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Economic History Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exam for European economic history (19th century). Gay, 1906-1907

Before Abbott Payson Usher (1883-1965) and Alexander Gerschenkron (1904-1978) and after William Ashley (1860-1927), Professor Edwin Francis Gay (1867-1946) taught European Economic history in the Harvard economics department. This post adds to the collection of his examination questions transcribed and posted at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

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Previously posted:
European economic history
taught at Harvard

A brief course description for Economics 11 plus the exams from 1902-03.

Exams for 1903-04.

Exams for 1904-05.

Exams for 1905-06

A short bibliography for “serious students” of economic history assembled by Gay and published in 1910 has also been posted.

Gay and Usher’s economic history exams from 1930 through 1949.

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Course Enrollment
1906-07

Economics 6a 1hf. Professor Gay. — European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century.

Total 73: 17 Graduates, 20 Seniors, 21 Juniors, 12 Sophomores, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-1907, p. 71.

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ECONOMICS 6a
Mid-year Examination, 1906-07

  1. Compare the conditions of land-ownership in England, France and Germany during the first half of the nineteenth century. Explain the differences.
  2. [European tariff policies]
    1. Date the liberal period in the tariff history of the chief European countries.
    2. Why was the English Corn Law repealed?
    3. Give a brief account of the tariff history of Germany since the formation of the Zollverein.
  3. What consequences, according to Chevalier, would follow from the increased production of gold?
  4. [Railroad policies]
    1. When and for what reasons did the states of Germany and Russia obtain ownership of the railroads? What value has their experience for other countries?
    2. State Hadley’s criticism of the English Railway Commission.
  5. Describe briefly the extent, causes and results of the agricultural depression in Europe.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1906-07.

Image SourceWikimediaCommons. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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Economic History Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Reading list and Exam for U.S. Economic History. Gay, 1906-1907

Edwin Francis Gay solo-taught the course on U.S. economic and financial history in 1906-07. He modified and expanded the course reading list from that used in the previous year by him and Taussig, but the structure of the course nonetheless appears to have been essentially unchanged.

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Previously…

Assistant Professor Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague taught the Harvard course “Economic History of the United States”/ “Economic and Financial History of the United States” in 1901-02 (with James Horace Patten), 1902-03, 1903-04, and 1904-05. The course was taken over in 1905-06 by Frank William Taussig and Edwin Francis Gay after Sprague left for a full professorship at the Imperial University of Japan. The Taussig/Gay reading list and final exam for 1905-06.

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Course Enrollment
1906-07

Economics 6b 2hf. Professor [Edwin Francis] Gay. — Economic and Financial History of the United States.

Total 112: 20 Graduates, 13 Seniors, 44 Juniors, 25 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 8 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-1907, p. 71.

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Course Reading List
1906-07

[Library Stamp: “May 13, 1907”]

ECONOMICS: 6b

Required Reading is indicated by an asterisk (*)

1. COLONIAL PERIOD.

*Ashley, Commercial Legislation of England and the American Colonies, Q.J.E., Vol. XIV, pp. 1-29; printed also in Ashley’s Surveys, pp. 309-335.

*Semple, American History and its Geographic Conditions, pp.36-51.

McMaster, History of the People of the United States, Vol. I, pp. 1-102.

Eggleston, Transit of Civilization, pp. 273-307.

Beer, Commercial Policy of England, pp. 5-158.

Rabbeno, American Commercial Policy, pp. 3-91.

Lord, Industrial Experiments in the British Colonies of North America, pp. 56-86; 124-139.

1776-1860.
2. COMMERCE, MANUFACTURES, AND TARIFF.

*Taussig, Tariff History of the United States, pp. 68-154

*Hamilton, Report on Manufactures, in Taussig’s State Papers and Speeches on the Tariff, pp. 1-79, 103-107, (79-103).

Bolles, Industrial History of the United States, Book II, pp. 403-426.

Bishop, History of American Manufactures, Vol. II, pp. 256-505.

Pitkin, Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States (ed. 1835), pp. 368-412.

Gallatin, Free Trade Memorial, in Taussig’s State Papers, pp. 108-213.

Rabbeno, American Commercial Policy, pp. 146-183.

Hill, First Stages of the Tariff Policy of the United States, Amer. Econ. Assoc. Pub., Vol. VIII, pp. 107-132.

3. AGRICULTURE AND LAND POLICY. — WESTWARD MOVEMENT.

*Hart, Practical Essays on American Government, pp. 233-257; printed also in Q.J.E., Vol. I, pp. 169-183, 251-254.

*Hammond, Cotton Industry, pp. 67-119.

*Semple, American History and its Geographic Conditions, pp. 52-74.

Turner, Significance of the Frontier in American History, in Report of Amer. Hist. Assoc., 1893, pp. 199-227.

Donaldson, Public Domain, pp. 1-29, 196-239, 332-356.

Sato, History of the Land Question in the United States, Johns Hopkins University Studies, IV. Nos. 7-9, pp. 127-181.

Sanborn, Congressional Grants of Land in Aid of Railways, Bulletin of Univ. of Wisconsin Econ., Pol. Sci, and Hist. Series, Vol. II, No. 3, pp. 269-354.

Hart, History as Told by Contemporaries, Vol. III, pp. 459-478.

4. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

*Callender, Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises, Q.J.E., Vol. XVII, pp. 111-162; printed also separately, pp. 3-54.

Tenth United States Census (1880), Vol. IV, Thos. C. Purdy’s Reports on History of Steam Navigation in the United States, pp. 1-62, and History of Operating Canals in the United States, pp. 1-32.

Chevalier, Society, Manners and Politics in the United States, pp. 80-87, 209-276.

Ringwalt, Development of Transportation Systems in the United States, pp. 41-54, 64-166.

Gallatin, Plan of Internal Improvements, Amer. State Papers, Misc., Vol. I, pp. 724-921 (see especially maps, pp. 744, 762, 764, 820, 830).

Pitkin, Statistical View (1835), pp. 531-581.

Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River, Vol. II, pp. 417-424.

5. FINANCE, BANKING AND CURRENCY.

*Dewey, Financial History of the United States, pp. 75-117, 223-237, 252-262.

*Catterall, The Second Bank of the United States, pp. 1-24, 68-119, 376 map, 402-403, 464-477.

*Bullock, Essays on the Monetary History of the United States, pp. 60-93.

Hamilton, Reports on Public Credit, Amer. State Papers, Finance, Vol. I, pp. 15-37. 64-76.

Kinley. History of the Independent Treasury, pp. 16-39.

Sumner, Andrew Jackson (ed. 1886), pp. 224-249, 257-276, 291-342.

Ross, Sinking Funds, pp. 21-85.

Scott, Repudiation of State Debts, pp. 33-196.

Bourne, History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837, pp. 1-43, 125-135.

Conant, History of Modern Banks of Issue, pp. 310-347.

6. POPULATION AND SLAVERY.

*Cairnes, The Slave Power (2d ed.), pp. 32-103, 140-178.

Hammond, Cotton Industry, pp. 34-66.

Russell, North America, its Agriculture and Climate, pp. 133-167.

De Tocqueville, Democracy in America (ed. 1838), pp. 336-361, or eds. 1841 and 1848, Vol. I, pp. 386-412.

Helper, Compendium of the Impending Crisis of the South, pp. 7-61.

1860-1900.
7. FINANCE, BANKING AND CURRENCY.

*Mitchell, History of the Greenbacks, pp. 3-43, 403-420.

*Noyes, Thirty Years of American Finance, pp. 1-72, 234-254 (73-233).

Taussig, Silver Situation in the United States, pp. 1-157.

Dunbar, National Banking System, Q.J.E., Vol. XII, pp. 1-26; printed also in Dunbar’s Economic Essays, pp. 227-247.

Howe, Taxation and Taxes in the United States under the Internal Revenue System, pp. 136-262.

