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Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumna. Linked publications list. Edith Abbott, 1905

Edith Abbott by Melvin H. Sykes (1919)

The second woman to receive a Political Economy Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, Edith Abbott, became the first woman dean of a U.S. graduate school in 1924 (The University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Social Service Administration). In her day there were two main paths to an academic career for women economists: home economics and “social economy”. She and her long-time collaborator, Sophonisba Breckinridge, (the first woman to receive a political science Ph.D. at the University of Chicago…note: on an economics topic “A Study of Legal Tender in England“) were fellow research directors at Jane Addams’ Hull House. 

In Germany Sozialpolitik was, like virtually all academic disciplines, Männersache. In Anglo-American academic life social policy was where women could participate.

With this post Economics in the Rear-View Mirror very proudly offers historians of economics and social policy links to well over 90% of her publications.

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Life and Career of Edith Abbott
Economics Ph.D. alumna (1905),
Department of Political Economy
University of Chicago

Thesis Title: A statistical study of the wages of unskilled labor in the United States, 1830-1900.
Published in The Journal of Political Economy (June, 1905) as “The Wages of Unskilled Labor in the United States 1850-1900”.

1876, September 26. Born in Grand Island, Nebraska.
1888-93. Graduated as valedictorian of Brownell Hall, a private school in Omaha, Nebraska.
1893-95. Taught at Grand Island High School, Nebraska.
1901. A.B. University of Nebraska.
1901-03. Graduate Student, University of Nebraska. and Instructor in Mathematics, Lincoln High School.
1902. Summer school at the University of Chicago.
1903-05.Fellow, Department of Political Economy, University of Chicago. Supported by J. L. Laughlin and Thorstein Veblen.
1905. Ph.D. in Political Economy from the University of Chicago.
1905. Post-Ph.D. she worked two jobs in Boston: (1) Secretary at the Women’s Trade Union League and (2) assisted in the U.S. industrial history research project of Carroll D. Wright for the American Economic Association funded by the Carnegie Institution. She lived at the social settlement Dennison House.
1906. Full-time work for the Carnegie Institution. Moved in January to New York City for research. Lived at College Settlement. Next moved to Washington, D.C.
1906-07. With funds from a competitive fellowship awarded by the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, supplemented by Carnegie Institution funds, she went for postgraduate study at the London School of Economics. She took a course “Methods of Social Investigation” taught by Beatrice Webb [see description of Abbott’s own methods course taught 1909-10 at the University of Chicago below]. Lived at St. Hilda’s Settlement in Bethnal Green.
1907-1908. Instructor of economics at Wellesley College.
1908-20. Resident of Hull House. Associate Director of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy.
1909-10.Special Lecturer in Political Economy, University of Chicago.
1918-19. Vice President of the American Economic Association.
1920. Appointed Associate Professor of Social Economy in the Graduate School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
1924-42. Dean of the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago.
1926. Established Cook County (Illinois) Bureau of Public Welfare.
1927.Together with Sophonisba P. Breckinridge co-founded Social Service Review.
1929-31.  Chaired the Committee on Crime and the Foreign Born of the Wickersham National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement
1935. Assisted in drafting the Social Security Act.
1942-1953. Dean Emeritus.
1953. Returned to Grand Island, Nebraska and lived with her brother Arthur.
1957, 28 July. Died in Grand Island, Hall County, Nebraska8

Sources:
Costin, Lela B. 1983. Two Sisters for Social Justice: A Biography of Grace and Edith Abbott. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Deegan, Mary Jo and Michael R. Hill. 1991. “Edith Abbott (1876-1957).” Pp. 29-36 in Women in Sociology: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, edited by Mary Jo Deegan. New York: Greenwood Press.

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Edith Abbott report on her year at L.S.E.
1906-07

Your [Association of Collegiate Alumnae] fellow of last year, Miss Abbott, went in September to the London School of Economics where her principal work was the study of statistical methods, taking both lecture and research work with Mr. Bowley, and also taking advantage of the opportunity of attending other lecture courses both in economic theory and in economic history and in methods of social investigation. She also found helpful work in University College, and in the spring attended some lectures at the School of Sociology. The part of the year that she counted most valuable, however, was the time spent with Miss Collet, Investigator of Women’s Trades for the English Labor Department, who for the past 20 years has been studying various questions connected with the employment of women. In the winter she made an investigation in connection with the “Outer London Inquiry,” and in the summer she had an opportunity of studying the working of the Unemployed Act. A short account of one phase of this “Municipal Employment of Unemployed Women in London” will appear in the current number of the Journal of Political Economy. Her History of the Industrial Employment of Women has made some progress. She will publish in the December number of the Journal of Political Economy, “Women in Manufactures: A Supplementary Note,” and in the January, 1907, she published a paper on “The History of the Employment of Women in Cigar-Making.” She has been appointed instructor at Wellesley College to carry on some of Professor Comane’s work during the latter’s leave of absence.

Source: The Association of Collegiate Alumnae Magazine III.17 (Jan. 1908) pp. 140-141.

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Faculty Blurb and Course Description,
University of Chicago, 1909-10

Edith Abbott, Ph.D., Special Lecturer in Political Economy.

A.B., University of Nebraska, 1901; Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1905; Fellow in Political Economy, ibid., 1903 -05; Research Work for Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1906; European Fellow of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae and Student at the London School of Economics, 1906 -7; Instructor in Political Economy, Wellesley College, 1907-8; Associate Director Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, 1908—; Special Lecturer in Political Economy, University of Chicago, 1909—.

  1. Methods of Social Investigation. A course designed primarily to acquaint students with the purpose, methods, and results of the most important work that has been done in the field of social research. Such investigations as Le Play’s Ouvriers européens, Booth’s Life and Labor of the People of London, Rowntree’s Poverty, women in the printing trades, and the recent Dundee and West Ham inquiries will be studied, as well as some selected reports of Royal Commissions and of the English and American Labor Departments. The application of statistical methods to social problems, the collection and tabulation of data, the use and misuse of averages, index-numbers, and weighting will be treated briefly; and the use and limitations of experiment, the interview, the document, and personal observation will be considered.

Students may supplement this course by practical work in investigation in connection with one of the Inquiries being carried on by the Research Department of the School of Civics and Philanthropy. An additional major’s credit will be given to students who give not less than 12 hours a week to this part of the course. Mj. or 2 Mj. Winter Quarter, 9:30, Dr. Abbott.

Source: University of Chicago. Annual Register,  July, 1908—July, 1909 with Announcements for 1909-1910 (Chicago: July 1908),  pp. 50, 237.

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Jane Adams of Hull House:
Introducing Edith Abbott

From Jane Addams’ preface to the pamphlet The Wage-Earning Woman and the State by Edith Abbott and Sophonisba P. Breckinridge published by the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government (1910)

…Miss Edith Abbott was graduated from the University of Nebraska, and later received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics and Law from the University of Chicago. She was for two years a Fellow of the University, and studied in Europe for one year at the University of London in the School of Economics. After teaching political economy at Wellesley College for one year, she entered the School of Civics and Philanthropy, where she has been Associate Director for the last five years. She is the author of a very authoritative work entitled « Women in Industry; A Study in American Economic » Her knowledge of the conditions surrounding working women is by no means confined to America. She is in constant correspondence with the people most interested in the conditions of working women in England and the continental countries, and by travel and correspondence has kept herself well informed concerning the legal and industrial changes which affect the lives of women the world over. Both Miss [Sophonisba P.] Breckinridge and Miss Abbott are personally acquainted with hundreds of working women. Miss Abbott has been a resident of Hull House for the last few years, and Miss Breckinridge is in residence each year during her three months’ vacation from teaching at the University. They thus add to their scholarly qualifications a keen and living interest in thousands of working women.

JANE ADDAMS.
Hull House, Chicago.

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Back story of  the Graduate School of Social Service Administration

The most recently established of the graduate schools of the University makes its entry somewhat timidly for the first time in the rather jovial surroundings and setting provided by the Cap and Gown. The School deals with almost discordantly sombre themes — pauperism, crime, drunkenness, insanity, and vice. Its laboratories are the mean streets of the West Side, the deteriorated area of “Lower North,” the industrial district to the south along the banks of the Calumet. But the School is older, in its traditions at least, than its debut would indicate.

First established more than twenty years ago as the Institute of Social Science under the auspices of the University of Chicago, University College, the School numbered among its first members of its faculty Professor Graham Taylor of the Chicago Commons, Professor Charles Richmond Henderson of the University, and Miss Julia C. Lathrop of Hull House. In May, 1908, the Institute of Social Science became the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy and maintained an independent existence from 1908 to 1920, when it was combined with the philanthropic service division that had been organized under the rapidly expanding School of Commerce and Administration, with Mr. [Leon Carroll] Marshall as the first dean of the new School. The present Graduate School of Social Service Administration is therefore the successor of the Chicago School of Civics and the Philanthropic Service Division of the School of Commerce.

The School differs from other schools in the social service field in that it offers the student not only a series of graduate professional courses but also the opportunity of combining his professional work with a wide choice of graduate courses in the Social Service departments of a great University.

Source: University of Chicago. The Cap and Gown 1924, p. 220.

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Edith Abbott’s Writings

Over 125 items in the following bibliography are accessible via the links that have been collected by the curator of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror. Alas, seven items have not (yet) been found, of which four are significant books published by University of Chicago Press and still under copyright protection.

“Wage Statistics in the Twelfth Census.” Journal of Political Economy, 12 (June 1904), 339-61. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1833345/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Elements of Political Economy by J. Shield Nicolson. In School Review 12 (Nov. 1904), 754-755. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1075897/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Trade Unionism and British Industry by Edwin A. Pratt. Journal of Political Economy 13 (Dec. 1904), 129-132. https://archive.org/details/paper-doi-10_1086_251116

Review of Women in the Printing Trades: A Sociological Study, edited by J. Ramsay MacDonald. In Journal of Political Economy 13 (March 1905), 299-303. https://archive.org/details/paper-doi-10_1086_251145/mode/2up

“Are Women Business Failures?” Harper’s Weekly, 49 (Apr. 8, 1905) Issue 2520, 496. https://archive.org/details/sim_harpers-weekly_1905-04-08_49_2520/page/496/mode/2up

“Wages of Unskilled Labor in the United States, 1850-1900.” Journal of Political Economy, 13 (June 1905), 321-67. (Ph.D. Dissertation) https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819499/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Labor Organization among Women by Belva Mary Herron. In Journal of Political Economy 13 (Sept. 1905), 605-607. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817853/page/n1/mode/2up

“Harriett Martineau and the Employment of Women in 1836.” Journal of Political Economy, 14 (Dec. 1906), 614-26. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819994/page/n1/mode/2up

“Employment of Women in Industries: Twelfth Census Statistics.” Journal of Political Economy, 14 (Jan. 1906), 14-40 (with Breckinridge). https://www.jstor.org/stable/1817279

Review of Trade Unions by Geoffrey Drage. In Journal of Political Economy 14 (Jan. 1906), 53-56. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817284/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of The Clothing Industry in New York by Jesse Eliphalet Pope. In Journal of Political Economy 14(April 1906), 252-254. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817940/page/n1/mode/2up

“The History of Industrial Employment of Women in the United States: An Introductory Study.” In  Journal of Political Economy, 14 (Oct. 1906), 461-501. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817741/page/n1/mode/2up

“Woman Suffrage Militant: The New Movement in England.” The Independent, 61 (Nov. 29, 1906), 1276-78. https://archive.org/details/sim_independent_1906-11-29_61_3026/page/1276/mode/2up

“Employment of Women in Industries: Cigar Making — Its History and Present Tendencies.” Journal of Political Economy, 15 (Jan. 1907), 1-25. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817494/page/n1/mode/2up

“Municipal Employment of Unemployed Women in London.” Journal of Political Economy, 15 (Nov. 1907), 513-30. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819109/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Women’s Work and Wages: A Phase of Life in an Industrial City by Edward Cadbury et al. In Journal of Political Economy 15 (Nov. 1907), 563-565.  https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819119/page/n1/mode/2up

“Women in Manufactures: A Supplementary Note,” Journal of Political Economy, 15 (Dec. 1907), 619-24 (with Breckinridge and Anne S. Davis). https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820425/page/n1/mode/2up

“A Study of the Early History of Child Labor in America.” American Journal of Sociology, 14 (Jul. 1908), 15-37. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2762758/page/n1/mode/2up

“English Working Women and the Franchise.” Atlantic, 102 (Sept 1908), 343-46. https://archive.org/details/sim_atlantic_1908-09_102_3/page/342/mode/2up

“The Public Moralist and the Working Woman. Association of Collegiate Alumnae Magazine, III.18 (Dec. 1908), 12-18. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/iau.31858028383911?urlappend=%3Bseq=188%3Bownerid=13510798903605987-200

“History of the Employment of Women in the American Cotton Mills.” Journal of Political Economy:

Part I. 16 (Nov. 1908), 602-21; https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820913/page/n1/mode/2up

Part II. 16 (Dec. 1908), 680-92; https://archive.org/details/jstor-1821966/page/n1/mode/2up

Part III. 17 (Jan. 1909), 19-35. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819902/page/n1/mode/2up

“Women in Industry: The Manufacture of Boots and Shoes.” American Journal of Sociology, 15 (Nov. 1909), 335-60. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2762515/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Where Shall She Live? The Homelessness of the Woman Worker by Mary Higgs and Edward E. Hayward. In American Journal of Sociology 16 (Sept. 1910), 272-273. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763060/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Frederick William Maitland by H.A.L. Fisher. In Journal of Political Economy 18 (Nov. 1910), 750-751. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820690/page/n1/mode/2up

Women in Industry. A Study of American Economic History. New York: Appleton and Co., 1910. https://archive.org/details/WomenInIndustryStudy/page/n4/mode/1up   

The Housing Problem in Chicago. (with Breckinridge). (parts I, VI-X written by others)

