The Sir George Watson Chair of American History, Literature, and Institutions was administered by the Anglo-American Society for a distinguished visiting professor to lecture in several English universities. The inaugural lecture was given in 1921 by Viscount Bryce. That lecture, “The Study of American History” was published along with an account of the establishment of the Sir George Watson Chair. The first full course of lectures, “Economic Problems of Democracy” was given the following year by the economist and President-Emeritus of Yale University, Arthur T. Hadley.
From the following exchange of letters between the president of Columbia University and economist, E.R.A. Seligman, we harvest Seligman’s ranking of four economics professors (three from Harvard and one from Johns Hopkins) regarded by Seligman to dominate the leading specialists in American economic history for this prestigious visiting position in “American History, Literature, and Institutions”. I have been unable at this time to determine who was actually appointed in 1925 or 1926
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Columbia President Butler Requests E.R.A. Seligman to Propose Names of Distinguished Economists for a British Chair in American History
Columbia University
in the City of New York
President’s Room
January 6, 1925
Professor E. R. A. Seligman
Department of Economics
My dear Professor Seligman
The electors to the Watson Chair of American History in British Universities contemplate acting upon a suggestion of mine and naming in the not distant future a competent American scholar to present the subject of our economic history and development. The topics that I have in mind include the migration West and the settlement of the large land areas there, the development of government aid in internal improvements, the building up of the railway and other transportation systems, the struggles over the tariff, the development, both industrially and geographically, of our manufacturing system, and the growth and character of foreign trade. There would, of course, also have to be treatment, although in general fashion, of the high points of our financial history.
Can you out of your wide acquaintance with American economists suggest a few names that I might send to the electors for consideration when they come to make their choice? The man ought to have enough standing at home to make his appointment abroad significant. He ought to be a good lecturer before a general academic audience and he ought to have a sufficiently philosophic cast of mind to avoid plunging into a morass of facts and statistics when what is needed is philosophic exposition of principles, happenings and trends of events.
With cordial regards an all the compliments of the season, I am
Faithfully yours
[signed]
Nicholas Murray Butler
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Copy of Seligman’s Response to Butler’s Request
January 7, 1925.
President Nicholas Murray Butler,
Columbia University.
My dear President Butler:
In reply to your letter of January 6th I would say that the professed economic historians are not of the very first rank. The best of them are Clive Day, of Yale, who is, I am afraid, a bit ineffective as a speaker; E. L. Bogart, of Illinois, who is a much more impressive personality and who is a fine fellow, although not a scholar of the first rank; and, finally, Professor Gras, of Minnesota, who is a younger man. It would be far better, it seems to me, to choose some prominent economist, many of whom either give courses in economic history as an incidental matter or who may be assumed to have a competent knowledge of American history. In this rank I should put first Professor E. L.(sic) Gay, of Harvard, with whom no doubt you are acquainted, and who was formerly editor of the Evening Post; then either Ripley or A. A. Young, of Harvard, would do very well, as they are both men of distinction and personality. Other men, like Hollander of Johns Hopkins, occasionally gives courses similar to the one that I give every few years, on economic and fiscal history. Taking it all in all, the order of my choice would be Gay, Young, Ripley, Hollander.
If you desire more detailed information about any of these and their characteristics or standing, I should be glad to talk it over with you.
Faithfully yours,
[E.R.A. Seligman]
Source: Columbia University Archives. Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman Collection, Box 37, Folder “Box 100, Seligman, Columbia 1924-1930”.
Image Source: E.R.A. Seligman portrait in American Economic Review, 1943.