESSICA COSGRAVE’S “SOCIALISM” may seem a bit incongruous considering how many of the young women from all parts of the United States, South America, Europe and Asia attending Finch came from wealthy families. In 1911, asked about her membership in the Socialist Party and the appearance as speakers at the Finch School of Upton Sinclair, Walter Lippman and other “radicals,” Mrs. Cosgrave said: “My chief object is to awaken Social Consciousness in the girls. I want my graduates to become powers in their communities, not idle fashionable women. I don’t teach these young girls actual Socialism, but Social Activism.” Thirty-five years later, in 1946, when a Finch student interviewed Mrs. Cosgrave, and asked about her politics, she said she stood “Just a bit left of center”!

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SOCIALISTIC LECTURE TODAY
Charles Edward Russell Socialist Candidate for Governor to Speak In Havemeyer

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 35, 7 November 1910, p. 8.

Columbia men will have an unusual opportunity this afternoon to hear in interesting man talk about an interesting subject. Mr. Charles Edward Russell, the author and magazine writer who is running for Governor of this State on the Socialist ticket will talk to Columbia men about socialism as a remedy for the evils from which New York is suffering. The lecture will be delivered in 309 Havemeyer, at 4 o’clock and will be open to the public.

Mr. Russell did general reporting for a number of New York papers, including the Herald, and vas then sent all over the country on special articles for the Sunday papers. For a time he was managing editor of the Hearst newspapers in Chicago. Then he began writing for the magazines. His magazine writing has taken the form of vigorous protests against the sort of political corruption and economic injustice that he saw from the inside during his newspaper days. He has become a “muckraker,” and has recently said that he “intends to keep on raking muck until somebody removes the muck.”

Mr. Russell has written quite a number of books, including “Lawless Wealth,” [1908] “Soldiers of the Common Good,” [article series most of which revised and published in]  “The Uprising of the Many,” [1907] “The Heart of the Railway Problem,” “A Life of Chatterton,” [1908] and “Why I am a Socialist,” [1910] and he is now busy on a life of Wendell Phillips [1914].

This is the first time he has run for political office as a Socialist. The renewed interest in socialism all over the country, and the recent Socialist victory in Milwaukee, made it probable that Mr. Russell will poll a large vote tomorrow.

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ECONOMISTS TO HEAR NOTED SOCIALIST

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 106, 24 February 1911, p. 2.

Mr. John Spargo will deliver the address at the meeting of the Graduate Economics Club tonight. The subject of his talk is, “The Wider Aspects of Socialism.” Mr. Spargo is a well-known socialist. The meeting will be held in 510 Kent, at 8 tonight. All members and guests are requested to be on hand promptly. The club is made up of graduate students who are working for a Ph. D.

Following are other lectures scheduled:

Friday, March 10: Henry George’s Theory of Land Rent and the Single Tax. Paper by Mr. I. S. Adlerblum.

Friday, March 24: A detailed description and criticism of the provisions of Senator Aldrich’s Plan for Banking Reform in the United States. Paper by Mr. Oswald Knauth.

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DISCUSSION OF SOCIALISM
Graduate Economics Club

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 107, 25 February 1911, p. 1.

Mr. John Spargo the noted author and lecturer addressed the meeting of the Graduate Economics Club last evening in Kent Hall. About seventy-five members and guests were present. The lecture was followed by an informal discussion in which Mr. Spargo declared himself ready to answer any questions put to him.

The subject of Mr. Spargo’s lecture was in general socialism, but he confined himself for the most part to a consideration of the theories of Marx, Engel, and Riccardo. He said it was not from a man’s enemies but from his friends that the most was to be feared. In the case of these three economists their over enthusiastic followers had been responsible for much misrepresentation. A single bald statement, in a great many cases, had been made a slogan while all that qualified it had been forgotten.

From the statement of abstract theories Mr. Spargo went on to a consideration of the spread of socialism throughout the country and particularly in the West. “The State of Oklahoma,” he said, “has the greatest number of socialists in proportion to the population, of any state in the Union.” He accounted for this chiefly by the fact that those people who had emigrated to the West and had been persevering enough to face the hardships of pioneering were of a more liberal and unbiased turn of mind than the conservative Easterners. Socialism he said in part, offers them a theory of Social Progress, A Social Ideal, and not only that but an organized movement for the realization of that Ideal which appeals to their Western intellects.

