Tag: DuBois

Categories
Economics Programs Economists Harvard Race

Harvard. Application for Ph.D. candidacy. W.E.B. Du Bois, 1895

The following “Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.” for William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, who was awarded his Ph.D. in 1895 and whose 1896 publication of his dissertation book is noted, appears to be a record filed ex post. His 1895 Ph.D. was only the 3rd awarded by Harvard’s Division of History and Political Science in political science and it appears to me that the creation of an explicit, real-time record of a candidate’s satisfaction of degree requirements only came later. Similar omissions and ex post inclusions can be found in the similar applications filed for/by Frank W. Taussig and J. Laurence Laughlin.

For the previous post I have transcribed Du Bois’ updates in the reports up through 1920 by the secretary of the Harvard Class of 1890.

Research Tip: W.E.B. Du Bois Papers in the Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Cf. the portrait included in above linked page which is dated 1907 with the 1900 portrait  by Paul Nadar of Paris made in 1900. They are not identical, but close enough for me to suspect that they are both from the same Paris studio in 1900.

[Note: Boldface used to indicate printed text of the application; italics used to indicate handwritten entries]

______________________

William Edward Burghardt DuBois 1895

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY
AND POLITICAL SCIENCE.

Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.

I. Name (in full, and date of birth).

[Name left blank] Feb 23—1868

II. Academic career. (Mention, with dates inclusive, colleges or other higher institutions of learning attended; and teaching positions held.)

Fisk University 1888
Harvard College 1888-90
Harvard Graduate School 1890-92
Berlin University 1892-94?
Prof. Latin & Greek Wilberforce Univ (Ohio);
Prof. Econ. & Hist. Atlanta Univ (Georgia)

III. Degrees already attained (Mention institutions and dates.)

A.B. Fisk 1888
A.B. Harvard 1890 [cum laude]
A.M. Harvard 1891
Ph.D. Harvard 1895

IV. Academic Distinctions. (Mention prizes, honors, fellowships, scholarships, etc.)

1st Boylston Prize 1890-91 2nd Boylston Prize 1889-90

Matthews Scholarship 1890

Henry Bromfield Rogers Memorial Fellow [1890-91, first year studying Ethics in Relation to Sociology; second year studying history]

Foreign Fellowship on Slater Fund [1891-92, as non-resident at Harvard to study political science at the University of Berlin]

[Other Academic Distinctions not listed here: Honorable Mention in Philosophy awarded A.B.; Delivered the commencement disquisition “Jefferson Davis as a Representative of Civilization.”]

V. Department of Study. (Do you propose to offer yourself for the Ph.D., in “History” or in “Political Science”?

Political Science

VI. Choice of subjects for the General Examination. (Write out each subject, and at the end put in square brackets the number of that subject in the Division lists. Indicate any digressions from the normal choices, and any combinations of partial subjects. State briefly what your means of preparation have been on each subject, as by Harvard courses, courses taken elsewhere, private reading, teaching the subject, etc., etc.)

1. [left blank]
2. [left blank]
3. [left blank]
4. [left blank]
5. [left blank]
6. [left blank]
7. [left blank]

VII. Special subject for the special examination.

[left blank]

VIII. Thesis Subject. (State the subject and mention the instructor who knows most about your work upon it.)

The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in the United States of America.— ?illegible word? and published Harvard Historical Studies, I (1896).

IX. Examinations. (Indicate any preferences as to the time of either of the general or special examinations.)

[left blank]

*   *   *   [Last page of application] *   *   *

[Not to be filled out by the applicant.]

Name: William Edward Burghardt DuBois
Date of reception: [left blank]
Approved: [left blank]
Date of general examination: [left blank]
Thesis received: [left blank]
Approved: [left blank]
Read by: [left blank]
Date of special examination: [left blank]
Recommended for the Doctorate: [left blank]
Voted by the Faculty: [left blank]
Degree conferred: 1895 (Pol Sci.)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Division of History, Government, and Economics, Box 1, Folder “Ph.D. degrees conferred, 1873-1901 (folder 1 of 2)”.

Image Source: W. E. B. Du Bois, identification card for Exposition Universelle, 1900. Nadar, Paul, 1856-1939 (photographer).

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Class of 1890 reports for W.E.B. Du Bois, 1897-1920

W. E. B. Du Bois joined the Harvard Class of 1890 in its junior year. He entered the Ph.D. division of History and Political Science to major in political science. At the end of the 19th century, political science was a synonym for “social science” and encompassed government, economics, and sociology. Economists have a rightful (partial) claim to Du Bois, much as they have to Thorstein Veblen. 

This post provides transcriptions from five Harvard class of 1890 reports on the life and activities of W.E.B. Du Bois through 1820.

Other posts dealing with Du Bois:

Du Bois’ choice of textbooks at Atlanta University

Du Bois goes after Columbia’s Burgess for ‘Anti-Negro’ history

Dubois and Balch post on race and gender

________________________

1897 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois is at present teaching at Wilborforce University, Green County, Ohio, an institution for education of colored youth. Has lately published a monograph on the suppression of the slave trade from the press of Longmans, Green & Co. 1896-97, Fellow, University of Pennsylvania.

Source: Harvard College Class of 1890. Secretary’s Report, No. 3. Boston (1897), p. 38.

________________________

1903 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. “In the fall of 1897 I accepted a position at Atlanta University as professor of history and economics. Here I am still at work. During that time I have published the following works:—

“‘The Philadelphia Negro,’ 520 pp., Ginn & Co., 1899.

“‘The Negroes of Farmville, Va.,’ 38 pp., Bulletin U. S. Department of Labor, January, 1898.

“‘The Study of the Negro Problems,’ 21 pp., Publications of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, No. 219.

“‘Strivings of the Negro People,’ Atlantic Monthly, August, 1897.

“‘A Negro Schoolmaster in the New South,’ Atlantic Monthly, January, 1899.

“‘The Evolution of Negro Leadership,’ (a review of Washington’s “Up from Slavery,”) Dial, July 16, 1901.

“‘The Storm and Stress in the Black World,’ (a review of Thomas’s “American Negro,”) Dial, April 16, 1901.

“‘The Savings of Black Georgia,’ Outlook, September 14, 1901.

“‘The Relation of the Negroes to the Whites in the South,’ Publications of American Academy of Social and Political Science, No. 311. (Reprinted in ‘America’s Race Problems,’ McClure, Phillips & Co., 1901.)

“‘The Negro Land-holder in Georgia,’ 130 pp., Bulletin of U. S. Department of Labor, No. 35.

“‘The Negro as He Really Is,’ World’s Work, June, 1901.

“‘The Freedmen’s Bureau,’ Atlantic Monthly, March, 1901.

“‘The Religion of the American Negro,’ New World, December, 1900.

“‘The Black North,’ New York Times, 1901. [Series: (1st) 17 Nov; (2nd) 24 Nov; (3rd) 1 Dec; (4th) 8 Dec; (6th, sic) 15 Dec]

“‘The Opening of the Library,’ Independent, April 3, 1902.

