Author: Irwin Collier

Categories
Barnard Columbia Economics Programs Gender Undergraduate

Columbia. Splitting the costs. Department of Economics v. Barnard College, 1906-9

 

The growing pains of the modern university can be seen in attempts to mould ad hoc understandings made earlier into long-term, binding, and explicit rules and regulations. We see this in E. R. A. Seligman’s untiring reminders to the Columbia University central administration and to Barnard College deans as to how to manage the legacy of having first hired John Bates Clark to fill a Barnard position while swapping Clark Barnard hours with the Department of Economics in the Faculty of Political Science hours, either by having department professors offer courses in Barnard College or by allowing Barnard women to take Columbia College or graduate courses. It was complicated, leaving plenty of room for misunderstandings. Seligman can be seen in the following memo and letters to have been one smooth intra-university operator. Still we come away (at least hearing his side of the story) that he would neither give nor take an inch. His motto apparently: Pacta sunt servanda.

____________________

MEMORANDUM AS TO PROPOSED CHANGES IN THE FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENT BETWEEN BARNARD COLEGE AND COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN RESPECT TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS. [Carbon copy, 1906]

I. HISTORICAL STATEMENT.

In 1895 a friend of Barnard College established for three years the Professorship of History and the Professorship of Economics, on the understanding that each of these departments should offer a corresponding amount of separate instruction to Barnard seniors and graduates, and that the Barnard Corporation would endeavor to maintain these Professorships after the expiration of such term. It was arranged that these professors should lecture at Columbia as well as at Barnard, and that for every course given by them at Columbia, a course should be given at Barnard by them or their departmental associates. The normal number of lectures by a professor was fixed at six; so that the Professor of Economics gave 2 hours at Barnard, the other four being supplied by his colleagues.

In 1898 Barnard College agreed to continue those professorships; and as a recognition of the action of the Barnard Trustees, the Faculty of Political Science decided to open to women holding a first degree, the graduate courses in History and Economics.

When Barnard College was incorporated into the educational system of the University, this arrangement was perpetuated. The 5th and 6th Sections of the Agreement of June 15, 1900, read in part, as follows:

“On and after January 1st, 1904, all of the instruction for women leading to the degree of B.A. shall be given separately in Barnard College……Barnard College will assume as rapidly as possible all of the instruction for women in the Senior year ****** and undertakes to maintain every professorship established thereof or an equivalent therefor shall be rendered in Barnard College; and when means allow, establish additional professorships in the University which shall be open to men and women, to the end that opportunities for higher education may be enlarged for both men and women.

The University will accept women who have taken their first degree on the same terms as men, as students of the University and as candidates for the degree of M.A. and Ph.D. under the Faculty of Philosophy, Political Science and Pure Science, in such courses as have been or may be designated by those Faculties, with the consent of those delivering the courses.

From the foregoing it is clear that so far as the Faculty of Political Science is concerned the opening of the University courses to women was in return for the establishment and maintenance of the professorships, and Barnard College thus declared itself ready to pay one-third of the salary of the professors of Economics, at that time three in number. In addition, Barnard College paid for the Junior work under the Department of Economics.

On this basis the whole system has reposed and has been continued. Changes in the personnel have been made in the mean time, and the instruction given to Juniors by the Department of Economics has been strengthened. Two professors, (or as during this year a professor and an instructor) have taken the place of what was originally an assistant. These changes, which called for an additional outlay on the part of Barnard College, were made with the consent of Barnard.

The Department of Economics and Social Science as it existed up to last spring, has kept strictly to the letter of the agreement. At an earlier period Professor Giddings had agreed to give at Barnard College a course in sociology in return for a suitable compensation. In 1900, however, he ceased to be paid an additional sum and his two hours were counted with the consent of Barnard College toward the six due from the Department, the other four being provided by Professors Seligman and Clark. In 1902 two additional hours were given at Barnard College by the new instructor, Professor Moore. Since then the Department has provided six hours of instruction at Barnard College, (two hours by Professor Clark, two by Professor Seager, and two by Professor Giddings.) It has given an additional two hours by Professor Moore to the Seniors, and it has put the Junior work in the hands of Professors Moore and Johnson (this year [word torn off from corner] Moore and Dr. Whitaker.) Every course given to the Columbia College undergraduates is duplicated at Barnard College, with the exception that it seemed unwise to the Barnard authorities to give the course on Taxation and Finance as being somewhat too remote from the interests of the Barnard undergraduates. The substance of this course is however included in that given by Professor Seager. This explains the fact that 12 hours are given at Barnard College whereas 14 hours are given at Columbia College. This arrangement was made with the consent of the Barnard authorities. In 1906 again with the consent of Barnard College, Barnard Seniors were admitted to the course of Prof. Giddings at Columbia, the Barnard course being discontinued. This arrangement has, however, not yet received the permanent sanction of the Faculty of Political Science.

Although Barnard College is not only getting all that was bargained for at the time, and although it has in addition the services of a full professor for both Senior and Junior work (Prof. Moore.), and although the proportion of the original expense of the Department of Economics paid by Barnard College was at the outset considerably over e4%,–being one-third of the salaries of the professors plus a payment for the Junior work, the proportion of the total expense of the Department of Economics and Social Science borne by Barnard College has now been reduced to 29.19%, Barnard paying at present $8350 out of a total budget of $28,600.

 

Barnard pays:

Columbia pays:
Seligman $5000
Giddings $5000
Seager $3500
Moore $1750
Clark $5000 Devine $3500 University Courses
Moore $1750 Simkhovitch $500
Whitaker $1600 Tenney $1000
$8350 $20250 Total $28600

 

In other words Barnard College receives more than it originally did and pays proportionately less.

 

II. WHAT SHOULD BE THE SHARE OF BARNARD COLLEGE.

Up to the year 199[blank] Barnard College made a money contribution to Columbia for each of the women graduate students enrolled, under the Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science. In that year the money contribution was abandoned, and since then women graduate students have paid their fees directly to Columbia. It might be claimed by Barnard College that this new arrangement absolved it in future from all financial responsibility for or interest in the purely university (graduate) work. This claim is however, negatived by the provisions of the agreement of June 15, 1900 still in force, whereby Barnard College obligated itself to “maintain every professorship established at its instance” and to “establish additional professorships in the University upon foundations providing for courses which shall be open to men and women.” These contractual obligations are in no wise impaired or weakened by the modification subsequently introduced in the method of payment of fees by women students.

It might again be claimed that the financial obligations of Barnard are reduced whenever a Senior course, hitherto repeated at Barnard, is given only at Columbia, but open to Barnard Seniors. This claim, however, is likewise inadmissible if the change be made by and with the consent of Barnard College. For as long as the Barnard undergraduates receive the instruction, and as long as the Barnard authorities consent for any reason, that this instruction be given at Columbia, the financial obligation cannot be deemed to be impaired. As a matter of fact, this situation has not permanently arisen in the department of Economics and Social Science. In only one case, that of the Senior course by Professor Giddings, has a purely provisional arrangement been made for the year 1906-’07, with the understanding and the express statement on the part of the Barnard authorities that this would make no difference whatever in the financial arrangement for the year. It was on this understanding that the scheme was provisionally ratified by the Faculty of Political Science.

No opinion is here expressed by the Department of Economics as to the desirability of opening Senior courses at Columbia to Barnard students. It may be that for pedagogical reasons it is desirable in some cases to repeat courses at Barnard, or in other cases to admit Barnard Seniors to the Columbia courses. It may also be desirable to utilize the services of a professor, hitherto repeating a Senior course at Barnard for instruction in one of the lower classes at Barnard. But whatever decision may be reached by the Barnard authorities in conjunction with the Department of Economics, it is clear that this will not change the financial obligations of Barnard, as long as the Barnard undergraduates receive the same amount of instruction as before.

If it be maintained that the existing contract should be abrogated, the question arises: What share should Barnard College in equity contribute to the expenses of the Department? This question may be discussed on the basis of the number of hours given by the members of the department at Barnard College, at Columbia College, and in the University courses which are open to men and women graduates.

In any such computation it must be recognized that some part of the cost of the graduate instruction should be borne by Barnard College. For, irrespective of the existing contract, it cannot be claimed that women ever possessed a right to share in the advantages offered by an institution, originally established and endowed for the instruction of men without making some proportionate contribution to the support of that institution. The force of this argument is strengthened when it is remembered that every student costs the University more than he or she pays and that every increase in the student body entails the necessity of increasing the teaching course and of providing additional lecture rooms, educational appliances and library facilities.