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SOCIALISTS TO STUDY SOCIALISM

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LIV, Number 108, 27 February 1911, p. 5.

The Socialist Club is planning to study socialism in a systematic way. Beginning with the next meeting, definite chapters in Mr. Edmund Kelly’s “Twentieth Century Socialism” will be assigned to the members for study. At succeeding meetings these will be discussed by the members and specially invited guests. President Trimble speaks very enthusiastically of the plan and considers this an excellent opportunity for everyone interested in socialism to increase their knowledge of the arguments for and against it.

* * * * * * * * * *

[Economics in the Rear-view Mirror attaches the following notes on Edmund Kelly:]

Kelly, Edmond (1851-1909). Educated at Columbia [Class of 1870?] and at Cambridge. “Lecturer on Municipal Government at Columbia University”. He had founded the City Club and the subsidiary Good Government Clubs. Political and professional activities in New York and in Paris.

Kelly, Edmond. Evolution and Effort and their Relation to Religion and Politics. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1895.

____________. Government or Human EvolutionVol. I Justice. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1900.

____________. Government or Human Evolution.Vol. II Individualism and Collectivism. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1901.

____________. A Practical Programme for Working Men. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1906.

____________. The Unemployables. London: P.S. King & Son, 1907.

____________. The Elimination of the Tramp by the Introduction into America of the Labour Colony System already proved Effective in Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland, with the Modifications thereof Necessary to adapt this System to American Conditions. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908.

____________. Twentieth Century Socialism. What it is not; What it is; How it may comeNew York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1911. [Forward by Franklin H. Giddings]

“Aware that he had not long to live, Mr. Kelly hastened to finish the first draft of the book [Twentieth Century Socialism], and indeed he survived that completion only two weeks. He knew that considerable editorial work was needed, and this he entrusted to Mrs. Florence Kelley, author of “Some Ethical Gains through Legislation” and translator of Marx’ “Discourse on Free Trade,” and of Friedrich Engels’s work on the “Condition of the Working Class in England.” She undertook and has fulfilled this trust, and has been aided throughout by the untiring labors of Shaun Kelly, the author’s son.”  Pp. xiv and xv.

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STUDENTS OF SOCIALISM TO MEET TODAY

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 110, 1 March 1911, p. 2.

In Earl Hall today, at 4:10, the Socialistic Club will hold an important meeting. The organization is taking up a systematic study of Socialism and today there will be discussion, at the meeting, of Edmond Kelley’s “Twentieth Century Socialism.” At the next meeting, March 8, the club will be addressed by some prominent Socialist, probably John Spargo. All students are invited to attend today’s meeting.

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SOCIALISTS ELECT OFFICERS
Trimble Chosen President

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 110, 1 March 1911, p. 8.

Election of officers of the Socialist Society for the coming term was held yesterday afternoon with the following results: R.J. Trimble, president; and G.G. Bobbe, secretary and treasurer. It was decided that the club would read several chapters of Kelly’s “Twentieth Century Socialism” for each meeting and assign a member to prepare a paper upon them. The next meeting will be held on March 1.

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SOCIALISTS MAKE GIFT TO UNIVERSITY

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 111, 2 March 1911, p. 3.

At the meeting of the Socialist club held yesterday afternoon, it was decided to present a copy of “Twentieth Century Socialism,” to the University. Mr. Fraenkel of the Law School gave an interesting explanation of the views expressed in the first few chapters of that book and a general discussion followed. The next meeting will be held the afternoon of Wednesday, March 3.

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SOCIALISTS ON 20TH CENTURY SOCIALISM

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LIV, Number 117, 9 March 1911, p. 1.

At a meeting held yesterday afternoon in Earl Hall, the Socialist Club took up an interesting discussion on a paper read on Commissioner Edward [sic] Kelly’s “Twentieth Century Socialism” was also taken up, and resulted in a lively discussion about the respective merits of the evolutionary and revolutionary points of view on Socialism. The next meeting of the club will be held Wednesday, March 15 and if possible some prominent Socialist will be obtained to lead the discussion.