“I have also edited the following Atlanta University publications:—

“‘Some Efforts of American Negroes for Social Betterment,’ 66 pp., 1898.

“‘The Negro in Business,’ 77 pp., 1899.

“‘The College-Bred Negro,’ 115 pp., 1900.

“‘The Negro Common School,”120 pp., 1901.

“We have had one little boy, born October 3, 1897, died May 24, 1899; a daughter, Nina Yolande, was born October 4, 1900. Married, May 12, 1896, Nina Gomer.”

Address, Atlanta University, Atlanta, Ga.

Source: Harvard College Class of 1890. Secretary’s Report, No. 4. Boston (1903), pp. 42-43.

________________________

1909 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

PROF. WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DUBOIS. Son of Alfred Alexander DuBois and Mary Sylvina (Burghardt) DuBois.

Born at Great Barrington, Mass., Feb. 23, 1868.

Prepared for college at Great Barrington (Mass.) High School and Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn.

Writes: “I am still Professor of Economics and History in Atlanta University. Since the last report I have published: ‘Souls of Black Folk,’ A. C. McClurg, Chicago, Ill., 264 pp., 1903; ‘Negro in the South’ (by Washington & DuBois), J. W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia, 222 pp., 1907; ‘The Negro Church,’ Atlanta, 212 pp., 1903; ‘Negro Crime,’ Atlanta, 75 pp., 1904; ‘Bibliography of the Negro American,’ Atlanta, 72 pp., 1905; ‘Health and Physique of the Negro American,’ Atlanta, 112 pp., 1906; ‘Economic Coöperation among Negro Americans,’ Atlanta, 184 pp., 1907; ‘The Negro American Family,’ Atlanta, 152 pp., 1908; ‘John Brown,’Philadelphia, G. W. Jacobs & Co., 350 pp., 1909.

“I am General Secretary of the ‘Niagara Movement,’ and Editor-in-chief of the ‘Horizon,’ ‘A Journal of the Color Line.’”

He lectured in the Union on “The Transplanting of a Race 1442-1860.”

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Source: Harvard College Class of 1890. Secretary’s Report, No. 5, 1903-1909. Boston (1909), pp. 42.

________________________

1915 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DU BOIS

BORN at Great Barrington, Mass., Feb. 23, 1868. Son of Alfred Alexander and Mary Sylvina (Burghardt) Du Bois. Prepared at Great Barrington High School, Great Barrington, Mass.

IN COLLEGE, 1888–90. Entered Fall of ’88, graduated ’90. DEGREES: A.B. 1890; A.M. 1891; Ph.D. 1895; A.B. (Fisk Univ.) 1888.

MARRIED to Nina Gomer at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, May 12, 1896. CHILDREN: Burghardt Gomer, born Oct. 3, 1897, died May 24, 1899; Nina Yolande, born Oct. 14, 1900.

OCCUPATION: Editor.

DURING the years 1897–1910 I was Professor of Economics and History at Atlanta University. I have been Editor of The Crisis Magazine from 1910 to date. I am also Director of Publicity and Research of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1911 I was Secretary for the United States Universal Races Congress.

ADDRESS: (home) 248 West 64th St., Apt. 45, New York, N. Y.; (business) 70 Fifth Ave., Room 521, New York, N. Y.

PUBLICATIONS: “Souls of Black Folk,” “Negro in the South,” (by Washington and DuBois),  “The Negro Church,” “Negro Crime,” “Bibliography of the Negro American,” “Health and Physique of the Negro American,” “Economic Coöperation among Negro Americans,” “The Negro American Family,” “John Brown,” “Efforts for Social Betterment Among Negro Americans,” “The College Bred Negro American,” “The Common School and the Negro American,” “The Negro American Artisan,” “Morals and Manners Among Negro Americans,” “The Quest of the Silver Fleece,” “The Philadelphia Negro,” “The Negro, Home University Library,” “The Suppression of the Slave Trade.”

CLUBS AND SOCIETIES: Authors’ League of America, Liberal Club, New York; Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Royal Societies Club, London.

Source: Harvard College, Class of 1890. Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report, 1890-1915, Secretary’s Report, No. 6, pp. 94-95.

________________________

1920 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DU BOIS

BORN at Great Barrington, Mass., Feb. 23, 1868. Son of Alfred Alexander and Mary Sylvina (Burghardt) Du Bois. Prepared at Great Barrington High School, Great Barrington, Mass.

IN COLLEGE, 1888–90, DEGREES: A.B. 1890; A.M. 1891; Ph.D. 1895; A.B. (Fisk Univ.) 1888.

MARRIED to Nina Gomer at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, May 12, 1896. CHILDREN: Burghardt Gomer, born Oct. 3, 1897, died May 24, 1899; Nina Yolande, born Oct. 14, 1900.

OCCUPATION: Editor, New York.

Since 1915 I have continued my work as editor of “The Crisis” magazine, which has a circulation of one hundred thousand. I have also begun the publication of a magazine for colored children, known as “The Brownies’ Book.” I have published “The Negro” in The Home University Library , in 1915 , and “Darkwater,” a book of essays, in 1920. After the armistice, I was sent to France to represent the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People. While there, I assembled a Pan-African Conference with fifty delegates, representing sixteen different Negro groups. This conference made report to the Peace Conference, concerning the future of Africa and the treatment of colored peoples.

Source: Harvard College, Class of 1890.Thirtieth Anniversary, 1920, Secretary’s Report, No. 7, pp. 65-66.

Image Source: W. E. B. Du Bois in Philadelphia, 1896. National Archives/National Historical Publications & Record Commission/Papers of W.E.B. Du Bois (Microfilm Edition).

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. List of Ph.D. recipients in History and Political Science, 1873-1901

Before there was a department of political economy or economics at Harvard there was a Division of History and Political Science that continued on to become the Division of History, Government and Economics. Earlier student records for graduate students of economics as well as for the other departments were kept at this divisional and not departmental level. Altogether a total of 45 Ph.D. degrees were awarded at Harvard going up through 1901, not quite a third to men who were or became economists or economic historians.

The following list includes the activity of the Ph.D. alumni, presumably as of 1900-01.