It is for this reason that in any estimate of the share of the University expenses which is to be borne by Barnard College, a proportionate share of the expense of graduate instruction should be allotted to that institution.

On this assumption, the figures would be as follows:

 

Hours given

Barnard College

 Columbia College

University
Clark

2

 2 (109-110)

3 (205-6 & 291)
Seligman

—

 3 (1 & 101-102)

3 (203-4 & 292)
Seager

2

 2 (105-106)

2 (233 & 289)
Moore

3

 1 (104)

2 (210 & 255)
Whitaker

3

 4 (1-2)

—
Giddings

2

 2 (151-152)

3 (251-2 & 279)

12

 14

13

 

For undergraduate instruction

For Professors giving undergraduate instruction

Barnard pays:

Columbia pays:
Seligman

$5000
Clark

$5000

 Moore

$1750
Moore

$1750

 Seager

$3500
Whitaker

$1600

 Giddings

$5000

$8350

$15250

 =Total $23600
In addition Columbia pays for Purely University work

$5000
Grand Total

$28600

Total hours given as above by Professors giving undergraduate instruction = 41.

There is thus chargeable to:

The University 15/41 of $23600 = $8635 + $5000 = $13,635
Columbia College 14/41 of $23600 = $8,058
Barnard College should pay 12/41 of $23,600= $6907
                                                + 1/3 of $13,635= $4543[sic]
$11450

 

Barnard gets 12 hours to Columbia’s 14 and both share equally in the University work, although Barnard is here charged with only 1/3, not ½ of the purely university expenses. Yet Barnard pays $8350 instead of $11,450.

In the above computation Barnard College is charged with 1/3 of the purely university instruction because this was the proportion as arranged when the original professorship was established. On the basis, however, of the actual enrolment of women students the obligation of Barnard College would be slightly less. In the year 1906-07 there re-enrolled (not counting duplicates) in the purely university courses 60 women out of 251 students or 23.90%, i.e. roughly ¼. The contribution of Barnard College on this basis ought then to be: 12/41 of $23,600 = $6,907 + ¼ of $13,635 = $3,490 [sic, should be $3409] or a total of $10,316 in lieu of $8350, the present payment.

 

III. THE REDUCTION CONTEMPLATED BY BARNARD COLLEGE.

Although the authorities of Barnard College have not yet formulated any definite scheme it is understood that they have in contemplation a plan which calls on the one hand for a considerable reduction of the contribution, and on the other hand, the opening to Barnard Seniors of several Senior courses at Columbia College to make good the reduced facilities at Barnard College. In other words, Barnard College does not propose more opportunities with the same contribution as hitherto, nor does it demand the same opportunities with a smaller contribution; but it suggests more opportunities with a smaller contribution.

In considering the contemplated proposition of Barnard College it must finally be remembered that the Department of Economics has been built up on the assumption that the original scheme would be adhered to. All the instructors giving courses in Barnard College have been called with the advice and consent of Barnard College. Some of them have been put in part on the Barnard salary list. The contractual obligation “to maintain the professorships established at its instance” clearly attaches to the new professorships, which were established in 1902 in the department of Economics at the joint instance and expense of Barnard and Columbia. Any financial comparison between the Department of Economics and other departments on the basis of relative hours of instruction given at Barnard College is not pertinent in view of the contractual obligations hereinbefore recited. Barnard College entered at the outset into a definite contractual relation which has been perpetuated by the agreement of 1900 and which has not been impaired by the minor changes of 190[blank] hereinbefore referred to. Above all, the admission of women to university courses was arranged as a quid pro quo, and is specifically restricted in the agreement of 1900 to such courses “as have been or may be designated by these Faculties, with the consent of those delivering the courses”.

It is sincerely hoped that no action will be taken that might imperil this arrangement and that Barnard College may see its way, if not to make what it here suggested as an equitable contribution, at all events to maintain the status quo so that on the one hand Columbia may not be made to assume a still heavier burden, or that on the other hand the department of Economics may not be seriously crippled in its endeavor to provide adequate instruction at Columbia and Barnard alike.

Source:  Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Papers of Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman. Box 36, Folder “Barnard 36-37”.

____________________

Letter of Seligman to Gill [carbon copy]

New York, December 30, 1906.

Miss Laura D. Gill, Dean,
Barnard College, Columbia University
New York City.

My dear Miss Gill:

Your letter of December 13th was received shortly before the Holidays. In reply, I would say that several weeks ago, at the request of the University authorities I submitted to the Committee on Education of Columbia University a detailed memorandum giving facts and suggestions as to the financial arrangements between Barnard College and Columbia University so far as the Department of Economics is concerned. That matter has now passed out of my hands entirely.

Let me however call your attention to the fact that these suggestions contained in your letter will require action not alone by the Department of Economics, but also by the Faculty of Political Science, as well as by the Faculty of Columbia College. If the recommendation contained in my memorandum to the Trustees were carried out, I think that I could urge the Department of Economics to prevail upon the Faculties concerned to take action in accordance with your wishes; but I am quite decidedly of the opinion that until some definitive financial arrangement is entered into between Barnard College and Columbia University, so far as the Department of Economics is concerned, it will be hopeless for the Department of Economics to expect any action whatever on the part of the Faculties concerned; and without such action nothing could of course be done.

Again assuring you of my readiness to co-operate with you and to take up the matter with the Department and with the respective Faculties as soon as we can learn from the Committee on Education what the financial arrangements are for next year,

I remain
Very respectfully yours

[E.R.A. Seligman]

 

Source:  Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Central Files 1890-. Box 338, Folder 13 “Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson 7/1904-12/1910”.

____________________

President Butler to Seligman [carbon copy]

December 28, 1908

Professor E. R. A. Seligman,
324 West 86 Street,
New York

My dear Professor Seligman:

I beg to hand you for your information an important letter which I have received today from the Acting Dean of Barnard College. Mr. Brewster points out that Barnard, under the present arrangement, is not securing its just due in the matter of economics teaching. Will you give this matter your attention and offer such suggestions as seem to you appropriate as to how the situation can be bettered?

Very truly yours,
President

 

Source:  Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Central Files 1890-. Box 338, Folder 13 “Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson 7/1904-12/1910”.

____________________

Seligman to President Butler

Columbia University
in the City of New York
School of Political Science

January 4, 1909

President Nicholas Murray Butler,
Columbia University, City.

My dear President Butler:

In reply to your letter of December 24th, 1908, I take pleasure in stating that I had a very satisfactory talk with Acting Dean Brewster a few days ago. I am enclosing to you herewith copy of the letter which I have sent to him as to the historical development, and which explains itself.

As to the new scheme, permit me to state that in my Budget letter I assumed that there would be hereafter in the second term in the Junior course at Barnard, four sections, as is now the case in the first term. It was on that assumption that I made the recommendations as to assistants.

I quite agree with Acting Dean Brewster that if the situation is to remain as at present, namely, nine hours in the first term and five hours in the second term, the new Adjunct Professor will be entirely competent to take charge of this. That would mean an average of seven hours per week, and as he is to do three hours’ work at Columbia that would mean a total of ten hours per week, which is not excessive. This would, however, reduce the Budget at Barnard from $2,700 to $2,500.

On the other hand, if, as there now seems to be some possibility, the Committee on Instruction of Barnard College decides to make the second term work nine hours (with four sections) the Acting Dean of Barnard agrees with me that the work will be a little too much for one man, and that he ought to have the aid of at all events the part time of an assistant.

Upon the decision to be reached, however, depends therefore the final recommendation of the Department for the assistants in the University as a whole. If no assistance is required at Barnard College the Department of Economics will be able to get on, although with some difficulty, with one high-class tutor, for his work will be to take charge not only of three of the four sections at Columbia, but also of the three new sections in the School of Mines, and this would mean the assumption by Columbia of his salary of $1,000. On the other hand, if the additional work is taken up at Barnard, it will be imperative to have a second man as assistant, at a salary of $500., as the amount of work to be done will be entirely too much for one tutor. We should then arrive at the final conclusion reached in my original Budget letter, which is the employment of two men, at a joint salary of $1,500., in addition to the new Adjunct Professor. What part of this salary of $1,500 is to be paid by Barnard, is, of course a matter on which I am not asked to express an opinion.