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“INCOME TAX” INTERESTS ECONOMISTS

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LIV, Number 118, 10 March 1911, p. 1.

Next Wednesday the Undergraduate Economics Club will meet in 510 Kent at 8 p. m. The main subject for discussion will be “The Federal Income Tax,” E. V. Broderick, ’12 will give a history of the income tax and its actual working up to 1895. After an informal discussion of this, there will be reports and outlines for the coming work in the following committee; Socialism; Tariff, Railroads, Banking, Trusts, Conservation of Natural Resources and Labor Problems. Those members who were present at the last meeting have been assigned to committees. Members desiring to work on any special committee should inform the chairman of that committee

The plans for the remaining semester include trips to the Stock Exchange, Clearing House, Plant of Bush Terminal Cos., in addition to an address by Mr. G. A. McAneny, borough President of Manhattan and several other prominent men of the day.

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SOCIALIST SOCIETY MEETING
Mrs. Jessica Finch Speaks

Source: Barnard Bulletin (April 5, 1911), p. 3.

Mrs. Jessica Finch spoke on Wednesday, March 29, 1911, before the Barnard and Columbia Chapters of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. Her talk was extremely interesting. She spoke first on the need for getting rid of poverty in this world. Physical well-being is the basis for spiritual well-being. It is very easy for people who are materially well-off to point out people who live beautiful, inspiring lives under adverse conditions. But lack of the essentials of life, such as food, air, light and leisure, are bound to retard intellectual mental growth.

Poverty, moreover, is unnecessary in the world at present. Before the introduction of machinery, it is true that there was not enough of even the necessities of life to go around. But since the industrial revolution there is no need for any one to be without life’s necessities, for there is more than enough for all. To secure for all a fair share of the necessities of life, industry must be socialized. All unearned increments, that is, all profits not due to mental and physical labor, must go to society or equal distribution among those who spent themselves in the production thereof.

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TO DISCUSS MODERN SOCIALISM

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LIV, Number 149, 20 April 1911, p. 8.

The Columbia Socialist Society will hold a regular meeting this afternoon at 4:10 o’clock in Earl Hall. The members will hold an open discussion on the third chapter of Kelly’s ““Twentieth Century Socialism.” All members of the University are invited to attend the meeting.

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SOCIALISTS TO GATHER TOMORROW

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LV, Number 14, 12 October 1911, p. 5.

As announced in yesterday’s issue, the year’s first meeting of the Socialist Society will be held in Earl Hall tomorrow afternoon at 3 o’clock. The society will be addressed by its president, S. S. Bobbe ’13, and an outline of the coming season’s work will be discussed. All members and students interested in Socialism should attend.

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NOTED SOCIALIST TO TALK
Meeting of Club Today

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LV, Number 25, 25 October 1911, p. 6.

Today at 4:00 P. M. the Socialist Club will hold its second meeting of the year in Room J, Earl Hall. The club will be addressed by the organizer of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, H.J. Laidler, Wesleyan ’07, who will explain the work he has been doing as organizer and what the Columbia chapter can do to help create an intelligent interest in Socialism at Columbia.

The Intercollegiate Socialist Society has lately increased its chapters to 30, an increase in the past year of over three hundred per cent. Mr. Laidler has been to a great extent responsible for this increase, and is, therefore, well qualified to give an interesting and encouraging talk to the society. He will also discuss with the club the matter of a course of lectures on radical subjects by prominent men. that is now being planned by the club. The Intercollegiate Society will aid the club in securing the speakers.

Besides Mr. Laidler, several of the members of the club will read papers on different aspects of Socialism. All those in the University interested in Socialism are invited to attend.

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LAIDLER ADDRESSES SOCIALIST CLUB

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LV, Number 26, 26 October 1911, p. 2.

H. J. Laidler, the organizer of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society addressed the Columbia Socialist Club yesterday on the progress of Socialism in the United States during the past twenty and especially in the colleges. His work as organizer has brought him in touch with conditions all over the country, and he spoke of the grasp Socialism has taken on all forms of society.