Tenth United States Census (1880), Vol. VII; Bayley, History of the National Loans, pp. 369-392, 444-486.

8. TRANSPORTATION.

*Hadley, Railroad Transportation, pp. 1-23, 125-145.

*Johnson, American Railway Transportation, pp. 24-68, 307-321, 367-385.

Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX, pp. 466-481.

Adams, Chapters of Erie, pp. 1-99, 333-429.

Davis, The Union Pacific Railway, Annals of the Amer. Acad., Vol. VIII, pp. 259-303.

Villard, Memoirs, Vol. II, pp. 284-312.

Dixon, Interstate Commerce Act as Amended, Q.J.E., Vol. XXI, pp. 22-51.

9. AGRICULTURE AND OPENING OF THE WEST.

*Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX, pp. 43-123, 134-167.

*Noyes, Recent Economic History of the United States, Q.J.E., Vol. XIX, pp. 167-187.

Twelfth United States Census (1900), Vol. V, pp. xvi-xlii.

Hammond, Cotton Industry, pp. 120-226.

Adams, The Granger Movement, North American Review, Vol. CXX, pp. 394-424.

Bemis, Discontent of the Farmer, J. Pol. Ec., Vol. I, 193-213.

10. THE TARIFF.

*Taussig, Tariff History, pp. 156-229.

Stanwood, American Tariff Controversies, Vol. II, pp. 243-394.

Taussig, Iron Industry, Q.J.E., Vol. XIV, pp. 143-170, 475-508.

Taussig, Wool and Woolens, Q.J.E., Vol. VIII, pp. 1-39.

Wright, Wool-growing and the Tariff since 1890, Q.J.E., Vol. XIX, pp. 610-647.

Robinson, History of Two Reciprocity Treaties, pp. 9-17, 40-77, 141-156.

Laughlin and Willis, Reciprocity, pp. 311-437.

11. INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION.

*Twelfth United States Census (1900), Vol. VII, pp. clxx-cxc (note especially the maps and comments on pp. clxx-clxxviii).

*Noyes, Thirty Years of American Finance, pp. 113-126.

Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX, pp. 485-519, 544-569.

Twelfth Census, Vol. IX, pp. 1-16; Vol. X, pp. 725-748.

Wells, Recent Economic Changes, pp. 70-113.

12. COMMERCE AND SHIPPING.

*Meeker, Shipping Subsidies, Pol. Sci. Quart., Vol. XX, pp. 594-611.

Soley, Maritime Industries of the United States, in Shaler’s United States, Vol. I, pp. 518-618.

Meeker, History of Shipping Subsidies, pp. 150-171.

McVey, Shipping Subsidies, J. Pol. Ec., Vol. IX, pp. 24-46.

Wells, Our Merchant Marine, pp. 1-94.

13. INDUSTRIAL CONCENTRATION.

*Willoughby, Integration of Industry in the United States, Q.J.E., Vol. XVI, pp. 94-107.

*Noyes, Recent Economic History of the United States, Q.J.E., Vol. XIX, pp. 188-209.

Twelfth Census, Vol. VII, pp. cxc-ccxiv.

Industrial Commission, Vol. XIII, pp. v-xviii.

Bullock, Trust Literature, Q.J.E., Vol. XV, pp. 167-217.

14. THE LABOR PROBLEM.

*United States Bureau of Labor Bulletins, No. 18 (Sept. 1898), pp. 665-670; No. 30 (Sept. 1900), pp. 913-915; No. 53 (July, 1904), pp. 703-728.

Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, pp. 3-16, 502-547.

Levasseur. American Workman, pp. 436-509.

Mitchell, Organized Labor, pp. 391-411.

Twelfth Census, Special Report on Employees and Wages, p. xcix.

National Civic Federation, Industrial Conciliation, pp. 40-48, 141-154, 238-243, 254-266.

15. POPULATION, IMMIGRATION
AND THE RACE QUESTION.

*United States Census Bulletin, No. 4 (1903), pp. 5-38.

*Industrial Commission, Vol. XV, pp. xix-Ivii.

Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, pp. 68-112.

Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration, pp. 38-78.

Walker, Discussions in Economics and Statistics, Vol. II, pp. 417-451.

Hoffmann, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, pp. 250-309.

Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America, pp. 102-228.

Twelfth Census Bulletin, No. 8.

United States Bureau of Labor Bulletins, Nos. 14, 22, 32, 35, 37, 38, 48.

Washington, Future of the American Negro, pp. 3-244.

Stone, A Plantation Experiment, Q.J.E., Vol. XIX, pp. 270-287.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 1, Folder: “Economics 1906-07”.

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ECONOMICS 6b
Year-end Examination, 1906-07

  1. Describe briefly (not more than five minutes each) :—
    1. Independent Treasury.
    2. Greenbacks
    3. Mills Bill.
    4. Minimum system.
    5. Homestead system.
    6. Chief Canal systems.
  2. Outline succinctly :—
    1. The history and results of the tariff on wool and woolens.
    2. The experience of the United States with reciprocity.
  3. Comment on the following (from Grant’s message of 1870):
    “Building ships and navigating them utilizes vast capital at home; it creates a home market for the farm and the shop; it diminishes the balance of trade against us precisely to the extent of freights and passage money paid to American vessels, and gives us a supremacy of the seas of inestimable value in case of foreign war.”
  4. Compare in its more important features the economic history of the decade 1870-80 with that of the decade 1890-1900.
  5. [International labor migration]
    1. Describe the administration of the alien contract labor law.
    2. What are the present tendencies in the distribution of immigrants?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1906-07 (HUC 7000.25), pp. 29-30.

Image Source: Edwin F. Gay, seated in office, 1908. From Wikipedia. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

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Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exam questions for Medieval and Modern Economic History of Europe. Gay, 1905-1906

For most of the twentieth century you didn’t have a full and complete economics department without significant course offerings in economic history. Needless to say, Harvard has had a full and complete economics department. 

This post contributes an incremental addition to the collection of economics exams with those from Edwin Francis Gay’s European economic history courses at Harvard in 1905-06.

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Related posts

A brief course description for Economics 11 plus the exams from 1902-03.

Exams for 1903-04.

Exams for 1904-05.

A short bibliography for “serious students” of economic history assembled by Gay and published in 1910 has also been posted.

Gay and Usher’s economic history exams from 1930 through 1949.

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Mediaeval Economic History of Europe.

Course Enrollment
1905-06

Economics 10 1hf. Asst. Professor Gay. — Mediaeval Economic History of Europe.

Total 8: 6 Graduates, 1 Senior, 1 Junior.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1905-190 6, p. 72.

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

ECONOMICS 101
Final Examination
Mid-year 1905-06
  1. Explain briefly:—
    1. gwely.
    2. liti.
    3. molmen.
    4. formariage.
    5. lettre de foire.
    6. mercator.
    7. commenda.
    8. contractus trinius.
    9. droit d’amortissement, droit de régale.
    10. tunnage and poundage.
  2. Outline the estate organization prescribed by the Capitulare de Villis.
  3. “It seems to be almost certain that the ‘hams’ and ‘tuns’ (of England) were, generally speaking, and for the most part from the first, practically manors with communities in serfdom upon them.” Whose view is this? State succinctly the chief arguments for and against.
  4. Enumerate the chief franchises and privileges of a fair. What was the jus fori?

Take one of the following questions:

  1. What were the provisions of the Law Merchant in regard to sales and contracts?
  2. What is the significance of the following passages:—
    1. “ne alienigene opus suum operatum ad forum non deferant, nisi cum omnium eorum voluntate qui juri illo quod inninge appellatur participes existunt.” (Privilege to Magdeburg shoemakers, end of the twelfth century.)
    2. “quod nullus textor potest vel debet in aliqua civitate nullo etiam tempore, ubi non habet consortium mercatorum quod vulgariter ignige appellatur, pannos incidere.” (Halberstadt, 1291.)
    3. “Si aliquis alienus vult societatem pistorum, quod Innunge dicitur, ille dabit duas marcas et due partes spectabunt ad civitatem, una pars ad pistores.” (Neumarkt, 1235.)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1905-06. Also a copy in Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1906-07; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1906), pp. 35-36. 

