Author: Irwin Collier

Categories
Columbia Regulations

Columbia. Faculty of political science’s discussion of Ph.D. requirements, 1905

Welcome to a 1905 discussion about the requirements for a Ph.D. in American History, Economics or Sociology from the Columbia University Faculty of Political Science. Should sufficient knowledge of Latin (repeat, Latin) be the subject of examination for those fields. From the minutes of the meeting transcribed below we learn that a no-brainer motion to dismiss the Latin language examination was postponed, pending inquiries about the Latin language requirements at other universities. 

Can a I hear a Gloria in excelsis Deo?

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Discussion Questions Regarding Revision of Ph.D. Requirements
Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University (1905)

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

January 25, 1905

President Butler
Columbia University

Dear Sir:

It gives me pleasure to advise you that the Faculty of Political Science decided at its last meeting to hold a special meeting on Friday, January 27, at 3:30 p.m. For the informal and preliminary discussion of the questions submitted by its committee on the Revision of Requirements for the Ph.D. degree, of which I enclose a copy.

Respectfully yours
[signed] Henry R. Seager
Secretary

 

  1. Is it desirable to distinguish the candidates for the doctorate from the rest of the student body and to prescribe preliminary tests or examinations for admission to such candidacy?
  2. Should proficiency in the required languages be treated as such a preliminary requirement?
  3. Should candidates with a major in (a) Economics, (b) Sociology or (c) American History be excused from examination in Latin?
  4. If so, should a third modern language be required of those candidates who do not offer Latin?
  5. How early in his period of residence, or how long before admission to the candidacy for the doctorate, should a student select the subject of his dissertation?
  6. Is it desirable that seminar work should be so organized as to encourage preliminary studies by the candidate in the field of his dissertation?
  7. When the subject selected as a major is one in which relatively few courses (less than eight hours) are offered, should attendance upon other courses, in addition to those now required in the minor subjects, be made compulsory? If this is desirable, should the end be attained by increasing in such cases the requirements in the minor subjects?
  8. When the subjects selected as a major subject is one in which more than eight hours of lectures are offered, should be existing requirements as regards attendance be decreased?
  9. Should it be required, before any candidate is admitted to the general examination on his subjects, that he be recommended by the professors in charge of his major and minor subjects?
  10. Is it desirable that the professor in charge of his major subject should refuse such recommendation unless the work of the candidate upon his dissertation has been carried to such a point as to render it probable that a satisfactory dissertation will be produced within the legal term?
  11. If any of the above changes seem desirable, shall your committee prepared, for submission to the faculty, rules adopted to realize said changes? Or shall say, where ever it seems practicable, draft resolutions which, if adopted, will merely express the general policy of the Faculty, to be made effective in practice by the action of his several members?

Source:  Columbia University Archives. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Central Files 1890-. Box 338, Folder “11. Seager, Henry R.”

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Minutes of Special Meeting
Jan. 27, 1905

In the absence of the President, the meeting was called to order by the Dean.

Present: Professors Burgess, Munroe Smith, Goodnow, Seligman, Osgood, Dunning, Giddings, Robinson, Sloane, Moore, H.L., and Seager.

Excused: Professors J.B.Moore and Clark

The reading of the minutes of the last meeting was passed over.

On motion, the Chairman of the Committee on the Revision of the Requirements for the Ph.D. degree was requested to read abstracts of the replies received from the different members of the Faculty to the questions propounded by that Committee. On further consideration this action was, on motion, revoked.

The Faculty then proceeded to the consideration of the questions submitted seriatim.

On motion it was

Resolved: That the sentiment of the Faculty is adverse to the plan of distinguishing candidates for the doctorate from the rest of the student body.

On motion, it was decided in connection with the second question, that any candidate for the Ph.D. degree may take the required examination in the languages one year in advance of the examination on his subjects. After some further discussion the Faculty adjourned to meet as a committee of the whole on Friday, February 3rd at 3:30 P.M.

[signed] Henry R. Seager.
Secretary

 

Minutes of Special Meeting
Feb. 3, 1905

In the absence of the President the meeting of the Committee of the Whole was called to order by the Dean.

Present: Professors Burgess, Munroe Smith, Seligman, Dunning, Moore, J.B., Giddings, Robinson, Moore, H.L., and Seager.

On motion it was

Resolved: That the following motion be substituted for that passed at the close of the last meeting: Resolved that it is the sense of the Committee of the Whole that it is desirable to permit and encourage students to take the examination on their languages in advance of the examination on their subjects.

The following resolution was then proposed: Resolved that it is the sense of the Committee of the Whole that it is desirable to excuse candidates for the Ph.D. degree in Economics, Sociology and American History from the examination in Latin, provided that the professors in charge of their major studies certify that that language will not be necessary in connection with the preparation of their theses. After some discussion a substitute motion was passed instructing the Secretary to make inquiry as to the practice of other universities in reference to requiring Latin in connection with the Ph.D. degree.

On motion, Question 4 was passed over for later consideration.

On motion, Questions 5, 9 and 10 were taken up together. After some discussion it was on motion

Resolved: That it is the sense of the Committee of the Whole that a recommendation from one or more professors be pre-requisite to admission to examination for the Ph.D. degree.