“I have seen miners,” he said, “take up Karl Marx and study him into the night, and go from him to philosophy, to literature, art and science—all because of the new outlook they had received. If you really want to get the most out of life you should get the philosophy of Socialism; you should study it earnestly and with that sympathy that gives us insight. Socialism has been the means of moulding the lives of many. Further, we should compensate to society that which society has given to us.”

Following Mr. Laidler’s speech the club discussed the question of speakers on various live topics. These speeches are to be given by a number of prominent men and will form a series. They will not be confined to Socialism, but will take up all lines of radical thought. As soon as the speakers have all been secured, the club will publish the list with their various topics. The next meeting of the club will be held next Wednesday afternoon in Earl Hall.

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TRUST PROBLEM DISCUSSED
Seager Addresses Economists

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LV, Number 32, 2 November 1911, p. 8.

At the meeting of the Economics Club in Hamilton Hall yesterday afternoon Professor H. P. Seager gave a lecture on Trusts. A large audience was present when the president of the club introduced the speaker. Professor Seager began his lecture by giving a short history of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890. He praised the law very highly and said that better wording could hardly be framed to cover the situation so thoroughly. Until the term of Roosevelt, the law had not been properly enforced. Under McKinley, only three indictments were issued; under Roosevelt, however, there were twenty-five indictments against trusts and the same policy has been carried on under Taft, his record being eighteen, up to July 1, 1911.

The late decisions of the Supreme Court were next discussed by Professor Seager. He was not very sanguine about the probable efficacy of the court’s orders to the trusts to dissolve. The haze surrounding the court’s decisions must be cleared away in subsequent suits before the real meaning of the Anti-Trust Act is defined.

It was therefore the duty of the President to institute suit against the Steel Trust in order to clear up this vagueness. Industry must necessarily be dull until it is definitely settled whether business, as at present organized can exist or not.

He remarked in conclusion that the tendency seemed to be toward Socialism, but that he had grave doubts whether this tendency would go to that extent. It was his opinion that the present situation would produce a solution for the problems of today.

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FOREIGN SOCIALISM STUDIED
Cooperation Discussed

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator,Volume LV, Number 49, 23 November 1911, p. 5.

At a study meeting held in Earl Hall yesterday, R.J. Trimble ’12, addressed the Socialist Club on the cooperative movement in Belgium. This movement has spread into almost all of the retail business of the country, and the working people buy nearly all their goods at these stores obtaining not only a saving in price, but free insurance against unemployment, sickness and accident.

The next meeting of the club will be held on Wednesday, November 29th, when one of the members will give a talk on Edward R. Bellamy and his works. On Friday, December 8, Mr. John Moody, of “Moodys Magazine,” will give a lecture under the auspices of the club on “The Problem of Railroads.”

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ADDRESS ON CHILD LABOR
O. R. Lovejoy Gives Lecture

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LV, Number 68, 19 December 1911, p. 3.

“Child Labor” was the topic of the third lecture in the series on “Modern Problems” held under the auspices of the Socialist Club given yesterday afternoon by Owen R. Lovejoy. Mr. Lovejoy drew largely from his own experience as secretary of the National Child Labor Committee. “As compared with the great problem itself, the effects of child labor on the child dwindle into insignificance. Really the most important aspect of the problem is its economic aspect. It means a menace to our economic interest from the standpoint of wages. Wherever child labor is employed the standard of wages in the community is lowered. Thus, in some New England towns men get only eight or nine dollars a week as a result of the competition from child labor.

“Child Labor” acts indirectly to destroy the family. No more faulty argument can be used against Socialism than to say it will destroy the family, it is already destroyed. The employment of children during the hours they should be under the influence of the home tends in this direction. But even worse, the lower standard of wages resultant on child labor makes it the duty of a man subject to those conditions not to attempt to raise a family.

“Legislation regulating this course has been secured in thirty-eight of the states, but the great fault is not that sufficient legislation has been had, but that there has not been sufficient enforcement of the legislation.”