Permit me to say in conclusion that I am deeply sensible of the cordial way in which the Acting Dean of Barnard has accepted the propositions of the Department for the improvement of the work. Under the scheme as outlined not only will the work be, I think, entirely satisfactory to the authorities of Barnard College, but it will also be a considerable improvement at Columbia. The Department of Economics will be very glad indeed to adjust itself to whichever of the two alternative schemes may be adopted by Barnard: the one being the maintenance of the present situation calling for an appropriation for assistants of $1,000., to be paid entirely by Columbia, the other—involving additional work at Barnard—calling for an appropriation of $1,500 for assistants, to be defrayed in part by Barnard College.

Respectfully submitted,
[signed]
Edwin R. A. Seligman

Source:  Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Central Files 1890-. Box 338, Folder 13 “Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson 7/1904-12/1910”.

____________________

Seligman to Brewster [carbon copy]

January 4, 1909

Professor William T. Brewster,
Acting Dean, Barnard College, City.

My dear Sir:

I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of a letter of December 24, 1908, from President Butler, enclosing your letter of December 23, 1908, in which you refer to the courses offered by the Department of Economics at Barnard College.

As the existing situation is the result of steps taken by the administrative authorities of Barnard College and Columbia University, and as these agreements and instructions were never embodied in formal written documents, I venture to send you a written statement of the history of the case, in the hope that this letter may be put on file with the original agreement, in order that the question as to the interpretation of the original agreement may be settled, if it should again arise in the future.

The original agreement made with Professor Clark and the Faculty of Political Science, when he was called to the University in 1895, was to the effect that for every hour given by him at Columbia a member of the existing Columbia staff should give an hour at Barnard College. Under this agreement it was arranged that Professor Clark should give two hours at Barnard and four hours at Columbia. Of the four exchange hours due to Barnard, two were given by Professor Giddings and two by Professor Seligman. Several years later, when Professor Seager was called to Columbia, he took the courses previously given by Professor Seligman.

In the year 1905 when the Chair of the History of Civilization was founded at Columbia University, an arrangement was effected between the Dean of Barnard and the President of Columbia University, whereby the two hour course of Professor Giddings, given at Barnard, was transferred to Columbia, the Columbia course being now, however, open to Barnard students. This was recognized as a substantial equivalence, and since that time the Barnard students have been coming to Professor Giddings’ course at Columbia.

When Professor Henry L. Moore was called to the University in 1902 an arrangement was made whereby a portion of his work was to be done at Barnard in return for the payment of aa portion of his salary b Barnard College. Under this arrangement Professor Moore offered a two hour course to the Seniors at Barnard College, and took general supervision of the Junior work in Economics, which was, however, actually carried on by assistants. Several years later, as the Junior work at Barnard was not entirely satisfactory, the Dean of Barnard College suggested that Professor Moore give up his Senior course and in exchange take an active part in the lecturing and teaching of the Juniors at Barnard. This suggestion was adopted, and as the number of sections gradually increased at Barnard the work was finally divided between Professor Moore and two assistants, the class being divided into four sections in the first term and into two sections in the second term. As a compensation for the Senior course which was now dropped by Professor Moore, the Dean of Barnard College suggested that courses 107-108, given by Professor Seligman at Columbia University be open to Barnard students. This suggestion was adopted by the Department, and ratified by the Columbia Faculty, and has continued ever since.

What I desire especially to emphasize is the fact that in no case did the initiative for any of these changes come from the Department of Economics, but that in every case the initiative came either from the Dean of Barnard College or from the President of Columbia University in conjunction with the Dean of Barnard College. The Department of Economics has been at all times willing and anxious to live up to the terms of the original and supplemental agreements, and has in every case been glad to adopt the suggestions of the authorities of Barnard College. It so happens that during the present year Professor Seager is on his Sabbatical leave of absence, and that Courses 107-108 were not given at Columbia; but this is an exceptional situation, including the $5,000 salary of Professor Clark, with the corresponding work given in exchange at Barnard, the number of hours of instruction given at Barnard are economics A, 9 hours, Economics 4, 5 hours, or an annual average of seven hours per week. The salary list has been $2,700.,–$1,700 for Professor Moore and $1,000 for two assistants. This is an average of less than $400 per hour, and if we include Courses 107-108 at Columbia, which were open to the Barnard students when the supplemental agreement was made, it would reduce the cost per year to considerably less than $400, which I understand is the average in other Departments.

The new scheme of courses which has been elaborated by the Dean of Barnard College to take effect next year, meets with the entire approval of the Department of Economics, and is outlined in another letter a copy of which I have the honor of submitting herewith. I venture to hope, however, that this statement of the historical development of the situation may be put on file, in order to show that the Department of Economics has at all times endeavored to abide loyally by the spirit of the agreement between Barnard College and Columbia University.

Respectfully submitted,
[stamped signature: Edwin R. A. Seligman]

 

Source:  Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Central Files 1890-. Box 338, Folder 13 “Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson 7/1904-12/1910”.

Image Source:  Barnard College, Columbia University. Boston Public Library, The Tichnor Brothers Collection.

 

 

 

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
Exam Questions M.I.T.

M.I.T. International Economics examinations. Kindleberger, 1950-51

Charles Kindleberger, ca 1950

 

From the middle of the twentieth century and for the entire pre-Bhagwati and pre-Dornbusch years, Charles P. Kindleberger taught international economics to M.I.T. graduate students. This post provides the midterm and final examinations from the 1950-51 academic year.

Note: The final examination for 14.581 that I have transcribed below comes with no date, though from the file it is clearly a reworked version of the exam for Ec 59 (the earlier course number) dated January 28, 1949. This version of the exam with handwritten corrections is next to the hourly exam from November 1950 in the archive folder which makes it seem likely to correspond to the exam for January, 1951 (but there is a gap for final exams in 14.581 from 1950-1953 so we can’t be really certain).

________________

Course Announcement

14.581, 14.582. International Economics. [Kindleberger] The foreign exchange market, foreign trade and commercial policy, with emphasis on the relation of the items in the current account to national income; international finance and the achievement and maintenance of equilibrium in the balance of payments as a whole: current problems of international economics.

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Catalogue Issue for 1950-1951 Session (June 1950), pp. 135, 170.

________________

14.581 Hour Test
Prof. Kindleberger

11:00 a.m., Tuesday,
November 14, 1950

Define; sketch briefly the content of; and discuss the present usefulness of the following three concepts in international trade and exchange:

(15 minutes)

  1. The purchasing power parity doctrine.

 

(20 minutes)

  1. The doctrine of comparative costs

 

(15 minutes)

  1. The foreign-trade multiplier

Source:  MIT Archives. Charles Kindleberger Papers, Box 22, Folder “Examination 14.481, 1949-1966.”

________________

Scheduled Examination in
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS 14.581
[undated, possibly January, 1951]

NOTE: Students are not permitted to use any books, notebooks or papers in this examination. If brought into the room they must not be left on the desks.

ANSWER ANY EIGHT

  1. Assume that the currency of country A is under speculative attack. Under what circumstances should the monetary authorities in A encourage or discourage interest arbitrage between the spot and futures markets?
  2. What are the effects of undervaluation of a country’s currency on exports, imports, prices, income and terms of trade?
  3. Describe how trade can substitute for factor movements. Since trade can so substitute, how do you account for the fact that trade flourishes more between industrial countries, which have different factors in roughly the same proportions, than between industrial and agricultural countries?
  4. A report of the European Council set up under the Marshall plan stated that

“Even though American productivity is much greater per capita than Europe’s, the Europeans should be able to compete with American industry in its own market in branches where American productivity exceeds that of Europe by only 50 to 100 percent, for example.”

Discuss the implications of this remark, in terms of the doctrine of comparative advantage, for as many aspects of the comparison between the American and European economies as are relevant.

  1. How does the foreign-trade multiplier vary with the propensities abroad to save and to import? What difference is made in your answer if the country concerned is the United States or Switzerland?
  2. What happened to the terms of trade between Western Europe and the rest of the world between 1900 and 1938? Why?
  3. In making balance-of payments estimates, what are the ways one can treat payments to domestic shipowners for carriage of exports and imports respectively? How are these various ways to be reconciled for each of exports and imports?
  4. Which of the following explanations of the recent troubles faced by the Waltham Watch Company do you favor?

BOSTON HERALD editorial

“…The Swiss product (jeweled watches) enjoyed a competitive advantage despite the existing low American tariff because of much higher American tariff because of much higher American labor costs….”