  1. Introductory Note to “Housing of Non-Family Groups of Working Men” by Milton B. Hunt. American Journal of Sociology, 16 (Sept. 1910),145-146 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763051/page/n1/mode/2up
  2. “Families in Furnished Rooms.” American Journal of Sociology, 16 (Nov. 1910), 289-308 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763087/page/n1/mode/2up
  3. “Back of the Yards.” American Journal of Sociology, 16 (Jan. 1911), 433-68 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763005/page/n1/mode/2up
  4. “The West Side Revisited.” American Journal of Sociology, 17 (July 1911), 1-34 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763253/page/n1/mode/2up
  5. “South Chicago at the Gates of the Steel Mills.” American Journal of Sociology, 17 (Sept. 1911), 145-76 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2762945/page/n1/mode/2up

“English Poor-Law Reform.” Journal of Political Economy, 19 (Jan. 1911), 47-59. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820483/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Child Labor Legislation in Europe by C.W.A. Vedite. In American Economic Review (March 1911), 110-112. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1802931/page/n1/mode/2up

Finding Employment for Children Who Leave the Grade Schools to Go to Work: Report to the Chicago Woman’s Club, the Chicago Association of Collegiate Alumni, and the Women’s City Club. Chicago: Hollister Press, 1911 (with Breckinridge and Anne S. Davis). https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t33205206

“Women in Industry: The Chicago Stockyards.” Journal of Political Economy, 19 (Oct. 1911), 632-54 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819424/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of The Solution of the Child Labor Problem by Scott Nearing, in American Economic Review (Dec. 1911), 846. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1806913/page/n1/mode/2up

The Delinquent Child and the Home. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1912 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/cu31924030383214/page/n7/mode/2up

Review of Wages in the United States, 1908-1910 by Scott Nearing. In Journal of Political Economy 20 (May 1912), 529-531. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1822107/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of The Living Wage of Women Workers: A Study of Incomes and Expenditures of Four Hundred and Fifty Women Workers in the City of Boston by Louise Marion Bosworth. In American Economic Review (June 1912), 380-382. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1827614/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of The Prevention of Destitution by Sidney and Beatrice Webb. In Journal of Political Economy 20 (July 1912), 754-756. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820154/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Making Both Ends Meet: The Income and Outlay of New York Working Girls by Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt. In American Economic Review (September 1912), 652-654. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1804628/page/n1/mode/2up

“The First Chief of the Children’s Bureau.” Life and Labor, 2 (Oct. 1912), 299-301. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/coo.31924069101354?urlappend=%3Bseq=343%3Bownerid=27021597770090515-357

Wage-earning Woman and the State: A Reply to Miss Minnie Bronson. Boston: Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government, 1912 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/wageearningwoman00abbo

“Women’s Wages in Chicago: Some Notes on Available Data.” Journal of Political Economy, 21 (Feb. 1913), 143-58. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819961/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Progress and Uniformity in Child-Labor Legislation. A Study in Statistical Measurement by William F. Ogburn. In American Economic Review, 3 (June 1913), 397-399. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1827991/page/n1/mode/2up

“Public Pensions to Widows and Children.” American Economic Review, 3 (June 1913), 473-78. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1828023/page/n27/mode/2up

Reviews of The American Girl in the Stockyards District by Louise Montgomery; Women in Trade Unions in San Francisco by Lillian R. Matthews; Artifical Flower Makers by Mary Van Kleeck. In American Economic Review (March 1914), 164-166. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1805013/page/n1/mode/2up

“A Forgotten Minimum Wage Bill.” Life and Labor, 5 (Jan. 1915), 13-16. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015010962978?urlappend=%3Bseq=21%3Bownerid=13510798887191435-25

“Progress of the Minimum Wage in England.” Journal of Political Economy, 23 (Mar. 1915), 268-77. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819662/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Minimum Rates in the Chain-making Industry (Studies in the Minimum Wage, No. 1) by R. H. Tawney. Journal of Political Economy 23 (April 1915), 400-401. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819291/page/n1/mode/2up

“Statistics Relating to Crime in Chicago.” In Report of the City Council Committee of Chicago on Crime in the City of Chicago, pp. 17-88. Chicago: City Council Committee, 1915. https://archive.org/details/reportofcitycoun00chic/page/16/mode/2up

“The Copycat Vote.” New Republic, 2 (Apr. 24, 1915), 304. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hxqfnz?urlappend=%3Bseq=366%3Bownerid=27021597764513068-380

“Education for Social Work.” In Department of Interior, Bureau of Education, Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year Ended June 30, 1915, vol. 1 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1915). https://archive.org/details/reportofcommissi00unit_51/page/344/mode/2up

“Field-Work and the Training of the Social Workers.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Charities and Correction at the Forty-Second Annual Session held in Baltimore, Maryland, May 12-19, 1915, pp. 615-21. Chicago: Hildmann Printing Co., 1915. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-12-19-1915_42/page/614/mode/2up

“Statistics in Chicago Suffrage.” New Republic, 3 (June 12, 1915), 151. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015086341164?urlappend=%3Bseq=191%3Bownerid=13510798902096126-219

“Are Women a Force for Good Government?” National Municipal Review, 4 (July 1915), 437-447. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044106250632?urlappend=%3Bseq=497%3Bownerid=27021597765335525-549

The Real Jail Problem. Chicago: Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, 1915. https://archive.org/details/realjailproblem00abbo/page/n3/mode/2up

The One Hundred and One County Jails of Illinois and Why They Ought to Be Abolished. Chicago: Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, 1916. https://archive.org/details/onehundredonecou00abbo/page/n3/mode/2up

“Cheap Clothes and Nasty.” New Republic, 4 (Jan. 1, 1916), 217-219. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hxqfp4?urlappend=%3Bseq=274%3Bownerid=27021597764513482-278

“The Woman Voter and the Spoils System in Chicago.” National Municipal Review, 5 (July 1916), 460-465. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044106250624?urlappend=%3Bseq=498%3Bownerid=27021597765323744-544

Review of Women in Modern Industry by B. L. Hutchins. In American Economic Review (June 1916), 399-400. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1813274/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Summary of the Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Bulletin of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In American Economic Review, 662-664. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1808551/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Old Age Pensions: Their Actual Working and Ascertained Results in the United Kingdom by H. J. Hoare. American Journal of Sociology (Sept. 1916), 277-278. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763833/page/n1/mode/2up

“Administration of the Illinois Funds-to-Parents Laws.” United States Department of Labor Bulletin 212, pp. 818-34. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1917. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.a0004011193?urlappend=%3Bseq=980%3Bownerid=13510798903282064-1000

“The Experimental Period of Widows Pension Legislation.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1917, pp. 154-65. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-6-13-1917_44/page/154/mode/2up

“Charles Booth, 1840-1916.” Journal of Political Economy, 25 (Feb 1917), 195-200. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819721/page/n1/mode/2up

“The War and Women’s Work in England.” Journal of Political Economy, 15 (July 1917), 641-678. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1821772/page/n1/mode/2up

“Field Work Training with Social Agencies.” In Report of the Association of Urban Universities, November, 1917, pp. 92-103. Concord, N.H.: Rumford Press, 1917-18. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/iau.31858045945593?urlappend=%3Bseq=274%3Bownerid=117203284-282

Truancy and Non-Attendance in the Chicago Schools: A Study of the Social Aspects of the Compulsory Education and Child Labor Legislation of Illinois. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1917 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/truancynonattend00abbo/page/n5/mode/2up

Democracy and Social Progress in England. University of Chicago War Papers, 8. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918. https://archive.org/details/democracysocialp00abbo/mode/2up

“The Social Case Worker and the Enforcement of Industrial Legislation.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1918, pp. 312-19. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-15-22-1918_45/page/312/mode/2up

“Pensions, Insurance and the State.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1918, pp. 388-89. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-15-22-1918_45/page/388/mode/2up

“Crime and the War.” Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, 9 (May 1918), 32-45. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1133731/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of three works on women workers. In American Journal of Sociology 23 (Jan. 1918), 551-552. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763523/page/n1/mode/2up

Reviews of six books on women and war work. In American Economic Review (Dec. 1918), 819-824.https://archive.org/details/jstor-1803702/page/n1/mode/2up

“Health Insurance in Great Britain.” In Report of the Health Insurance Commission of the State of Illinois, May 1, 1919, pp. 600-624. Springfield: Illinois State Journal Co., 1919. Also in Report of the Ohio Health and Old Age Insurance Commission, February, 1919, pp. 312-40. Columbus: F. J. Heer Printing Co., 1919. https://archive.org/details/cu31924002406951/page/600/mode/2up

“Probation and Suspended Sentence” (Report of Committee “B” of the Institute). Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, 10 (Nov. 1919), 341-50. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1133813/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Report of the War Cabinet Committee on Women in Industry in American Economic Review (June 1920), 358-362. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1804881/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Italian Emigration of our Times by Robert F. Foerster. In American Political Science Review 14 (Aug. 1920), 523-524. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1946285/page/n1/mode/2up

The Administration of the Aid-to-Mothers Law in Illinois. U.S. Children’s Bureau. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921 (with Breckinridge).https://archive.org/details/administrationof00abbo/page/n3/mode/2up

Review of The Passing of the County Jail: Individualization of Misdemeanants through a Unified Correctional System by Stuart Alfred Queen. The American Journal of Sociology (May 1921), 792-793. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2764348

“The Promise and Practice of Social Legislation.” University Journal (alumni edition, University of Nebraska), 17 July 1921), 4-11. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015080407714?urlappend=%3Bseq=6%3Bownerid=13510798897152302-10

“Police Brutality in Chicago.” The Nation, 114 (Mar. 8, 1922), 286-87. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/pst.000068744618?urlappend=%3Bseq=308%3Bownerid=13510798902987282-322

“Tragedy of the Excess Quota.” New Republic, 30 (Mar. 8, 1922), 52-53. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hwqwpg?urlappend=%3Bseq=66%3Bownerid=27021597767357933-72

Review of Immigration and the Future and The Federal Administration and the Alien both by Frances Kellor. In Journal of Political Economy 30 (Apr. 1922), 312-314. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1822697/page/n1/mode/2up

Discussion of “Immigration under the Percentum Limit Law,” by W. W. Husband. In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1922, pp. 463-66. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-22-29-1922_49/page/462/mode/2up

What the Women of Illinois Ought to Know and Ought to Do about the Questions of Social Hygiene: A Report Submitted to the Committee Appointed at the Request of the Joint Conference of the Women’s Clubs of Chicago, 1922.

“Recent Statistics Relating to Crime in Chicago.” Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, 13 (Nov. 1922), 329-58. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1133931/page/n1/mode/2up

“Training in Case Work and Special Administrative Problems in a University.” In The Social Service of the Courts: Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Conference of The National Probation Association, 1922, pp 59-68. New York: National Probation Association, 1923. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101067578383?urlappend=%3Bseq=65%3Bownerid=27021597769832968-69

Review of The History of Public Poor Relief in Massachusetts, 1620-1920. In American Journal of Sociology(Nov. 1922), 364-366. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2764686/page/n1/mode/2up

“The English Census of 1921.” Journal of Political Economy, 30 (Dec. 1922), 827-40. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1822472/page/n1/mode/2up

“Is One Per Cent in Quarantine a Public Health Measure?” Illinois League of Women Voters Bulletin, 3 (1923), 7-9.

Review of Penology in the United States by Louis N. Robinson. In American Journal of Sociology 29 (July 1923), 105-106. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2764420

“Federal Immigration Policies, 1864-1924.” University Journal of Business, 2 (1924), (Mar. 1924), 133-56; (Jun. 1924), 347-67; (Sep. 1924), 455-80. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2354831 ; https://www.jstor.org/stable/2354665 ; https://www.jstor.org/stable/2354651

“Immigration Legislation and the Problems of Assimilation.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1924, pp. 82-91. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-25-july-2-1924_51/page/82/mode/2up

Immigration: Select Documents and Case Records. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015010521006

“English Statistics of Pauperism during the War.” Journal of Political Economy, 33 (Feb. 1925), 1-32. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1821974

Historical Aspects of the Immigration Problem. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1926. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015008786579

“Training for the Policewoman’s Job.” Woman Citizen, 10 (Apr 1926), 30. https://archive.org/details/sim_womans-journal_1926-04_10_13/page/30/mode/2up

“The Civil War and the Crime Wave of 1865-70.” Social Service Review, 1 (June 1927), 212-34. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1927-06_1_2/page/212/mode/2up

“The Webbs on the English Poor Law.” Social Service Review, 3 (June 1929), 252-69. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1929-06_3_2/page/252/mode/2up

Report on Crime and Criminal Justice in Relation to the Foreign Born, National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement (Wickersham Commission). No. 10. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1931. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b4628567

Social Welfare and Professional Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931, and ed. 1942.

“Poor People in Chicago.” New Republic, 72 (Oct. 5, 1932), 209. https://archive.org/details/sim_new-republic_1932-10-05_72_931/page/208/mode/2up

“The Fallacy of Local Relief.” New Republic, 72 (Nov. 9, 1932), 348-50. https://archive.org/details/sim_new-republic_1932-11-09_72_936/page/347/mode/2up

“The Crisis in Relief.” The Nation, 137 (Oct. 11, 1933), 400-402. https://archive.org/details/sim_nation_1933-10-11_137_3562/page/400/mode/2up

“Abolish the Pauper Laws.” Social Service Review, 8 (Mar. 1934), 1-16. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1934-03_8_1

“Don’t Do It, Mr. Hopkins!” The Nation, 140 (Jan. 9, 1935), 41-42. https://archive.org/details/sim_nation_1935-01-09_140_3627/page/40/mode/2up

“Evictions during the Chicago Rent Moratorium Established by the Relief Agencies, 1931-1933.” Social Service Review, 9 (Mar. 1935), 34-57 (with Katherine Kiesling). https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1935-03_9_1/page/34/mode/2up

“The Pauper Laws Still Go On.” Social Service Review, 9 (Dec. 1935), 731-56. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1935-12_9_4/page/730/mode/2up

“Jane Addams Memorial Service.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1935, pp. 3-5. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-09-15-1935/page/2/mode/2up

The Tenements of Chicago, 1908-1935. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1936 (with Breckinridge).