“The main opposition to child labor regulation has come in the past from those most vitally interested —from the employers, from the parents of the children and even from the children themselves. It has actually been demonstrated by comparison of factories in New England where no child labor is employed and those of the South where it is employed that the employer suffers in economic loss by their employment—and yet the employers oppose us. The parents are against us either because they are ignorant or because they suffer the want of a larger income, whereas child labor itself acts to lower their own wages.

 

Image Source:  1912 U.S. presidential campaign poster for the Socialist Party ticket: Eugene V. Debs and Emil Seidel from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Categories
Johns Hopkins Seminar Speakers

Johns Hopkins. Economic Seminary, presenters and topics. 1925-26

 

 

The graduate economic seminary at Johns Hopkins University kept good records of the weekly sessions so that we know the names of all the presenters and their topics. I have added the academic backgrounds from the published Johns Hopkins Circular for all the graduate students either attending or presenting.

The economic seminary schedule for the following years have also been posted:

1903-1904
1904-1905

1922-1923
1923-1924
1924-1925
1925-1926
1926-1927

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POLITICAL ECONOMY

…The Economic Seminary

“The students following Political Economy as a principal subject for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy met weekly under the direction of Professors Hollander and Barnett. The work of the year centered in the investigation of representative forms of industrial development in the United States, and in the analysis of significant activities of American labor organizations…”

 

Source: The Johns Hopkins University CircularAnnual Report of the President of the Johns Hopkins University 1925-1926, (October 1926, Vol. 45, No. 375), pp. 106.

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MEMBERS OF THE ECONOMIC SEMINARY
1925-1926

Students and visitors

[G = Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; SE = Social Economics; T = Teachers College. The small “s” following a capital letter indicates a special student. Roman numeral indicates year of residence.]

Fonaroff, Frank Israel. (Gs) I. S.B. Eng. Johns Hopkins University 1918; M.B.A. Harvard University 1924. Political Economy.

[Froehlich, Wolfgang. (G) I. Graduate, St. Elisabeth Real-Gymnasium, Breslau 1924. Political Economy.]

Fulton, Maria Kent.  (SE) (G) II. A.B. Hollins College 1924. Political Economy.

Hart, William Sebastian. (Gs) II. A.B. Johns Hopkins University 1924. Political Economy.

Helbing, Albert Theodore.(G) II. Ph.B. Denison University 1923. Political Economy.

Hilberg, Mildred Edith.(SE) (G) II. A.B. Goucher College 1923. Political Economy.

Hoops, Walther Dietrich. (G) I. Ph.D. Heidelberg University 1923. Political Economy.

Howard, Charles Harold. (G) II. S.B. Gettysburg College 1923. Political Economy.

Mitchell, Elizabeth W. (SE) (G) II. A.B. Goucher College 1924. Political Economy.

Mitchell, George Sinclair. (G) III. A.B. University of Richmond 1922. Political Economy.

Newman, Andrew J. (G) II. A.B. Washington University 1910. A.M. University of Missouri 1911. Political Economy.

Northcutt, Elizabeth. (SE) (G) I. S.B. in Education, University of Missouri 1924. S.B. in Business and Public Administration 1925. Political Economy.

Powlison, Keith Eon. (G) II. A.B. Columbia College 1922. Political Economy.

Rea, Leonard Owens. (G) II. A.B. Johns Hopkins University 1924. Political Economy.

Richardson, Ellen L. (SE) (G) II. A.B. Wellesley College 1919. Political Economy.

Richardson, Hayes Ayres. (Ts) (G) I. A. B. Randolph-Macon College 1922. Political Economy.

Robinson, Carolyn A. (G) I. A.B. Wellesley College 1924. Political Economy.

Schneider, David M. (G) II. E.E. University of Kieff [sic, Kyiv?] 1921. Political Economy.

Townsend, Clarissa L. (SE) (Gs) III. A.B. Goucher College 1923. Political Economy.