____________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
RECIPIENTS OF THE DEGREE OF PH.D., 1873-1901.

(* deceased)

Field. Date.
1. Charles Leavitt Beals Whitney* History. 1873.
2. Stuart Wood Pol. Sci. 1875.
3. James Laurence Laughlin
(Prof. Chicago)		 History. 1876.
4. Henry Cabot Lodge
(Former Instr. Harv., now Senator)		 History. 1876.
5. Ernest Young*
(Late Prof. Harvard)		 History. 1876.
6. Freeman Snow*
(Late Instr. Harvard)		 History. 1877.
7. Franklin Bartlett History. 1878.
8. Melville Madison Bigelow
(Prof. Boston Univ.)		 History. 1878.
9. Edward Channing
(Prof. Harvard)		 History. 1880.
10. Denman Waldo Ross
(Lecturer, Harvard)		 History. 1880.
11. Samuel Eppes Turner*
(once Instr. Philips Exeter)		 History. 1880.
12. Frank William Taussig
(Prof. Harvard)		 Pol. Sci. 1883.
13. Andrew Fiske
(Lawyer)		 History. 1886.
14. Charles William Colby
(Prof. McGill)		 History. 1890.
15. Edson Leone Whitney
(Prof. Bezonia)		 History. 1890.
16. Herman Vanderburg Ames
(Prof. Pennsylvania)		 History. 1891.
17. Fred Emory Haynes
(Charity Work)		 History. 1891.
18. Evarts Boutell Greene
(Prof. Illinois)		 History. 1893.
19. Charles Luke Wells
(Recent Prof. Minnesota)		 History. 1893.
20. Willian Edward Burghardt DuBois
(Prof. Atlanta)		 Pol. Sci. 1895.
21. Kendric Charles Babcock
(Prof. California)		 History. 1896.
22. Howard Hamblett Cook
(Statistician)		 Pol. Sci. 1896.
23. Theodore Clarke Smith
(Prof. Ohio State Univer.)		 Pol. Sci. 1896.
24. Guy Stevens Callender
(Prof. Bowdoin)		 Pol. Sci. 1897.
25. Clyde Augustus Duniway
(Prof. Leland Stanford Univ.)		 Pol. Sci. 1897.
26. Gaillard Thomas Lapsley
(Instr. Univ. Cali.)		 History. 1897.
27. Charles Whitney Mixter
(Instr. Harvard)		 Pol. Sci. 1897.
28. Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague
(Instr. Harvard)		 Pol. Sci. 1897.
29. George Ole Virtue
(Prof. Wisconsin Normal)		 Pol. Sci. 1897.
30. Samuel Bannister Harding
(Prof. Indiana)		 History. 1898.
31. James Sullivan, Jr.
(Instr. N.Y. [DeWitt Clinton] High School)		 History. 1898.
32. Arthur Mayer Wolfson
(Instr. N.Y. [DeWitt Clinton] High School)		 History. 1898.
33. Frederick Redman Clow
(Prof. Minnesota Normal)		 Pol. Sci. 1899.
34. Arthur Lyons Cross
(Instr. Michigan)		 History. 1899.
35. Louis Clinton Hatch. History. 1899.
36. Norman Maclaren Trenholme
(Instr. Pa. State College)		 History. 1899.
37. Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr.
(Instr. Harvard)		 Pol. Sci. 1900.
38. Sidney Bradshaw Fay
(Instr. Harvard)		 History. 1900.
39. Carl Russell Fish
(Instr. Wisconsin)		 History. 1900.
40. William Bennett Munro
(Instr. McGill)		 Pol. Sci. 1900.
41. Subharama Swaminadhan Pol. Sci. 1900.
42. Don Carlos Barrett
(Prof. Haverford)		 Pol. Sci. 1901.
43. Herbert Camp Marshall Pol. Sci. 1901.
44. Jonas Viles History. 1901.
45. Arthur Herbert Wilde
(Prof. Northeastern)		 History. 1901.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Division of History, Government & Economics. PhD. Material. Box 1, Folder “PhD degrees conferred, 1873-1901 (Folder 1 of 2).”

Image Source: Harvard Square, ca. 1901-07. History Cambridge webpage “Postcard Series I: Harvard Square”.

Categories
Race Sociology Statistics

Atlanta University. W.E.B. Dubois’ choice of economics and sociology textbooks, 1897-98

 

This post follows up the previous one that reports the economics textbooks used at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn. at the time W. E. B. Du Bois was an undergraduate. Artifacts transcribed below highlight the “sociological turn” taken by Du Bois upon his appointment to a professorship in economics at history at Atlanta University after he obtained his Harvard Ph.D. in political science for a dissertation on the history of the slave trade.

As can be seen in the department descriptions  for 1896-97 and 1897-98, the name of the department of instruction was changed from “Political Science and History” to “Sociology and History” in the first year that Du Bois was included among the faculty of Atlanta University. Du Bois’ research on “Negro problems” would have been unduly restricted if conducted within the methodology of economics of his time (or ours for that matter) which we can see must have been a factor that pushed him to the broader perspective offered by the sociology of his time with its emphasis on empirical material and statistical methods.

A relevant artifact here is the library card issued to W. E. B. Du Bois by the Royal Prussian Statistical Bureau in 1893 during his time as a student in Berlin.

Source:  University of Massachusetts Amherst. Special Collections and University Archives. W. E. B. Du Bois papers, Series 1A. General Correspondence. Bücherzammlung [sic] des königlich preussischen statistischen Bureaus zu Berlin, Zulassungscarte.  

__________________

VI. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HISTORY.
[1896-97, Du Bois not yet listed as a member of the faculty]

It is intended to develop this department more fully, especially along the line of Sociology. Interest has been awakened throughout the country in the annual conferences held at Atlanta University in May — the first in 1896 — concerning problems in city life among the colored population. The library will soon be rich in books pertaining to Sociology.

As it now stands, the work of this department is as follows:

Political Science. Dole’s American Citizen, studied during the first year of the Normal and Preparatory courses, gives to our younger students an excellent introduction to this department. Civil Government in the Senior Normal year, and Civil Liberty in the Junior College, enrich this department still more; while International Law in the Senior year introduces the student to the principles underlying many burning questions of the day.

Economics. During Senior year Walker’s Political Economy, and White’s Money and Banking, also introduce the student to important national questions.

History, General and United States, is studied in the second and third years of the Normal course; while the College students have Guizot’s History of Civilization. For Greek History in the College, see Greek.

 

Source:  Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Atlanta University, 1896-97, p. 31,

__________________

W. E. Burghardt DuBois, Ph.D., Professor of Economics and History

VII. SOCIOLOGY AND HISTORY.
[1897-98]

It is intended to develop this department not only for the sake of the mental discipline but also in order to familiarize our students with the history of nations and with the great economic and social problems of the world, so that they may be able to apply broad and careful knowledge to the solving of the many intricate social questions affecting their own people. The department aims therefore at training in good intelligent citizenship, at a thorough comprehension of the chief problems of wealth, work and wages; and at a fair knowledge of the objects and methods of social reform. The following courses are established:

Citizenship. In the Junior Preparatory and Junior Normal classes Dole’s American Citizen is studied as an introduction. The Normal classes follow this by Fiske’s Civil Government in the Senior year, while Political Science has an important place in the Junior College year.

Wealth, Work and Wages. Some simple questions in this field are treated in the Junior Preparatory year, and the science of Economics is taken up in the Junior College year.

Social Reforms. Three terms of the Senior year are given to Sociology; the first term to a general study of principles, the second term to a general survey of social conditions, and the third term to a study of the social and economic condition of the American Negro, and to methods of reform.