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Modern Economic History of Europe

Course Enrollment
Economics 11
1905-06

Economics 11. Asst. Professor Gay. — Modern Economic History of Europe.

Total 10: 8 Graduates, 2 Seniors.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1905-1906, p. 72.

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

ECONOMICS 11
Mid-year Examination, 1905-06
  1. Explain briefly:—
    1. purveyance.
    2. staple.
    3. copyhold.
    4. Leibzins.
    5. mainmorte.
    6. mesta.
  2. What were the chief factors in the emancipation of the serf? Compare the history of the movement in England with that in Germany.
  3. The craft gild:
    1. What in general was its object and policy?
    2. What, during the sixteenth century, was the attitude of the national government to the craft gilds in England and in France?
    3. What was the Statute of Artificers?
  4. Outline the history of the trade relations between England and northern Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, stating the chief facts connected with the decline of the Hanseatic position in England and the rise of the Merchant Adventurers.
  5. Describe succinctly the price movement of the sixteenth century, its extent, character, causes, and results.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1905-06.

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

ECONOMICS 11
Year-end Examination, 1905-06
  1. State briefly the place in English economic history of Gresham, Burleigh, Cromwell, Paterson, Walpole, Bakewell, Arkwright, the younger Pitt.
  2. [Wages]
    1. Describe, stating causes, the growth of the wage-earning class in England.
    2. Summarize the history and results of wage regulation by public authority.
    3. The average daily wage of an English artisan at the close of the sixteenth century was about one shilling. How would you determine the modern equivalent in purchasing power? What other factors should be considered in a comparison of conditions?
  3. Compare the commerce of England with that of France in the eighteenth century. Can the comparative magnitude be statistically measured? If so, with what result? If not, why not?
  4. Why did the Industrial Revolution take place in England in the latter part of the eighteenth century? What facts of English agricultural history bear upon this question?
  5. Describe the transitions in industrial organization leading up to the domestic system, to the factory system.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1906-07; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1906), pp. 36-37.

Image Source: Image of a page from the Statute of Artificers  in Vimala C. Pasupathi, Shall Strangers Rule the Roast? Migration and Displacement in Sir Thomas More (1600).

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Reading list and final exam for U.S. economic and financial history. Taussig and Gay, 1905-1906

Assistant Professor Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague taught the Harvard course “Economic History of the United States”/ “Economic and Financial History of the United States” in 1901-02 (with James Horace Patten), 1902-03, 1903-04, and 1904-05. The course was taken over in 1905-06 by Frank William Taussig and Edwin Francis Gay after Sprague left for a full professorship at the Imperial University of Japan.

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Course Enrollment
1905-06

Economics 6 2hf. Professor Taussig and Asst. Professor Gay. — Economic and Financial History of the United States.

Total 79: 14 Graduates, 15 Seniors, 37 Juniors, 10 Sophomores, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1905-1906, p. 72.

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READING FOR ECONOMICS 6
(1905-6)

Prescribed reading is indicated by an asterisk (*).

1. COLONIAL PERIOD.

*Ashley, Commercial Legislation of England and the American Colonies, Q.J.E., Vol. XIV, pp. 1-30; printed also in Surveys, pp. 309-335.

Schmoller, Mercantile System, pp. 57-80.

Beer, Commercial Policy of England, pp. 1-158.

Rabbeno, American Commercial Policy, pp. 3-91.

Eggleston, Agriculture and Commerce in the Colonies, The Century Magazine, Jan. and June, 1884, Vol. V, pp. 431-449; Vol. VI, pp. 234-256.

2. COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES, 1776-1815.

*Hill, First Stages of the Tariff Policy of the United States, Amer Econ. Assn. Pub., Vol. VIII, pp. 107-132.

Pitkin, Statistical View of the United States, ed. 1835, ch. ix, pp. 368-412.

Rabbeno, American Commercial Policy, pp. 287-324, 95-145.

Hamilton, Report on Manufactures, in Taussig’s State Papers and Speeches on the Tariff, pp. 1-108.

3. REVOLUTIONARY AND NATIONAL FINANCE – WESTWARD MOVEMENT, 1776-1815.

*Dewey, Financial History of the United States, chs. ii-vi, pp. 33-141.

Bullock, Essays on the Monetary History of the United States, pp. 60-78.

Hamilton, Reports on Public Credit, Amer. State Papers, Finance, Vol. 1, pp. 15-37, 64-67.

Turner, Significance of the Frontier in American History, in Report of Amer. Hist. Assn., 1893, pp. 199-227.

Semple, American History and its Geographical Conditions, chs. iv, v, pp. 52-92.

4. FINANCE AND BANKING, 1815-1860.

*Dewey, Financial History, pp. 223-237, 252-262.

Sumner, Andrew Jackson, ed. 1886, pp. 224-249, 257-276, 291-342.

Catterall, The Second Bank of the United States, chs. xvi-vviii, pp. 376-403, 430-452.

Conant, History of Modern Banks of Issue, ch. xiv, pp. 310-347.

White, Money and Banking, chs. ix-xii, pp. 324-361.

5. TARIFFS AND MANUFACTURES, 1815-1860.

*Taussig, Tariff History, pp. 1-154.

Taussig, State Papers and Speeches on the Tariff, pp. 108-385.

Rabbeno, American Commercial Policy, 146-199, 325-383.

6. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS, 1815-1860.

*Callender, Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises, Q.J.E., Vol. XVII, pp. 111-162.

Chevalier, Society, Manners, and Politics in the United States, chs. vii, xx, xxi, pp. 80-87, 209-276.

Pitkin, Statistical View (1835), Vol. XII, pp. 531-581.

Gallatin, Plan of Internal Improvements, Amer. State Papers, Misc., Vol. I.

Tanner, Railways and Canals of the United States. See, especially, the map.

7. LAND POLICY AND AGRICULTURE, 1815-1860.

*Hart, Practical Essays on American Government, pp. 233-257.

*Hammond, Cotton Industry, ch. iii, pp. 67-119.

Donaldson, Public Domain.

Sato, History of the Land Question in the United States, Johns Hopkins University Studies, 4th series, nos. 7-9, pp. 127-181.

8. POPULATION AND SLAVERY, 1815-1860.

*Cairnes, Slave Power, chs. ii, iii, v, pp. 34-93, 120-150.

Hammond, Cotton Industry, ch. ii, pp. 34-60.

Semple, American History and its Geographic Conditions, ch. ix, pp. 150-177.

9. FINANCE, BANKING, AND CURRENCY PROBLEMS, 1860-1900.

*Dewey, Financial History, chs. xii, xiii, xx, pp. 271-330, 463-473.

*Noyes, Thirty Years of American Finance, chs. i, ii, iii, x, pp. 1-72, 234-254.

Taussig, Silver Situation, pp. 1-157.

Dunbar, National Banking System, Q.J.E., Vol. XII, pp. 1-36.

10. TRANSPORTATION; TARIFF.

*Taussig, Tariff History, pp. 155-230.

Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX, pp. 466-481.

Johnson, American Railway Transportation, chs. ii, ii, v, pp. 13-38, 52-68.

Taussig, Contribution to the Theory of Railway Rates, Q.J.E., Vol. V, pp. 438-465.

Hadley, Railroad Transportation, pp. 24-56.

11. INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION AND TARIFF.

*Taussig, Tariff History, pp. 230-409.

Stanwood, American Tariff Controversies, Vol. II, pp. 243-394.

Taussig, Iron Industry, Q.J.E., Vol. XIV, pp. 143-170, 475-508.

Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX, pp. 485-519, 544-569.

Twelfth United States Census, Vol. IX, pp. 1-16; Vol. X, pp. 723-743.