 

Faculty

Professor Jacob H. Hollander, Professor of Political Economy

Professor George E. Barnett, Professor of Statistics

Dr. William O. Weyforth, Associate Professor of Political Economy

Dr. Broadus Mitchell, Associate in Political Economy

Miss Theo Jacobs, Associate in Social Economics

Dr. George Heberton Evans, Jr., Instructor in Political Economy

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Seminar Presentations 1925-26

October 7, 1925

The session’s opening meeting of the Seminary was held in the Seminary Room, 315 Gilman Hall, at 2 o’clock. Accounts were given of summer experiences. The list of the members of the Seminary is given on another page [see above].

October 14, 1925

Professor Hollander read a paper on “The History of the Manuscript of Ricardo’s ‘Notes on Malthus’.”

October 21, 1925

Professor Barnett read a paper on “The Introduction of Machinery and the Displacement of Skill”.

October 28, 1925

Dr. Weyforth read a paper on “The ‘Current Rate of Wages’ in Baltimore”.

November 4, 1925

Dr. Mitchell read a paper on “Simon Newcomb and Simon N. Patten”.

November 11, 1925

Mr. Mitchell read a paper on “The Progress of the Unions in the Southern Textile Industry. (1900-1925).”

November 18, 1925

Mr. Powlinson read a paper on “Historical Sketch of the Hours of Labor Movement.”

November 25, 1925

Mr. Rea read a paper on “The Development of Uniform Municipal Accounting.”

December 2, 1925

Mr. Newman read a paper on “Definition of Income.”

December 9, 1925

Mr. Schneider read a paper on “The Workers’ Party in the Machinists’ Union”.

December 16, 1925

Mr. Helbing read a paper on “Structure and Function of the Building Trades Department of the A. F. of L.

Christmas Recess.

January 6, 1926

Mr. Howard read a paper on “Promotion and Tenure in the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen.”

January 13, 1926

Professor Hollander read a paper on “Introduction to Ricardo’s Notes on Malthus”.

January 20, 1926

Professor Barnett read a paper on “The Introduction of Machinery and Trade Union Policy”.

January 27, 1926

Dr. Mitchell read a paper on “The Economic Opinions of William Gregg and J. H. Hammond”.

February 3, 1926

Miss Townsend read a paper on “Sight-Saving Classes in Baltimore”.

February 10, 1926

Miss Jacobs read a paper on “The Attitude of Trade Unions toward Social Work.”.

February 17, 1926

Mr. Mitchell read a paper on “Trade Unions in the Southern Textile Field”.

February 24, 1926

Miss Richardson read a paper on “The Shriners’ Hospitals for Crippled Children”.

March 3, 1926

Mr. Schneider read a paper on “Union Cooperative Management Plans”.

March 10, 1926

Dr. Hoops read a paper on “The German Iron Industry.

March 17, 1926

Mr. McDaniel read a paper on “The Leather Workers”.

March 24, 1926

Mr. Froehlich read a paper on “The Reconstruction of German Finances”.

March 31, 1926

Miss Mitchell read a paper on “The Intake of the Henry Watson Children’s Aid Society”.

April 14, 1926

Professor Barnett read a paper on “Family Endowments”.

April 21, 1926

Professor Hollander read a paper on “Differences between Ricardo and Malthus as to Rent”.

April 28, 1926

Miss Hilberg read a paper on “Public Welfare in Maryland”.

May 5, 1926

Miss Northcutt read a paper on “The Housing of Common Laborers in Baltimore”.

May 12, 1926

Mr. Richardson read a paper on “Treasury Certificates of Indebtedness”.

May 19, 1926

Mr. Newman read a paper on “The Distinction between Capital and Income as Revealed by the Income Tax”. This was the last meeting of the seminary for the session 1925-26.

 

 

Sources:   

Johns Hopkins University. Eisenhower Library, Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy, Series 1. Minutes of the Economic Seminary, 1892-1951. Folder “1922-1940”.

The Johns Hopkins University CircularUniversity Register, 1925-26, (November 1925, Vol. 44, No. 365).

The Johns Hopkins University CircularAnnual Report of the President of the Johns Hopkins University 1925-1926, (October 1926, Vol. 45, No. 375), pp. 106-107. Also lists names and topics for seminar speakers.

 

Image Source: Gilman Hall, Johns Hopkins University from the Johns Hopkins’ yearbook Hullabaloo (1924) .