In addition to this, graduate study of the social problems in the South by the most approved scientific methods, is carried on by the Atlanta Conference, composed of graduates of Atlanta, Fisk, and other institutions. The aim is to make Atlanta University the centre of an intelligent and thorough-going study of the Negro problems. Two reports of the Conference have been published, and a third is in preparation.

History. General and United States History are studied in the second and third years of the Normal course. Ancient history is taken in connection with the Ancient Languages and Bible study. Modern European history is studied in the Sophomore year; and some historical work is done in connection with other courses.

The library contains a good working collection of treatises in History and Sociology.

 

Source:  Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Atlanta University, 1897-98, p. 4, 13.

__________________

Textbooks assigned in Economics and Sociology
[1898-99]

Junior year Economics. Fall term.  Hadley. (Economics)

Senior year Sociology. Fall term. Mayo-Smith (Statistics and Sociology).

 

Source:  Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Atlanta University, 1898-99.

 

Economics
[Fisk University, Junior Year College textbook]

Arthur Twining Hadley. Economics. An Account of the Relations Between Private Property and Public Welfare. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1896.

Economics I. A Summary of Hadley’s Economics. Copyright Edw. W. Wheeler. Cambridge, Mass.: E. W. Wheeler, Printer, 1898. 53 pages.   “A convenient hand-book for preparing the weekly written questions and all examinations…with an appendix containing suggestive topics for review.” [included in this post as a  study guide]

Sociology and Statistics
[Fisk University, Senior Year College textbook]

“The present volume is issued as Part I. of a systematic Science of Statistics, and is intended to cover what is ordinarily termed Population Statistics…”

Mayo-Smith, Richmond. Statistics and Sociology. New York: Macmillan, 1895.

[Note:  Mayo-Smith later published the second part of his systematic Science of Statistics as…]

“Part II., Statistics and Economics [covers] the statistics of commerce, trade, finance, and economic social life generally.
Mayo-Smith, Richmond. Statistics and Economics. New York: Macmillan, 1899.

 

Image Source: “W.E.B. Du Bois Educational Series at Great Barrington” webpage at the Housatonic Heritage webpage.

Categories
Race Undergraduate

Fisk. Senior Year text in Political Economy was F.A. Walker’s Advanced Course, 1892-93

 

This post takes Economics in the Rear-View Mirror in a rather different direction. Instead of helping to establish the chronology of the economics curriculum at major universities in the United States, I was curious to see if I could find out something about the economics taught at one of the historical “schools for colored people”. As luck would have it, I was able to quickly find a catalogue of courses for Fisk University from the 1892-93 academic year at the hathitrust.org internet archive. This happened to be the first year of operation of the University of Chicago so I read through the catalogue where I was reminded that an 1888 graduate of Fisk University was none other than W. E. B. DuBois who went on to complete his Ph.D. at Harvard University on the history of the slave trade.

So for W. E. B. DuBois fans out there, backcasting it is quite likely that his first course in political economy was taught by Erastus M. Cravath (see the personal sketch and early history of Fisk University below, also  memorial addresses were published as a pamphlet). Furthermore his textbook for the course would likely have been the “advanced course” version of Francis A. Walker’s Political Economy (2nd edition, 1887). 

However for the 1883-84 academic year one finds that political economy was confined to the second term of the senior year with the textbook:  Elements of Political Economy by Francis Wayland (recast by Aaron L. Chapin, D.D.), 1878. Maybe this was what was still taught when DuBois was an undergraduate instead of two-terms with Walker’s “advanced course”. We’ll see if someone can find a catalogue for 1887-88.

_________________

Senior year course at Fisk University, 1892-93

Rev. Erastus M. Cravath, D. D.
President, and Professor of Mental and Moral Science, Logic, and Political Economy.

College Department. Classical Course, Senior year (Fall and Spring terms).

Political Economy.  Advanced Course (Walker).

Source: Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Fisk University, Nashville Tennessee, for the Scholastic Year 1892-93.

_________________

PERSONAL SKETCH.
REV. ERASTUS MILO CRAVATH, D.D.
PRESIDENT OF FISK UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TENN.

Born July 1st, 1833, in Homer, N. Y., of Huguenot ancestry on the father’s side. His father, Orin Cravath, was one of three men to form the Abolition party in Homer, his home was a station of the “underground railroad,” and the son learned the first lessons concerning slavery from the lips of runaway slaves.

His father was a farmer, and the son received the usual common school education, and at seventeen entered the Homer Academy. As his father had been one of the earliest supporters of Oberlin College, the son went to Oberlin in the fall of 1851 where he remained nine years, graduating from college in 1857, and from the theological seminary in 1860.

He taught school during the winters, and largely supported himself through college and theology; was married to Ruth Anna Jackson, a Quakeress in unbroken line (from the time of George Fox) of Kennett Square, Pa., in September, 1860, and settled at Berlin Heights, Ohio, as pastor of the Congregational Church. He entered the Union army in December, 1863, and served with his regiment in the army of the Cumberland during the Atlanta campaign and in the battles of Franklin and Nashville, and was mustered out with the regiment at Nashville in June, 1865. He returned to Nashville, October 3d, 1865, as Field Agent of the American Missionary Association.

The first work done was in connection with the purchase of the land for the Fisk school, which became headquarters for his field work, starting schools at Macon, Milledgeville and Atlanta, Ga., and at various points in Tennessee. He became District Secretary of the American Missionary Association at Cincinnati, September, 1866, and in 1870 Field Secretary at the office in New York City; in 1875 he became president of Fisk University spending three years abroad with the Jubilee Singers, returning to the University in 1878; since which time he has remained at Nashville in the discharge of the duties of the presidency.

Source:  The American Missionary (February 1894), Vol. XVIII. No. 2, p. 76.

_________________

EARLY HISTORY OF FISK UNIVERSITY

Fisk University was founded by the American Missionary Association, of New York City, and is still under its fostering care.

In October, 1865, Rev. E. P. Smith and Rev. E. M. Cravath were sent, under its auspices, to Nashville, Tenn., for the purpose of opening a school for colored people. In searching for a location, their attention was called to the United States Hospital, west of the Chattanooga depot, which was about to be sold, as no longer needed for the use of the army. After due consultation, the ground on which the buildings stood was purchased for $16,000.

Gen. Clinton B. Fisk, who was then in command of the Freedman’s Bureau, entered heartily into the work of helping to establish the school, hence the name, Fisk University. The school opened with interesting exercises January 9, 1866, under the auspices of the American Missionary Association and the Western Freedman’s Aid Commission, which was then represented in Nashville by Prof. John Ogden.

The Jubilee Singers.

At the founding of the school, Mr. George L. White, who was on the staff of General Fisk, volunteered to give instruction in vocal music. Gradually a few select voices were developed and a choir formed. When the time came that a new site and permanent buildings for the University must be secured, a variety of circumstances pointed to Mr. White and his little company of singers as the best means of securing one building, which was at the time all that was hoped for. Mr. White had been for more than three years the Treasurer and Business Manager of the University.