Taussig, Wool and Woolens, Q.J.E., Vol. VIII, pp. 1-39.

Wright, Wool-growing and the Tariff since 1890, Q.J.E., Vol. XIX, pp. 610-647.

Willoughby, Integration of Industry in the United States, Q.J.E., Vol. XVI, pp. 94-115.

12. AGRICULTURE AND OPENING OF THE FAR WEST.

*Industrial Commission, XIX, pp. 43-123, 134-168.

Hammond, Cotton Industry, Book I, chs. iv-vii, ix, pp. 120-228, 324-356.

Adams, The Granger Movement, North American Review, Vol. CLXXV, pp. 394-424.

13. COMMERCE AND SHIPPING.

*Meeker, Shipping Subsidies, Pol. Sci. Qr., Vol. XX, pp. 594-611.

*Noyes, Recent Economic History of the United States, Q.J.E., Vol. XIX, pp. 167-209.

Wells, Our Merchant Marine, chs. i-v, pp. 1-94.

14. WAGES AND THE LABOR PROBLEM.

*Levasseur, American Workman, pp. 436-509.

Mitchell, Organized Labor.

Industrial Conciliation, National Civic Federation.

Wright, Industrial History of the United States, Part III, pp. 231-322.

15. IMMIGRATION AND THE RACE QUESTION.

*Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration, chs. iii, iv, pp. 33-78.

Tillinghast, Negro in Africa and America, pp. 102-227.

Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, pp. 141-148, 170-176, 310-329.

Washington, Future of the American Negro, pp. 3-244.

Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration, pp. 79-167, 227-283.

Walker, Discussions in Economics and Statistics, Vol. II, pp. 417-434.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in conomics, 1895-2003, Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1905-1906”.

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ECONOMICS 6
Year-end Examination, 1905-06

  1. Describe the history of the agitation for “cheap money” in the United States; the forms assumed both before and after 1860, its causes and the probability of its recurrence.
  2. Compare critically the financing of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the Spanish War.
  3. (a) Summarize the principal features of our tariff legislation from the close of the Civil War to the Dingley Tariff.
    (b) What has been the effect of the tariffs on the iron and steel industry?
  4. Give the history of the Union Pacific Railroad and its relations to the government.
  5. Account for the changes in the character of the foreign trade of the United States in respect to the excess of imports or of exports.
    Take one of the following questions:
  6. Discuss the significance and causes of the increase of farm tenancy and the rural exodus.
  7. What can you say as to agricultural conditions in the South before and since the Civil War? What about the negro problem?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1906-07; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1906), pp. 31-32.

Image Source: Portraits of Frank William Taussig and Edwin Francis Gay from the Harvard Class Album 1906.

 

Categories
Federal Government Statistics Suggested Reading

Government Statistics. Centenary History of the U.S. Survey of Current Business. Reamer, 2020

While trawling the internet for a ca. 1920 photo of Edwin Francis Gay for another post (coming attraction), I found the following history of the Department of Commerce’s publication “Survey of Current Business” commissioned for the occasion of the centenary celebration of its founding. We encounter Herbert Hoover, Wesley Clair Mitchell, Edwin Francis Gay, and Simon Kuznets on page one of the history…

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The Origins of
the Survey of Current Business:
A Window on the Evolution of Economic Policy, Research, and Statistics

By Andrew D. Reamer

For decades, the Survey of Current Business, the flagship monthly publication of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), has provided macro-, industry, international, and regional economists with data, analysis, and methodological research concerning the national economic accounts. This was not always so.

The Survey was founded in July 1921 as Department of Commerce (DOC) Secretary Herbert Hoover’s primary tool to promote macroeconomic stabilization. Specifically, the Survey published current, detailed industry-specific data from hundreds of public and private secondary sources so businesses might make better operational and investment decisions. One decade and a Great Depression later, the extensive statistical clearinghouse feeding the Survey became the foundation for Simon Kuznets’ famed study of national income and the subsequent development of national economic accounting.

The Survey’s creation and its later repurposing were the results of efforts by economists Edwin Gay and Wesley Mitchell, largely through a series of collaborations with Hoover between 1921 and 1933. As members of Hoover’s Joint Census Advisory Committee, Gay and Mitchell recommended the Survey’s development, modeled on the statistical clearinghouse they created to guide federal economic planning in the First World War. As founding leaders of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), they guided path-setting studies of national income and business cycles, several commissioned by Hoover; trained and hired Kuznets, who contributed to several NBER studies, including one for Hoover; and detailed Kuznets to the DOC to prepare the groundbreaking national income report.

This article begins by describing the Survey’s role in economic stabilization policy in the 1920s and the development of national economic accounting in the 1930s. The succeeding sections unpack this story by delving into how the Survey came to play these successive roles, particularly through Gay, Mitchell, and Hoover’s efforts. …

Source: From “Chronicling 100 Years of the U.S. Economy,” Survey of Current Business Vol. 100, No. 10 (October 2020)

Links to archived versions of the full article: htm; pdf.

Image Source: Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, ca.1921. From the blog of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum.

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Mediaeval and Modern Economic History of Europe. Enrollments, descriptions, exam. Gay, 1904-1905

An assistant professor gotta do what an assistant professor has gotta do. Edwin Francis Gay was 37 years of age by the 1904-05 academic year with courses covering nearly a millennium of European economic history.  His biographer (and former student) Herbert Heaton described this period as being a strenuous time for Gay (pp. 64-65).

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Related posts

A brief course description for Economics 11 plus the exams from 1902-03.

Exams for 1903-04.

A short bibliography for “serious students” of economic history  assembled by Gay and published in 1910 has also been posted.

__________________________

Course Enrollment
1904-05

Economics 10 1hf. Asst. Professor Gay. — Mediaeval Economic History of Europe.

Total 1: 1 Graduate.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1904-1905, p. 75.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Course Description
1904-05

[Economics] 10 1hf. The Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., and(at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 9. Asst. Professor Gay.

After a preliminary examination of early economic and social institutions, this course aims to give a general view of the economic development of society during the Middle Ages. Among other topics, the following will be considered: mediaeval agriculture and serfdom; the manorial system and the economic aspects of feudalism; the beginnings of town life and the gild-system of industry; and the Italian and Hanseatic commercial supremacy.
A thesis will be required from each student, and occasional oral reports and discussions may be expected, but the work is conducted mainly by lectures with supplementary reading.
It is desirable that students should possess some acquaintance with mediaeval history and some reading knowledge of Latin.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1904-05 (May 16, 1904), p. 44.

No printed exam at mid-year for this course was found in the Harvard archives
(but of course only one student)

________________________

Course Enrollment
1904-05

Economics 11. Asst. Professor Gay. — Modern Economic History of Europe.

Total 7: 3 Graduates, 2 Seniors, 1 Junior, 1 Sophomore.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1904-1905, p. 75.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Course Description
1904-05

[Economics] 11. The Modern Economic History of Europe. Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor Gay.

This course, while Course 10 may usefully precede it, will nevertheless be independent, and may be taken by those who have not followed the history of the earlier period.
At the outset a survey will be made of economic and social conditions in the chief European countries at the close of the Middle Ages. The history of trade, industry, and agriculture in the succeeding periods down to the nineteenth century will then be treated in some detail, together with the corresponding forms of social life and the advance in economic thought. England will receive the emphasis due to its increasing importance during this period.
A considerable amount of supplementary reading will be expected and two thesis subjects will be assigned.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1904-05 (May 16, 1904), p. 44.

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ECONOMICS 11
Year-end Examination, 1904-05

  1. Explain briefly:—
    (1) lettre de maîtrise
    (2) métayage
    (3) the Steelyard
    (4) goldsmith’s notes
    (5) enumerated commodities
    (6) Merchant Adventurer’s
  2. What are the chief facts you associate with the names of
    (1) Bodin, (2) Colbert, (3) Paterson, (4) Law?
  3. (1) Who were the Fuggers? What type of company organization do they represent?
    (2) Describe the development in the company organization of the English East India Company. How and why did this company’s history differ from that of the Dutch East India Company?
  4. Enumerate the forms of indirect taxation in use in England in the seventeenth century.
  5. How do you distinguish the domestic system of industry from the handicraft and factory systems? Give some examples of different forms of the domestic system.