On motion it was

Resolved: That it is the sense of the Committee of the Whole that no candidate shall be admitted to examination on his subjects until recommended by the professors in charge of his major and minor subjects, and that in case of disagreement among the latter the decision of the professor in charge of the major subject shall prevail.

After some discussion it was decided that the point covered by Question 10 was sufficiently provided for by the resolution adopted by the Faculty at its regular meeting in May, 1904. [*See below]

On motion, Questions 5 and 6 were laid on the table.

On motion, Questions 7 and 8 were taken up together.

On motion it was resolved, in answer to 8, that it is the sense of the Committee of the Whole that when more than eight hours of lectures are offered in the major subject, the existing requirements in reference to attendance should be decreased.

No action was taken in reference to Question 7.

On motion, the Committee adjourned.

[signed] Henry R. Seager.
Secretary

*From the Minutes of the Regular Meeting
May 20, 1904

…The following resolution was offered by the Secretary:

RESOLVED that it is the sense of this Faculty that no candidate shall be admitted to examination on his major and minor subjects for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy until the professor in charge of the major subject certifies that such progress has been made by the candidate in the investigation of the subject selected by him for his dissertation, as to render it probable that a satisfactory dissertation will be produced.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science, 1897-1919, Minutes of The Faculty of Political Science (October 22, 1897 to May 9, 1913), pp. 133-134, 144-148.

Image Source: From archive.org:  Xenophontis Socratici liber, qui Oeconomicus inscribitur. Bernardinus Donatus Veronensis vertit, 1539. Repository: National Central Library of Rome.

Categories
Columbia Economists Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania. Economics Ph.D. alumnus. Columbia professor Henry R. Seager, 1894

Another post in the irregular series “Meet an economics Ph.D.” Henry Rogers Seager’s education and career took him from Ann Arbor (University of Michigan) through Baltimore (Johns Hopkins University), Germany/Austria (Halle, Berlin, Vienna), and Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania before ending up in New York City (Columbia). 

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Earlier posts for Henry Rogers Seager
at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror:

List of papers published as of Seager’s appointment by Columbia in 1902.

Syllabus for “The Trust Problem”, 1907.

Published Lecture on Economics, 1907-08.

Memorial minute, 1930

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Seager, Henry Rogers (July 21, 1870-Aug. 23, 1930), economist, was born in Lansing, Michigan, the son of Schuyler Fiske Seager, a lawyer, and Alice (Berry) Seager. Graduating at the University of Michigan in 1890, he did further work during the succeeding years at the Johns Hopkins University, at the Universities of Halle, Berlin, and Vienna, and at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received the Ph.D. degree in 1894. That year he was appointed instructor in economics in the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, and in 1896 he was made an assistant professor; in 1902 he became adjunct professor and in 1905, professor, in Columbia University, where he served till death. On June 5, 1899, he was married to Harriet Henderson of Philadelphia who died in 1928; their son survived him.

Seager’s training as an economist was in English classicism, in the German historical method and in the peculiar Austrian approach. His published work shows clearly the influence of each. His greatest admiration was for Simon N. Patten (q.v.), with whom he served at the University of Pennsylvania but whose influence on his thought was slight. Seager’s mind was orderly and compressive rather than brilliant and generalizing; conservatism was perhaps its distinguishing characteristic. He was solid and patient, slow to conclude, and even slower to write his conclusions. One result of this was that he was less a writing scholar than one who worked with students. Literally hundreds of dissertations passed through his careful hands at Columbia and many generations of students heard his lectures on labor and on corporation problems. Always active in meliorative activities, he assisted materially in the establishment of a system of workmen’s compensation in New York; he was a supporter of the Survey (formerly Charities and the Commons) and for many years a member of its board of directors. During the war he served as secretary of the Shipbuilding Labor Adjustment Board, and in 1919-20, he was executive secretary of the President’s Second Industrial Conference. He was one of the founders and three times president of the American Association for Labor Legislation. He was frequently consulted by philanthropists, legislators and publicists; he was a member of the editorial board) of The Political Science Quarterly, and in 1922 was president of the American Economic Association. In all these varied activities he had one purpose: to better social conditions within the framework of laissez-faire. He possessed a determined faith that this could be done and worked constantly to show the way. Melioration consisted in making changes here and there, which while not disturbing fundamental arrangements, reduced their burden on less favored individuals. Improvement consisted in legal change and a large part of his effort was always directed toward reform by legislation.