Letter of Mr. Harold T. Partridge to the Boston Herald, published January 1, 1949:

“We can blame if we wish the Hurlburts of Elgin, the Millers of Hamilton and the Fitches of Waltham, who at the time of the writing of the Paine-Aldrich tariff bill (1909) employed their own lawyer, Mr. Romney Spring, to write that part of the bill pertaining to the entry of watches into this country. At that time there should have been…the establishment of a system of horological engineering such as is employed by the Swiss….”

  1. Are you inclined to support or oppose renewal of the international wheat agreement? Explain its advantages and disadvantages from the short- and long-run for wheat farmers, the United States as a whole, the world.
  2. The Economist favors discriminatory import restrictions and opposes multiple exchange rates. Aside from the special problem of sterling cross-rates, is this position logical? Attack or defend it.

Source:  MIT Archives. Charles Kindleberger Papers, Box 22, Folder “Examination 14.481, 1949-1966.”

________________

14.582 Hour Test

11:00 a.m.
Thursday, April 5, 1951

BOTH QUESTIONS HAVE EQUAL WEIGHT.

  1. Describe in great detail a hypothetical case of transfer of an autonomous long-term capital inflow and refer specially to the following:

commercial banks
central banks
gold movements
movements of short-term capital
multiplier
accelerator
marginal propensities to import, invest
short and long-term rates of interest
terms of trade
current account balance

  1. Discuss the various possible impacts of the industrialization process on foreign trade:
    1. of the industrializing country
    2. of the rest of the world.

Source:  MIT Archives. Charles Kindleberger Papers, Box 22, Folder “Examination 14.482, 1951-1976.”

________________

Scheduled Examination in
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC—14.582

Monday, May 28, 1951
Time: 1:30-4:30 P.M.

NOTE: Students are not permitted to use any books, notebooks or papers in this examination. If brought into the room they must not be left on the desks.

Answer questions 1 or 2 (one hour), and three of the remaining five questions (40 minutes each).

  1. Define equilibrium in the international economic position of a country. Illustrate what is implied in this definition in terms of (a) the relevant variables (such as foreign exchange rate, national income, terms of trade, etc.), and (b) departures from it.

or

  1. Classical economic theory assumed that the factors of production, including capital, were immobile internationally, and that an equilibrium system could be maintained despite this fact, by means of the law of comparative advantage and the gold standard mechanism (or the paper standard). Do you agree that this is true or are capital movements, at least, necessary? Explain.

……………………….

  1. Discuss the purposes of two of the following international economic institutions and their effectiveness in terms of these purposes:
    1. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
    2. The Organization for European Economic Cooperation
    3. The European Payments Union
  2. Compare and contrast the Exchange Equalization Account (U.K.) and the American Stabilization Fund.
  3. What role may and should direct investment play in the economic development of underdeveloped areas?
  4. Comment fully on the cure for the economic difficulties faced by Europe in 1946-48: “Halt the inflation and adjust the exchange rate.”
  5. Short-term capital movements may give rise to and/or may substitute for gold movements. Discuss the processes involved.

 

Source:  MIT Archives. Charles Kindleberger Papers, Box 22, Folder “Examination 14.482, 1951-1976.”

Image Source: Charles P. Kindleberger from the MIT yearbook, Technique 1950.

Categories
LSE Suggested Reading

LSE. Literature list for Economic Analysis. Hayek, 1942.

 

From today’s perspective one doesn’t usually think of Friedrich von Hayek as someone who would be seen swimming in contemporary conventional economic theory. Thus some visitors will be surprised to learn that in the Hayek Papers at the Hoover Institution Archives, one finds a year’s worth of handwritten lecture notes for Hayek’s three term sequence Economic Analysis I (Michaelmas term, 1942), Economic Analysis II (Lent Term, 1943), Economic Analysis III (Summer Term 1943) at LSE that covered conventional consumer and producer theory along with the apparatus of indifference curves, cost curves, Edgeworth-Bowley boxes and imperfect competition theory à la Joan Robinson. There was a war on, and I presume someone just had to cover the core theory course after all.

Hayek’s courses in 1942 were taught to a joint LSE/Cambridge class at Cambridge University. Pigou and Lewis also taught combined LSE/Cambridge courses during the war. [Tip of the hat to Tweetster @FriedrichHayek for this paragraph]

Perhaps someday, some kind person will transcribe those lecture notes for us. For now, I think it suffices to pluck the two pages of literature that would appear to have been discussed in Hayek’s second lecture of the first term. Links to all items have been included (warning: the links to Hicks-Allen Economica, 1934 are to jstor.org) .

__________________

Literature

Assume that you are all familiar with an introductory text like

F. Benham, Economics 1939 [3rd edition 1943]
now also J. R. Hicks, The Social Framework 1942

Shall confine myself to literature on general theory and for non-specialists—specialists will have to master at least this in their first year.

Circulate more comprehensive mimeographed list.

__________

Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics 1890! Though fifty years old still the only comprehensive system and in parts still indispensable[,] particularly books III, V, and VI  [8th edition, 1920]

No similar modern survey—of the recent textbooks of the required standard

Relatively the best the American

A. L. Meyers, Elements of Modern Economics 1937—though not quite high enough. [3rd edition, 1948]

The best English work[.]

L. Robbins, The Nature and Significance of Economic Science 2nd ed. 1935.
J. R. Hicks, Value and Capital, 1939, chapters 1-VIII (at least I, II, VI)

Absolutely indispensable [Value and Capital]—the later parts probably too difficult except for specialists some may find the first part of the article by J.R. Hicks and R.G.D. Allen, A re-consideration of the theory of value[,] Economica [1934, Part I ; Part II] an easier exposition of the same subject as in[replaced with a short, illegible word] the first chapters of the book although different terminology may be confusing.

__________

Not absolutely essential, but very strongly to be recommended in general theory are

K. Wicksell, Lectures on Political Economy, vol. I. 1934 One of the most intelligent modern books, combining the Austrian and Walrasian approach.
F. H. Knight, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit 1921 (L.S.E. Reprints) Chapters I-VI

For those who find these difficult and want something easier to introduction to modern theory

Wicksteed, The Common Sense of Political Economy, vol. I
Which I hope some of you have read in their first year.

__________

To return to the essential books.

J. Robinson, The Economics of Imperfect Competition 1933 at least chapters II, IV, XV

The theoretical parts of

G. Haberler, The Theory of International Trade 1936 (not only for the special topics of International Trade but as one of the best exercises in applying the instruments of theory—and for the same reason, if you can spare the time, also the theoretical chapters of

J. Viner, Studies in the Theory of International Trade 1939)

__________

For Money, Fluctuations, and the whole applied side refer to printed list
Remember bibliographies in old School Calendar
[I] shall give references on special topics as I proceed.

__________

Those I have called “essential” you had better read as the course proceeds—the “recommended” ones you might save for next year

Also Pigou, Economics of Welfare 4th ed. 1932 at least parts II & III

Those who have a taste for a very rigorous treatment of central problem also his Economics of Stationary States

Gloss on mathematics [I] shall confine myself to geometry

Those who like algebraic treatment will find R.G.D. Allen, Mathematical Analysis for Economists, 1938 useful.

 

Source:  Hoover Institution Archives.  Papers of Friedrich A. von Hayek. Box 112, Folder 11 (Lectures, LSE, 1942. Economic Analysis I).

Image Source: Mises Institute Website. “Tribute to F.A. von Hayek ” by Ludwig von Mises (May 24, 1962).

Categories
Chicago Suggested Reading

Chicago. Reading list for second core price theory. D. Gale Johnson, 1955.

 

This post adds a reading list from 1955 to ten previous postings of material for University of Chicago core graduate price theory following the second World War. The course was taught by D. Gale Johnson during the Winter Quarter. The copy of the reading list was found in Milton Friedman’s papers.

Chapters on interest rates from Keynes’ General Theory make a brief appearance in this course that focused on functional income distribution (theories of wages, interest, and profits).

___________________

Previous postings for Chicago core price theory.

Econ 300A, Milton Friedman. 1946.

Econ 300 A&B. Milton Friedman ca 1947.

Econ 300 A&B, Milton Friedman, Winter Quarter, 1947.

Econ 300 A&B, Milton Friedman. 1948.

Econ 300 A&B, Lloyd A. Metzler. 1948-49.

Econ 300 A&B, Milton Friedman, 1951-52.