With much hesitation and many doubts, they went out October 6, 1871, having little money and no experience. After struggles for many months, which cannot here be detailed, they won success, resulting in the purchase of the present site of the University and the erection of Jubilee Hall from the proceeds of concerts given in this country and in Europe during seven years of nearly continuous labor. They have also, by solicitation, obtained books, apparatus, works of art, and collections for the museum.

 

Source: Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Fisk University, Nashville Tennessee, for the Scholastic Year 1892-93, p. 71.

Image Source: Rev. Erastus Milo Cravath from from Graham Moore’s webpage “Cast of Characters for The Last Days of Night “.

 

 

 

 

Categories
Columbia Economic History Race

Columbia. John W. Burgess charged with “anti-Negro thought” by W.E.B. Du Bois, 1935

 

Preparing for class tomorrow, I was reading the concluding chapter of W.E.B. Du Bois‘s book, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880, that includes the following unflattering portrait of the founder of Columbia University’s School of Political Science, John W. Burgess. Since Burgess’s School of Political Science was the home of graduate economics education at Columbia University and the boundaries between the disciplines of law, history, political science, economics, and sociology were much less well-defined then than today, I think it is worth including W.E.B. Du Bois’s observations here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. 

Image Source: W.E.B. Du Bois (ca. 1919 by C. M. Battey) in Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

_____________________

Excerpt from
Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880
by W.E.B. Du Bois.

The real frontal attack on Reconstruction, as interpreted by the leaders of national thought in 1870 and for some time thereafter, came from the universities and particularly from Columbia and Johns Hopkins.

The movement began with Columbia University and with the advent of John W. Burgess of Tennessee and William A. Dunning of New Jersey as professors of political science and history.

Burgess was an ex-Confederate soldier who started to a little Southern college with a box of books, a box of tallow candles and a Negro boy; and his attitude toward the Negro race in after years was subtly colored by this early conception of Negroes as essentially property like books and candles. Dunning was a kindly and impressive professor who was deeply influenced by a growing group of young Southern students and began with them to re-write the history of the nation from 1860 to 1880, in more or less conscious opposition to the classic interpretations of New England.

Burgess was frank and determined in his anti-Negro thought. He expounded his theory of Nordic supremacy which colored all his political theories:

“The claim that there is nothing in the color of the skin from the point of view of political ethics is a great sophism. A black skin means membership in a race of men which has never of itself succeeded in subjecting passion to reason, has never, therefore, created any civilization of any kind. To put such a race of men in possession of a ‘state’ government in a system of federal government is to trust them with the development of political and legal civilization upon the most important subjects of human life, and to do this in communities with a large white population is simply to establish barbarism in power over civilization.” [Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, p.133 ]

Burgess is a Tory and open apostle of reaction. He tells us that the nation now believes “that it is the white man’s mission, his duty and his right, to hold the reins of political power in his own hands for the civilization of the world and the welfare of mankind.”4

4 Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, pp. viii, ix.

For this reason America is following “the European idea of the duty of civilized races to impose their political sovereignty upon civilized, or half civilized, or not fully civilized, races anywhere and everywhere in the world.”5

5 Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, p. 218.

He complacently believes that “There is something natural in the subordination of an inferior race to a superior race, even to the point of the enslavement of the inferior race, but there is nothing natural in the opposite.”6 He therefore denominates Reconstruction as the rule “of the uncivilized Negroes over the whites of the South.”7 This has been the teaching of one of our greatest universities for nearly fifty years.

6 Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, pp. 244-245.
7 Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, p. 218.

Dunning was less dogmatic as a writer, and his own statements are often judicious. But even Dunning can declare that “all the forces [in the South] that made for civilization were dominated by a mass of barbarous freedmen”; and that “the antithesis and antipathy of race and color were crucial and ineradicable.”7a The work of most of the students whom he taught and encouraged has been one-sided and partisan to the last degree. Johns Hopkins University has issued a series of studies similar to Columbia’s; Southern teachers have been welcomed to many Northern universities, where often Negro students have been systematically discouraged, and thus a nation-wide university attitude has arisen by which propaganda against the Negro has been carried on unquestioned.

7a Dunning, Reconstruction, Political and Economic, pp. 212, 213.

The Columbia school of historians and social investigators have issued between 1895 and the present time sixteen studies of Reconstruction in the Southern States, all based on the same thesis and all done according to the same method: first, endless sympathy with the white South; second, ridicule, contempt or silence for the Negro; third, a judicial attitude towards the North, which concludes that the North under great misapprehension did a grievous wrong, but eventually saw its mistake and retreated.

These studies vary, of course, in their methods. Dunning’s own work is usually silent so far as the Negro is concerned. Burgess is more than fair in law but reactionary in matters of race and property, regarding the treatment of a Negro as a man as nothing less than a crime, and admitting that “the mainstay of property is the courts.”

In the books on Reconstruction written by graduates of these universities and others, the studies of Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia and Louisiana are thoroughly bad, giving no complete picture of what happened during Reconstruction, written for the most part by men and women without broad historical or social background, and all designed not to seek the truth but to prove a thesis. Hamilton reaches the climax of this school when he characterizes the black codes, which even Burgess condemned, as “not only … on the whole reasonable, temperate and kindly, but, in the main, necessary.”8

8 Hamilton, “Southern Legislation in Respect to Freedmen” in Studies in Southern History and Politics, p. 156.

 

Source:   W.E. Burghardt Du Bois, Black Reconstruction. An Essay Toward a History of the Part which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880, pp. 718-720.

Image Source: John W. Burgess in Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2. Boston: R. Herndon Company, 1899,  p. 481.

 

Categories
Courses Curriculum Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania. Economics Course Offerings, 1897-98

 

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania in 1897/98 corresponded to what today is generally called the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The subjects of economics, politics, sociology, and statistics constituted the tenth group of the sixteen groups making up the Department of Philosophy. A Ph.D. candidate would select a major subject from the group and two minor subjects (recommended that “at least one minor be taken outside the group in which the major lies”). The course offerings and their short descriptions for group X have been transcribed below.

___________________

Departments of the University of Pennsylvania
as of 1897/98
and the year they were established.

(1740. Charitable School; out of which grew, in)
1751. The College.
1765. The Department of Medicine.
1 790-1850. The Department of Law.
1865. The Auxiliary Department of Medicine.
1874. The University Hospital.
1878. The Department of Dentistry.
1883. The Department of Philosophy.
1884. The Department of Veterinary Medicine.
1885. The Veterinary Hospital.
1885. The Department of Physical Education.
1889. The Museum of Archaeology and Paleontology.
1891. The University Library. (Building erected)
1892. The Laboratory of Hygiene.
1892. The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology.