Take one of the following questions.

  1. It is stated that the total value of exports and imports for England and France were as follows for the years here given:
England
£
France
livres
1613   4,628,586
1750 20,471,120 1750 355,202,357
1800 62,639,398 1789 758,104,000

Are these figures of equal statistical value? What are the sources of error?

  1. (1) In 1655 a London merchant shipped raisins and oil to Hamburg, but finding this market not so good as the English desired to ship the goods back to England in the same ship that carried them to Hamburg, paying customs and excise on the reimportation. He petitioned the Council for license to do this. State precisely why.
    (2) In 1665 a Dutch merchant desired to send to England from Amsterdam a lading of silk and linen cloth, loaf sugar, paper (all of Dutch manufacture), Bordeaux wine, tobacco and pepper. Could he do this, and if so, how?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1904-05;  Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1905), pp. 30-31.

Image Source: Edwin F. Gay, seated in office, 1908. From Wikipedia. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Enrollment and exam questions for agrarian history. Gay, 1903-04

Edwin F. Gay only taught the graduate economics course “General Outlines of Agrarian History” once. As we see from the course enrollment for this course offered at Harvard during the first term of 1903-04, only four students attended. Who among us has not been personally confronted with the reality that our supply does not necessarily generate its own demand? 

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Course Enrollment

Economics 24 1hf. Asst. Professor Gay. — General Outlines of Agrarian History.

Total 4: 3 Seniors, 1 Junior.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-1904, p. 67.

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ECONOMICS 24
Mid-Year Examination. 1903-04

  1. Explain briefly:

(1) emphyteusis.
(2) massa and fundus.
(3) mainmorte.
(4) gavelkind and Borough English.
(5) common recovery.
(6) copyhold.
(7) majorat and seniorat.
(8) Norfolk husbandry.

  1. Describe briefly:

(1) the provisions of the Capitulare de villis; its date and significance.
(2) the system of estate settlement by “Familienfideikommisse.”
(3) the place in agrarian history of Colbert, Orlando Bridgman, Arthur Young and Albrecht Thaer.

  1. “It seems to be almost certain that the ‘hams’ and ‘tuns’ [of England] were, generally speaking, and for the most part from the first, practically manors with communities in serfdom upon them.” Whose view is this? State succinctly the chief arguments for and against.
  2. What were the chief factors in the emancipation of the medieval serf and how far had the movement of emancipation progressed by 1500 in England, France and Northern Italy?
  3. What were the causes of the Peasant War of 1525? How did the condition of the peasant of South Germany differ from that of the peasant in the North-east and North-west?
  4. Summarize (with dates of the more important statutes) the changes of policy in the English Corn-laws.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1903-04.

Image Source: Harvard Class Album, 1914.

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exams for the Modern Economic History of Europe. Gay, 1903-1904

Edwin F. Gay was hired as instructor to cover the economic history field left vacant by the departure of William Ashley for the University of Birmingham in 1901. By the end of his first semester (December 1902) he was promoted to an assistant professorship. Medieval economic history proved not to be a magnet for student enrollment (I am shocked to report) so he began to give greater emphasis to “modern” European economic history.

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Getting to 1903-1904

The outstanding feature of Gay’s years of study abroad is their number. He went to Europe expecting to return within two years, but stayed twelve and a half. Instead of getting his Ph.D. after working for three or four semesters on medieval history, he spent nine in universities–three in Leipzig, five in Berlin, and one in Zurich; then for seven years he studied privately; and finally, after being registered for three more semesters in Berlin but attending no classes, he wrote a dissertation on a theme in economic history, took his examinations, and was granted his degree in the summer of 1902….[p.30]

*  *  *

…[Gay] arrived in Harvard somewhat nervous about the reception he was likely to receive. Apart from the President, the only men who knew him — Gross and Haskins — were in the history department. His position, junior and temporary, was in the economics department, yet the economists had played no part in choosing him. When he visited Cambridge for his interview, he met neither the veteran F.W. Taussig nor the recently appointed younger men, Carver and Ripley. Apart from a very brief encounter with Carver in Berlin in the summer of 1902, he was a complete stranger to all his associates….[p. 63]

*  *  *

…By Christmas, 1902, [Gay] felt confident that he was holding the attention and interest of his students. By that time he also had learned, through T. N. Carver, chairman of the department, what the students thought of his work: they said it was so stiff and heavy in its demands that “whenever you see any of us going around with circles under our eyes, you can know we are taking Gay’s course.” There were very few of them at first; the medieval story [10 students] and the German economists [4 students] did not attract much attention… [p. 61]

*  *  *

…by Christmas 1902, [Gay] was informed the department wanted him to stay and before his first year ended he was raised to the rank of assistant professor of economics with a tenure of five years. In recommending the promotion Carver wrote to [President] Eliot: “His scholarship is of the very highest type and his success as a classroom lectureer is unqualified, as shown by his work this year.” [p. 64]

Source: Herbert Heaton, A Scholar in Action: Edwin F. Gay. Cambridge (Massachusetts), Harvard University Press, 1952.

___________________________

Related posts

A brief course description for Economics 11 plus the exams from the the 1902-03 academic year have been posted earlier .

A short bibliography for “serious students” of economic history assembled by Gay and published in 1910 has also been posted.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 11
Course Enrollment

1903-04

Economics 11. Asst. Professor Gay. — The Modern Economic History of Europe.

Total 18: 10 Graduates, 2 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 4 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-1904, p. 66.

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ECONOMICS 11
Mid-Year Examination, 1903-04

  1. Explain briefly:—

(a) convertible husbandry.
(b) bodgers.
(c) book of rates.
(d) Gutsherrschaft.
(e) lettre de maîtrise.
(f) Fondaco dei Tedeschi.

  1. Describe briefly, with indication of the bearing on wider questions:—

(a) The divergent views as to the security of copyhold tenure in the sixteenth century.
(b) The organization of the Florentine woollen industry.
(c) The rise of the Merchant Adventurers.

  1. Comment on the following passage:—

“Everie day some of us encloseth a plote of his ground to pasture; and weare it not that oure grounde lieth in the common feildes, intermingled one with a nother, I thincke also oure feildes had bene enclosed, of a common agreement of all the townshippe, longe ere this time.”

  1. Give an account of the gild system of industry in England, emphasizing the analogies and contrasts with the continent.
  2. It is estimated that the following series of figures represents the change in the average purchasing power of wages in England:

1451-1500

100

1501-1520

88

1521-1550

70

1551-1570

57

1571-1602

47

1603-1652

40

1653-1702

47

(a) How would you construct such a series and what is its value?
(b) What caused the change thus indicated and what were its effects?

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1903-04.

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ECONOMICS 11
Year-End Examination, 1903-04

I. Explain briefly:—

(1) contractus trinius.
(2) two forms of capitation.
(3) Gesellenverbände.
(4) Gulden and Thaler.
(5) the vend.
(6) Exchequer Bills
(7) the Molasses Act.
(8) roundsmen.

II. Describe briefly:—

(1) the influence of the Civil War on English economic history.
(2) the distinction between the economic views of Whigs and Tories.

III.

(1) State the chief provisions and significance of

(a) the Statute of Artificers (1563),
(b) the Navigation Act (1660), and
(c) the Corn Law of 1688.

(2) When in England was the policy embodied in each of the above statutes changed, and under what circumstances?
(3) Indicate the analogies and contrasts of this English policy in relation to industry, commerce, and agriculture with the policies of France and Holland in the seventeenth century.

IV.

When and why did indirect taxation become prominent in Western Europe?