Econ 300 A&B, Lloyd A. Metzler, 1952.

Econ 300A, Arnold Harberger, 1955.

Econ 300A. Gary Becker, 1956.

Econ 300 A&B, Milton Friedman 1958.

___________________

D. Gale Johnson
Winter Quarter 1955

Economics 300B
Reading Assignments

  1. P. H. Douglas, “Are There Laws of Production?” A. E. R., XXXVIII (1948), 1-41.
  2. D. G. Johnson, “The Functional Distribution of Income in the United States, 1850-1952,” R. E. & S., XXXVI (1954), 175-82.
  3. E. J. Working, “What Do Statistical ‘Demand Curves’ Show?” XLI (1927), 212-35. Reprinted in Readings in Price Theory.
  4. F. H. Knight, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, Ch. IV.
  5. A. Marshall, Principles of Economics, 8th, Book IV, Chs. 1, 2, 3 and Book V, Ch. 6.
  6. A. E. A. Readings in The Theory of Income Distribution. Articles by J. M. Cassels, George Stigler, E. H. Chamberlin and Fritz Machlup.
  7. G. Stigler, Production and Distribution Theories, Chs. IV and XII.
  8. Philip H. Wicksteed, The Co-ordination of the Laws of Distribution.
  9. R. G. D. Allen, Mathematical Analysis for Economists, 11.8; 12.7; 12.8; 12.9; 13.7.
  10. Paul A. Samuelson, Foundations of Economic Analysis. Ch. IV.
  11. J. R. Hicks, The Theory of Wages. Chs. 1-6.
  12. A. Marshall, Principles of Economics, Book VI, Ch. I-V.
  13. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Ch. X.
  14. D. H. Robertson, “Wage Grumbles,” in 6.
  15. M. Friedman and S. Kuznets, Income from Independent Professional Practice, pp. v-x, 81-95, 118-37, 142-61.
  16. George Stigler, Domestic Servants in the United States, 1900-1940. (N.B.E.R. Occ. Paper No. 24).
  17. A. Marshall, Principles of Economics, Book VI, Ch. IX. See Index on quasi-rent.
  18. F. H. Knight, “Capital and Interest,” in 6.
  19. J. M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Chs. 11-14.
  20. R. W. Clower, “Productivity, Thrift and the Rate of Interest,” Economic Journal, March, 1954, 107-15.
  21. R. W. Clower, “An Investigation into the Dynamics of Investment,” American Economic Review, XLIV (1954), 64-81.
  22. A. P. Lerner, “On the Marginal Product of Capital and the Marginal Efficiency of Investment,” J. P. E. LXI (1953), 64-81.
  23. H. Makower and J. Marschak, “Assets, Prices and Monetary Theory,” Economics, 1938, 261-88. Reprinted in Readings in Price Theory.
  24. J. F. Weston, “A Generalized Uncertainty Theory of Profit,” A. E. R., March, 1950, 40-60.
  25. J. F. Weston, “The Profit Concept and Theory: A Restatement,” J. P. E., April, 1954, 152-170.

 

Source:  The Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman.Box 77. Folder 77.1 “University of Chicago Econ. 300A & B”.

Source: David Gale Johnson portrait from the University of Chicago Photographic Archive,  apf1-10169, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

Categories
Gender

Cambridge MA. Women and Economics. Book presentation by Charlotte Perkins Stetson (Gilman), 1899

 

The following newspaper report covers a book presentation by the writer Charlotte Perkins Stetson (later, Gilman) at the First Universalist church in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1899. I stumbled upon this item looking for news about the Harvard economics department.

The topic certainly was not overstudied in economics departments of the time and I thought it worth adding this newspaper story to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror. Gilman’s early feminist utopian novel Herland (1915) fell into obscurity for most of the twentieth century. The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard has a nice website “From Woman to Human, The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman“.

Here a link to a collection of her papers (some available in digital form).

One wonders if any Harvard students and faculty (or their wives) attended the talk and what they thought of her book.

___________________

“WOMEN AND ECONOMICS.”
Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Stetson, Author of the Volume of That Title,
Speaks to a Cambridge Audience.

Source: “The Woman’s Chronicle” issued as the third section of the Cambridge Chronicle, April 29, 1899, pp. 1, 4.

At the First Universalist church on Inman street, last Wednesday evening, Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Stetson talked on “Women and Economics,” dwelling upon several points already brought out by her in her book on that subject, which has already gone through its first and a part of its second edition. Mrs. Stetson won the approval of her audience by her clear. logical reasoning, while her singularly natural delivery pleased all. She is the great-granddaughter of Lyman Beecher and niece of Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe. She said in part:

The main cause of all trouble between men and women is the economical dependence of women. It is necessary for woman to exchange her products with the world of economics. The duties of a mother and a wife do not prevent her from doing something else now. Only one woman out of every ten keeps a servant, and so they work and work hard, and receive no pay. Why can they not exert their energies spent on what would be drudgery to most of them in doing what they are better fitted to do and would enjoy more?

Are the women who do nothing, or who spend their days in cleaning, better mothers on that account? Every one who wishes to enter a trade or profession studies it and is trained for it, while we women take upon ourselves the task of caring for the human species without a thought. Can we be doing this in the best way? Does our health justify us in supposing that we are bringing up our children right?

We need education in motherhood. Every woman cannot take all the care of her children because not every woman has the requisite faculty to care for them. It is a specialty and not every woman has the requisite training.

While every woman alone takes care of her own children she cannot do it properly because she has not the advantage of the development of motherhood. She cannot know what her children have in common with other children.

Every woman should have some trade, profession or means of earning her living, which she should become master of, and thereby lift our industry up and our children, who should be watched and cared for by experts who make it their life work, will grow up into strong manhood and womanhood, loving and respecting their mother more, than they would had she, an ignorant amateur, practised upon them.

In this way women would be independent and happier; there would be a new profession; the caring for children and our race would be mentally and physically more healthful, and therefore more harmonious.

At the close of the lecture Mrs. Stetson read a poem, “The Mother to the Child,” from her book, “In This Our World.”

SKETCH OF THE LECTURER.

“Newest of new women; breaker of all idols from childhood up,” says Helen Campbell, in her sympathetic article upon the personality of Charlotte Perkins Stetson.

Although the term “new woman” is seldom. if ever, rightly applied it has an essential fitness when used in speaking of Mrs. Stetson, for it might very naturally be expected that the great-grand-daughter of Lyman Beecher, the grandniece of Harriet Beecher Stowe and of Henry Ward Beecher would be a woman at least unusual and possibly extraordinary. Looked at from one point of view, therefore, Mrs. Stetson is a reformer by instinct and inheritance, the inevitable product of strong generations of men and women who fought or talked all their strenuous lives in defense of truth.

Charlotte Perkins Stetson was born in 1860 at Hartford, Ct. She is the daughter of Frederic Beecher Perkins, and was early a Socialist, not actively so, however, before 1888, when she made her first appearance in public before the Nationalist club in Pasadena, California. In 1890, “Similar Cases,” that remarkable poem through which she is perhaps most widely known, was published in the Nationalist.

It was in 1892 that her written works first began to tell. At that time the Trades and Labor union, of Alameda county, California, awarded her a gold medal for a brilliant essay called “The Labor Movement,” and in 1896 she went abroad, there speedily to be made a member of the Fabian society, an honor so self-evident in these latter days as to need no comment. It was also about this time that she was given the opportunity to talk Socialism from the tail-end of a Socialist van, making its way through one country and another, giving her a chance to study life at every turning of the ways.

Meanwhile, in 1893, she saw the first fruits of her more careful literary work, that is to say, her verse, gathered together and published in San Francisco, in a thin, paper-covered edition, which was intended mainly for private circulation. A second edition was printed in 1895, and in 1896 T. Fisher Unwin brought out the first English edition of her poems in London. A new and enlarged edition of these poems was finally published in 1898. by Small, Maynard and Company, of Boston.

The history of “In This Our World,” as Mrs. Stetson has called her collected verse, does much of itself to show that it is definitely a book that has found its own public. Mr. Howells, indeed, writing in Harper’s Weekly, has characterized it as the best civic satire which America has produced since the Bigelow Papers. And it is not too much to say that the essentials of the best satire are found in these vigorous verses, filled with deep earnestness, delightful humor and a scorn that stings. They are divided for purposes of sequence into three parts, “The World,” “Woman,” and “The March.” Into each of these Mrs. Stetson has put with vigor, nerve and fire, her philosophy of life, a philosophy that is splendidly efficient for men and women who are practically working in whatsoever ways they find to do towards what they are convinced is really the right.