His most considerable work is Principles of Economics, first published under this title in 1913, which grew out of his Introduction to Economics (1904 and later editions [3rd edition, 1910]) and appeared in its final form [3rd edition] in 1923. The most important of his other writings are Trust and Corporation Problems (1929), with C.A. Gulick, Jr. and the posthumous volume, Labor and Other Economic Essays (1931), to which is attached his complete bibliography. Somewhat more than the final half of the Principles of Economics is devoted to essays on important problems: banking, the tariff, railroads, trusts, taxation, labor and social insurance. The theoretical section begins with a consideration of consumption, progresses through value and production, and ends with distribution. There were many books published during this period with much the same outline; but Seager’s was characterized by emphasis on all that pertained to human welfare. This led to stress on consumption and on the demand side of the value equilibrium, as well as to extra consideration of monopoly gains. The discussion of distribution was carried out within the framework of the “specific productivity” analysis but with more than usual weight given to such subjective influences as the balancing, in consumers’ and producers’ minds, of marginal disutilities over against marginal utilities. The conclusions were usually optimistic. Seager believed in progress and believed that, under the going system, it was being achieved. He felt, for instance, that capital goods were multiplying more rapidly than population and that this would tend to raise standards of living. He did not believe, however, that the possibilities of progress which inhere in the system insure automatic betterment. Groups of interested people, with journals and propaganda, need to be vigilant in the public interest. This duty of the good citizen, as Seager saw it, was best exemplified in his own career. He never became aware of a duty that he did not forthwith perform. In his posthumous Labor and Other Economic Essays his program is outlined: “The two great objects to be aimed at are: 1. To protect wage-earners in the continued enjoyment of standards of living to which they are already accustomed. II. To assist them to attain to higher standards of living” (p.131). The contingencies which were the principal threats to existing standards were “(1) industrial accidents, (2) illness, (3) invalidity and old age, (4) premature death, (5) unemployment” (ibid.) All these, Seager felt, were legitimate objects of collective action. As for raising standards, this was largely dependent on industrial advance and on better education.

To all persons of Seager’s generation the rather the sudden rise of a complete alternative system in Russia offered a shock to which adjustment was necessarily slow. Because everything there was so antithetical to the system to which so many theoretical hostages had been given, the immediate impulse was to belittle Soviet accomplishments. Seager was exposed to the full force of the new ideas. Gradually they gained weight in his mind until at last his essential honesty compelled, not acceptance, but exploration. In 1930, with a group of companions, he undertook a journey to the scene of these new economic adventures, in the midst of which he was taken ill. He died in Kiev of pneumonia, August 23, 1930. He was thus lost to the world at the close of an old period and the beginning of a new one. His identification with economy of the opening decades of the nineteenth century was a fortuitous one, but his progress into the new years cannot be said to have fairly started. He remains an economist of laissez-faire, of more than usual significance in foreshadowing the ameliorative program which so soon became a center of Interest.

Source: Cornell University Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives. Henry R. Seager Research Notes and Monographs (Collection Number: 5249).

Image Source: From a 1915 portrait of Henry Rogers Seager at Wikiwand. Includes a survey of his books.

Categories
Exam Questions Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins. General exam questions for economics Ph.D., 1954

 

It is pretty interesting to compare the Harvard micro and macro general exams 1992 with what was asked economics graduate students at Johns Hopkins in 1954, transcribed and posted below. I note that the index number question (the first question in Part IV) was more-or-less covered in my second lecture of undergraduate principles of macroeconomics a few days ago (OK, I grant it was somewhat heavy-going, but somebody’s gotta do it…and better earlier than never). 

Ten comprehensive Ph.D. exams from Johns Hopkins in 1965 were transcribed and posted earlier.

_______________________

GENERAL WRITTEN EXAMINATIONS FOR THE PH.D.
Department of Political Economy
May 25-26, 1954

Part I — Three hours
May 25, 1954 — 9 a.m.

Answer the following questions: I and II; III or IV; they carry equal weights.

I.

In four out of five given cases, explain exactly — with or without the aid of graphs — how you can derive

  1. a demand curve for a commodity (as a function of price) from a family of indifference curves between that commodity and money;
  2. a supply curve for a foreign currency (as a function of its exchange rate in terms of domestic currency) from a demand curve for domestic currency (as a function of its exchange rate in terms of the foreign currency);
  3. a savings curve (as a function of income) from a consumption curve (as a function of income);
  4. a demand (liquidity preference) curve for cash balances (as a function of the interest rate) from a supply curve of interest-bearing securities (as a function of security prices);
  5. a family of interest-income curves (functions giving the equilibrium combinations of interest rate and income level) with various fixed money stocks as parameters, from a family of liquidity preference curves (as functions of the interest rate) with various fixed income levels as parameters.

II.

In three out of the five given cases, demonstrate as convincingly as you can

  1. that an increase in wage rates
    1. will result in an increase in total profits,
    2. will result in a decrease in total profits;
  2. that an increase in interest rates
    1. will result in an increase in total consumption
    2. will result in a decrease in total consumption;
  3. that an increase in government expenditures for domestic public works
    1. will result in an increase in total employment,
    2. will result in a decrease in total employment;
  4. that an increase in income taxes with an equal and simultaneous decrease in excise taxes
    1. will result in an increase in general prices,
    2. will result in a decrease in general prices;
  5. that an increase in private foreign investment
    1. will result in an increase in domestic total income,
    2. will result in a decrease in domestic total income;

[Note: In order to be convincing on both sides of each issue, you will have to change your evaluations of the probabilities with which the essential conditions responsible for the particular result may be expected actually to prevail.]

III.

“The elasticity of supply of foreign exchange will be higher, the higher is the elasticity of supply of exportable articles.” What is wrong with this statement? Why? How would you formulate the correct relationship between the variables in question?

IV.