Department of Philosophy

  1. Semitic Languages
  2. American Archaeology and Languages
  3. Indo-European Philology
  4. Classical Languages
  5. Germanic Languages
  6. Romanic Languages
  7. English
  8. Philosophy, Ethics, Psychology and Pedagogy
  9. History
  10. Economics, Politics, Sociology and Statistics
  11. Mathematics
  12. Astronomy
  13. Physics
  14. Chemistry
  15. Botany and Zoölogy
  16. Geology and Mineralogy

 

The degrees conferred in the Faculty of Philosophy are Doctor of Philosophy, (Ph. D. ), Master of Arts, (A. M.), and Master of Science, (M.S.).

___________________

Faculty: 10. Economics, Politics, Sociology and Statistics

Simon N. Patten, Ph.D., Professor of Political Economy
Roland P. Falkner, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Statistics
John Quincy Adams, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science
Emory R. Johnson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Transportation and Commerce.
Samuel McCune Lindsay, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Sociology
Leo S. Rowe, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science
Henry R. Seager, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Economy
James T. Young, Ph.D., Lecturer, Administration

___________________

X. ECONOMICS, POLITICS, SOCIOLOGY AND STATISTICS.

Professor Patten, Chairman; Associate Professor Falkner; Assistant Professors Adams, E. R. Johnson, Lindsay, Rowe and Seager; Dr. Young.

Majors —

Political Science, Economics, Transportation and Commerce, Statistics, Sociology.

Minors —

1. Political Science; A 1, 4; B 10.
2. Public Finance; A 3, and B 1, 2, or C 1, 2.
3. Administration; A 8, 6, 3, or A 9, 2, 4b; and C 5d.
4. Economic Theory; B 1, 2, and, B 10, or Mill’s Political Economy(2 hours a week).
5. History of Economic Thought; B 1, 2, 3, 4.
6. Economic History; B 10, and Group IX. C 2, 4.
7. Transportation and Commerce; B 11, 12, and A 4, or B 1, 2, or C 1, 2.
8. Statistics; C 1, 2, 3, 4, or C 1, 2, 3, and A3 (one term), or B 11.
9. Sociology; C 5c, 6, B 1, or C 5b, 6, 1, or C 5c 5d, A 4.

A.—POLITICAL SCIENCE, FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION.

Assistant Professor Adams.

  1. History of Modern Political Ideas (2 hours per week)

Lectures covering the period from Bodin to the present, supplemented by prescribed reading. Relation between political thought and economic and social conditions will be studied, with special reference to the recent political development of England.

  1. Readings in Political Science (1 hour per week)

Reading and discussion of a few recent works on special phases of political problems.

  1. Public Finance (2 hours per week)

Taxation; the classification, incidence and effect of the several taxes. Methods of raising federal revenue in the United States; the revenue systems of the leading States (Second Term).

Assistant Professor Rowe.

  1. The Individual and the State (2 hours per week)

(a) (First Term.) The concept of individual liberty at different periods of political development. Relation to law and government. Distinction between civil and political liberty.  Guarantees, legal and political. The idea of social liberty in democratic communities.

(b) (Second Term.) Relation of the State to industrial action. Socialism and Individualism. Influence of economic and social changes on the sphere of activity of the State. Growth of free contract. Effect of recognition by the State of new forms of association.

  1. History and Theory of the State (2 hours per week)

(a) (First Term.) The general principles of political science. Its province and problems. Relation to the social sciences. Nature of political association; origin of the State; source and function of law. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

(b) (Second Term.) The concept of the State at different epochs. Growth of the distinction between State and government. Ends of the State; sphere of its authority; forms of the State and of government. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

  1. Municipal Government and Institutions (2 hours per week)

(a) (First Term.) The city and conditions of city life in the ancient, mediaeval and modern world. The relation between city and State in Europe and the United States.

(b) (Second Term.) Problems of modern city life. Relation to quasi-public works. Social problems.

  1. The Analytical School of Jurisprudence in its Relation to Political Science. (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

Selected readings from Bentham, Austin, Holland, Maine and Pollock. Relation of this school of thought to the doctrine of natural law and natural rights. Contrast between the historical and analytical concepts in political science.

Dr. Young.

  1. Administration (1 hour per week)

Local rural administration. A comparison of the organization and methods of local administration in Europe and America. Provinz, Bezirk, Kreis; Department, Arrondissement ; County, Township, etc. Modern growth and tendencies.

  1. Practical Problems in Administration (1 hour per week)

Studies in special questions, such as the formation and growth of systems of Civil Service; the development of boards and commissions of administrative control; the administration of factory legislation.

 

B. — ECONOMIC THEORY, ECONOMIC HISTORY, AND TRANSPORTATION AND COMMERCE.

Professor Patten.

  1. History of Political Economy (First Term) (2 hours per week)

The rise and development of the classical school of economists. Adam Smith and Ricardo form the natural centre of the study. Especial attention is given to the sources on which Smith’s Wealth of Nationsis based; and, in the latter part of the course, to the interpretation of Ricardo’s writings.

  1. Recent Development of Political Economy (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

The American economists are carefully studied. Prominence is given to the recent development of the theory of rent, to the theory of marginal utility, to the new aspects of the science resulting from an emphasis of the dynamic causes of social progress, to recent attempts to substitute consumption for production as the starting point of investigation and the basis of theory.

  1. The Relation of English Philosophy to Economics in the Eighteenth Century (First Term) (2 hours per week)

Philosophy and economics have in England been intimately related. The purpose of this course is to bring out the facts, character and extent of this relation and its results on both  sides.

  1. Scope and Method of Political Economy (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

Limitations of scope in economic investigation; its causes as deducible from the history of the science. The method of this science will be compared with that of others. The processes by which the great writers established their characteristic doctrines will be particularly considered. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

  1. Practical Applications of Economic Theory (First Term) (2 hours per week)

The object is to show the practical importance of the new theories, and the changes they will work in public opinion. Among the topics considered will be: taxation, wages, money, retail prices, population, the causes of poverty, the standard of life, co-operation, trades unions, the dependent classes. The distribution of the surplus will be specially considered, along with its proper weight as a factor in practical problems. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

  1. The Problems of Sociology (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

The possibility of a science of sociology; the attempts to found such a science, and the obstacles encountered; the relation of economics to sociology.

  1. Investigation of Special Topics (2 hours per week)

To promote original work and aid in the preparation of theses, special hours are assigned for the discussion of these investigations. Each student must select a topic, and give three hours a week to it throughout the year.

Assistant Professor Seager.

  1. Economic Conference (2 hours per week)

Assigned portions of the following works will be read and discussed: Böhm-Bawerk, Positive Theory of Capital; Hadley, Economics; Smart, Studies in Economics. Reports will be made on cognate topics of special interest.

  1. Advanced Reading in German and French Economics (2 hours per week)

Roscher, Grundlagen der Nationalökonomieand Philippovich, Allgemeine Volkswirthschaftslehre.
Leroy-Beaulieu, Traité théorique et pratique d’économie politique.

