Henry Rand Hatfield (1866-1945) was among the first four Ph.D.’s in Political Economy at the University of Chicago in 1897. The following items present a reasonably complete picture of the life and career of this scholar. Numbers people can be sorted into accountants and statisticians. In the early years of graduate economics education they shared the same tidal pool on the eve of their respective evolutionary development paths. Hatfield had a long and distinguished career in accounting. Of particular interest to historians of economics is his paper “An Historical Defense of Bookkeeping,” originally published in The Journal of Accountancy, April 1924.
For an appreciation of his contributions to accounting, see the biographical note from S.A. Zeff and T.F. Keller, eds. Financial Accounting Theory I: Issues and Controversies, Second edition. McGraw Hill, p. 502 (posted at the website Accounting Hall of Fame).
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660. HENRY RAND HATFIELD.
Brother of Nos. 368 [Emily Marcia Hatfield (Hobart)] and 389 [James Taft Hatfield].
Born 27 Nov. 1866, in Chicago. Prepared in Northwestern University Academy. A.B. [Northwestern, 1892]. Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1897. Adelphic. Beta Theta Pi; Phi Beta Kappa. Kirk contestant. Graduate student University of Chicago, 1892-94. Fellow in Political Economy, University of Chicago. Instructor, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., 1894-96 and 1897-98; Instructor in Political Economy, University of Chicago, 1898-1902; Assistant Professor of Political Economy, and Dean of College of Commerce and Administration, 1902 . Contributor to Journal of Political Economy.
Married Ethel A. Glover, 15 June 1898, at Washington, D. C.
Children— John Glover, born 24 Jan. 1900.
Robert Miller, born 16 Aug. 1902.
Residence, 5825 Kimbark Ave., Chicago, 111.
Source: Northwestern University. Alumni Record of the College of Liberal Arts, 1903 (Charles B. Atwell ed.). Chicago: Lakeside Press, 1903, p. 225.
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Henry Rand Hatfield, Accounting: Berkeley and Systemwide
Henry Rand Hatfield was born in Chicago, Illinois, on November 27, 1866, son of Reverend Robert Miller Hatfield and Elizabeth Taft Hatfield; and died on December 25, 1945 in Berkeley, California. He was married to Ethel Adelia Glover in 1898, and is survived by his widow and two children, John Glover Hatfield and Elizabeth Glover, and six grandchildren. A second son, Robert Miller Hatfield, died in 1927 at the age of twenty-five.
Professor Hatfield attended school in Evanston, Illinois and here, in 1884, he entered Northwestern University. After two years of college he withdrew to take employment in a bond house; but five years later he returned to complete work for a bachelor’s degree. Following this he enrolled at the University of Chicago where he received, in 1897, the degree of Ph.D. His chief college interest was in the classics. He studied economics and political science, however, at Northwestern and Chicago and these studies enabled him to accept an instructorship at Washington University, St. Louis, in 1893. In 1898 he was appointed instructor at the University of Chicago. Two years later, at the suggestion of the University but not at its expense, he visited Germany to observe the organization of business teaching in that country. The University of Chicago had established its College of Commerce and Administration in 1898, the same year in which he had joined its staff, and the survey of German practice was undertaken in the interest of this technical program. In 1902 he was appointed assistant professor and dean of the new college, serving until 1904.
His connection with the University of California began in 1904, when he was appointed Associate Professor of Accounting. Five years later, he was appointed Professor of Accounting and Secretary of the College of Commerce. In 1916 his title was changed to Dean of the College of Commerce–a position which he held until 1920. From December, 1915 to June, 1916; from May, 1917 to July, 1918; and from 1920 to 1923, he was Dean, Acting Dean, and Dean of the Faculties. As Dean of the Faculties he served as the principal administrative officer under the President of the University. As Secretary and Dean of the College of Commerce, he was able, during eleven years, to guide the development of the expanding College of Commerce. Emphasis upon sound fundamental training, broad, rather than highly specialized instruction, and insistence upon intellectual discipline were characteristics of his plans. In his capacity as teacher, he conducted classes in geography, economics, banking, international trade, and business organization, as well as in accounting and finance; but after 1917 he confined himself to accounting and finance. Perhaps his greatest interest was in the elementary course in accounting, in his advanced seminars in accounting problems, and in the history of accounting. In all he achieved more than ordinary results.