“Federal Relief Sold Down the River.” The Nation, 142 (Mar. 18, 1936), 346. https://archive.org/details/sim_nation_1936-03-18_142_3689/page/346/mode/2up

“Training for the Public Welfare Services.” Public Welfare News, 4 (Mar. 1936), 5.

“Public Welfare and Politics.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1936, pp. 27-45; https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-18-23-1936/page/26/mode/2up  also in Social Service Review, 10 (Sept. 1936), 395-412. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1936-09_10_3

“Public Assistance—Whither Bound?” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1937, pp. 3-25. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-23-29-1937/page/n11/mode/2up

Some American Pioneers in Social Welfare: Select Documents with Editorial Notes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937.

“Is There a Legal Right to Relief?” Social Service Review, 12 (June 1938), 260-75. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1938-06_12_2/page/260/mode/2up

“Poor Law Provision for Family Responsibility.” Social Service Review, 12 (Dec. 1938), 598-618. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1938-12_12_4/page/598/mode/2up

“A Sister’s Memories.” Social Service Review, 13 (Sept. 1939), 351-408. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1939-09_13_3

“Unemployment Relief a Federal Responsibility.” Social Service Review, 14 (Sept. 1940), 438-52. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1940-09_14_3/page/438/mode/2up

“Relief, the No Man’s Land, and How to Reclaim It.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1940, pp. 187-98. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-26-june-01-1940/page/186/mode/2up

Public Assistance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940. Vol. I [Note: very incomplete copy at archive.org] ; Vol. II https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.544099/page/n7/mode/2up

United States, 76th Cong., 3rd Sess., House, Select Committee to Investigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens, Aug. 19, 20. and 21, 1940, pp. 1179-90. https://archive.org/details/interstatemigrat03unit/page/1178/mode/2up

“Work or Maintenance: A Federal Program for the Unemployed.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1941, pp. 332-43 https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-01-07-1941/page/332/mode/2up ; revised in Social Service Review, 15 (Sept. 1941), 520-32. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1941-09_15_3/page/520/mode/2up

“Twenty-one Years of University Education for the Social Services, 1920-41.” A Report to the Alumni with a Register of Alumni Who Received Higher Degrees, 1920-1942, and Their Dissertation Subjects. Social Service Review, 15 (Dec. 1941), 670-705. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1941-12_15_4/page/670/mode/2up

“Juvenile Delinquency during the First World War, Notes on the British Experience 1914-1918.” Social Service Review, 17 (June 1943), 192-212. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1943-06_17_2/page/192/mode/2up

“Some Charitable Bequests in Early English Wills (1284-1580) and Statutes (1414-1601) to Protect Charitable Gifts.” Social Service Review, 20 (June 1946), 231-46. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1946-06_20_2/page/230/mode/2up

“Three American Pioneers in International Social Welfare.” The Compass, 28 (May 1947), 6.

“Work of Thomas H. Gallaudet and the Teaching of the Deaf.” Social Service Review, 21 (Sept. 1947), 375-86. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1947-09_21_3/page/374/mode/2up

“Sophonisba P. Breckinridge Over the Years.” Social Service Review, 22 (Dec. 1948), 417-23. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1948-12_22_4/page/n7/mode/2up

“Grace Abbott and Hull-House, 1908-21. Social Service Review 24, Part I, (Sept. 1950), 374-94. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1950-09_24_3/page/374/mode/2up; and Part II, (Dec. 1950), 493-518. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1950-12_24_4/page/492/mode/2up

“The Survey Award: Acceptance Speech.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1951, pp. ix-x. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/n/ncosw/ACH8650.1951.001/16?rgn=full+text;view=image

“The Hull-House of Jane Addams.” Social Service Review, 26 (Sept. 1952), 334-38. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1952-09_26_3/page/334/mode/2up

Sources:
Rachel Marks, The Published Writings of Edith Abbott: A Bibliography, American Journal of Sociology 32 (March 1958), 51-56;
Lela B. Costin (1983). Two Sisters for Social Justice: A Biography of Grace and Edith Abbott. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, pp. 287-293.

Image Source: Portrait of Edith Abbott by Melvin H. Sykes (1919). University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-00004, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. Image colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Columbia Economists Gender Social Work Socialism

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. Alumna, Vera Shlakman, 1938

 

Vera Shlakman (1909-2017) was born in Montreal to an anarchist mother and social-democratic father, Jewish immigrants born in Vilna and Pinsk, respectively, who named their children after Eleanor Marx, Victor Hugo and the Russian revolutionary Vera Zasulich. “Whenever Emma Goldman and Rudolf Rocker came to Montreal to lecture they stayed with us.”

Vera and her siblings all studied at McGill University but then moved to New York to find jobs. Vera did her Ph.D. thesis work with the economic historian Carter Goodrich at Columbia University. Later at Smith College she worked together with, among other people, Dorothy Douglas (divorced from the economist and later U.S. Senator, Paul Douglas).

Vera Shlakman’s career as an economist was cut short in 1952 as a consequence of the Second Red Scare. She was later rehabilitated and actually received financial compensation for lost pension rights. Of no small interest are the recollections  of the eminent historian of economics, Mark Blaug, included below.

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Biographical information for Vera Shlakman

Heins, Marjorie. Priests of Our Democracy–The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom, and the Anti-Communist Purge. New York: New York University Press, 2013.

Kessler-Harris, Alice. “Vera Shlakman, Economic History of a Factory Town, A Study of Chicopee, Massachusetts (1935).” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 69 (2006): 195-200.

Avrich, Paul. Interview with Lena Shlakman, January 23 and 24, 1974, in Anarchist Voices. A Oral History of Anarchism in America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995. Pages 325-328.

Vera Shlakman’s New York Times obituary, “Vera Shlakman, Fired in Red Scare, Dies at 108” was published November 29, 2017.

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Timeline of Vera Shlakman

1909. Born July 15 in Montreal to Louis Shlakman (tailor and shirtwaist factory foreman) and Lena Hendler (glove stitching, shirtwaist factory worker).

1930. B.A. in economics from McGill University in Montreal.

1931. M.A. in economics from McGill University.

1931/32-1932/33. In residence graduate work at Columbia University. Some months employed as research assistant to Professor Arthur R. Burns.

1933/34-1934-35.  Research Fellow to the Council of Industrial Studies, Smith College.

1935. Publishes Economic History of a Factory Town: A Study of Chicopee, Massachusetts as volume 20, Nos. 1-4 (October, 1934-July, 1935)  of the Smith College Studies in History.

Pasted on the title page: “Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University.”

1935-37. Instructor in the Department of Economics, Smith College.

1937-38. Instructor in the Department of Economics and Sociology at Sweet Briar College, Virginia.

1938. Ph.D. in economics awarded by Columbia University.

1938. Hired by Queens College as instructor.

1944-46. Reported to have been a member of the Communist Party. One of the reasons why the F.B.I. had placed her on a watch list. [Not aware of any record in which Shlakman had ever confirmed or denied such activity.]

1952. Assistant professor, but summoned as vice-president of the Teachers Union local for a public hearing of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. After taking the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination in response to questions regarding  Communist Party activity, she (along with several others) was dismissed from Queens College.

1953. Unemployed.

1954-58.  Employed as a secretary and bookkeeper with some intermittent teaching.

1959. Hired for an administrative position at Adelphi University.

1960. Teaching position in Social Work at Adelphi University, achieved rank of associate professor..

1966. Hired at the School of Social Work at Columbia University, Associate professor.

1967-68. Supreme Court of the United States declares the New York state laws under which Shlakman and others were dismissed as unconstitutional.

1978. Retired from Columbia University as professor emerita.

1980. Official apology received from City University of New York.

1982. Trustees of the City University announced a financial settlement for its dismissed faculty. Vera Shlakman received $114,599.

2017. Vera Shlakman died November 5 in Manhattan.

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AEA Listing 1938

Shlakman, Vera, Queen’s Col., Flushing, N.Y. (1938) a Queen’s Col., instr. b B:A:, 1930, M.A., 1931, McGill (Canada); Ph.D., 1938, Columbia. c Economic history of factory town: study of Chicopee, Mass. d American economic history; labor.

Source: American Economic Review, Vol. 28, No. 3, Supplement, Handbook, Who’s Who in the American Economic Association: 1938 (Sep., 1938). List of Members, p. 83.

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Testimony by the Historian of Economics, Mark Blaug

I doubt whether it would have taken me so many years to throw off the weight of Marxism if it had not been for an encounter in 1952 with the spectre of McCarthyism. McCarthy was riding high in 1952, the product of the anti-Communist hysteria that held America in its grip at the height of the Cold War. And it was a hysteria as the following story will show. I had graduated from Queens College of the City University of New York in 1950 and was in the midst of my preliminary year for the PhD at Columbia University when Arthur D. Gayer, the chairman of the economics department at Queens College, was killed in an automobile accident. The department looked around for someone to take over his courses in the middle of the semester and since I had worked for him as a research assistant, I was asked whether I would have a go. And so I suddenly found myself teaching a full load of courses in microeconomics, consumer economics and marketing, a subject I had never studied. I can remember being so nervous about my first lectures that I literally memorized them in their entirety the night before giving them.

I was just getting on top of all this teaching when the Un-American Activities Committee, chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy, arrived in New York city to investigate communism in the New York City college system. They called on three well-known professors to appear before them in order, no doubt, to ask them the familiar questions: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”. All three refused to cooperate with the committee, pleading the First and Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits witnesses from incriminating themselves. Despite the fact that all three were tenured professors, they were promptly and summarily dismissed by their employer, the City University of New York.
One of these three professors was Vera Shlakman, Professor of Labour Economics at Queens College, a former teacher of mine and, at that point in time, a colleague. She was the president of the Teachers’ Union, a left-wing professional union of college teachers in the New York City area, and was herself left-wing and, for all I knew, a fellow-traveler. But having been taught by her, I knew that she was scrupulously impartial and leaned over back wards not to indoctrinate her students. A number of students organized a petition to the President of Queens College demanding Vera Shlakman’s reinstatement but, by the by-laws of the college, student petitions could not be submitted to a higher authority without an endorsing signature of at least one faculty member. The students went right through the economics department, which then numbered 40 professors, associate professors, assistant professors, and lowly tutors like myself, without encountering one person willing to endorse the petition. At the end of the line, they came to me and because of my personal regard for Professor Shlakman, and because I could not bear the thought of being pusillanimous, I signed the petition. Within 24 hours, I received a curt note from President Thatcher of Queens College (odd that I should remember his name after 40 years!) informing me that, unless I resigned forthwith, I would be dismissed, and black-listed for future employment.
For a day or two, I contemplated a magnifi cent protest, a statement that would ring down the ages as a clarion call to individual freedom, that would be read and recited for years to come by American high school students?and then I quietly sent in my letter of resignation.

I was now at my wit’s end. I had planned to apply for a scholarship to begin working on my doctoral dissertation and had been relying on my teaching salary from Queens College to carry me through the application period. I was broke and depressed by the entire experience when suddenly the telephone rang to inform me that I had been offered a grant by the Social Science Research Council to enable me to go abroad to write my PhD thesis: clearly, there were people here and there behind the scenes lending assistance to victims of McCarthyism.

Source: Mark Blaug, Not Only an Economist—Autobiographical Reflections of a Historian of Economic Thought, The American Economist, Fall, 1994, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Fall, 1994), pp. 14-15.

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Oscar Shaftel Papers

The Oscar Shaftel Collection documents Professor Shaftel’s tenure as a professor at Queens College, including his dismissal and his efforts to reinstate his pension. The bulk of the collection is from 1948 to 1982 and includes correspondence, flyers, printed materials, and hearing transcripts. The collection provides evidence of Oscar Shaftel’s personal experience at Queens College, as well as student activism on campus in the late 1940s and early 1950s. More broadly, the collection provides documentation of the McCarthyism and its effect on the New York City education system.

This series includes correspondence from Queens College President John T. Theobald (1953); a copy of the transcript from Oscar Shaftel’s testimony before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee; correspondence regarding Shaftel’s appeal of his termination by Queens College; testimony of former Queens College professor Vera Shlankman; court documents of former professors Dudley Straus and Francis Thompson (undated); and a letter written in support of Vera Shlankman and Oscar Shaftel from Queens College alumni.

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Image Source:  Faculty portrait of Vera Shlakman, Social Work. Alephi University (Garden City, New York), The Oracle 1965.

 

 

Categories
Columbia Economists Gender Social Work Third Party Funding Vassar

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. alumna, Sydnor Harbison Walker, 1926

 

Sydnor Harbison Walker was a budding labor economist who became an important grants administrator/manager with the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial and later the Rockefeller Foundation. Her 1926 Columbia University dissertation was on the economics of social work, which like home economics, provided an academic harbor within economics for not a few women economists of the time.

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Life of Sydnor Harbison Walker

Born: 26 September 1891 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Parents: Walter and Mary Sydnor Perkins Walker.

1913. A.B. from Vassar with honors

Taught English and Latin at private schools in Louisville, Dallas, and Los Angeles.

1917. M.A. University of Southern California.

Thesis: “The General Strike with Particular Reference to Its Practicability as Applied to American Labor Conditions”

1917. Poughkeepsie City director listing as “assistant Vassar College”.

1918-19. Poughkeepsie City director listing as “instructor Vassar College”.

1919-21 [ca.]. Philadelphia.

Personnel work at Scott Company in Philadelphia [where she met Beardsley Ruml, see below].
Personnel work at Strawbridge & Clothier in Philadelphia.

1921-23. American Friends Service Committee.

One year of relief work in Vienna
Followed by one year in Russia with the American Friends Service Committee.

1924-1929. Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund.

Recruited by Beardsley Ruml as “research associate” in June 1924.

1926. Economics Ph.D. from Columbia University. Henry Seager, principal adviser.

Dissertation published: Social Work and the Training of Social Workers. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1928.

1929-1943. Rockefeller Foundation (absorbed the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund in 1929).