  1. The Industrial History of England and the Development of Economic Theory from 1750 to 1870 (2 hours per week)

The main features of the industrial revolution will be described, and the effects of the growth of the factory system on the position of the wage-earner, on legislation and on economic thought, will be considered. Then attention will be directed to the Corn-Law agitation, growing out of the Napoleonic war period; and the results of the Free Trade policy, inaugurated in 1846, will be discussed. Topics will be assigned for special reports. Lectures and assigned reading.

Assistant Professor E. R. Johnson.

  1. Theory of Transportation (1 hour per week)

General Theory of Transportation. The economic functions and the ideal organization of transportation. Competition and co-operation in railway management. The past and present functions of traffic associations. Relation of the State to transportation. Theories underlying governmental regulation in the United States and other countries. The theory of rates. Lectures accompanied by an outline of assigned readings.

  1. American Railway Transportation (2 hours per week)

Seminary, based mainly upon documentary sources. The work comprises (1) an examination of the salient features of the organization and management of railway transportation in the United States; and (2) a special study of railway regulation by the States and by the Federal government.

  1. Transportation Systems of the United Kingdom and Germany (1 hour per week)

Organization, relation to the government, results of regulation of railways in the United Kingdom, and of State ownership in Germany. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

  1. History of Commerce since 1500 (1 hour per week)

Lectures, assigned readings and investigations. Special attention will be given to the causes that have given the United Kingdom the commercial supremacy of the world. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

 

C. — SOCIOLOGY AND STATISTICS.

Associate Professor Faulkner.

  1. Introduction to Statistics (First Term) (2 hours per week)

A study of the statistics of population will serve to develop the general aspects of the science, the organization of statistical work, and the possibilities and limitations of statistical argument. Familiarity with the literature and the sources of statistical information will be the chief aim.

  1. Statistics of Economic Problems (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

This course supplements course 1: foreign commerce, railroads, banks, coinage, prices, strikes, wages, cost of living, will be studied from a statistical point of view. The literature will be reviewed and criticised.

  1. History and Theory of Statistics (First Term) (2 hours per week)

Summary of statistical efforts and statistical theory, culminating in the elaboration of statistical methods. Consideration of statistics as a science of method; the basis and form of  statistical judgments. (Open to students who have taken courses 1 and 2.)

  1. Statistical Organization (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

The history, organization and function of statistical agencies at home and abroad will be surveyed. The factors that contribute to the efficiency of census departments, labor bureaus, etc., will be studied. The statistical offices of the United States will be studied and their methods criticised. (Open to students who have taken courses 1 and 2.)

Assistant Professor Lindsay.

  1. Theory of Sociology (Two Years) (2 hours per week)

A systematic course in four parts; each part requiring two hours per week for half a year, and constituting an independent course.

(a) Methodology of the social sciences; their relations to economics. The problems of sociology. Brief review of the leading attempts to construct sociology as a science — Aristotle, Montesquieu, Comte, Spencer, Ward and Giddings.

(b) Primitive Society. Evolution of social organization and social control among primitive men. Special study of the forms of the family, and of the psychology of primitive society. Particular attention is given to the records of the American Indians.

(c) Structure of Modern Society. A study of the forms of social organization and social control resulting from modern demogenic association. The basis and relative strength of educational, political, religious and philanthropic factors.

(d) Social Movements of Modern Times. A discussion of the leading practical social problems of to-day, with a view to establishing a consistent theoretical point of view, and a method as a guide to the study of temporary and changing social conditions.

Note. — 5 d is open only to students who have had parts a, bor c, or an equivalent.

  1. Social-Debtor Classes (2 hours per week)

This course deals with those groups and individuals in modern society who contribute nothing to the social surplus, but who participate in it, and hence are social debtors. They are considered under the heads of (1) the reclaimable class; (2) the naturally dependent class; (3) the pauper class; (4) the criminal classes. The methods of dealing with these groups are likewise classified and discussed.

  1. Sociological Field Work (2 hours per week)

For special investigation of local social conditions and institutions. Opportunities for visiting industrial, educational and philanthropic institutions are afforded. Each student is expected to select a topic and make a careful study of some concrete social problem, with special reference to conditions in Philadelphia. Meetings for private conference and discussion are assigned.

Note. — In the academic year 1896-97, a special sociological investigation of the condition of the Negroes in the Seventh Ward of Philadelphia, is being carried on under the direction of William E. Burkhardt Du Bois, A. B., Ph. D., who was appointed for the year Assistant in Sociology for this purpose. The College Settlement of Philadelphia is co-operating in this investigation, and has appointed Miss Isabel Eaton, B. L., Fellow in charge of its work.

 

SEMINARY.

Seminary in Political Science, Economics and Sociology (2 hours per week)

The seminary meets each Monday evening during the academic year, for the presentation and discussion of papers prepared by the members under the direction of the professors in charge of the several topics in Group IX.

 

Source: Catalogue of the University of Pennsylvania. Fasciculus of the Department of Philosophy. Announcements for Session 1897-98, pp. 44-50.

 

Categories
Economists Harvard

“Books that the perfect Marxian must know.” W.E.B. Dubois asks Abram Harris, 1933

 

W.E.B. Dubois’ papers are digitized and online at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Dubois received his Ph.D. at Harvard in economic history in 1895 and in 1892-94 he studied in Berlin. In 1933 apparently Dubois returned to Marxian economics and asked Abram Lincoln Harris, a leading scholar of Marxian economics in the United States, for some reading suggestions. Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has posted earlier a proposed for an undergraduate course description submitted to the department of economics at the University of Chicago by Harris in 1961 that did not amuse George Stigler. I have read somewhere that Frank Knight liked Harris’ work, which is consistent with Harris having published the articles linked below in the Journal of Political Economy.

Anyhow, there is more interesting material in Dubois’ papers that are easily accessible and well-organized at the above link.

____________________

Carbon copy
Letter from W.E.B. Dubois to Abram Harris

January 6, 1933.

Mr. Abram Harris,
Howard University,
Washington, D.C.

My dear Mr. Harris:

From bits which I gather from publishers and friends, I take it that you are still alive. Ben Stolberg told me that you had lost your father. I am very sorry indeed. Also, I have heard of your scholarship which is about one-fifth as large as it should be but I presume it is to be regarded as a great concession on the part of scientists.

You have perhaps seen my tentative program for a re-examination of the Negro problem which I published in January and I shall publish a revised one in February. I have been re-reading Marx recently as everyone must these days. I have the three volumes of “Capital” and the small Vanguard book by Max Eastman [I am guessing Dubois is referring to: Marx and Lenin: The Science of Revolution. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1927.]. I write to ask if you will send me a list of four or five best books which the perfect Marxian must know. Please rush these.

I am coming down Sunday, January 22, on my way to Atlanta. If the spare room is vacant, I should be glad to stop.