As to “Women and Economics,” published by Small, Maynard and Company, in the summer of 1898, it is in form an essay, or, to quote exactly the secondary title of the book, a study of the economic relation between men and women, as a factor in social evolution.

Although “Women and Economics” has been in the hands of the public less than a year, it is a book which has already made a profound impression upon our most thoughtful men and women.

Mrs. Rebecca Lowe, of Atlanta, Ga., for instance, president of the General Federation of Women’s clubs of the United States, says of it in a personal letter to Mrs. Stetson, part of which we are permitted to quote:

“I want to tell you how heartily I thank you for presenting to the world a book so much needed for setting people to think about women and their economic position. “Women and Economics” contains the basis principle, and for the first time some one has probed deep enough to find the real source from which the evil springs that for so long has provoked the agitation of the woman question. To read and discuss this book would do much for every thinking woman.”

The books have also stirred up a vast amount of controversy. This, too, is natural, since the whole study is an argument, taking the position that women have for many centuries been economically dependent upon men and have, as a result, become more and more feminine and less and less normal human beings. This argument is sustained in a remarkably original and thoroughly vigorous manner from cover to cover. Even the enemies of the book concede that it is by no means a dull volume. It is, on the contrary, one of the most entertaining as well as one of the most logical works upon economics that has ever been published.

Harry Thurston Peck, writing in a recent Cosmopolitan of “Women and Economics,” says: “*  * *  * it is only fair to say that no one can easily overpraise the vigor, the clearness and the acuteness of her writing. She writes, indeed, like a man, and like a very logical and able man. She has humor, quick sympathy, a picturesque and vigorous style, together with a certain rhetorical pungency that, from a purely literary point of view, is wonderfully striking. *  *  *  * Mrs. Stetson is a force that must at last be reckoned with.”

The author of “In This Our World,” and “Women and Economics” represents in her work and words one of the farthest points that has yet been reached by woman in her struggle to gain her true place in society. She is daily winning eager readers, audiences and converts to her cause in this country, and her proposed trip to England, which she is about to take, will doubtless serve to deepen to a remarkeable degree that serious consideration with which she is already regarded in that country.

 

Image Source: Photograph (ca. 1900) by Francis Benjamin Johnson of Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

Categories
Funny Business M.I.T.

M.I.T. Faculty skit. Robert Solow as the 2000 year old economist.

Would Mel Brooks' famous 2,000-Year-Old Man have understood modern language? Researchers say there's a possibility.

 

 

A skit in economics typically involves a humor transplant of some sort. The following script from the faculty contribution to an annual M.I.T. economics skit party (ca.  1979-80 which is when Luis Tiant pitched for the Yankees) took its inspiration from  two greats in American comedy, Carl Reiner & Mel Brooks, who sometimes performed as interviewer and 2,000 year-old man, respectively.

While it is fairly clear that Robert Solow performed and probably wrote the entire skit, the identity of the interviewer still needs to be established. Hint: there is a comment box at the bottom of this post. 

The script comes from a file of such Solovian skits that Roger Backhouse has copied during his archival research and has shared with Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

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Q: You have probably all heard the interviews with the recently discovered 2000-year-old man. We are fortunate to have with us tonight another great find, the 2000-year-old economist, Robert M. Solow. By the way, Dr. Solow, just what does the M stand for?

A: Methuselah, dummy.

Q: Dr. Solow has seen so many skit parties in his life, that he was not very happy about appearing at this one. Do you remember the first skit party you ever went to?

A: No. Skit parties are like hangovers – best thing to do is forget ’em and swear never to do it again. I do have a hazy recollection of an early skit party, I think it was what the one where I first heard the joke about bordered determinants…

Q: What is the joke about border determinants?

A: I don’t know, but they sure laugh[ed] their fool heads off.

Q: Any other recollections about that skit party?

A: Well, you could hear them building pyramids in the background, I remember, and there was this Sphinx-like object, looked a lot like Dick Eckaus… You don’t suppose that, even then???? Nah, forget it.

Q: Turning to more serious issues, what is the biggest change in economics since the old days?

A: Mechanization, by cracky. First the electric typewriter, then the computer, then the Xerox machine [handwritten insert: but not fast enough for (3 or 4 illegible words)]. Nowadays people write papers at the rate they used to wipe their… glasses. I believe Feldstein has solved the problem of hooking the typewriter directly to the Xerox machine, and the whole paper is reproduced without being touched by human hands. There is even a rumor that he has a secret way of getting the paper written without human intervention…

Q: Come come, Dr. Solow, you don’t believe that.

A: Well, have you looked at any of Feldstein’s recent papers? Now in the good old days, stand-up roll-top desks, quill pens, the main-frame abacus, a man thought twice before he wrote a paper. At least he thought once. If only old Tom were here.

Q: Tom who?

A: Tom Gresham. You know: bad working papers drive out good. Not to mention Dave Hume, the inventor of the quantity theory of working papers. As Milton used to say: any way you slice it, it’s still baloney.

Q: Is that Milton Friedman?

A: No, Milton Horowitz, the inventor of the pastrami sandwich. I believe he appears in a footnote in Joskow’s classic mustard-stained work on the subject.

Q: Let’s come to your recent impressions. What do you see as the most important recent development in economics?

A: That’s easy – the increase in the mandatory retirement age to 70. Of course it’s got a long way to go before it does me any good, but I underestimate the DRI Mandatory Retirement Age Monitor estimates the retirement age to be rising at 1.73 years per year, so time is on my side.

Q: Apart from its effects on you personally, why do you think this is an important development?

A: It saves a lot of time at department meetings never to have to make a tenure appointment again. And you know what department meetings are like – even worse than skit parties.

Q: How do you think the change will affect students?

A: They’ll love it. Courses will be the same year after year. Reading lists will never change. Textbooks will go on and on and on. Can you imagine the 200th edition of Dornbusch and Fischer? I hope it’s printed on better paper than the low-grade papyrus of the first edition… I do wonder about Eckaus and that Sphinx…… Exams will be the same year after year. Students hate change. Look at what happened when you fellows tried to change 14.121 this year.

Q: Turning to economic theory, what has been the most important development you have witnessed in the last 2000 years?

A: The two-dimensional diagram.

Q: Be serious.

A: I am serious. Can you imagine Bhagwati, the Picasso of the Production Possibility Locus, trying to fit all those curves in a one-dimensional diagram, which was all we had in the old days? There wasn’t hardly room for anything besides the axis.

Q: Come, come. Bhagwati would find a solution for that little difficulty. Who needs an axis?

A: Maybe so, but can you imagine four-color one-dimensional diagrams? How could we have expensive textbooks without four-color diagrams? How could we have expensive professors without expensive textbooks? How could……

Q: OK, OK. What is the second most important development in economic theory in your lifetime?

A: The subscript.

Q: Don’t you know the difference between trivia and serious economic theory?

A: Sure. Trivia are worth remembering, but serious economics is OK to forget.

Q: Maybe we better stick to trivia…

A: I was just kidding. I really know the answer. There is no difference between trivia and serious economic theory.

Q: Tell us about the most interesting experience you ever heard of an economist having?

A: Easy. Happened to an agricultural economist I knew, feller named Samuelson, farm boy from Gary, Indiana. He was digging on the farm one day, checking out the law of diminishing returns, and he found a potato growing with a nickel in it. Marvelous thing. Folks came from miles away to see a potato with a nickel in it. Old Samuelson frittered away the rest of his life looking for another potato with the nickel in it. Never could find one. He did find a couple with three cents in them, but somehow it wasn’t the same. Never accomplished another thing, old Samuelson. Wonder whatever became of him? He’d be 2009, I reckon. By the way, whatever became of that other farmer, Weitzman?

Q: You mean Chaim Weitzman, the founding father of Israel? His last words were: you don’t have to convince me, Professor [Frank] Fisher, I’m Jewish too.

A: No, I mean Marty Weitzman, old quick and dirty, the lion of Levittown.

Q: Why do you ask?

A: Reminds me of the fellow I used to know, a Secretary of the Treasury named Hamilton……

Q: Reminds you of who? Oh, I get it, they both got killed in the dual.

A: Watch out, Buster – the agreement was that I tell the jokes and you prove the theorems.