1933. Promoted to associate director

1934. Sydnor H. Walker, “Privately Supported Social Work,” in Recent Social Trends in the United States, ed. President’s Research Committee on Social Trends (New York: Whittlesey House, 1934), pp. 1168-1223.

1937. Appointment to acting director of the Social Science Division.

1939. Voted to the board of trustees of Vassar. Resigned October 1942 due to illness.

1941. October. Contracted a spinal infection, involving a paralytic illness that “permanently confined her to a wheel chair”. She had been elected to be president “of a prominent woman’s college” but the illness forced her to decline the honor.

1943. Resigned from the Rockefeller Foundation.

1945. Edited a volume for the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, New York City. “The first one hundred days of the atomic age, August 6-November 15, 1945”.

1948. Appointed assistant to Sarah Blanding, president of Vassar.

1958. Retired from Vassar.

Died: 12 December 1966 in Millbrook, New York, leaving a bequest of $10,000 to Vassar College.

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Walker’s principal biographer

Amy E. Wells. Considering Her Influence: Sydnor H. Walker and Rockefeller Support for Social Work, Social Scientists, and Universities in the South.  pp. 127-147. Chapter 5 in Andrea Walton (ed.). Women and Philanthropy in Education.  Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

_________. Sydnor Harbison Walker. American National Biography Online. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

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Vassar Memorial Minute
Walker, Sydnor Harbison, 1891-1966

Miss Sydnor Harbison Walker, Vassar alumna, faculty member, trustee and Assistant to the President, died December 12, 1966, at her home in Millbrook, New York, at the age of 75. She was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the daughter of Walter and Mary Sydnor Perkins Walker.

After attending Louisville schools, Miss Walker came to Vassar and was graduated in 1913 with honors. Economics was her major interest and she returned to Vassar to teach it in 1917, with an M.A. from the University of Southern California. Professor Emeritus Mabel Newcomer, a young colleague at the time, writes that “her quick wit and gaiety made her well liked among students in the residential hall where she lived ….. as a teacher she exhibited these same qualities, combined with clarity of thought and expression …. although she could be sharply critical of the careless and the dilatory.”

In 1919 Miss Walker decided that she needed some practical experience and went to work for a pioneering firm of industrial relations consultants where she wrote their weekly news letter. Three members of this young firm became college presidents and some years later Miss Walker herself was on the way to the presidency of a prominent college for women. A fourth member of the firm was Beardsley Ruml.

In 1921 Miss Walker engaged in the relief work of the American Friends Service Committee, first in Vienna and later in Russia. In a letter to President Emeritus MacCracken, she vividly describes her experience.

“We are now feeding about 15,000 a week through our depots, and we are supplying clothing to nearly 3,000. Our work is done on an individual case basis, which we think to be the soundest, not only from a social point of view, but because we believe that method essential for the creation of a spirit of international good-will — at no time a secondary object in our program… In addition to the feeding and clothing…. we are teaching mothers to care for their babies through the welfare centers; we are supporting a score of hospitals and other institutions for children; we have restocked farms with poultry and cattle and are helping farmers to build up permanent food resources for the city; and we are assisting materially in such constructive Austrian enterprises as the building of suburban land settlements and the creation of a market abroad for the art work of many gifted persons…we feel that we are a real part of the life of the city and not a superimposed group of relief workers.”

It is not hard for those who knew Miss Walker to visualize her presiding over relief work in the Imperial Palace of the Hofburg, whose stately corridors were cheerless and deserted save for these activities.

Returning to America in 1924, Miss Walker combined her interests in industrial relations with social welfare and education by becoming a research assistant at the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund in New York. In the meantime she received her doctorate in economics from Columbia University in 1928 with a dissertation on “Social Work and the Training of Social Workers.”

When the Rockefeller Foundation absorbed the Spelman Fund in 1929, Miss Walker began her association of twenty years with the Foundation. She moved from the research department to the position of Associate Director of the Social Sciences Division and finally became its Acting Director. While there she developed a program of international relations involving considerable travel in Europe and South America in very responsible positions. In 1933 she collaborated in the preparation of the report of President Hoover’s Committee on Social Trends, contributing a chapter entitled, “Privately Supported Social Work.”

In 1939 Miss Walker was proposed for trustee of Vassar College by the Faculty Club and she was elected by the board. Again quoting Miss Newcomer, “her contribution as a Vassar trustee was very real….Her experience on the faculty and as a student, and her current work in the Rockefeller Foundation, had given her a real understanding of the problems of the college and enabled her to offer constructive criticism and suggestion for change.”

Her resignation as trustee occurred in October 1942, and came because of a crippling illness which led eventually to her permanent confinement to a wheel chair. A friend and fellow alumna described her long battle against mistaken diagnoses, official predictions of helplessness and the end of her career.

“Sydnor simply rejected the idea of permanent immobility…. for a person who never knew what fatigue meant, who never could understand inactivity, either mental or physical, nothing could have been more tragic than paralysis.”

When Miss Walker realized that complete recovery was impossible, on her own initiative she went to one of the first rehabilitation clinics in New York and learned to help herself to a remarkable degree. Also she wrote, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation published in 1945, a report entitled “The First Hundred Days of the Atomic Age.”

In 1948 another opportunity to serve Vassar came to Miss Walker when Miss Blanding named her Assistant to the President. She returned to live in Metcalf House and became an active participant in Vassar’s development. Miss Blanding knew her as “a brilliant woman who never lost her zest for life nor her interest in things of the mind. She was a voracious reader and stimulating companion.”

After Miss Walker’s retirement in 1957, she bought a large colonial house in Millbrook, reminiscent of her native Kentucky. There she continued her vital interest in Vassar and in the many friendships she had made throughout her rich and colorful life.

Respectfully submitted,

Josephine Gleason
Clarice Pennock
Verna Spicer
Winifred Asprey, Chairman

Source: Online collection published by Vassar College Libraries. Faculty meeting minutes: XVIII-334-336.

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From The Rockefeller Foundation: A Digital History.

Sydnor H. Walker worked with the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial (LSRM) and the Rockefeller Foundation’s (RF) Division of the Social Sciences, helping to shape research in the social sciences over the course of two decades.

Walker was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1891. She received an A.B. in economics from Vassar College in 1913 and an M.A. from the University of Southern California in 1917.

She returned to Vassar in 1917, where she served as an instructor in economics. A colleague commented that Walker was appreciated by the students for “her quick wit and gaiety…although she could be sharply critical of the careless and the dilatory.”[1] In 1919 Walker left her teaching position to join an industrial relations consulting firm headed by Beardsley Ruml. She subsequently went abroad to Vienna and Russia to aid in European relief with the American Friends Service Committee.

Upon her return to the U.S. in 1924, Walker was recruited by Ruml to work for the LSRM as a research associate. She was a staunch advocate of using scientific and standardized methods to conduct research in the social sciences. While working for the LSRM, Walker continued her studies at Columbia University, receiving her Ph.D. in economics in 1928. Her dissertation, “Social Work and the Training of Social Workers,” was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1928.

When many of LSRM’s programs were consolidated with the RF in 1929 and a new Division of the Social Sciences created, Walker became Assistant Director of the division. She was promoted to Associate Director in 1933 and Acting Director in 1937. Among her interests at the RF, she was a proponent of improving the teaching of social work and the administration of social welfare programs. Her grant-making extended to many southern universities. She also contributed to the development of the social sciences outside the U.S., working with grantees in Europe and Latin America.

Resigning from the RF in 1943 for health reasons, she worked on a report for the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, “The First Hundred Days of the Atomic Age,” which was published in 1945.

She served as a trustee for Vassar College from 1939-1943 and was appointed assistant to the president of Vassar College in 1948, a position she held until 1957.

Sydnor H. Walker passed away in 1966. Former Vassar College President, Sarah Blanding, called her “a brilliant woman who never lost her zest for life nor her interest in things of the mind.”[2] Her officer diaries are available to researchers at the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) and additional papers are in the Biographical Collection at the Vassar College Libraries.

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

[1] Josephine Gleason et al. “Sydnor Harrison Walker: A Memorial Minute,” Vassar Faculty Meeting, December 1966, Biographical Files Collection, Vassar College Archives, Vassar Libraries.

[2] Gleason et al.

Source: Webpage, The Rockefeller Foundation: A Digital History. People/Sydnor H. Walker. Also the source for the portrait of Sydnor H. Walker used above.

 

Categories
Bryn Mawr Columbia Economists Gender Policy Social Work Yale

Yale. Economics Ph.D. Alumna, Kate Holladay Claghorn, 1896

 

Today’s post adds another woman to the series “Get to Know an Economics Ph.D. alumna”. Kate Holladay Claghorn studied political economy under Franklin H. Giddings at Bryn Mawr followed by coursework with William G. Sumner and Arthur T. Hadley at Yale in industrial history, advanced economics, political science, and anthropology. I have not been able to find a digital link to her 1896 Yale Ph.D. thesis “Law, Nature, and Convention: A Study in Political Theory”, but much of her published work is easily accessible now on line.

Fun Fact: Kate Holladay Claghorn was a boarder in the John R. Commons home while she worked for him on the immigration sections of the Final Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX (1902). (Source: John R. Commons, Myself, pp. 68, 76.)

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Kate Holladay Claghorn
Life and Career

1863. Born Dec. 12 in Aurora, Illinois

Brooklyn Heights Seminary

1892. A.B., Bryn Mawr

1892-93. Graduate work at Bryn Mawr with Professor Franklin H. Giddings, professor of political economy

1896. Ph.D. Yale University. Professors Sumner and Hadley. Studied industrial history, advanced economics, political science, and anthropology

1898 to 1900 she acted as Secretary-Treasurer of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae.

1900-01. Assisted John Rogers Commons in his study of immigration for the United States Census Bureau 1902. Expert in the United States Industrial Commission.

1901-1902 was research worker for the Economic Year Book.

1902. Division of Methods and Results, United States Census.

1902-1905. Assistant registrar. New York City Tenement House Department.

1905. Acting Registrar. New York City Tenement House Department.

1906-1912. Registrar. New York City Tenement House Department.

1909. Claghorn was one of 60 signers, 19 of whom were women, of the “Call for the Lincoln Emancipation Conference to Discuss Means for Securing Political and Civil Equality for the Negro” written by Oswald Garrison Villard, which became the founding document of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

1912-1932. Instructor and head of the Department of Social Research, New York School of Social Work.

1918. First woman to be elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association.

1932. Retired.

1938. Died of a cerebral hemorrhage May 22 in Greenwich where she was living.
Buried with her parents in Maple Grove Cemetery, Kew Gardens, N.Y.

Source for most items above: Yale University Obituary Record, p. 231.

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Obituary

New York, March 24.—Miss Kate Holladay Claghorn, author and sociologist, who was a member of the faculty of the New York School of Social Work from 1912 to 1932, died Tuesday night at her home in Greenwich, Conn.

Source: The Times-Tribune (Scranton, Pennsylvania), Thursday, May 24, 1938, p. 2.

___________________

Graduate School Alumnae Directory,
Yale University
[1920]

Kate Holladay Claghorn, B.A. Bryn Mawr College 1892.

Miss Claghorn received her Doctor’s degree in 1896. From 1898 to 1900 she acted as Secretary-Treasurer of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. From 1900 to 1901 she was Expert in the United States Industrial Commission, and in 1901-1902 was research worker for the Economic Year Book. In 1902 she worked in the Division of Methods and Results, United States Census; in 1902-1906 she was Assistant Registrar, and in 1906-1912, Registrar, of the Tenement House Department of New York City. Since 1912 she has been head of the Research Department of the New York School of Social Work.

Her dissertation is entitled “Law, Nature, and Convention: A Study in Political Theory.” She has also written “Juvenile Delinquency in Rural New York,” issued as Children’s Bureau Publication, No. 32.

Source: Alumnae Graduate School, Yale University, 1894-1920. New Haven: Yale University, 1920, p. 46.

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Writers of the Day
[1897]

Kate Holladay Claghorn, whose scholarly paper, “Burke: a Centenary Perspective,” in the July Atlantic [Volume 80, No. 477 (July, 1897), pp. 84-95], shows both breadth of knowledge and maturity of thought, has only recently begun to write for publication, having but lately completed a college course. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1892, spent a year in graduate study at that institution, and then went to Yale, where she entered the graduate school, taking the degree of Ph.D. in 1896. There is an interesting fact connected with this graduation at Yale. Although Yale had granted degrees to women in 1894 and 1895, in 1896 women took part for the first time in the public commencement exercises, walking in the procession about the campus, sitting in Battell Chapel with the other candidates, and going upon the platform to receive diplomas. As Miss Claghorn happened by chance to head the line of women as they passed up to the platform, she was, it turned out, the first woman to receive as a reward for regular academic work done in the university an academic degree publicly from the hand of the president. Miss Claghorn’s particular interests are in the general field of the social sciences. At Bryn Mawr she was under the especial direction of Professor Franklin H. Giddings, then professor of political economy there, now professor of sociology at Columbia University. At Yale she studied under Professors Sumner and Hadley, following courses that they gave in industrial history, advanced economics, political science, and anthropology. Her thesis for the doctorate was a study in political theory, entitled “Law, Nature, and Convention.” While at Yale Miss Claghorn contributed to the Outlook a short article on Bryn Mawr. In the Yale Review for February, 1896 [Vol. IV. No. 4, pp. 426-440], she had an article entitled “The Ethics of Copyright.” Last winter she contributed to the Outlook five articles on “College Training for Women,” and in May she published, through Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., a book under the same title, “College Training for Women,” in which the matter printed in the Outlook is incorporated, in revised form, but which contains so much additional matter as to be practically quite a new production.

Source: The Writer, Vol. 10, No. 7 (July, 1897), pp. 102-103.

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A Card Index That Santa Claus Might Follow
[1912]

Miss Kate Claghorn is holding down a man’s job in the tenement house department because there was no man smart enough to fill it. Twice she stood the test of an examination framed in Columbia University, which was designed, if anything, to eliminate women from the competition, but which in the end eliminated the men. The position of registrar of records is one of the “fat” jobs. It has the handsome little salary of $3,000 attached to it, and it takes the statistical mind of a thinking machine to do the work that goes along with it.