“The question of whether capital movements lead the trade balances, or trade balances direct the capital movements has been answered differently by classical and Keynesian theory.”

Present the two views and then explain how the contradictions can be resolved, and both views found to be correct, if the terms are appropriately defined.

 

Part II — Three hours
May 25, 1954 — 2 p.m.

Answer three questions of the following five, provided you don’t select more than two from the first three. They all carry equal weights.

I.

Discuss the Neo-Classical School of Economists.

II.

In Schumpeter’s Book on the History of Economic Analysis, there is a section on “The Men Who Wrote above Their Time”. What would you write for such a section?

III.

Discuss the development of American economic thought.

IV.

Select a “period” of American economic history other than the most recent one and discuss it. Link it with the preceding and succeeding periods.

V.

Discuss England’s chief economic problems of 1793-1815.

 

Part III — Three hours
May 26, 1954 — 9 a.m.

Answer the following questions: I; any two out of the remaining three. They all carry equal weights.

I.

Write a coherent essay on statistical inference, in which you discuss (not necessarily in this order):

  1. tests of hypotheses
  2. confidence intervals
  3. errors of the first and second kind [Penciled here as change or alternative “Efficiency/Max Likelihood”]
  4. correlation and regression
  5. the identification problem
  6. the “t” distribution and an example of its use
  7. one other distribution (other than the normal) and an example of its use.

II.

It has been maintained by some that an increase in wages leads to an increase in labor supply out of a given population, and a decrease in wages to a decrease in supply; but it has also been maintained, by others, that an increase in wages brings a decrease in supply, and a decrease in wages an increase in supply.

Select one of the two views and summarize the points which have offered in defense of it. Do you think an equally strong case should be made for the other view? If you do, then are we left without a theory?

III.

Considerable attention has been devoted to the question of the effect of union activity on the wage level. One conclusion reached by several writers on the basis of statistical data is that union wage activity has resulted in no appreciable differential in favor of union income, compared to non-union income and to non-labor income.

What could be the theoretical foundations for such a result?

IV.

“Of all the single statements that can be made about wages, the statement that ‘wages tend to measure the marginal productivity of labor’ is at once the most illuminating analytically and the most important practically for the consideration of wage policy.”

This proposition has come in for considerable criticism over the years. What are the most telling points of this criticism?

 

Part IV — Three hours
May 26, 1954 — 2 p.m.

I.

Write an essay on index numbers in economics, in which you discuss (not necessarily in this order)

  1. price indexes
  2. quantity indexes
  3. value indexes
  4. constant-weight (Laspeyres) indexes
  5. changing-weight (Paasche) indexes
  6. the relationships among price, quantity, and value indexes
  7. the use and limitations of economic index numbers

II.

Evaluate critically the contribution which Keynes’ General Theory has made to:

  1. Theoretical economic thinking
  2. Economic policy

III.

Present and analyze some (reasonably respectable) business cycle theory.

IV.

Compare and contrast monetary and fiscal policies as methods of achieving economic stabilization (reasonably full employment without inflation). Include (but don’t limit yourself to) the following points:

  1. The theoretical foundation of each
  2. Methods used
  3. Effects on distribution of income and wealth
  4. Social and political repercussions
  5. Their effectiveness and limitations.

Do they overlap? Can you work out a synthesis of both?

 

Source: Johns Hopkins University. Eisenhower Library. Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy Series 5/6.  Box No. 6/1. Folder: “Comprehensive Exams for Ph.D. in Political Economy, 1947-1965”.

Image Source: from the cover of the 1954 Johns Hopkins yearbook, Hullabaloo.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard History of Economics

Harvard. Final exams for “Modern Economic Theory and its Critics”. O.H. Taylor, 1938-39.

 

Just started a “scope and methods of economics” course this semester and after consulting my files from archival visits to Harvard, I discovered that good old Overton Hume Taylor offered a similar course there fifteen times during the 1930s and 1940s. I have already transcribed/posted numerous syllabi and exams for his other courses in the history of economics, political economy, and socialism. For some unknown reason he apparently did not keep a syllabus of assigned readings on file for his “Modern Economic Theory and its Critics” course with the Harvard library. For now we’ll be limited to the printed semester final examinations that I have located in the Harvard archives to reverse-engineer his likely reading assignments.

The stability of the course content may be presumed from the identical course descriptions (with the sole exception of “programmes” becoming “programs”) in the 1932-33 and 1940-41 Division announcements, included below.

Overton Hume Taylor received his economics Ph.D. from Harvard in 1928 with the dissertation “The Idea of a Natural Order in Early Modern Economic Thought.” 

 

Chronology of O. H. Taylor’s course Economics 105
(formerly Economics 17)

1930-31. Ec17 Half-course (second half-year). Classical Economics and Eighteenth Century Philosophy. 3 students enrolled (1 Gr., 1 Sr., 1 Jr.)

1931-32. Ec17 Half-course (second half-year). Classical Economics and Eighteenth Century Philosophy.

1932-33. Ec17 Half-course (second half-year). Modern Economic Theory and its Critics.

1933-34. Ec17 Full-course. Modern Economic Theory and its Critics.