Q: All right. Let’s get away from personalities. What do you think of recent macro theories?

A: Not much.

Q: What about rational expectations?

A: If there were any truth in that, it would have been thought up long ago.

Q: Not necessarily. The old-timers could have thought that someone would think of it, without thinking of it themselves.

A: That’s true, but the old-timers were too sensible to think that anyone would think a thought like that.

Q: How about the quantity theory?

A: Ingenious.

Q: Really?

A: Imagine saying that velocity is so stable that only money matters, and so unstable that no use can be made of the theory, and imagine getting away with both statements.

Q: But what is macroeconomics left with then?

A: Well, the old Ioto-Sigma Lamba-Mu [Greek for “IS-LM”] curves were good enough for Aristotle, it’s good enough for me.

Q: Would you care to comment on the theory of built-in stabilizers?

A: If you’re not going to be serious, we might as well go watch a ballgame. I understand Louis Tiant, the 2000-year-old pitcher is going for the Yankees.

Q: Use your 2000-year-old imagination. I’ll give you an example of built-in stabilization – Social Security.

A: How so?

Q: The less likely it is that anyone will ever be able to collect benefits, the likelier it becomes that they make even more money consulting on Social Security. Take [Peter] Diamond, for example.

A: You take Diamond.

Q: No thanks. Imagine a man leaving a perfectly good career in public finance to go into law and economics and make a hash out of both fields.

A: Stick to the straight-man lines, please.

[Handwritten insert begins here]

Q: What do you think of the proliferation of journals?

A: I think it is terrific. Of course it has been going on for a long time – ever since BJEA, the Babylonian Journal of Economic Analysis was challenged by the SEJ, the Sumerian Economic Journal.
What I particularly like is the increased specialization. Like JHR, the Journal of Human Regressions and JME, the Journal of Mathematical Existence.

Q: The Journal of Mathematical Existence – isn’t that the one that started with the famous 2-line proof: I count, therefore I am?

A: Yes and was followed by a 47 page proof that without continuity existence was still generic.
I also like this trend toward paired journals.

Q: Paired journals?

A: Yes, like the two Harvard journals – one publishes theory without measurement and the other measurement without theory.
And then there’s the 2 JPE’s – the Journal of Public Economics and the Journal of Private Enterprise.

[handwritten insert ends]

Q: What do you see as the greatest danger facing the economics profession?

A: The threatened extension of truth-in-lending legislation to truth-in-teaching. We could have the biggest rash of malpractice suits since Nicky Kaldor retired.

Q: I think you’re onto something there. How foresighted of this department to have hired an expert on malpractice like Marilyn Simon [joined faculty 1977-78 academic year], the world-famous author of Unnecessary Surgery – The View from the Inside.

A: Simon only writes about malpractice – [Jeffrey E.] Harris actually does it, I understand.

Q: You seem to have discovered a lot since you turned up around here. Anything else new on the malpractice front?

A: There’s a rumor that the University of Chicago has had to recall all the degrees issued during the last five model years.

Q: You mean…

A: Right. Defective transmission mechanisms.

Q: Gad. Are there any good defenses against malpractice suits in your long and varied experience?

A: You can hire a mathematician for the faculty.

Q: What good does that do?

A: How the hell would I know? All I can say is that every department seems to be hiring mathematicians these days. It’s got to be for something.

Q: I’m looking for some more tried and true defense.

A: There’s always the Long-and-Variable Lags defense. See the Supreme Court decision in Tobin versus Friedman, in which Friedman successfully argued that first it’s true, second he never said it, and third wait till next year.

Q-: How about the Roy Lopez Defense?

A: You mean P–K4, P-K4; N-KB3, N-QB3; B-QN5, P-QR3?

Q: No, I mean Roy Lopez, the middle line-backer for the Princeton Economics Department – anyone sues for malpractice, he breaks their legs.

A: Sounds good. There’s also the classic defense due to Stanley Fischer, that truth should be indexed. Today’s malpractice is tomorrow’s conventional wisdom.

Q: Speaking of conventional wisdom, have you spoken with Professor Galbraith since your return?

A: No, but I have been reading his latest book: Why Are People Poor?

Q: I’ll bite; why are people poor?

A: Not enough income, according to Galbraith.

Q: Does he have a remedy?

A: Move to Switzerland.

Q: I see.

A: I can’t wait until the news reaches Calcutta.

Q: One last question, to return to the subject with which we started. Do you see any trends in student skits?

A: Longer.

Q: Longer and funnier?

A: Longer.

Q: Any final comment?

A: Let me ask you a question. What do you consider the most remarkable thing in this interview?

Q: That’s easy. We never mentioned IBM.

 

Source:  Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archives. Papers of Robert M. Solow. Box 83.

Image Source:  Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks performing the 2000 year old man from NPR KNAU, Arizona public radio article “Could You Talk To a Caveman?” (May 9, 2013) .

Categories
Harvard Sociology Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Principles of Sociology, Syllabus and Exams. Carver and Ripley, 1902-1903

 

The discipline of sociology was only a subfield of economics at Harvard long after the University of Chicago had  established an independent department of sociology upon the founding of that university in 1892. William Z. Ripley and Thomas N. Carver were jointly teaching the course at Harvard at the turn of the twentieth century. This course was taught for nearly three decades by Carver, e.g. an earlier post with materials for Economics 8, Principles of Sociology taught by Thomas Nixon Carver in 1917-18.

Note: Updated 31 Jan 2023 with links to all the items on the reading list along with the semester examination questions. Colorized portraits of Carver and Ripley have also been added.

Cf. A few years later Thomas Nixon Carver compiled a book of course readings (over 800 pages!): Sociology and Social Progress: A Handbook for Students of Sociology. Boston: Ginn & Company, 1905.

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Course Announcement and Description

[Economics] 3. Principles of Sociology. — Theories of Social Progress. Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 1.30. Professors Carver and Ripley.

The work of the first term will consist of an outline of the structure and development of social and political institutions, based upon a comparative study of primitive, barbarous, and civilized peoples. Among the topics considered will be the following, viz.: the physical and environmental factors in mental and social evolution, the racial elements in nationality and other social phenomena, with a discussion of modern racial problems in the United States and Europe, the interaction of mental and social evolution, the history and development of the family, and of religious, legal, and political institutions, and the relation of custom to religion and law. The principal authors discussed will be Tylor, Maine, Westermarck, and Spencer. The treatment will in the main be historical and comparative; aiming to afford data for the analytical and critical work of the second term.

In the second term this is followed by an analysis of the factors and forces which have produced modifications of the social structure and secured a greater degree of adaptation between man and his physical and social surroundings. The relation of property, the family, the competitive system, religion, and legal control to social well-being and progress are studied with reference to the problem of social improvement. Bagehot’s Physics and Politics, Ward’s Dynamical Sociology, Giddings’s Principles of Sociology, Patten’s Theory of Social Forces, and Kidd’s Social Evolution are each read in part. Lectures are given at intervals, and students are expected to take part in the discussion of the authors read and the lectures delivered.

Course 3 is open to students who have passed satisfactorily in Course 1 [Outlines of Economics].

 

Source:  Harvard University, The University Publications (New Series, No 55). Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1902-03 (June 14, 1902), p. 41.

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Course enrollment

[Economics] Professors CARVER and RIPLEY. — Principles of Sociology. Theories of Social Progress.

Total 44: 8 Graduates, 17 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 5 Special.

 

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President 1902-03, p. 67.

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Economics 3

To be read in full

  1. Herbert Spencer. Principles of Sociology. [3 vols., 3rd rev. ed., 1898]
  2. Walter Bagehot. Physics and Politics.
  3. Benjamin Kidd. Social Evolution.
  4. F. H. Giddings. Principles of Sociology.

Collateral Reading.
Starred references are prescribed.