An inkling of the intricacy of Miss Claghorn’s work can be got from the fact that recently she finished, in six months, a complete survey of all the five boroughs of New York City, recording on cards for instant reference the condition of every dwelling and tenement house in the city. Not a roof was passed by. Santa Claus himself might follow Miss Claghorn’s card index and no one would be overlooked at Christmas time.

Source: From Frank Parker Stockbridge. “A Woman Who Spends Over Forty Million Dollars Each Year and Some Others Who Hold Positions of Financial Power and Moral Responsibility in the Government of New York City.” The American City, vol. 6. No. 6 (June, 1912), p.816.

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Woman’s Who’s Who of America
[1914]

Claghorn, Kate Holladay, 81 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Lecturer, teacher: b. Aurora, Ill. (came to N.Y. City in infancy); dau. Charles and Martha Holladay; ed. Bryn Mawr, A.B. ’92; Yale, Ph.D. ’96. Engaged in research work for U.S. Industrial Comm’n, 1890-1901; in U.S. Census Office, 1902; ass’t registrar of records, 1902-06; registrar Tenement House Dep’t, City of N.Y., 1906-12; lecturer on permanent staff N.Y. School of Philanthropy, 1912—. Author: College Training for Women, 1897; also contributor to magazines. Mem. Women’s Political Union, N.Y. Mem. Am. Economic Ass’n, Am. Statistical Ass’n, Soc. For Italian Immigrants, Little Italy Ass’n, Women’s Univ. Club. Recreation: Music.

Source: Woman’s Who’s Who of America, 1914-1915, John William Leonard, ed. New York: American Commonwealth Company (1914), p. 178.

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DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL RESEARCH
[1923-1924]

Miss Claghorn

The task of social research is to collect and arrange the facts needed as a basis for dealing with social problems either of the individual or the group.

Opportunities for Employment

  1. Field investigators and research workers in the Federal Service, as for example in the Bureau of Labor Statistics or in the Children’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, in State or Municipal Service, in organizations interested in housing or Americanization, or in some one of the various investigations or surveys undertaken under the direction of private individuals or committees, or foundations.
  2. Statisticians, in the Federal, State or Municipal Service, or in private organizations engaged in social work.
  3. Teachers of social statistics.

The demand for trained workers in this field is not yet so strong or so steady as in some others, but there are indications that the demand is growing and that students with special qualifications for this kind of work and special interest in it may be encouraged to prepare for it.

Requirements for the Diploma in this Field

Methods of Social Research (Soc. Res. 1, 2 and 3), The Method of Social Case Work (S.C.W. 1), field work in the Department of Social Case Work (S.C.W. 301) 2 days a week for one Quarter. Social Work and Social Progress (S.C.W. 3), Vocational Course in Social Research for 3 Quarters (S.C.W. 201), and additional course to total 84 points.

Soc. Res. 1. Methods of Social Research, 2 points, Fall Quarter. Miss Claghorn.

The planning of an investigation, the framing of schedules or questionnaires, the construction of statistical tables and simple diagrams.

Soc. Res. 2. Methods of Social Research, 2 points, Winter and Spring Quarters. Miss Claghorn.

Simple forms of analysis of statistical material, graphs, ratios, averages, measures of dispersion.

Soc. Res. 3. Methods of Social Research, 2 points, Spring Quarter. Miss Claghorn.

Elementary theory of probability, fitting of data to the normal curve, fitting to trend lines, correlation, linear and non-linear, reliability of measures.

Soc. Res. 4. The Immigrant, 2 points, Fall Quarter. Miss Claghorn.

Soc. Res. 5. The Immigrant, 2 points, Winter Quarter. Miss Claghorn.

To deal with people successfully, it is necessary to know something of what they are and what they think and feel. A large proportion of the persons with whom social agencies come in contact are foreigners of many different varieties, each with peculiar habits and characteristics which largely determine their reactions to the new environment. As a help toward understanding our foreign peoples, this course undertakes the study of the racial heritages, economic background, and the social institutions of the more important immigrant groups from Europe and the Near East.

Soc. Res. 201. Vocational Course, Social Investigation, Fall Winter and Spring Quarters. Miss Claghorn.

Study and practice of methods of social investigation in some special field selected according to the needs of the student or group of students electing this course. In the past, studies have been made in this Department in immigrant life, housing, and juvenile delinquency.

Soc. Res. 301. Field Work, 4 points.

Two days a week for one Quarter in some agency carrying on social research may be arranged in accordance with the special needs of the student.

Source: Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, the New York School of Social Work, General Announcement 1923-1924 (April Bulletin), pp. 30-31.

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Students that have received the Degree of Bachelor of Arts from Bryn Mawr College

Kate Holladay Claghorn. Group, Greek and Latin.

Leonia, N.J. Prepared by Mr. Caskie Harrison, Brooklyn, New York City: passed examination covering the Freshman year in Columbia College, 1888-89. A.B., 1892; Ph.D., Yale University, 1896. Graduate Student in Sociology, Bryn Mawr College, 1892-93; Graduate Student in Political Science, Yale University, 1893-95, and University Scholar, 1894-95; Secretary-Treasurer of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, 1898-1900.

Source: Program Bryn Mawr College 1900-01, p. 89.

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Partial List of publications (with links)

Kate Holladay Claghorn. College Training for Women. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1897.

___________. “Occupation for the [woman] college graduate,” (Association of Collegiate Alumnae. Publications, series 3, no. 3 (February, 1900), pp. 62-66. 1900).

___________. “The problem of occupation for college women,” Educational Review, Vol. XV (March, 1898), pp. 217-230.
Appears to be same publication as (Association of Collegiate Alumnae, Publications Series 2, no. 66).

Final Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX (1902).

___________. “Slavs, Magyars and Some Others in the New Immigration”. Charities Vol. Xiii, No. 10 (Dec. 3, 1904), pp. 199-205.

___________. “The Limitations of Statistics,” Review of William H. Allen Efficient Democracy. In Quarterly Publications of the American Statistical Association, New Series, No. 81 (Vol. XI) March, 1908. Pages 97-104.

___________. “The Use and Misuse of Statistics in Social Work.” In Quarterly Publications of the American Statistical Association, New Series, No. 82 (Vol. XI) June, 1908. Pages 150-167.

___________. “Record Keeping as an Aid to Enforcement” in Housing and Town Planning, Carol Aronovici, ed. Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science (1914), pp.117-124.

___________. Juvenile Delinquency in Rural New York. U. S. Department of Labor. Children’s Bureau, no. 32, 1918.

___________. The Immigrant’s Day in Court. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1923.

___________.  Statistical Department of the Municipal Court of Philadelphia.  A Report by the Bureau of Municipal Research of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Thomas Skelton Harrison Foundation, 1931.

Further publications can be found in the longer bibliography provided in the Bibliography of Female Economic Thought, Kirsten K. Madden, Janet A. Seiz and Michèle Pujol, editors. London: Routledge, 2004, pp. 107-108.

Image Source: Frank Parker Stockbridge. “A Woman Who Spends Over Forty Million Dollars Each Year and Some Others Who Hold Positions of Financial Power and Moral Responsibility in the Government of New York City.” The American City, vol. 6. No. 6 (June, 1912), pp 814-. [photo of Kate Holladay Claghorn on page 816].

 

 

 

Categories
Columbia Economists Race Social Work Yale

Columbia’s first African American Ph.D. Social Economics Ph.D. alumnus, George Edmund Haynes, 1912

 

Early in the twentieth century disciplinary borders in the social sciences were considerably more porous than by mid-century. Sociology, while already a distinct department at Chicago on a par with the department of political economy, either shared a broader social scientific condominium with economics and other disciplines as in the Faculty of Political Science at Columbia  or it was a subordinate field within an economics department, e.g. at Harvard. This is the main reason for residual ambiguity in the attribution of a disciplinary identity to some of the scholars who earned their doctorates back in that day. 

Today’s addition to the series “Meet an economics Ph.D. alumnus/a” is precisely such a case. The African American George Edmund Haynes (Columbia Ph.D., 1912) was the first African American to be awarded a doctorate by Columbia University and like the first African American to be awarded a Ph.D. at Harvard, W.E.B. Du Bois (1895), taught both economics and sociology during his early academic career. Where Du Bois brought an historian’s lens to his work, Haynes brought that of a social worker to his, having studied at the New York School of Philanthropy following his M.A. from Yale.

In the current discussion of structural racism in U.S. society in general and in academic economics in particular, the careers of Du Bois and Haynes suggest that “The Negro Problem” had been outsourced from academic economics in a way that “The Labor Problem” never was. African American men and women interested in the economics of race found homes in schools of social work and separate departments of sociology (or in traditional Black colleges). Analogously those women interested in the economics of families and consumption more often were expected to enter departments of home economics. 

This post provides three brief internet biographies about George Edmund Haynes in which I have linked wherever possible to his writings available on the internet. Details of Haynes’ academic whereabouts were confirmed from official publications of Fisk University and Columbia University and appended to the post.

The next post provides the social science curriculum developed by Haynes at Fisk University shortly after he was awarded his doctorate from Columbia.

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Fun Fact: Jared Bernstein received his Ph.D. in Social Welfare from the Columbia University School of Social Work, the ultimate successor to the New York School of Philanthropy (that in 1917 had morphed into the New York School of Social Work). Jared Bernstein served as Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden so perhaps we find ourselves on the cusp of an inclusionary revolution in economics.

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Research Tip

“Memoirs” ca. 1950 unpublished autobiography “in the possession of his widow” cited p. 482 in Guichard Parris and Lester Brooks Blacks in the City: A History of the National Urban League. Little, Brown, 1971.
Where are the memoirs now?

Tip of the hat to: Francille Rusan Wilson for her book, The Segregated Scholars: Black Social Scientists and the Creation of Black Labor Studies, 1890-1950 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006), pp. 61-66 on George Edmund Haynes’ early academic years.

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From the Preface to Haynes’ dissertation:

“This study was begun as one of the several researches of the Bureau of Social Research of the New York School of Philanthropy, largely at the suggestion of Dr. Samuel McCune Lindsay, the director, to whose interest, advice and sympathy its completion is largely due…
…The material was gathered between January, 1909, and January, 1910, except about four weeks in August, 1909, during the time that I was pursuing studies at the School of Philanthropy and at Columbia University…
…I wish to acknowledge especially the help of Dr. William L. Bulkley in making possible many of the interviews with wage-earners, or Dr. Roswell C. McCrea for criticism and encouragement in preparation of the monograph, and of Dr. E.E. Pratt, sometime fellow of the Bureau of Social Research; Miss Dora Sandowsky for her careful and painstaking tabulation of most of the figures.”

Source: The Negro at Work in New York City—A Study in Economic Progress published in the series Studies in History, Economic and Public Law, Vol. 29, No. 3 (1912),p. 7.

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Dr. George Edmund Haynes  (1880 – January 8, 1960)
Social Worker, Reformer, Educator and Co-Founder of the National Urban League.

NOTE: …  Much of the entry was excerpted from the booklet “The National Urban League: 100 years of Empowering Communities” authored by Anne Nixon and produced by The Human Spirit Initiative, an organization with a mission to inspire people to desire to make a difference and then act on it….

Introduction: The National Urban League was established in 1910 through the efforts of George Edmund Haynes and Ruth Standish Baldwin, the Urban League is the nation’s oldest and largest community- based movement devoted to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream. Today, the National Urban League, headquartered in New York City, spearheads the non-partisan efforts of its local affiliates. There are over 100 local affiliates of the National Urban League located in 35 states and the District of Columbia providing direct services to more than 2 million people nationwide through programs, advocacy and research. The mission of the Urban League movement is to enable African Americans to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights. (Source: www.nul.org, July 2006)

Background: The National Urban League was founded in 1910. The Civil War between North and South had ended forty-five years before, but the country was still deeply divided, and most former slaves remained locked in a system of political powerlessness and economic inequality. The new organization set two major goals – remove barriers to racial equality and achieve economic empowerment for the country’s Negro citizens.

Slavery had been abolished in 1865 by the 13th amendment to the United States Constitution. The 14th and 15th amendments went further and guaranteed equal treatment to Negroes and gave Negro men the right to vote. Despite these Constitutional protections, the civil war continued to rage in the hearts and minds of white Southerners. They were resigned to the abolition of slavery but were not willing to accept either social change or political domination by former slaves.

[…]

The alternatives for former slaves were limited. They could work for white farmers as tenants or sharecroppers, barely a step above slavery, or they could leave the South. Many opted to migrate and moved north to find a better life. Two people stepped forward at this time to provide leadership and help build an organization dedicated to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream – one Negro, one white; one man, one woman – and together, they founded the National Urban League.

Their names were George Edmund Haynes and Ruth Standish Baldwin.  Mrs. Baldwin came from a family of early New England colonists with a history of social activism. Her father was the editor of the Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican. A graduate of Smith College, she was the wife of William Henry Baldwin, Jr., president of the Long Island Railroad. She was active in the National League for the Protection of Colored Women (NLPCW) – an organization formed to help protect Negro women new to Northern cities.

George Edmund Haynes, unlike Ruth Standish Baldwin, did not come from a background of privilege. His father was a laborer, and his mother was a domestic servant with great ambitions for her son. When George Haynes completed his elementary education, the family moved from his birthplace in Pine Bluff, Arkansas to the more cosmopolitan community of Hot Springs. At a point in history when educational opportunities for Negroes ranged from limited to nonexistent, George Haynes’ achievements were astonishing. In Hot Springs, he completed the limited educational opportunities available and went on to take high school level courses and college preparatory studies at the Agricultural and Mechanical University in Huntsville, Alabama. He received his bachelor’s degree from Nashville, Tennessee’s Fisk University and then a master’s degree from Yale. Because he was an outstanding student, Yale awarded him an academic scholarship, and he waited tables and stoked furnaces for his room and board.