V. Comment on the following statement:

“the domestic system existed [in England] from the earliest times till it was superseded by capitalism; … craft gilds were a form of industrial organization which was appropriate to the domestic, rather than to the capitalist system.”

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1904-05; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, … in Harvard College, pp. 33-34.

Image Source: Edwin F. Gay, seated in office, 1908. From Wikipedia. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard History of Economics

Harvard. Exam for German Economic Thought. Gay, 1903

This must have been a quick addition to the course offerings for 1902-03 since the course was not announced in the June 1902 brochure for the Division of History and Political Science for the coming academic year. In the following year Edwin Francis Gay (Berlin, Ph.D. in 1902 under Gustav Schmoller) expanded the course to cover both French and German economic thought.

______________________

Course Enrollment

Economics 22. 2hf. Dr. Gay. — Outlines of the Development of Economic Thought in Germany in the Nineteenth Century.

Total 4: 3 Gr., 1 Se.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1902-03, p. 68.

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ECONOMICS 22

  1. Translate from Conrad, pp. 69 [p. 64-65 in 1897 ed.], § 66, Die Grundrente.
    1. Describe briefly von Thünen’s concentric circles.
    2. Outline Rodbertus’s theory of rent and its relation to his explanation of crises.
  2. Translate  §69 [pp. 68-69 in 1897 ed.] , Die Regulierung des Lohnes.
    1. What features in this passage remind you of von Hermann’s treatment of wages?
      [Note: no (b) or any other parts to the question were printed]
  3. Karl Marx: a concise note concerning his life, his works, his theory of value, his influence in Germany at present.
  4. Give an account of the German historical school of economists.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 6. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, History of Religions, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College, June 1903 (in the bound volume Examination Papers 1902-1903).

Image Source: Portrait of Edwin F. Gay from the Harvard Class Album 1914 colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Bibliography Economic History Harvard

Harvard. Short Bibliography of Economic History for “Serious-minded Students”, Gay, 1910

Economic history played a much larger role in the education of economists at the turn of the twentieth century than it does now. Course reading lists from the earlier time are relatively rare, it appears that assignments were written on the blackboard as part of lectures. Nonetheless, from printed bibliographies we do get a sense of the scale and scope of the literature advanced students would have been exposed to.

In 1910 Harvard published 43 short bibliographies covering “Social Ethics and Allied Subjects”, about half of which were dedicated to particular topics in economics and economic sociology. The project was coordinated by Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, Francis G. Peabody.

Economic History is the “allied subject” covered in the bibliography provided by Professor Edwin F. Gay and transcribed below. Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has added links to digital copies of all but one of the ca. 90 items listed by Gay! 

UPDATE (July 16, 2023). Friend of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror, Thea Don-Siemion (Twitter: @StationryBandit), suggested a comparison with A bibliography of historical economics to 1980 by D. N. McCloskey and G.K. Harsh (Cambridge University Press, 1990). The book can be borrowed online, an hour at a time, at archive.org by registered users. To think there is still a residual gap of over forty years already!

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Previously posted  Harvard short bibliographies

I.2. Economic Theory by Taussig, 1910

I.7. Social Statistics by Ripley, 1910

II.3. Taxation by Bullock, 1910

IV.5 Economics of Socialism by Carver, 1910

IV.6 Socialism and Family/Christian Ethics by McConnell, 1910

IV.7. Trade Unionism by Ripley, 1910

IV.8. Strikes and Boycotts by Ripley, 1910

IV.12 Thrift Institutions by Oliver M. W. Sprague.

IV.13. Social Insurance by Foerster, 1910

_____________

Economic History
Edwin F. Gay

The reader interested in economic history must gather his information from many books, for the most part dealing with special phases of the subject and limited as to period and country, rather than from comprehensive manuals or surveys. Since economic history is but a portion or aspect of general history, isolating for convenience of study the organized efforts of mankind to satisfy its material needs, works on political and constitutional history must be used, though they vary greatly in the degree of emphasis placed upon the economic factors. Indeed, for the student who cannot read German and French, such general histories must often be his sole reliance. This is particularly true of the economic history of Greece and Rome and of large parts of the mediæval and modern economic history of other than English speaking countries. This brief list cannot include general histories, but it must necessarily comprise some of the more important German and French contributions to economic history.

The economic history of England must hold first place in such a list, and therefore the books in that field are given the larger amount of space. Then follow some of the more important works relating to the continent of Europe and to the United States.

Cunningham, W. An essay on western civilization in its economic aspects. [Cambridge Historical Series.] Volume I, ancient times; Volume II, mediæval and modern times. Cambridge, University Press, 1898-1900, pp. xii, 220; xii, 300.

A good general introduction to economic history.

Bücher, Karl. Die Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft. 1 Aufl., 1893; 7 Aufl., ibid., 1910. Tübingen: H. Laupp, vii, 464 S.

Bücher, Karl. Industrial evolution. Translated from the third German edition [of the above] by S. M. Wickett. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1901, pp. xiv, 393.

A series of suggestive essays, illuminating the development of industrial organization. The book has exerted a marked influence.

Day, Clive. A history of commerce. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1907, pp. xliv, 626.

The best brief manual; well proportioned and with a good background of economic history; it has a useful bibliography.

Lindsay, W. S. History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce. 4 vols. London: Sampson, Low & Co., 1874-76. [Volume I, Volume II, Volume III, Volume IV]

An older standard work in this field; more exhaustive than any of its successors. The last two volumes (1816-74) were reprinted separately in 1876.

 

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Cunningham, W. The growth of English industry and commerce, . Volume I, Early and middle ages, fourth edition, 1905; [:] Modern times, Volume II [, The Mercantile System] and [Volume] III [Laissez Faire], fourth edition, 1907. Cambridge: University Press.

This work, constantly improved in the successive editions since the first in 1882, is of importance as a book of reference for English economic history, and should be used, if possible, in preference to the smaller but still commendable manuals on the subject, such as those by Cunningham and McArthur, Gibbins, Warner or Cheyney. Each volume has a helpful bibliography.

Ashley, W. J. An introduction to English economic history and theory. Part 1, The middle ages; Part 2, The end of the middle ages. Third edition. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1894-98, pp. xii, 227; xii, 501.

A scholarly and readable work.

Traill, H. D., editor. Social England: a record of the progress of the people in religion, laws, learning, arts, industry, commerce, science, literature and manners. By various writers. 6 vols., New York: George Putnam’s Sons, 1893-97 [Volume I, From the earliest times to the accession of Edward I (1895); Volume II, From the accession of Edward I to the death of Henry VII (1894); Volume III, From the accession of Henry VIII to the death of Elizabeth (1896); Volume IV, From the accession of James I to the death of Anne (1895); Volume V, From the accession of George I to the Battle of Waterloo (1896); Volume VI, From the Battle of Waterloo to the General Election of 1885 (1898)]; new edition [illustrated], Traill, H. D., and Mann, J. S., editors, 6 vols., New York: George Putnam’s Sons, 1901-4. [Volume I (1901); Volume II (1902); Volume III(1902); Volume IV (1903); Volume V (1904); Volume VI (1904)]

A poorly edited though useful book; the contributions of Prothero, Maitland, Powell and others more than counterbalance the less scholarly contributions. Brief bibliographical notes accompany each chapter.

Seebohm, Frederic. The English village community. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1883, pp. 464.

A stimulating pioneer book. Its conclusions are controverted by Vinogradoff and Maitland.

Vinogradoff, Paul. Villainage in England; essays in English mediæval history. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892, pp. xii, 464.

Vinogradoff, Paul. The growth of the manor. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1892, pp. 384.

These, with the same author’s “English Society in the Eleventh Century” (1908), are not easy reading, but indispensable for an understanding of earlier social history and manorial institutions.

Maitland, Frederic W. Domesday book and beyond: Three essays in the early history of England. Cambridge: University Press (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.), 1897, pp. xiii, 527.