1934-35. Ec17 Modern Economic Theory and its Critics. “This course may be taken as a half-course in either half-year.”

1935-36. Ec17 Modern Economic Theory and its Critics. “This course may be taken as a half-course in either half-year.”

1936-37. Ec105 (formerly 17) Modern Economic Theory and its Critics. “This course may be taken as a half-course in either half-year.”

1937-38. Ec105 (formerly 17) Modern Economic Theory and its Critics. “This course may be taken as a half-course in either half-year.”

1938-39. Ec105 Modern Economic Theory and its Critics. “This course may be taken as a half-course in either half-year.” [Note: James Tobin took the second semester of the course. His student notes are found with his papers at the Yale University archives].

1939-40. Ec105 Modern Economic Theory and its Critics. “This course may be taken as a half-course in either half-year.”

1940-41. Ec105 Half-course (first half-year). Modern Economic Theory and its Critics.

1941-42. Ec105 Half-course (first half-year). Modern Economic Theory and its Critics.

1942-43. Ec105 Half-course (first half-year). Modern Economic Theory and its Critics.

1943-44. Ec105a. Half-course (first half-year).  Modern Economic Theory and its Critics. 12 students enrolled (9 Graduates, 3 Public Admin.)

1944-45. Ec105a. Half-course (first half-year).  Modern Economic Theory and its Critics. 3 students enrolled (1 Graduate,1 Public Admin., 1 Radcliffe)

1945-46. Ec105a Half-course (first half-year). Modern Economic Theory and its Critics. 2 students enrolled (2 Graduate)

1946-47. Ec105a. Half-course (first half-year). 3 students enrolled (1 Graduate, 2 Radcliffe)

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Course Description, 1932-33

[Economics] 17 2hf. Modern Economic Theory and its Critics

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 12. Dr. Taylor.

A critical study of conflicting views in regard to the proper aim and scope, method, and basic “premises” of economic theory. The views considered are those reflected, in recent English and American literature, in the work of relatively “orthodox” theorists on the one hand, and in the criticisms, programmes, and attempted innovations of various “insurgent” writers on the other hand. Reading, lectures, and discussions.

 

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1932-33. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXIX, No. 32 (June 27, 1932), p. 77.

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Course Description, 1940-41

[Economics] 105a 1hf. Modern Economic Theory and its Critics

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 12. Dr. O. H. Taylor.

A critical study of conflicting views in regard to the proper aim and scope, method, and basic “premises” of economic theory. The views considered are those reflected, in recent English and American literature, in the work of relatively “orthodox” theorists on the one hand, and in the criticisms, programs, and attempted innovations of various “insurgent” writers on the other hand. Reading, lectures, and discussions.

 

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1940-41. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXXVII, No. 51 (August 15, 1940), pp. 58-59.

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Course Enrollment, 1938-39

[Economics] 105. Dr. O. H. Taylor.—Modern Economic Theory and its Critics.

Total 13: 6 Graduates, 5 Seniors, 2 School of Public Administration

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1938-1939, p. 99.

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Reading Period Assignments, 1938-39

Mid-year: January 5-18, 1939

Economics 105: Read one of the following:

  1. Jevons, W. S., Theory of Political Economy.
  2. Von Wieser, F., Natural Value.
  3. Wicksteed, P. Common Sense of Political Economy. Vol. I.

 

End-year: May 8-31, 1939

Economics 105: Read one of the following:

T. Veblen, Instinct of Workmanship.
T. Veblen, Theory of Business Enterprise.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1938-1939”.

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1938-39
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 105
Final Examination, mid-year. 1939.

Answer one of the first three questions — four questions in all. Average time, 45 minutes per question — distribute your time at your own discretion.

  1. Write your own accounts, and critical discussions, of (a) realism and nominalism, (b) rationalism and empiricism, and (c) the ‘methods’ of the ‘classical’ and ‘historical schools’ in economics.
  2. Discuss the general ideas prevalent in the eighteenth century about (a) causal and (b) ethical “natural laws” pertaining to human activities and social life; and the contributions of these ideas to the outlook and beliefs of nineteenth century “orthodox” economists and economic liberals.”
  3. Write a summary and criticism of the main ideas or theses included in Bentham’s “utilitarianism”; and a discussion of the question whether, and how far, the same, or similar, ideas became “the basis” of economic theory, in the hands of Ricardo and of later writers.
  4. Explain the substance, and discuss the merits, of Ricardo’s arguments and “doctrines” about either(1)(a) labor and value, and (b) rent and value; or (2)(a) wages in the short run and in the long run and(b) profits.
  5. Discuss either (a) “romanticism,” and the views of Carlyle or of Ruskin about classical economics; or (b) “positivism,” and the views of Comte.
  6. Explain and discuss the main ideas and reasonings you’ve found in Jevons, von Wieser, or Wicksteed, on the topics of utility, cost, and value.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-Year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 13, Papers Printed for Mid-Year Examinations. History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …, Military Science, Naval Science. January-February, 1939.

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1938-39
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 105
Final Examination, year-end. 1939.

Write on SIX questions; omit either (3) or (4), and either (6) or (8).