His varied and distinguished career began immediately after the Yale years. His first job was with the Colored Men’s Department of the International YMCA, where his visits to Negro colleges and universities broadened his horizons. But his academic studies continued, and he added to his reputation as a brilliant scholar. While studying at the University of Chicago during the summers of 1906 and 1907, Dr. Haynes became interested in social problems affecting black migrants from the South. This interest led him to the New York School of Philanthropy, from which he graduated in 1910. Two years later he received a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Columbia University Press published his doctoral dissertation, The Negro at Work in New York City [— A Study in Economic Progress]. He had the distinction of being the first Negro to receive a Ph.D. degree from Columbia University.

Within this period, he also involved himself in the activities of the American Association for the Protection of Colored Women, the Committee for Improving the Industrial Conditions of Negroes in New York, and the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes. Dr. Haynes was a man of many talents with an extraordinary number of professional commitments. In addition to being a co-founder of the National Urban League, he also founded and directed the Department of Social Sciences at Fisk University. At Fisk, his students trained at the Bethlehem Training Center that he had established as part of the Social Science Department. As part of their training, they did field work in existing agencies, and many were assigned to local affiliates of the National Urban League (i.e., Philadelphia, St. Louis, Nashville, Baltimore, Memphis, and Louisville). This model program was repeated at the University of Pittsburgh, Columbia University, and New York University.

Dr. Haynes served as executive director of the National Urban League from 1910 to 1918. He also established the Association of Negro Colleges and Secondary Schools, and served that organization as secretary from 1910 to 1918. He helped the New York School of Philanthropy and NLUCAN in collaborative planning that led to the establishment of the first social work training center for black graduate students at Fisk, and he directed that center from 1910-1918.

From 1918 to 1921, he served as Director of Negro Economics in the United States Department of Labor. As a special assistant to the Secretary of Labor, he was involved in matters of racial conflict in employment, housing, and recreation. He continued his earlier studies of exclusion of black workers from certain trade unions, interracial conditions in the workplace, and child labor. These studies resulted in numerous scholarly works. One of the most significant of these was The Negro at Work During the World War and During Reconstruction. The work’s widespread and profound impact resulted in his appointment as a member of the President’s Unemployment Conference in 1921.

In 1930 Dr. Haynes conducted a survey of the work of the YMCA in South Africa, and in 1947 he managed a similar study of the organization’s activities in other African nations. These efforts resulted in his being chosen as consultant on Africa by the World Committee of YMCAs. His book, Trend of the Races (1922), reflected his belief in the union of all people.

For the last nine years of his life, Dr. Haynes taught at the City College of New York and served as an officer of the American Committee on Africa. Dr. Haynes died in New York City in 1960.

Dr. George Edmund Haynes and Ruth Standish Baldwin have been memorialized with a plaque in the The Extra Mile — Points of Light Volunteer Pathway located on the sidewalks of downtown Washington, D.C. The Extra Mile Pathway is a program of Points of Light Institute, dedicated to inspire, mobilize and equip individuals to volunteer and serve. The Extra Mile was approved by Congress and the District of Columbia. It is funded entirely by private sources.

In 1917, Dr. Haynes made a presentation at the National Conference on Social Welfare on the migration of Negroes to northern cities. It can be viewed on the ERAS section under Civil Rights or linked directly: The Migration Of Negroes Into Northern Cities: By George E. Haynes, Ph. D., Executive Secretary of the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes

For further reading:

Carlton-La Ney, Iris (1983) “Notes on a Forgotten Black Social Worker and Sociologist: George Edmund Haynes,” The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 10 : Iss. 3 , Article 14.

Interracial Conference of Church Women, Eagles Mere, Pa., September 21-22, 1926, Social Welfare History Portal.

Source: Nixon, A. (n.d.). Julia Clifford Lathrop (1858-1932): Dr. George Edmund Haynes (1880 – January 8, 1960) – Social worker, reformer, educator and co-founder of the National Urban League. Social Welfare History Project. Retrieved July 31, 2020 from http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/social-work/haynes-george-edmund/

Archived copy at the Internet Archive WaybackMachine.

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George Edmund Haynes
by Reavis L. Mitchell, Jr.

Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, George E. Haynes was the only child of Louis and Mattie Sloan Haynes. At a young age he moved with his parents to New York, where he spent his youth. In 1903 he received his B.A. from Fisk University, he earned his M.A. from Yale University in 1904, and in 1912 he became the first African American awarded the Doctor of Philosophy degree from Columbia University.

In 1910 George Haynes married Elizabeth Ross of Montgomery, Alabama; they became the parents of one child, George Edmund Haynes Jr. After their marriage, the couple resided in New York, where Haynes studied social science and economics. He developed an acute awareness of the impact of socioeconomic readjustment upon African Americans who migrated northward from the South. Shortly after his marriage in 1910, he joined with Frances Kellor and Ruth Baldwin to establish the National Urban League for assisting those making the transition from agrarian to urban living.

Haynes accepted a faculty position at Fisk University in 1912. His intense interest in America’s changing social fabric prompted his leadership in establishing Fisk’s department of social sciences and an academic program to train professional social workers. By 1914 he had developed the first college-level course on the history of African Americans. His research on the African American adjustment to a predominately white society earned Haynes acclaim as a leader in the study of racial affairs.

Haynes emerged as a leader in efforts to bring Nashville’s white and African American communities together. Bethlehem House, a settlement house first proposed in 1907 by Fisk graduate Sallie Hill Sawyer and enlarged in 1913 by the addition of a kindergarten and clinic, became the “hands-on” training center for Professor Haynes’s social science students. The settlement house concept, patterned after the British movement of the 1880s, began to gather momentum in America in the early 1900s. By 1915 the Bethlehem Settlement House was the product of very advanced social theory put into action–especially in the turn-of-the-century South. Fisk University’s involvement with Bethlehem House supported the reality of whites and African Americans working together to provide social services.

In 1916, when a fire devastated East Nashville, the African American community suffered extensively. In the charred aftermath of this horrendous fire, Haynes’s Fisk University students offered assistance to the fire victims as they struggled to cope with their losses.

Two years later, Haynes left Tennessee for Washington, where he was appointed special assistant to the U.S. secretary of labor, serving until 1921, when he became cofounder and first executive secretary of the Department of Race Relations of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. For the next twenty-six years, he remained with the council in New York City and became a visionary leader of the city’s African American community. In the late 1940s, for example, Haynes organized the Interracial Clinic, which promoted interracial understanding and easing of racial tensions. In 1955 he was appointed to the New York University Board of Trustees, becoming the first African American appointed to a major American university’s board. After his wife’s death in 1953, Haynes remarried in 1955 to Olyve Jeter of Mount Vernon, New York, where the couple made their home. Haynes died in 1960 at Mount Vernon.

Suggested Reading

Reavis L. Mitchell Jr., Fisk University Since 1866: The Loyal Children Make Their Way (1995).

Source: The Tennessee Historical Society, Tennessee Encyclopedia website. “George Edmund Haynes” by Reavis L. Mitchell, Jr.

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George Edmund Haynes (1880-1960)
by Jessica Salo

Author, educator and organizer George Edmund Haynes was a social scientist, religious leader and pioneer in social work education for African Americans. Born in 1880 to Louis and Mattie Haynes in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, George Haynes was the oldest of two children of a domestic worker mother and day laborer father. He was educated in the segregated and unequal school system of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.  Eventually his family moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas to pursue greater educational opportunities for the Haynes children.

In 1893 at the age of thirteen, Haynes attended the Chicago World’s Fair where for the first time he witnessed discussions about the problems affecting African Americans. It was here he first heard about the “Negro Problem” and a variety of possible solutions including emigration to Africa.

Haynes’s experience at the World’s Fair motivated him to pursue higher education.  With the support of his mother he enrolled at the Agriculture and Mechanical College for Negroes at Normal, Alabama. After a year he transferred to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he eventually earned his B.A. degree in 1903. Haynes was admitted to Yale Graduate School where he earned his M.A. in 1904.

Haynes in 1905 began his career at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) working with African American youth in the Association’s Colored Men’s Department. In 1905 and 1906, with the support of the YMCA, he toured the South and visited almost all of the African American colleges to assess black higher education. During this time Haynes met and married Elizabeth Ross who was engaged in similar work with African American women.

While working at the YMCA, he enrolled at the University of Chicago during the summers of 1906 and 1907. He then moved to New York and attended the New York School of Philanthropy (later called the New York School of Social Work of Columbia University) and was its first African American graduate in 1910. Two years later he became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia.

George Haynes, upon graduation found himself in New York at the beginning of the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the urban North, and in particular, New York City.  The migration became an important issue for social scientists.  Haynes, the activist, became involved with various organizations that hoped to ease the transition of the Southern newcomers to the city.  The organizations included the Association for the Protection of Colored Women, the Committee for Improving the Industrial Conditions of the Negroes of New York, and the Committee on Urban Conditions among Negroes.  In 1910 Haynes and white reformer, Ruth Standish Baldwin, brought these three organizations together into the National League on Urban Conditions or the National Urban League (NUL).  Haynes became the first Executive Secretary of the NUL, a post he held between 1910 and 1917.

Haynes, used his work with black migrants as the basis for his 1912 Columbia University dissertation, “The Negro at Work in New York” which was later published by Columbia University Press under the same title.

After completing his dissertation Haynes was hired by Fisk University.  Between 1913 and 1917, he split his time between New York and Nashville, working directly on black community issues related to the Great Migration while teaching the next generation of social scientists who would succeed him.

In 1918, Haynes went to Washington, D.C. where he became a special assistant (with the title Director of Negro Economics) to the Secretary of Labor, a post he held until 1921.  While at the Department of Labor, Haynes conducted surveys and provided analysis and recommendations to the U.S. government on the most effective way to utilize the new Northern black industrial workers.  Much of his federally-sponsored research was published in 1921 as The Negro at Work During the World War and During Reconstruction.  Haynes and Emmett Scott who worked in a similar capacity in the War Department during this period, were the highest ranking black federal employees and the first to have influence at the Cabinet level.

In 1921 Haynes became the first Executive Secretary of the Department of Race Relations for the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. Here he applied his study and analysis to the question of race and religion in Ameican society for the Council until his retirement in 1947.  In 1930 Haynes conducted surveys for the YMCA of South Africa and in the 1940s did much the same for other African nations.  His Africa work brought international prominence to his research.

Even after retirement in 1947, Haynes remained involved in race relations work while teaching courses at the City College of the City University of New York including one of the first courses on African American history presented in a predominately white institution. In 1948 Haynes was appointed to the first Board of Trustees of the new State University of New York (SUNY) system.  He also published one book, Africa, the Continent of the Future in 1950.

George Edmund Haynes died in New York City in 1960.  Many of his manuscript and papers are preserved in the George Edmund Haynes Collection at Yale University and at the Erastus Milo Cravath Library at Fisk University.

Source:  Jessica Salo, “George Edmund Haynes (1880-1960)” article at the Website: BlackPast.

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Other publications
by George Edmund Haynes

“Co-operation with Colleges in Securing and Training Negro Social Workers for Urban Conditions,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections 38: 384-387.

Negro New-Comers in Detroit, Michigan: A Challenge to Christian Statesmanship, A Preliminary Survey. New York: Home Missions Council, 1918.

“Negro Migration—its Effects on Family and Community Life in the North,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work 51: 62-75.

Cotton Growing Communities (with Benson Y. Landis), 1934.

Africa, Continent of the Future. New York (The Association Press) and Geneva (World’s Committee of Young Men’s Christian Associations), 1951.

“The Birth and Childhood of the National Urban League,” The National Urban League 50th Anniversary Year Book (1960), 1-12.

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Ph.D. Columbia University, 1912

George Edmund Haynes

A.B. Fisk 1903, A.M. Yale 1904
Dissertation: The negro at work in New York City

Source: Columbia University, One Hundred and Fifty-eighth Annual Commencement (June 5, 1912), p. 40.

 

George Edmund Haynes,

Ph.D., 12; A.B., 03, Fisk Univ.; A.M., 04, Yale; Prof. Social Science Fisk Univ.; Ex-Sec. Natl. League on Urban Conditions among Negroes; mem. Am. Acad. Pol. And Social Sci.; Am. Economics Assn.; Am. Social and Natl. Geographic Socs. Fisk University and 1611 Harding St., Nashville, Tenn.

Source: Catalogue of Officers and Graduates of Columbia University (XVI edition). New York, 1916, p. 1065.

________________________

From Fisk University Catalogues

College Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; A.M., Student. Graduate School, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers, Students and Alumni of Fisk University, 1904-1905, p. 79.

College Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; A.M., Assistant Secretary, College Y.M.C.A., Atlanta, Ga.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers, Students and Alumni of Fisk University, 1905-1906, p. 79.

Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; A.M., Yale University, 1904; Secretary International Committee, College Y.M.C.A., Atlanta, Ga.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers, Students and Alumni of Fisk University, 1906-1907, p.85.

Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; A.M., Yale University, 1904; Secretary International Committee, College Y.M.C.A., Atlanta, Ga.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers, Students and Alumni of Fisk University, 1907-1908, p. 86.

College Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; A.M., Yale University, 1904; Junior Fellow, Bureau of Social Research, The New York School of Philanthropy; Graduate Student Columbia University; 219 West 134th Street, New York City.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers, Students and Alumni of Fisk University, 1908-1909, p.95.

College Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; A.M., Yale University, 1904; Junior Fellow, Bureau of Social Research, The New York School of Philanthropy; Graduate Student Columbia University; 219 West One-Hundred and Thirty-fourth Street, New York City.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers, Students and Alumni of Fisk University, 1909-1910, p. 71.

Faculty and Officers

George Edmund Haynes, M.A.
Associate Professor of Social Science

Source: Catalogue Number 1910-1911, Fisk University News, Vol. II, No. 2 (March, 1911), p. 5.

Events on the Campus

October 28.—Lecture on “What Sociology is About,” by Prof. G. E. Haynes.

Source: Catalogue Number 1910-1911, Fisk University News, Vol. II, No. 2 (March, 1911), p. 15.

Class Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; M.A., Yale University, 1904; Graduate, The New York School of Philanthropy, 1910; Associate Professor Sociology [sic], Fisk University, 1033 Twelfth Avenue, N., Nashville.