Very sincerely yours,

WEBD/DW

 

Source: Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963. Letter from W. E. B. Du Bois to Abram Harris, January 6, 1933. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

____________________

Letter from Abram Harris to W.E.B. Dubois

 

HOWARD UNIVERSITY
Washington, D.C.

January Seventh
1933

Department of Economics

Dear Dr. Du Bois:

We will be very glad to have you stay with us when you pass through the city on your way to Atlanta. Let me know how long you plan to be here, so that I can arrange a little gathering. I read your program for re-examining the Negro problem and I want to talk with you about it.

A good Marxian ought to know the intellectual and social background of Marx’s works. This I should think is best gotten from any of the standard works on economic doctrine and the history of political thought. I would suggest your brousing [sic] through Gide and Rist, History of Economic Doctrines; Halévy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism; [Part I The Youth of Bentham; ] and, Dunning, Political Thought from Rousseau to Spencer. The following by Marx and Engels should be read: Marx, The Gotha Program; Wage Labor and Capital, and Value, Price and Profit (in The Essentials of Marx, Algernon Lee, Vanguard Press); The Critique of Political Economy (if Capital has not been read); and Engels Feuerbach: The Roots of Socialist Philosophy; Socialism from Utopia to Science, and The Land Marks of Scientific Socialism. After you finish with these I suggest that you look into Marx’s Revolution and Counter-Revolution; and, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

I have just completed what I consider a new interpretation of Marx. [“Economic Evolution: Dialectical and Darwinian” Journal of Political Economy (Feb. 1934, pp. 34-79)] If I had an extra copy of the manuscript I would send it along to you. At any rate the reprint [“Types of Institutionalism“, Journal of Political Economy (December, 1932), pp. 721-749] which I am enclosing will give you some idea of what is contained in this new interpretation.

Sincerely,
[signed]
Abram Harris

Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois
69 Fifth Avenue
New York, N.Y.

 

Source: Harris, Abram Lincoln, 1899-1963. Letter from Abram Harris to W. E. B. Du Bois, January 7, 1933. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

____________________

 

Copy of Telegram from W.E.B. Dubois to Abram Harris

January 20, 1933

Mr. Abram Harris,
Howard University,
Washington, D.C.

Shall arrive Sunday afternoon about four or five Stop Must leave Monday morning before day Stop No breakfast Stop Please find a safe garage nearby for my car

W. E. B. Du Bois.

 

Source: Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963. Telegram from W. E. B. Du Bois to Abram Harris, January 20, 1933. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

____________________

Carbon copy
Letter from W.E.B. Dubois to Abram Harris

Rockefeller Hall
Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia.

February 2, 1933.

Mr. Abram Harris,
Department of Economics,
Howard University,
Washington, D.C.

My dear Mr. Harris:

I have just got hold of my secretary so that I can really answer letters. I want to thank you and Mrs. Harris so much for your kind hospitality. I think I made a good getaway from your house, except that I forgot to set the alarm clock for seven and leave it for you. I hope you did not oversleep.

I spent Sunday night in Durham, Tuesday night at Spartenburg, and arrived here Wednesday.

I have read and re-read with a great deal of interest your article on Marx, Feblem [sic, dictated[?], clearly “Veblen” intended] and Mitchell. Send me anything else you have on the subject.

Very sincerely yours,

WEBD/DW

 

Source: Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963. Letter from W. E. B. Du Bois to Abram Harris, February 2, 1933. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

Image Source: Abram Lincoln Harris (ca 1935). Guggenheim fellow. https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/abram-lincoln-harris/

Categories
Amherst Columbia Economists Germany Wisconsin

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus, James Walter Crook, 1898

 

This posting is another in the irregular series, “Get to know an economics Ph.D. alum”. I stumbled upon Professor James Walter Crook’s photo while working on the previous autobiographical posting for John Maurice Clark who was a student of his at Amherst and later a colleague. Crook spent a year in Berlin as a student and overlapped with W.E.B. Du Bois there and to whom we see below he had been introduced.

____________________

James Walter Crook (1859-1933)
Columbia Ph.D., 1898

James Walter Crook was born Dec. 21, 1859 in Ontario, Canada. His family emigrated to the U.S. in 1868. According to the 1880 U. S. Census he was the Census Enumerator for the 1st Ward of the City of Manistee in Manistee county, Michigan where he (21 years of age) lived with his mother and six younger brothers.  While a few younger brothers were  registered employed in a saw mill, James Walter Crook was listed as attending school. He married Eva Maria Lewis Sept 16, 1881 in Manistee. His occupation was “school teacher” according to the record of marriage.

Crook received his B.A. from Oberlin College in 1891 where he stayed on as a history instructor the following year. This was followed by a year of graduate work at the University of Wisconsin where he was listed as a Fellow in Economics, 1892-93.

He studied at the University of Berlin in 1893-94 where he happened to be introduced to W. E. B. Du Bois, himself an American student in Berlin. In Dubois’ papers there is a letter Crook wrote (January 21, 1905): “I suppose you do not remember me, but I recall with pleasure my meeting you in Berlin, Germany introduced by our mutual friend Knowlton, now of Fargo, N. Dakota.” In particular Crook was looking for advice regarding a sociological survey he wished to conduct among the ca. 200 African-Americans living in Amherst (population about 3,000 total).

After Germany Crook went on to do graduate work at Columbia University in 1894-95. The next year he was hired to teach Political Economy at Amherst where he worked through retirement.  Crook was awarded a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1898, publishing his dissertation as German Wage Theories: A History of Their Development. Vol. IX, No. 2 of Studies in History, Economics and Public Law. New York: Columbia University, 1898.

According to the U.S. Census reports he and his wife Eva lived at  21 Main Street in Amherst for at least the four censuses 1900-1930.

James Walter Crook, died in Springfield, MA 1933.

Source: From faculty pages in the Amherst College Yearbook, Olio, 1905, page 24. Also the Dubois papers at the University of Massachusetts and U.S. Census reports.

________________________

PROFESSORS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
Amherst College (1877-1910)

1877

 Anson Daniel Morse, LL.D. 1878
1892 John Bates Clark, Ph.D.

1895

1892

 Charles Augustus Tuttle, Ph.D., Associate Political Economy and International Law 1893
1895 James Walter Crook, Ph.D., Assistant

1899

1899

 James Walter Crook, Ph.D., Associate 1907
1907 James Walter Crook, Ph.D.

1908

 Glover Dunn Hancock, Ph.D., Assistant 1910
1910 John Maurice Clark, Ph.D., Associate

 

Source:   General Catalogue of Amherst College including the Officers of Government and Instruction, the Alumni and Honorary Graduates, 1821-1910. Amherst, Mass., p. 9.

Image Source: From faculty pages in the Amherst College Yearbook, Olio, 1905, page 24.

 

 

 

Categories
Gender Harvard

Harvard and Wellesley. Race and Gender. Dubois and Balch.

Continue reading “Harvard and Wellesley. Race and Gender. Dubois and Balch.”