  1. Describe and discuss, with reference to Marshall’s Principles, either (a) his ‘sociological’ and ‘economic’ ideas, his theory about ‘wants’ and ‘activities,’ his views about ‘free enterprise,’ his view on the direction of ‘social evolution,’ and his attitude to ‘hedonism’ and the ‘money measure’; or (b) his theories of diminishing and increasing returns, and of ‘lengths of time’ and ‘normal value.’
  2. Describe and discuss Veblen’s idea of the nature of ‘modern science’; his account and criticism of the preconceptions of classical economics; his view of what economic science should be and do; his general theory of the evolution of institutions; and his theory of the conflict of the ‘industrial’ and ‘pecuniary’ classes in modern society. Add your own appraisal of Veblen as ‘scientist,’ and your list of what seems to you his most valuable contributions to economics.
  3. Describe and discuss Mitchell’s account and criticism of the psychological basis of classical theory, and his proposals for a new approach through modern psychologies; and explain your own views on this problem.
  4. Do you think that economic theory should, in reference to social institutions, (a) only postulate various institutional set-ups as ‘given’ and study the solutions of ‘economic’ problems attainable under them, or (b) include the development of institutions in its own subject-matter, i.e. study the interactions of ‘economic’ and ‘institutional’ change? Take one position or the other, and develop your arguments for the position you take.
  5. How does Chamberlin describe and explain the main economic consequences for society of product-differentiation and oligopoly, as compared with those of pure competition? Discuss the assumptions involved in, and the significance of, this comparison. Do you think it has any implications for public policy?
  6. Describe and discuss the main features of Schumpeter’s theory of capitalist ‘development’ – his theories of the nature and rôle of entrepreneurial activity, of credit, of capital, of profits, and of the business cycle.
  7. Write anything you wish to write, on the reading you did under the May reading assignment.
  8. Write a half-hour essay on any topic of your own choice, in any way related to any of the subject-matter of the course not treated in your answers to the foregoing questions.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Final Examinations, 1853-2001. Box 4, Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …, Military Science, Naval Science. June 1939.

Image Source: Harvard Class Album 1942.

Categories
Chicago Gender

Chicago. Economics, ABD alumna, later member of U.S. Congress. Chase G. Woodhouse, 1923

 

Failure to clear the final dissertation and defence hurdle is a fate well-known under the unofficial academic acronym ABD (“all but dissertation”). Shuffling through University of Chicago economics department records this afternoon, I came across an inquiry regarding Ph.D. completion requirements from a professor of economics at Smith College. I have transcribed her letter and the encouraging response from the head of the department. Curious as to how her situation was resolved, I needed little time to discover that she had not completed her Ph.D. but nevertheless persisted professionally. She served two terms as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Connecticut and was a prominent advocate for women’s rights, serving as director of the Auerbach Women’s Service Bureau (1945-1981).

Her non-graduate student story is so interesting that I have inserted her c.v. along with the official biography from the U.S. House of Representatives.

_________________________________

Chase G. Woodhouse
b. Mar 3, 1890; d. Dec 12, 1984

CHRONOLOGY
1890 Born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Daughter of Seymour and Harriet Jackson Going.
1907-1908 Student at Science Hill School, Shelbyville, Kentucky.
1912 B.A. McGill University, Canada.
1913 M.A. Economics, McGill University, Canada.
1913-1914 Doctoral student at University of Berlin, Germany.
1915-1916 Doctoral student at University of Chicago.
1917 Fellow in Political Economy at the University of Chicago. Married Edward James Woodhouse, Professor of Government.
1917-1918 Assistant Professor of Economics at Smith College.
1918 Associate Professor of Economics at Smith College.
1920-1925 Professor of Economics at Smith College.
1921 Son, Noel Robert Seymour Woodhouse, born.
1925 Daughter, Margaret Wark Woodhouse, born.
1925-1928 U.S. Department of Agriculture.
1928-1934 Director of Personnel, Woman’s College, University of North Carolina.
1928-1944 Established and directed the Institute of Women’s Professional Relations.
1934-1944 Professor of Economics at Connecticut College.
1941-1943 Secretary of the State of Connecticut (Democrat)
1943 The Big Store.
1945-1947 Representative of the Second District (eastern) of Connecticut to the U.S. House of Representatives.
1945-1981 Director, Auerbach Women’s Service Bureau.
1946-1947 Director, Women’s Division, National Democratic Committee.
1949-1951 Second term as representative of the Second District of Connecticut to the U.S. House of Representatives.
1959-1963 Executive Committee, Connecticut Mental Health Association.
1960 Delegate to the U.S. Conference on Children and Youth.
1960-1971 Sprague (CT) Planning and Zoning Commission.
1961-1966 Executive Committee, National Council for Community Service to International Visitors; President (1965).
1962 Governor’s Committee on Libraries Governor’s Committee on a Branch of the University in Southeastern CT.
1962-1965 State Advisory Committee on Unemployment Compensation.
1962-1969 New England Governor’s Research Committee.
1963-1965 Steering Committee,
1963-1973 Board of Directors, Southeastern Connecticut Regional Planning Agency.
1964-1974 Executive Committee,
1965 Delegate, State Constitutional Convention.
1965-1966 Governor’s Clean Water Task Force.
1965-1971 Chair, Sprague Planning and Zoning Commission.
1966-1967 Chair, Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women.
1968-1971 Eastern Connecticut Resource, Conservation and Development Commission.
1969-1970 Department of Human Services.
1970-1971 Steering Committee, Governor’s Committee on Environmental Policy.
1972 Expectation Study Group, Comprehensive Health Planning, HEW.
1973 Winslow Award, Connecticut Public Health Association.
1973-1980 Permanent Commission on the Status of Women.
1974 U.S. State Department
1975 Chair, Task Force on Housing.
Chair, Commission on Connecticut’s Future.
Connecticut Humanities Council.
1981 Connecticut Magazine.
1982 Ella T. Grasso
1984 New Canaan, CT
Alfred University
Allegheny College
Honorary Degrees:
Albertus Magnus College
Publications:
University of Hartford
St. Joseph’s College
Connecticut College
Legal Rights of Children
The Big Store