The best starting point for the study of the vexed problems of social agrarian history presented by Domesday book.

Page, T. W. The end of villainage in England. Publications of the American Economic Association. New York: The Macmillan Company, third series, Volume I, No. 2, May, 1900, pp. 99.

A valuable contribution to the discussion of an important question.

Gross, Charles. The gild merchant. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890, pp. xxii, 332; xi, 447. [Volume I;Volume II]

The author’s chief interest in this book is in the development of the municipal constitution, but his investigations are of fundamental importance for a knowledge of the beginnings of mercantile associations in England. The book has a carefully prepared bibliography.

Rogers, J. E. Thorold. Six centuries of work and wages; the history of English labor. 1 vol. in 2 parts. London: Swan, Sonnenschein & Co. (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), 1884, pp. 591.

A summary of conclusions based upon his monumental “History of agriculture and prices in England” (7 vols., 1866-1902) [Volume I, 1259-1400; Volume II, 1259-1400; Volume III, 1401-1582; Volume IV, 1401-1582; Volume V, 1583-1702; Volume VI, 1583-1702; Volume VII, 1703-1793, Part I; Volume VII, 1703-1793, Part II], the most considerable collection of prices available for any country; but both his price averages and views must be accepted with caution. Eight selected chapters of this work have been reprinted (London, 1895, Social Science Series).

Unwin, George. Industrial organization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904, pp. vii, 277.

A well-written attempt to prove the continuity of labor organizations from the medieval craft gild to the modern trade union. For a different opinion see the Webbs’ “History of trade unionism,” second edition, 1907.

Schanz, Georg. Englische Handelspolitik gegen Ende des Mittelalters. 2 Bde. Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1881, xix, 684; xiii, 672 S. [Volume I; Volume II]

The best account of English commercial policy and commercial institutions under Henry VII and Henry VIII. The second volume consists largely of documentary materials.

Ehrenberg, Richard. Hamburg und England im Zeitalter der Königin Elizabeth. Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1896, 362 S.

A valuable study of the commercial struggle between England and the Hansa towns under Elizabeth.

Hewins, W. A. S. English trade and finance chiefly in the seventeenth century. London: Methuen (University Extension Series), 1892, pp. 174.

This work treats concisely and interestingly of the chief commercial companies and labor organizations of the seventeenth century and of three important commercial treaties of the eighteenth century.
An account of the English commercial companies is given in Cawston and Keane’sThe early chartered companies, 1296-1858” (London: Edward Arnold, 1896, pp. 329), a compilation from material which is found in Macpherson’s “Annals of commerce” (London, 1805, 4 vols.) [Volume I; Volume II; Volume III; Volume IV]. For further account of the commercial companies, especially the Continental, consult Bonnassieux, “Les grandes compagnies de commerce” (Paris: Plon, Nourrit et Cie., 1892, pp. 562).

Hunter, William W. History of British India. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899-1900. 2 vols. [Volume I,To the overthrow of the English in the Spice Archipelago; Volume II, To the union of the old and new companies under the Earl of Godolphin’s award] [Completed by P. E. Roberts owing to the author’s death.]

A readable and reliable history of the English India Company.

Andréadès, A. Histoire de la Banque d’Angleterre: ses origines, sa fondation, son developpement, etc. 2 vols. in 1. Paris: Rousseau, 1904, pp. 455. Translated by Christabel Meredith. London: P. S. King & Son, 1909. [Essai sur la foundation et l’histoire de la Banque d’Angleterre (1694-1844), Paris: Rousseau, 1901]

A competent study; it contains an extensive bibliography.

Prothero, R. E. Pioneers and progress of English farming. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1888, pp. 290.

A brief and picturesque account of the history of English agriculture.

Johnson, A. H. Disappearance of the small landholder. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909, pp. 164.

The most recent and in many respects most useful discussion of the subject. W. Hasbach’sDie englischen Landarbeiter.” (Leipzig, 1894. English translation by Ruth Kenyon, with preface by Sidney Webb. London: P. S. King & Son, 1908, pp. 470, with bibliography), deals with another aspect, the history of agricultural labor.

Toynbee, Arnold. Lectures on the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century in England. Fourth edition, London, 1894, pp. 319 (with a memoir by B. Jowett). New edition, New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1908 (with reminiscences by Lord Milner), pp. 282.

Suggestive lectures originally addressed to workingmen.

Mantoux, Paul. La Révolution industrielle au xviiie siècle. Paris: G. Bellair, 1906, pp. 543.

An excellent description (with good bibliography) of the industrial revolution in England, with, however, no adequate study of the causes and economic significance of the movement. The reader may find some assistance on this side from Hobson, “Evolution of modern capitalism” (London, 1896).

Macrosty, H. W. Trusts and the state. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. (London: Grant Richards), 1901, pp. 318.

A well-informed historical treatment of the subject.

Webb, Sidney and Beatrice. History of trade unionism. New edition. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1907, pp. xxxiv, 558.

The best book on the subject.

Hutchins, B. L., and Harrison, A. History of factory legislation. Preface by Sidney Webb. London: P. S. King & Son, 1903, pp. xviii, 372.

Complete and reliable. Extensive bibliography.

Armitage-Smith, George. The free trade movement and its results. Chicago: Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1898, pp. 244.

An historical study written from the standpoint of a free trader.

Bowley, A. L. England’s foreign trade in the nineteenth century. Revised edition, 1905. London: Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., 1893, pp. 165.

A brief but valuable statistical discussion.

Ashley, W. J., editor. British industries. Second edition. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1907, pp. xvii, 232.

Eight lectures, each by an expert in his field.

Nicholls, George. History of the English poor law. 2 vols. [Volume I; Volume II] London: 1854. New edition with revision by the author, a biography by H. G. Willink, and a supplementary volume [III] by Thomas Mackay; 3 vols. [Volume I, A.D. 924 to 1714; Volume II, A.D. 1714 to 1853; Volume III, A.D. 1834 to the present time] London: P. S. King & Son, 1898–9.

The standard work on the subject.

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Lamprecht, Karl. Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben in Mittelalter. 3 Tle. in 4 Bdn. Leipzig: Dürr, 1885-86. [Volume I.1; Volume I.2; Volume II, Statistisches Material und Quellenkunde; Volume III, Quellensammlung]

An important work. Though based on a documentary study of economic conditions only in the Moselle valley for the period ending in the early sixteenth century, it nevertheless deserves its wider title. The same author’s “Deutsche Geschichte” emphasizes—perhaps over-emphasizes—the economic and social aspects of German history.

[Volume I, Urzeit und Mittelalter (Books 1-4);
Volume II, Urzeit und Mittelalter (Books 5-7);
Volume 3, Urzeit und Mittelalter (Books 8-10);
Volume 4, Urzeit und Mittelalter (Books 11-13);
Volume 5.1, Neuere Zeit (Books 14-15);
Volume 5.2, Neuere Zeit (Books 15-16);
Volume 6, Neuere Zeit (Books 17-18);
Volume 7.1, Neuere Zeit (Books 19-20);
Volume 7.2, Neuere Zeit (Book 21);
Volume 8, Neueste Zeit (Book 22);
Volume 9, Neueste Zeit (Book 23);
Volume 10, Neueste Zeit (Book 24);
Volume 11, Neueste Zeit (Book 25);
Volume 12, Anhang, Bibliographie, Register
Ergänzungsband I, Tonkunst—Bildende Kunst—Dichtung–Weltanschauung;
Ergänzungsband II.1, Wirtschaftsleben—Soziale Entwicklung];
Ergänzungsband II.2, Innere Politik—Äußere Politik]

Von Inama-Sternegg, K. T. Deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte. 3 Tle. in 4 Bdn. Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1879-1901

[Volume I, bis zum Schluss der Karolingerperiode; Volume II, des 10. Bis 12. Jahrhunderts; Volume III, in den letzten Jahrhunderten des Mittelalters (1. Teil); Volume III, in den letzten Jahrhunderten des Mittelalters (2. Teil)]

Covers the period to the end of the middle ages. The only general work on the subject.