I. Scope and Method of Sociology
  1. August Comte. Positive Philosophy. Book VI. Chs. 2—4.
  2. Herbert Spencer. Classification of the Sciences, in Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative. Vol. II.
  3. _______*. The Study of Sociology. Chs. 1—3.
  4. J. S. Mill. System of Logic. Book VI.
  5. W. S. Jevons. Principles of Science. Ch. 31. Sec. 11.
  6. Lester F. Ward. Outlines of Sociology. Pt. I.
  7. J. W. H. Stuckenberg. Introduction to the Study of Sociology. Chs. 2 and 3.
  8. Émile Durkheim. Les Regles de la Méthode Sociologique.
  9. Guillaume de Greef. Les Lois Sociologiques.
  10. Arthur Fairbanks. Introduction to Sociology. Introduction.
II. The Factors of Social Progress
A. Physical and Biological Factors
  1. Herbert Spencer. The Factors of Organic Evolution, in Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative. Vol. I.
  2. _______. Progress, its Law and Cause, in Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative. Vol. I.
  3. Auguste Comte. Positive Philosophy. Book VI. Ch. 6.
  4. Lester F. Ward. Dynamical Sociology. Ch. 7.
  5. Simon N. Patten*. The Theory of Social Forces. Ch. 1.
  6. Geddes and Thompson. The Evolution of Sex. Chs. 1, 2, 19, 21.
  7. Robert Mackintosh. From Comte to Benjamin Kidd.
  8. G. de LaPouge. Les Sélections Sociales. Chs. 1—6.
  9. August Weismann. The Germ Plasm: a Theory of Heredity.
  10. George John Romanes. An Examination of Weismannism.
  11. Alfred Russell Wallace. Studies: Scientific and Social. [Volume 1; Volume 2]
  12. R. L. Dugdale. The Jukes.
  13. Oscar C. McCulloch. The Tribe of Ishmael.
  14. Francis Galton. Hereditary Genius.
  15. Arthur Fairbanks. Introduction to Sociology. Pt. III.
B. Psychic
  1. Auguste Comte. Positive Philosophy. Book VI. Ch. 5.
  2. Jeremy Bentham*. Principles of Morals and Legislation. Chs. 1 and 2.
  3. Lester F. Ward. The Psychic Factors of Civilization.
  4. G. Tarde. Social Laws.
  5. _______. Les Lois de l’Imitation.
  6. _______. La Logique Sociale.
  7. Gustav Le Bon. The Crowd.
  8. _______. The Psychology of Peoples.
  9. J. Mark Baldwin. Social and Ethical Interpretations.
  10. _______. Mental Development in the Child and the Race.
  11. John Fisk. The Destiny of Man.
  12. Henry Drummond. The Ascent of Man.
  13. Simon N. Patten*. The Theory of Social Forces. Chs. 2—5.
C. Social and Economic
  1. Lester F. Ward. Outlines of Sociology. Pt. II.
  2. _______*. Dynamical Sociology. Ch. 10.
  3. Brooks Adams. The Law of Civilization and Decay.
  4. D. G. Ritchie. Darwinism and Politics.
  5. A. G. Warner*. American Charities. Pt. I. Ch. 5.
  6. G. de LaPouge. Les Sélections Sociales. Chs. 7—15.
  7. T. R. Malthus. Principle of Population.
  8. Bosanquet. The Standard of Life.
  9. W. H. Mallock. Aristocracy and Evolution.
  10. T. V. Veblen. The Theory of the Leisure Class.
  11. W. S. Jevons. Methods of Social Reform.
  12. Jane Addams and Others. Philanthropy and Social Progress.
  13. E. Demolins. Anglo-Saxon Superiority.
  14. Thomas H. Huxley. Evolution and Ethics.
  15. Georg Simmel. Ueber Sociale Differencierung.
  16. Émile Durkheim. De la Division du Travail Social.
  17. J. H. W. Stuckenberg. Introduction to the Study of Sociology. Ch. 6.
  18. Achille Loria. The Economic Foundations of Society.
  19. _______. Problems Sociaux Contemporains. Ch. 6. [English translation (1911)]
  20. E. A. Ross. Social Control.
D. Political and Legal
  1. Jeremy Bentham. Principles of Morals and Legislation. Chs. 12—17.
  2. F. M. Taylor. The Right of the State to Be.
  3. W. W. Willoughby*. Social Justice. Chs. 5—9.
  4. D. G. Ritchie. Principles of State Interference.
  5. W. S. Jevons. The State in Relation to Labor.
  6. Henry C. Adams. The Relation of the State to Industrial Action, in Publications Am. Econ. Assoc. Vol. I. No. 6.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003.Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1902-1903”.

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Economics 3
Mid-Year Examination
1902-1903

  1. Contrast the status of marriage in the later Roman period, with that in the United States at present, distinguishing causes, direct and indirect results.
  2. What is the primary end of primitive law, and why?
  3. Criticise Spencer’s statement that “political organization is to be understood as that part of social organization which consciously carries on directive and restraining functions for public ends.”
  4. What is the significance of ceremonial in social life? Illustrate by a concrete example.
  5. Need customs be reasonable or logical to be necessarily defensible? Why?
  6. How does Giddings account for the change from metronymic to patronymic societies?
  7. What was the character of Morgan’s contribution to the study of domestic origins? What were its limitations?
  8. Discuss, with illustrations, some of the connections of religious belief and ceremonial with primitive society.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year Examinations 1852-1943. Box 6. Papers (in the bound volume Examination Papers Mid-years 1902-1903).

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Economics 3
Year-End Examination
1902-1903

Discuss eight of the following topics: –

  1. The forms of primitive marriage.
  2. Spencer’s contrast of the industrial with the militant type of society.
  3. Gidding’s elementary social fact.
  4. Kidd’s position as to the function of religion in social development.
  5. The antagonism of interests among the members of society.
  6. Density of population as a condition of a high state of civilization.
  7. The sanctions for conduct.
  8. Social stratification.
  9. The storing of the surplus energy of society.

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: Thomas Nixon Carver (left). The World’s Work. Vol. XXVI (May-October 1913) p. 127.  William Z. Ripley (right) Harvard Library, Hollis Images. Portrait of William Z. Ripley, ca. 1920. Both images have been colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

 

 

 

Categories
Economic History Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Economic Aspects of Western Civilization. Cunningham, 1899.

 

 

William Cunningham (1849-1919) was appointed lecturer on economic history at Harvard September 27, 1898 in order to cover economic history for Professor Ashley who was on leave during the second semester of the 1898-99 academic year.

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During the second half year of 1898-99, the place of Professor Ashley, who is absent on leave, is taken by Dr. Wm. Cunningham, of Trinity College (Cambridge, England). Dr. Cunningham and Professor Ashley are easily the leaders among English-speaking scholars on their subject, economic history; and the Department has cordially welcomed the arrangement by which the scholar from the Cambridge of England fills the place, for the time being, of the scholar of the American Cambridge. Dr. Cunningham gives two courses in the current half year, — one on Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects, Mediaeval and Modern, the other on the Industrial Revolution in England.

Source:  F. W. Taussig’s report on the activities of the economics department in 1898-99 in The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, vol. 7 (1898-99), p. 427.

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Course Announcement

82 hf. Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects. (Mediaeval and Modern.) Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12.Dr. Cunningham (Trinity College, Cambridge, England).

Source:   Harvard University, Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1898-1899.Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1898, p. 41.

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 82 hf. Dr. Cunnningham.— Western Civilization, mediaeval and modern, in its Economic Aspects. Lectures (3 hours). 4 reports.

Total 105:  13 Graduates, 41 Seniors, 15 Juniors, 23 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 12 Others

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1898-99, p. 72.

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ECONOMICS 8.
WESTERN CIVILIZATION.

For Reading: —

Andrews, C. M. Old English Manor, p. 202 to end.
M. Dormer Harris. Life in an Old English Town.
H. Beazley. Prince Henry the Navigator;
Discourse of the Common Weal of this Realm of England, edited by E. Lamond.
Thorold Rogers. Holland.

 

For Consultation: —

Duke of Argyll. Unseen Foundations of Society.
Maitland, S. R. The Dark Ages.
Montalembert. Monks of the West, II.
Levasseur, E. Histoire des Class ouvrières en France jusqu’a la Révolution [Volume I (1859);  Volume  II (1859);
Walter of Henley’s Husbandry, edited by E. Lamond.
Pigeonneau. Histoire du Commerce de la France. [Volume I; Volume II]
von Inama-Sternegg. Deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte. [Volume 1 ; Volume 2]
Heyd, W. Geschichte des Levantehandels. [Volume 1 ; Volume 2]
[de] Mas Latrie. Relations et Commerce de l’Afrique Septentrionale.
Ehrenberg, R. Das Zeitalter der Fugger.[Volume 1 ; Volume 2]
Gottlob, A. Aus der Camera.
S. Thomas Aquinas. De regimine Principum.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003.Box 1, Folder “Economics 1898-1899”.

Image Source:  Trinity College Chapel website.