Source: University of Connecticut. Archives and Special Collections. A Guide to the Chase Going Woodhouse Papers. 

_________________________________

Representative Chase Going Woodhouse,
79thCongress (1945–1947) and 81stCongress (1949–1951)

Chase Going Woodhouse, an economics professor–turned–politician, served for two nonconsecutive terms, representing a competitive district spanning eastern Connecticut. In recognition of her longtime advocacy for women in the workplace, the Democratic leadership awarded Woodhouse a prominent post on the Banking and Commerce Committee. Linking American domestic prosperity to postwar international economic cooperation, she put forward a powerful argument on behalf of U.S. participation in such organizations as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. “Only the fighting is over,” Woodhouse said in November 1945. “We still have got to win the war. And winning the war means working out a system of economic cooperation between nations.”1

Chase Going was born on March 3, 1890, in Victoria, British Columbia, the only child of American parents Seymour Going, a railroad developer and an Alaska mining pioneer, and Harriet Jackson Going, a teacher. Chase’s maternal grandmother particularly influenced her political development, taking her young granddaughter to polling places each election day to protest her inability to vote.2 In 1908, Chase Going graduated from Science Hill High School in Shelbyville, Kentucky. She studied economics at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and graduated in 1912. A year later she earned her M.A. in economics from McGill. Chase Going pursued advanced studies in political economy at the University of Berlin and, after the outbreak of the First World War, at the University of Chicago. In 1917 she married Yale political scientist Edward James Woodhouse. The couple raised two children, Noel and Margaret, and pursued their academic careers simultaneously, obtaining faculty positions at Smith College and then at the University of North Carolina. At Chapel Hill, Woodhouse founded the Institute of Women’s Professional Relations (IWPR) to study the status of working women and trends in employment. For several years, she was employed as an economist for the Bureau of Home Economics at the U.S. Agriculture Department. In 1934, she became a professor of economics at Connecticut College and initiated a series of IWPR conferences in Washington, D.C.3

Woodhouse vented her frustration with the ongoing Depression by running for political office. In 1940, the Connecticut Democratic Party convinced an initially reluctant Woodhouse to join the ticket.4 By a larger margin than any other elected official in the state, she won a two–year term as secretary of state.5 From 1943 to 1948, Woodhouse presided over the Connecticut Federation of Democratic Women’s Clubs. She served on key wartime labor boards in Connecticut, the Minimum Wage Board and the War Labor Board, chairing the latter.6 From 1942 to 1943, she also chaired the New London Democratic Town Committee.

Woodhouse later recalled that her desire for social change and economic justice for women convinced her to run for a seat in the U.S. Congress in 1944. Though she first was interested in a U.S. Senate seat, the Connecticut Democratic Party instead nominated her as a Representative.7 At the state convention, Woodhouse defeated William L. Citron, a former Congressman At–Large, by a vote of 127 to 113 among party officials.8 She earned a reputation as an indefatigable campaigner and talented public speaker, supported by an active network of labor and women’s organizations. In the general election Woodhouse faced one–term GOP incumbent John D. McWilliams, a Norwich builder and town selectman. She described the central campaign issue as the development of a postwar United Nations and international redevelopment system “that will make permanent peace possible.” Woodhouse also advocated tax reform, a plan for full peacetime employment, and more federal money for education and rural electrification programs.9 In the 1944 elections, voter turnout was high and President Franklin D. Roosevelt carried the state by a slim margin of 52 percent. Woodhouse ran even with the President, edging out McWilliams with a plurality of about 3,000 votes.

Her male House counterparts, Woodhouse recalled years later, made her feel more a colleague than part of a distinct minority. Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas steered Woodhouse onto the Committee on Banking and Currency, an influential assignment for a freshman Member and one he thought would best put her talents to use. Woodhouse’s daughter, Margaret, then in her early 20s, worked in the Washington office as executive secretary.10 Woodhouse also was innovative in that her chief political adviser, John Dempsey, was based in the district rather than in Washington, D.C. He eventually became a powerful Connecticut governor and one of the state’s longest serving chief executives.