Source: Catalogue Number 1910-1911,Fisk University News, Vol. II, No. 2 (March, 1911), p. 89.

Faculty and Officers

George Edmund Haynes, M.A.
Professor of Social Science

Source: Catalogue Number 1911-1912 (2nd ed.), Fisk University News, Vol. III, No. 3 (May, 1912), p. 5.

College Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; M.A., Yale University, 1904; Graduate, The New York School of Philanthropy, 1910; Professor Social Science, Fisk University; Director, National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, 1033 Twelfth Avenue, N., Nashville.

Source: Catalogue Number 1911-1912 (2nd ed.), Fisk University News, Vol. III, No. 3 (May, 1912), p. 96.

Faculty and Officers

George Edmund Haynes, M.A.
Professor of Social Science

Source: Catalogue Number 1912-1913, Fisk University News, Vol. IV, No. 3 (May, 1912), p. 5.

 

Image Source:  U. S. National Archives. Rediscovering Black History website. Post by Gabrielle Hutchins “Dr. George Edmund Haynes: Social Crusader in Black Economics” (July 8, 2020).

 

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economists Gender Minnesota Social Work

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus Max Ira West, 1893.

 

 

Max Ira West (b. Nov. 11, 1870 in St. Cloud, MN; d. Jan 7, 1909 in Washington, D.C.) entered government service relatively soon after being awarded his Ph.D. in economics at Columbia University with a dissertation on the inheritance tax. He was a student of E.R.A. Seligman. West died at age 38, leaving a wife and five children. 

Max West and his future wife Mary Mills were fellow officers of the University of Minnesota’s Class of 1890. She was the designated class “prophet” and he served as the class “statistician”. Max was a professional economist of the family and rightly the main subject of this post. Max’s widow deserves some mention in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror for her later work. Mary attained great prominence for her pamphlets on pre-natal and infant care for the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor that were analogous to Dr. Benjamin Spock’s Baby and Child Care for later generations of parents. The Children’s Bureau was an absorbing state for the careers of many a professional woman economist of the time.

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Announcement of death of Max Ira West

The following communication with reference to the unfortunate death of Dr. Max West is printed at the request of the committee whose names appear below:

The members of the Association have no doubt read of the recent death, under most unfortunate circumstances, of Dr. Max West, of the Bureau of Corporations, Department of Labor, Washington, D. C.

Dr. West died after a short illness, a slight cold developing into pneumonia. He has left a wife and five children, ranging from thirteen years to only nine months, with no visible means of support, save a very small annuity terminable in ten years. Friends in Washington have contributed a considerable sum for immediate needs, including the expenses pertaining to Dr. West’s sickness and death, and have secured for Mrs. West a temporary position in the Government, which we hope will become a permanent position. This, with the closest economy, will enable Mrs. West to look after the bare physical needs of her five little children, but will leave no margin at all either for education or for contingencies.

It has therefore occurred to us and to some of the other friends of Dr. West that it might be possible to solicit and collect a fund for such a purpose. It is hoped to raise a fund of at least $5000. The suggestion is to be sent to all those who may be supposed to have known Dr. West personally, or to be in sympathy with the scholarly work for which he stood, and the committee will be very glad to receive any subscriptions that you may deem fit to make.

Checks may be sent to Mr. Edwin R. A. Seligman, at No. 324 West 86th street, New York, who has consented to act as treasurer for the committee.

Respectfully yours,

EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN, Columbia University.

JACOB H. HOLLANDER, Johns Hopkins University.

E. DANA DURAND, Dept. of Commerce and Labor, Washington.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Dr. Max West died of pneumonia at his home in Washington, D. C., on January 7, 1909.

Dr. West was born at St. Cloud, Minnesota, in November, 1870. He was graduated from the University of Minnesota at nineteen, and went at first into newspaper work. In 1891 he went to Columbia University as a fellow in economics. There he received his master’s degree the next year, and his doctorate the year following. From 1893 to 1895 he was connected with the University of Chicago, first as an honorary fellow and then as a docent. The great railroad strike of 1894 drew him again into newspaper work; he reported it for the Chicago Herald. In 1895 he was an editorial writer for the Chicago Record. During the academic year 1895-1896 he lectured at Columbia.

In 1896 he entered the government service, to which the rest of his life was chiefly devoted. For four years he was connected with the Division of Statistics of the Department of Agriculture, and for nearly two years with the Industrial Commission. During the latter part of this period, from 1900 to 1902, he was also associate professor of economics in Columbian University, Washington, and in 1902 he again lectured at Columbia. In that year he became assistant registrar of the Tenement House Department of New York City. In 1903 he went to Porto Rico as chief of the island Bureau of Internal Revenue. His health did not permit him to continue there, and in 1904 he returned to Washington as a special examiner of the Bureau of Corporations. Here he remained until his death.

Dr. West’s chief published work was The Inheritance Tax, which appeared in 1893, was translated into French in 1895, and was republished in a revised and enlarged edition in 1907. A projected work, entitled Principles of Taxation, is left unfinished. He wrote many articles for periodicals, dealing oftenest with taxation, but sometimes with sociological subjects, questions of constitutional law, and other topics.

More of Dr. West’s scanty strength than he could well spare was devoted to the promotion of public well-being. During his two years in Chicago he was a resident successively of Hull House, the University of Chicago Settlement, and the Chicago Commons. At Washington he was warmly interested in social settlement work and in the Associated Charities, and he was the most active and efficient member of the Civic Center.

Source: American Economic Association, The Economic Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Apr., 1909), pp. 12-14.

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Mary Mills West, ca. 1926

The following photograph was from a short alumna feature in the University of Minnesota yearbook The Gopher (1926). It is noted there that she was a member of the class of 1890, an editor of that year’s Gopher, and a member of the Delta Sigma literary society. The entry adds:

In 1909, she entered the Government service and filled various offices for the following ten years. She took a great interest in the newly created Children’s Bureau, and while there wrote three pamphlets regarding the health and care of mothers and babies which are widely distributed throughout the United States.

Mrs. West resigned her position with the Children’s Bureau in 1919, and moved to Berkeley where she engaged in newspaper syndicate work and other writings. She is, at present, an instructor in short-story writing for the University of California, and is gaining a considerable foothold in fiction writing for herself. She recently submitted a story to the Forum short story contest of 1924 and was awarded second place by a jury of noted writers and critics.

Image Source: University of Minnesota, The Gopher, 1926, p. 181.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Production of Mary Mills West’s pamphlets

West’s publications became the best-selling pamphlets of the Government Printing Office in the 1910s. The first edition of West’s pamphlet, Prenatal Care, sold out in two months. Only six months later, the Bureau had distributed 30,000 coopies and could have sent out twice that number but for the inability of the printeres to keep up with the demand. …Nearly a million and a half copies of West’s second pamphlet, Infant Care, were disseminated between 1914 and 1921.

Source:  Robyn Muncy. Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935 (Oxford University Press, 1991) p. 55.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Children’s Bureau Publications of Mary Mills West

(with Nettie McGill) Child-Welfare Programs: Study Outlines for the Use of Clubs and Classes. U.S. Department of Labor, Children’s Bureau. Bureau Publication No. 73, Children’s Year Follow-up Series, No. 7. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1920.

Prenatal Care. Care of Children Series, No. 1 Children’s Bureau Publication No. 4. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913.

Infant Care. Care of Children Series, No. 2 Children’s Bureau Publication No. 8 (Revised) Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1921. (first published in 1914)

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Mary Mills West’s obituary

Mrs. Mary West, Writer, Dies at 88

BERKELEY, Aug. 13. Mrs. Mary Mills West, whose pamphlets’ on infants and children’s care have been distributed by the United States Children’s Bureau to millions of American homes, died here yesterday. Her home was at 549 Santa Barbara Road.

Mrs. West, 88, was the widow of Dr. Max West, an economic consultant for the U.S. Departments of Labor and Commerce. She became associated with the Children’s Bureau when it was organized in 1915. After moving to Berkeley 30 years ago, she was associated with the University of California Extension Division as a writing instructor.

Surviving Mrs. West are two daughters, Mrs. W. R. Lorimer of Honolulu and Mrs. Charles Manson of Wausau, Wis., and a son, Philip S. West of Berkeley. Three grandchildren also survive.

Funeral services will be held at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow; in the Berkeley Hills Chapel, Shattuck Ave. and Cedar St .The Rev. Ray L. Wells, assistant pastor of the First Congregational Church, will officiate.

Source: Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California), August 3, 1955, p. 30.

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Image Source: Alumnus feature on Max West published in University of Minnesota, The Gopher, 1896, p. 133.

 

 

Categories
Brookings Chicago Economists Gender Social Work

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumna. Helen Russell Wright, 1922

 

From the days when economics still had room for policies of social work, Helen Russell Wright, economics Ph.D. alumna of the University of Chicago (1922). 

_______________________

Helen Russell Wright.

1891, February 26. Born in Glenwood, Iowa.
1912. A.B. Smith College.
Studied economics and social work in the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy (CSCP) under Sophonisba Breckenridge and Edith Abbott
1912-13. Appointed research student in the Department of Social Investigation. (CSCP)
1913. Certificate of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy.
1913-14. Senior Research Studentship (honorary). Department of Social Investigation (CSCP)
1914-15. Senior Research Studentship (honorary). Department of Social Investigation (CSCP)
1917-18.  Research assistant at Department of Social Investigation (CSCP)
1918-19. Assistant in Social Investigation (CSCP).
1919-1920. Assistant in Social Investigation (CSCP).
1920-21. Fellow in Political Economy, University of Chicago.
1922. Ph.D. University of Chicago. Thesis: The political labour movement in Great Britain, 1880-1914.
1922. Children of Wage-Earning Mothers: A Study of a Selected Group in Chicago. U.S. Department of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Publication No. 102. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1922.
1922-24. Senior Staff member, Brookings Graduate Institution of Economics, Washington, D.C.
1924-28. Member of the faculty of the Brookings Graduate Institution of Economics, Washington, D.C.
1926. Co-authored with Walton Hale Hamilton, The Case of Bituminous Coal. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926.
1928. Co-authored with Walton Hale Hamilton, A Way of Order for Bituminous Coal. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1928.
1928. Joins University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration.
1931. Associate Professor of Social Economy, Graduate School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
1938. Professor and Assistant Dean of the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
1944. Social Service in Wartime. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
1942-1956. Succeeded Edith Abbott as Dean of the Social Service Administration, University of Chicago.
1950-56. Editor of the Social Service Review.
1954. Received the University of Chicago’s alumni medal.
1955. Illinois Welfare association’s annual award for outstanding service in 1955.
1956. Retired from the University of Chicago
1957-58. Chief of a technical assistance team of the Council on Social Work Education to assist the development of the schools of social work in India.
Part-time teaching at the University of Southern California.
1969, August 14. Died in Pasadena, Los Angeles, California.

 

Image Source: Helen Russell Wright’s senior year portrait in Smith College, The 1912 Class-Book, p. 56.

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economists Gender Northwestern Social Work

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

 

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

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

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Helen Fisher Hohman

1916. B.A. University of Illinois.

1919. A.M. Columbia University.

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

1920. Assistant in the economics department, Vassar College.

1921-22. Instructor of economics at Simmons College.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

Categories
Gender Smith Social Work Stanford

Stanford. Economics instructor for Social Problems. Lothrop, 1915-1928

 

Examining a catalogue for Stanford from the early 1920’s, I came across the name of an instructor for social problems, Margaret Mulford Lothrop. Still at that time sociology and social work were topics taught in the economics department there. From Lothrop’s biography (see below) we see she is reported to have taught at Stanford through 1928. 

While she did not complete a Ph.D. (nor do I have any evidence this was something she ever attempted), she did cover courses in the Stanford economics department and perhaps some enterprising student in Massachusetts (where perhaps personal papers might be located) will follow up on this lead. Lothrop came from a distinguished home but 

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Coursed taught by Lothrop from Stanford’s Register for 1922/23

Lothrop, Margaret Mulford, Instructor in Economics

A.B., Smith, 1905; A.M., Stanford, 1915. At Stanford since 1915.

67a. Seminar in Social Investigation.—Practical experience in some small investigation. Open only to seniors and graduates who have taken Economics 67 (Introduction to Social Investigation).

Autumn quarter (Lothrop)
autumn, 21

67b. Seminar

Winter quarter (Lothrop)
Winter, 5

103. Care of Dependents.—A study of the problems of the care of dependents and defectives in institutions and in their homes, with special reference to conditions in California. Three trips of inspection will be required.

4 units, autumn quarter (Lothrop) MTWTh 11
autumn, 39

104. Problems of Poverty.—A study of the factors causing poverty, crime, disease, and mental defectiveness, as evidences of social maladjustment; a survey of the possible means of prevention and of the social agencies attempting such work, with special reference to California. Trips of inspection will be included.

4 units, summer quarter MTWTh 11
Summer, 12

105. Crime as a Social Problem.—A study of the problems of crime: the criminal and his characteristics, the treatment of the criminal, the causes and the prevention of crime, with special reference to conditions in California. Three trips of inspection of institutions will be required.

5 units, winter quarter (Lothrop) MTWThF 11
winter, 42

117. Problems of Child Welfare.—A brief survey of problems of child protection and care from the social viewpoint, with special reference to conditions in California.

2 units, summer quarter (Lothrop) TTh 10
summer, 14

118. Seminar in Social Problems.—Practical experience in some investigation.

Winter quarter (Lothrop) By arrangement
Winter, 12

Source: Leland Stanford Junior University, Register for 1922/23, pp. 34, 162-164
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Biography of Margaret Lothrop from National Park Service

Margaret Lothrop was born to Daniel and Harriett Lothrop on July 27, 1884 at The Wayside in Concord, Massachusetts. She was the only child of parents who were focused on literature and were interested in the preservation of history. Her mother wrote many books under the pen name of Margaret Sydney, including the children’s series the Five Little Peppers, and her father was a publisher, owning the D. Lothrop Publishing Co.