During World War I Professor Hatfield was on leave from the University of California from July, 1918 to June, 1919. For most of this time he was Director of the Division of Planning and Statistics of the War Industries Board–a responsible position in which his technical competence, his administrative ability, and his skill in establishing friendly relations with his associates, were displayed. After the War Industries Board ceased operations he remained in Washington for a few months as expert with the Advisory Tax Board, discussing the formulation of government policy during the period immediately following the war.
His friends and associates will always remember him as a shrewd, witty, and affectionate person, endowed with a breadth of interest which caused him to be helpful to many people in many ways. This was true of community and church matters to which he gave his time, and of University affairs in which he played a significant and sometimes a very influential role. His permanent reputation will, however, rest upon his contributions to accounting and to the accounting profession.
His contribution to the profession includes organization work of the first quality assisting in the reorganization of the State Board of Accountancy, and in the formation of the California State Society of Certified Accountants soon after he arrived in California. These new or revived institutions introduced new methods into local practice at a time when the morale of California accountants was at its lowest ebb.
His ideas upon accounting were even more significantly expressed in written form. Here his major work was the volume Modern Accounting, published in 1908, repeatedly reprinted, and in 1927 rewritten and enlarged under the title of Accounting, its Principles and Problems. Before 1908, when Modern Accounting was first issued, almost nothing above the level of discussion of technical rules and perfunctory procedures had been written on the subject for many years; Hatfield’s original and systematic discussion has been described as a white light in a previously rather dark landscape. By 1927 the situation had changed somewhat; but his fuller treatment was again welcomed with appreciation and respect, and the later volume has preserved its significance during the following years. In 1938 and 1940 he rounded out his contribution by preparing considered statements of accounting principles in collaboration with other writers.
Besides these major works, Professor Hatfield exerted influence through a long succession of reviews and articles providing selective, constructive, and critical discussion of accounting principles as they were stated and restated in England and in the United States over more than two decades. His concise and vigorous style, his clarity of thought and tinge of humor, and his practice of restricting each article to the consideration of a few points enlarged the impact of his ideas upon the accounting and legal professions for which he wrote.
Finally, and this amounted to more than a diversion in his long career, Professor Hatfield maintained a consistent interest in the history of his subject, which resulted in the accumulation of a substantial body of little-known material and in the publication of many articles. In this work he benefited from the classical training of his early days. It is probably safe to say that he was the best informed scholar on the history of accounting in the United States and perhaps in any country. His persistent historical studies and his sound general knowledge enabled him to trace the beginnings of practice and of theories upon which modern systems have been built. It is a loss to economic and to cultural history that the fruits of his research were never gathered together and comprehensively set forth.
Professor Hatfield, at one time or another, was president of the American Association of University Instructors in Accounting, vice president of the American Economic Association, delegate of the United States Government to the International Congress on Commercial Education, and Honorary Member of the California Society of Certified Public Accountants. From 1923 to 1928 he was Senator of Phi Beta Kappa. In 1928 Beta Alpha Psi, the national accounting fraternity, gave him an award for the most outstanding contribution to the literature of accountancy for that year. He was Dickinson lecturer at Harvard in 1942. He received the LL.D. degree from Northwestern University in 1923 and from the University of California in 1940. In conferring this last degree President Sproul referred to him as a “constant champion of the logical approach, the sane view, and the clear disclosure of the essential facts of goods and proprietorship; discoverer of scientific principles and sound philosophy in a field obscured by dogma and convention; one able to find life and even humor in the dust of ledgers.” The essential modesty of the man was a quality which endeared him to his friends, but it will be pleasant to remember that he received during his life some of the recognition which he so richly deserved.
Academic Senate Committee Stuart Daggett Ira B. Cross Lucy Ward Stebbins
Source: 1945, University of California: In Memoriam, pp. 98-102.
Image Source: Website Berkeley Heritage, Henry Rand Hatfield house (Berkeley’s Northside), 2695 Le Conte Ave. at La Loma, 1908.