Pigeonneau, H. Histoire du commerce de la France. 2 vol. 2e édition. [Volume I; Volume II] Paris: Cerf, 1887-88.

A standard work, covering the period ending with the age of Richelieu.

Heyd, W. Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter. 2 Bde.  [Volume I; Volume II] Stuttgart: Cotta, 1879, 604, 781 S.

The French translation (Histoire du commerce du Levant au moyen-âge. 2 vols. [Volume I; Volume II] Leipzig: 1885-86, revised by the author) is preferable to the German original.

Levasseur, É. Histoire des classes ouvrières et de l’industrie en France avant 1789. 2 vol. [Volume 1; Volume 2] 2e édition. Paris: Rousseau, 1900-01.

Levasseur, É. Histoire des classes ouvrières et de l’industrie en France de 1789 à 1870. 2 vol. [Volume 1; Volume 2] 2e édition. Paris: Rousseau, 1903.

Levasseur, É. Questions ouvrières et industrielles en France sous la troisième république. Paris: Rousseau, 1907, pp. xxii, 968.

These three works together form the most available general survey not only of the history of the French working classes but of French economic history.

Sée, H. Les classes rurales et le régime domanial en France au moyen-âge. Paris: Giard et Brière, 1901, pp. xxvii, 638.

A convenient survey of French agrarian conditions in the middle ages, with bibliography.

Fuchs, [Carl Johannes]. Die Epochen der deutschen Agrargeschichte und Agrarpolitik. Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1898, ii, 32 S. [Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung No 70 und 71 vom 29. und 30. März 1898]

An admirable summary of the results of recent investigation in German agrarian history.

Ehrenberg, R. Das Zeitalter der Fugger. 2 Bde. [Volume I; Volume II] Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1896, xv, 420; iv, 367 S.

A noteworthy contribution to the financial and commercial history of the sixteenth century.

Wiebe, G. Zur Geschichte der Preisrevolution des 16ten und 17ten Jahrhunderts. Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1895, ix, 419 S.

The best study of the subject, clear and critical.

Schmoller, G. Das Merkantilsystem in seiner historischer Bedeutung. A chapter from his “Studien über die wirtschaftliche Politik Friedrichs des Grossen” (1884) [Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Volkswirtschaft im Deutschen Reich Band 8, S. 1-62] and reprinted in the Umrisse und Untersuchungen. Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1898, pp. 1-60. English translation by W. J. Ashley: The mercantile system. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1896, pp. viii, 95.

Gives an understanding of the significance of the commercial and political policies of the period when the mercantile system prevailed. For the history of mercantilist doctrine, the English reader may consult J. K. Ingram’s “History of political economy.” New York: The Macmillan Company, 1888, pp. xv, 250. Second edition (unaltered), 1907. More recent books are available in French and German.

Sargent, A. J. Economic policy of Colbert. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899, pp. vii, 138.

A judicious and concise survey of Colbert’s work, based mainly on P. Clément: “Histoire de Colbert et de son administration” (Paris, 1892) [Volume I; Volume II] and Clément’s edition of the “Lettres, instructions, et mémoires de Colbert” (Paris, 1861-70). [Volume I; Volume II (1); Volume II (2); Volume III (1); Volume III (2) ; Volume IV; Volume V; Volume VI; Volume VII; Errata Général et Table Analytique]

Shepherd, R. P. Turgot and the six edicts. New York: Columbia University Press, 1903, pp. 263.

A scholarly study of the policy of Turgot.

Knapp, G. F. Die Bauernbefreiung und der Ursprung der Landarbeiter in den älteren Teilen Preussens. 2 Tle. [Volume I; Volume II] Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1887, vii, 352; vi, 473 S.

A most valuable study of the condition of the Prussian peasants and the work of emancipation. The English reader will find a less authoritative account in Seeley’s “Life and times of Stein,” [Volume I; Volume II; Volume III] and Morier’sAgrarian legislation of Prussia,” chapters from each being reprinted in B. Rand’sSelections illustrating economic history,” fourth revised edition. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1903, pp. vii, 647.

Sombart, W. Der moderne Kapitalismus. 2 Bde. [Volume I; Volume II] Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1902, xxxiv, 669; viii, 646. S.

Sombart, W. Die deutsche Volkswirtschaft im 19ten Jahrhundert. Berlin: Bondi, 1903, pp. xviii, 647.

These two works together form a stimulating interpretation of the recent economic development of Germany.

Ashley, Percy. Modern tariff history. London: Murray, 1904, pp. xviii, 367.

Contains a useful summary of the tariff history of Germany and France and a less useful one of the United States.

Liefmann, R. Kartelle und Trusts. 2 erweit. Aufl. Stuttgart: E. H. Moritz, 1910, 210 S. [5. Erw. und erb. Aufl. 1922]

A popular account with especial reference to Germany, written by a careful student of the subject.

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Emery, H. C. Economic development of the United States. Cambridge: University Press, 1904, in Cambridge Modern History, Volume VII: “The United States,” pp. 687-722.

The best brief survey. Two fairly good text-books in this field are: Coman, K., “The industrial history of the United States” (New York: Macmillan, 1905, pp. xviii, 343), and Bogart, E. L., “Economic history of the United States” (New York: Longmans, 1907, pp. 522).

Callender, G. S. Selections from the economic history of the United States, 1765-1860. Boston: Ginn & Company, 1909, pp. xviii, 869.

A comprehensive selection of original materials together with helpful editorial comment. Volume II (1860-1900) is in preparation.

Beer, G. L. The commercial policy of England toward the American colonies. New York: Columbia University Press, 1903, pp. 167.

An important monograph.

Hammond, M. B. The cotton industry. Publications of the American Economic Association. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1897, pp. viii, 382.

An historical study, especially good for the period before the Civil War.

Taussig, F. W. State papers and speeches on the tariff. Cambridge: Harvard University, 1893, pp. vii, 385.

Contains Hamilton’s report on manufactures, Gallatin’s free-trade memorial, Walker’s treasury report of 1845, and Clay’s and Webster’s speeches on the tariff of 1824.

Taussig, F. W. The tariff history of the United States. Fifth edition. New York: Henry Putnam’s Sons, 1903, pp. xi, 422.

This is the standard work on the subject. It is a scholarly investigation written from the free-trade standpoint. See also an article by the same author in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (November, 1909, Volume XXIV, pp. 1-38), on “The tariff debate of 1909 and the new tariff.” For the protectionist side of the tariff controversy see E. Stanwood’s “History of American tariff controversies.” 2 vols. [Volume I; Volume II] Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1903.

Dewey, D. R. Financial history of the United States. Second edition. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1903, pp. xxv, 530.

The standard text-book in its field. It contains excellent bibliographical notes.

Bullock, C. J. Essays on the monetary history of the United States. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1900, pp. x, 288.

Best on the period before the revolution.

Catterall, R. C. H. The second bank of the United States. Chicago: University Press, 1903, pp. xiv, 538.

A scholarly study.

Mitchell, W. C. A history of the greenbacks. Chicago: University Press, 1903, pp. xvi, 577.

An exhaustive work.

Noyes, A. D. Forty years of American finance. New York: Henry Putnam’s Sons, 1909, pp. ix, 418.

An excellent account of American financial history since the Civil War.

Hadley, A. T. Railroad transportation. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1885, pp. iv, 269.

An early and valuable treatise.

Johnson, E. R. American railway transportation. Second edition. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1908, pp. xviii, 434.

The best text-book on the subject.

Source: A guide to reading in social ethics and allied subjects; lists of books and articles selected and described for the use of general readers by teachers in Harvard University. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1910) pp. 10-21.

Image Source: Portrait of Edwin Francis Gay, colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. Monochrome image from The World’s Work, Vol. XXVII, No. 5, March 1914.