They had purchased The Wayside because of its history, being the house lived in by authors Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and being a witness house to the British troops marching in and out of Concord on the fateful day of April 19, 1775. With this patriotic and literary upbringing, Margaret became the first member of the National Society of Children of the American Revolution, newly founded by her mother in 1895.

Margaret saw many social events at her home, hosted by her mother, including the Hawthorne Centenary in 1904 where a monument was placed in the yard at The Wayside in honor of Hawthorne, and including fundraisers for such organizations as the Massachusetts Volunteer Aid Society. Margaret knew some of the great literary figures of the time, including John Greenleaf Whittier, Julia Ward Howe, and Samuel Francis Smith. She also saw her mother open their house for sight-seers.

Education

Margaret attended Concord schools, graduating from Concord High School known as a scholar and horsewoman. She attended Smith College, where she was a member of the Philosophical Society, the Italian Club, and a half back on the women’s field hockey team, graduating in 1905. She moved to California in 1912 where she earned her M.A. in Economics at Stanford University.

Career Woman

She moved back to Massachusetts where she worked at the Women’s Education and Industrial Union and the YWCA in Boston from 1913-15. She then returned to Stanford University where she was an instructor in the College of Arts and Sciences through 1928.

During WWI she was in the Red Cross where she was assigned as a Casualty Searcher in France, which included documenting graves, searching for families of men with memory loss, and speaking with dying men to identify their families.

Returning to The Wayside

Following the death of her mother in 1924, Margaret formed a committee in Concord to plan to open The Wayside for tourists in 1928. After serving as the Secretary of the California Society of the Prevention of Cruelty of Children for two years, she returned to The Wayside in 1932. Margaret researched the occupants of the house, coordinated staff and maintained the house for tours, tried to find organizations that would purchase the house for education purposes (to no avail), and wrote the book The Wayside: Home of Authors (published in 1940).

Preservation of The Wayside

During WWII, Margaret served as a member of the Red Cross and the Massachusetts Women’s Defense Corps. Through the 1940s to early 1960s, Margaret continued to maintain the house for tours, responded to letters from other researchers, wrote articles including “My House and the Minute Men,” and conducted her own research, including direct communication with the Hawthorne family.

She worked to have The Wayside declared a National Historic Landmark in 1963, and she sold the house to the National Park Service to become part of Minute Man National Historical Park on June 18, 1965. Margaret worked closely with the NPS staff, including contributing the bulk of her research to the park, giving oral histories, and speaking to groups.

Margaret Mulford Lothrop died in Concord on May 14, 1970. She left an extensive legacy, especially The Wayside, where she had been born and had spent so much time preserving for future generations. The house was re-opened by the NPS on April 17, 1971.

Source: National Park Service. Margaret Lothrop webpage. Also source of the image of Margaret Lothrop in her Red-Cross uniform.

Categories
Columbia Courses Economists Gender Germany Harvard Social Work

Harvard, Boston University & Berlin. Career of alumnus Edward Everett Ayers

 

From the E.R.A. Seligman papers at Columbia I came across an unsolicited application for employment in economics and sociology submitted to the President of Columbia University by a man who received his A.M. from Harvard and a pair of doctorates from Boston University and the University of Berlin (I suspect the dissertation did double duty since both degrees were apparently awarded in 1901, but have not checked that out). Edward E. Ayers turns out to be a nice example of the mixture of economics, sociology and social reform that was found in economics departments around the turn of the 20th century. Before getting to the document-artifacts found in the Seligman papers, I have included information about Ayers’ life and career and a review of his German doctoral dissertation. The post ends with course descriptions for Ayres’ non-Biblical teaching at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. 

From his yearbook portrait for Greensboro College (The Echo) 1927 we see that Edward E. Ayers appears to have switched into Religious Education and entirely dropped economics/sociology/social reform at the end of his teaching career.

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Rev Edward Everett Ayers

Bio by: David Ayers

BIRTH:           16 Jul 1865. Egypt, Belmont County, Ohio, USA

DEATH:         20 Apr 1939 (aged 73). Lynchburg, Lynchburg City, Virginia, USA

BURIAL:        Fort Hill Memorial Park, Lynchburg, Lynchburg City, Virginia, USA

 

Edward Everett Ayers was the 9th of 14 children of Philander and Nancy (Eagon) Ayers. He grew up on their farm in Kirkwood Twp, Belmont Cty, Ohio.

Despite these humble beginnings he obtained an amazing education – B.C.S. from Mount Union College in Ohio in 1891 and then a Ph.B. from the same institution a year later, a Bachelor of Sacred Theology from Boston University in 1896, then an A.M. from Harvard University in 1898, then separate Ph.D.s from both the University of Berlin (Germany) and Boston University in 1901. He published a small book on worker’s insurance and care for the poor, in German, in 1901. He also studied at Andover Theological Seminary from 1901-1903.

In the midst of all that he served 4 churches in and around Boston, MA between 1894 and 1908 as a Methodist Episcopal clergyman.

He married Caroline Eleanor Elder in Boston in 1899.

He then obtained another degree — S.T.D. – from Mount Union College in 1908.

In 1908 he secured a faculty position at Randolph Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, and remained there until 1925. He was Professor of Sociology and Bible. The later-famous Pearl Buck graduated from there in 1914, and given her interests and the size of the college he almost certainly had her as a student. He then accepted a faculty position at Greensboro Women’s College in 1926, staying there until he retired in 1936. He kept his home in Lynchburg during this time and it appears that his wife Caroline, stayed there. His daughter Virginia was in Wellesley College when he made this shift to Greensboro (1924-28). He appears in yearbooks for Greensboro Women’s College and appears to have been very well liked by students. He was certainly amazingly well-educated. Given his subject area, while he was studying in Berlin he almost certainly would have attended lectures by the great Georg Simmel.

 

Source: Memorial page for Rev. Edward Everett Ayers at the Find a Grave website. Includes pictures.

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Review of Ayres’ German dissertation

Arbeiterversicherung und Armenpflege. Von Edward E. Ayres, Ph.D. Berlin: E. Ebering, 1901.

Dr. Ayres belongs to an increasing number of young American clergymen who supplement their training in theology with a course in sociology. In selecting the above subject for his doctor’s thesis at Berlin he has appropriated one of the very choicest bits from the great social laboratory which the German states seem to have become. It appears that the German compulsory insurance — against sickness, accident, and old age — applies, in these different classes, to about 9,000,000, 16,500,000, and 12,000,000 of German working people, respectively. Dr. Willoughby, in his book on Workingmen’s Insurance, which appeared in 1898, explained the spirit and the letter of these experiments in paternalism, and now, after about twenty years of testing, it is time we were told something of the incidents, and it is to be  hoped that Dr. Ayres will turn his little book into English.

The chief thesis of the essay is that compulsory insurance has had a salutary influence upon conditions of dependency. This conclusion is reached after a study of the number of applicants for relief, for different periods, in a selected group of twenty-one towns, averaging in population about 40,000. The first discovery is that the number of cases of relief on account of sickness falling to women, who are less protected by the insurance, increased between 1880 and 1893 by about 20 per cent., while the population increased by nearly 50 per cent., and on account of sickness falling to men, who are more protected, there was an actual falling off in the number of cases. The showing is not quite so favorable in the class of relief on account of accident; but it is much more favorable in the class of relief on account of old age. The author’s conclusion is buttressed by a remarkable consensus of opinion, on the part of the administrators of the poor funds in the cities from which the figures are taken, that the burden of poor relief is greatly lightened as a result of measures of state insurance, and a number of them offer statistical reasons for their faith.

The general favorable view of the author is further strengthened by reports showing an increase of small savings-bank accounts, by different evidences of a higher standard of living, by the increased average annual income of insured persons from 641 marks in 1886 to 735 marks in 1898, and by a decline in emigration from 120,089 in 1891 to 20,837 m 1898.

The thesis certainly contains an interesting marshaling of pertinent coincidences, but in weighing the causal elements Germany’s phenomenal industrial awakening during the period studied should be considered, and this the author seems to neglect. Here he might shift his ground a trifle and say, “if insurance paternalism, as its enemies assert, leans in the direction of a slothful content (the future being cared for), it does not press sufficiently heavy to prevent the present era of industrial prosperity, and it has not proven to be as bad as some have prophesied.” But to say that “it was the cause of the industrial awakening” — not even Dr. Ayres would go that far. And that the industrial growth has been a factor in all the phenomena enumerated he would probably agree.

James H. Hamilton.
Syracuse University

 

Source: Review of Arbeiterversicherung und Armentpflege von Edward E. Ayres (Berlin, 1901) by James H. Hamilton in The American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 7, No. 2 (September 1901), pp. 281-282.

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Cover letter to President Butler
and Ayers’ c.v.

College Park, Lynchburg, Va.
Feb. 1, 1915.

Pres. N.M. Butler, LL.D.
New York

Dear Sir:-

Please find enclosed some personal testimonials of my preparation and work in economics and sociology. I would be very much pleased if you would keep these on file and, in case of a vacancy in this department of your institution, communicate with me.

Yours very truly,
[signed] Edward E. Ayers

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            With a desire to make larger provision for my family I wish to be considered for any vacancy in the department of Economics or Sociology in your institution.

The following is a brief account of my education and experience: I spent five years in Mt. Union College, having received my preparatory education in the public schools of Ohio. In the college I completed the business course, the teacher’s course, and the philosophical course, and received the degrees C.S.B. and Ph.B. in 1892. Entering immediately upon a course of study in Boston University, I remained four years and completed a theological course, receiving the degree S.T.B. During my stay there I also took all the philosophy taught by Professor Borden P. Bowne and all of the economics and sociology offered in the University. In 1896 I entered Harvard University to specialize in sociology and remained there two years, and received the degree A.M. in 1898. Much of my time while in Boston University and Harvard was spent in a study of the practical social problems of Boston and vicinity. In 1899 I entered Berlin University, Germany, and spent two years in special work on sociology and economics under Professors Schmoller, Wagner, Sering and Von Halle. In connection with my university work I made excursions over Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France to study social questions and economic conditions. I took all the courses offered in agricultural economics, and with the professors made excursions out to the farms to study actual conditions. My early life until entering college was spent on a farm in Ohio. In 1901 I received the degree Ph.D. from Berlin. In the same year I also received Ph.D, from Boston University.

From 1901 to 1908 I spent in directing church work in the following cities or their suburbs: Lawrence, Mass., Boston and Springfield, Mass., at the same time continuing my work and interest in economics and social subjects.

In 1908 I received a call to Randolph-Macon Woman’s College of Lynchburg, Va., as head professor of the department of Bible and Sociology. My work has been a pleasure from the beginning. I am now offering courses in economics, money and banking, pathology, labor movement and socialism.

In 1908 I received the honorary degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology from my Alma Mater, Mt. Union College.

Trusting that I may hear from you, I am

Yours very sincerely,
[signed] Edward E. Ayers

[Note: testimonials have not been included here because they are not particularly informative]

Source:   Columbia University Archives. E.R.A. Seligman Collection. Box 98B [now in Box 36], Folder “Columbia, 1913-1917 (unarranged and incomplete)”.

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Faculty listing for E.E. Ayers at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College

Edward Everett Ayers, S.T.D.  Professor of Sociology and English Bible.

B.C.S., Mount Union College, 1891; Ph.B., 1892; S.T.B., Boston University, 1896; A.M., Harvard University, 1898; Ph.D., Boston University, 1901; Ph.D., University of Berlin, 1901; S.T.D., Mount Union College, 1908; Student, Andover Theological Seminary, 1901-03; Professor of Sociology and Bible, Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, 1908—.

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Economics/Sociology Courses taught by Ayers at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College

SOCIOLOGY
Professor Ayers.

            Course 1. Introduction to Economics.— This course deals with the rise of modern industry and its expansion in the United States; production, distribution and consumption; value, price and the monetary system of the United States; tariff, labor movement, natural and legal monopolies; American railroads and trusts; economic reform; government expenditures and revenues; taxation and economic progress.

The last half of this course deals with the development of economic thought. This will include a brief survey of economic thought in classical antiquity and its development in Europe, England, and America. Mill, Turgot, Adam Smith, Malthus, Ricardo, and other writers will be considered.

The members of the class will be taken on tours of inspection through industrial institutions in and about Lynchburg.

Lectures, recitations, and discussions. Three hours a week throughout the year.

 

            Course 2. Introduction to Social Science.— This course deals with early social development, achievement, civilization, and the growth of modern social institutions; elimination of social evils; the social ideal; charities, compulsory insurance, and corrective legislation.

Particular problems of city and country life will be discussed. Students will be directed in personal investigation of social conditions in Lynchburg.

Prisons, almshouses, and other institutions will be studied. The aim of the course is to prepare students for social service.

One thesis is required of each student. Three hours a week throughout the year.

 

            Course 3. Socialism.— The purpose of this course is to acquaint the student with the various Utopian schemes of government in order to separate the transient from the permanent in political society. Some attention will be given to such writers as Plato, Fourier, Proudhon, Louis Blanc, Thomas More, and Edward Bellamy; but most of the time will be given to present socialistic theories and development. The nature, strength, and weakness of socialism will be considered; the golden mean of practical reform will be studied. Lectures, recitations, and discussions. One thesis will be required of each student. Three hours a week throughout the year.

 

            Course 4. The Labor Movement.— This course embraces a brief survey of the conditions of labor in the nations of antiquity and in mediaeval Europe. Most of the time will be given to modern labor movements in Europe, England, and America; the rise of labor organizations, strikes, boycotts, and injunctions, the sweating system, woman and child labor; wages, hours of labor, sanitary and safety devices. The labor of factories, farms, and stores will be studied to furnish concrete examples for the course. One thesis required of each student. Three hours a week throughout the year.

Any student taking two courses in sociology may be allowed to concentrate her work in writing one thesis instead of two.

 

Source: Randolph-Macon Woman’s College Catalogue 1913-1914 (Announcements 1914-1915), pp. 6, 61-2. Lynchburg, Virginia.

Image Source: Edward E. Ayres. Greensboro College. The Echo, 1927.