In her first term, Woodhouse fought for the maintenance of wartime price controls as a protection against inflation for consumers and for more affordable housing for returning veterans. “I have no illusions of what a new Member of Congress can do the first year,” she told reporters. “I’m going to evaluate every piece of legislation in terms of how many jobs there will be after the war. Feed them first and reform them later!” The Harry S. Truman administration failed to heed her warnings on the issue and rolled back price controls.

The bulk of Woodhouse’s work in the 79th Congress (1945–1947) centered on issues before the Banking and Currency Committee. The committee played a large role in House approval of the $3.75 billion loan to the British government in 1946, the Bretton Woods Conference agreements, and the creation of the World Bank and the IMF. Woodhouse supported the controversial British loan, as she would the Marshall Plan later in her career, by dismissing the opposition as largely “emotional” and “psychological.” Woodhouse told colleagues in a floor speech that, “We do not, as yet, always think of ourselves in terms of the responsibilities of the greatest and richest country in the world, the country which alone has the power to determine whether or not the democratic, free enterprise system will expand or decline.”11 She was an ardent supporter of the implementation of the accords for the IMF and the World Bank, arguing that these were indispensable tools for postwar redevelopment. Even while fighting still raged in the Pacific theater, Woodhouse argued for acceptance of Bretton Woods as an important “first step” toward economic integration. “This war is being won not only by military and political cooperation, but also by economic cooperation,” Woodhouse said.12

Standing for re–election to the 80th Congress (1947–1949) in 1946, Woodhouse and other Democrats faced serious challenges at the polls. Unemployment problems created by rapid demobilization, as well as soaring prices for groceries and other staples, roiled voters. Her opponent in the general election was Horace Seely–Brown, a World War II Navy veteran who married into a family that operated a lucrative apple orchard in eastern Connecticut.13 Disaffected Democratic voters did not turn against so much as they simply stayed at home in large droves. Seely–Brown captured about 60,000 votes, roughly the same number as McWilliams had in 1944. But Woodhouse polled nearly 15,000 fewer votes than in the prior election, as her opponent won with a comfortable 55 to 45 percent margin. Backlash against Democrats was further aided by the presence of voting machines, which allowed for voting a straight party ticket with the push of a single button. Republicans swept all five Connecticut House seats, turning three Democratic incumbents out of office.

During her hiatus from Congress, Woodhouse served as executive director of the Women’s Division of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and lectured widely on the topic of women in politics.14 Eager to escape the patronage and politicking required at the DNC, Woodhouse sought a position as a staff expert for the Allied Military Governor of Germany, General Lucius Clay.15 As Clay’s economic adviser, she toured the Allied zones of occupied western Germany and kept closely informed about reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts. The DNC post provided Woodhouse public visibility, while the economic advisory role in Germany offered her input into policymaking.16 That combination made her a formidable comeback candidate in 1948 when she challenged Seely–Brown. She benefited from a larger voter turnout for the presidential election, in which she ran ahead of incumbent President Truman. Woodhouse collected nearly 70,000 votes, outpolling Seely–Brown 52 to 48 percent. Statewide, Democrats regained a majority of Connecticut’s House seats.17

During her second term in the House, Woodhouse regained her seat on the Banking and Currency Committee and received an additional assignment on the House Administration Committee. In the spring of 1949, the U.S. Navy invited “Congressman” Chase Woodhouse to make an overnight visit aboard the U.S.S. Midway. Navy rules, in fact, prohibited women from spending the night aboard ship, but the invitations were accidentally sent to Woodhouse and Reva Bosone of Utah. Bosone was unsure whether to accept. Finally, Woodhouse declared, “Of course, we ought to. After all, aren’t you a Congressman?” Bosone replied, “You bet your life I am, and I work twice as hard as most of the men.”18

Woodhouse remained a confirmed supporter of Truman administration foreign policies. In 1949, she endorsed the ratification of the North Atlantic Pact that created America’s first permanent overseas military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). “The Marshall Plan has proven its value as an effective tool of economic recovery in Europe and as a bulwark against the threatened onrush of communism,” Woodhouse told reporters, adding that the Atlantic Pact was the “next logical step.”19 Based on her extensive travels in Germany, she declared that the 1948 Berlin Airlift—which supplied blockaded Soviet–occupied East Berlin with food and supplies—was “worth every cent of the cost,” because it proved to Moscow that the Western Allies “mean business” in protecting open access to the German capital.20

In 1950, Woodhouse again faced Horace Seely–Brown in her fourth congressional campaign. Much of the midterm election focused on the Truman administration’s foreign policy, particularly the decision to intervene with military force on the Korean peninsula to halt North Korea’s invasion of South Korea. Following a trend in which the GOP regained control of Connecticut, Woodhouse lost by fewer than 2,300 votes out of 135,000 cast.21

After Congress, Woodhouse served as head of congressional relations for the Office of Price Stabilization, where she worked from 1951 until 1953. She was an early and harsh critic of McCarthyite anti–communism, especially when used for political gain.22 From 1953 until she retired in 1980 at age 90, Woodhouse served as head of the Connecticut Service Bureau for Women’s Organizations in Hartford. Woodhouse also was the first chair of the Connecticut Committee on the Status of Women and was a delegate to the Connecticut constitutional convention in 1965. She retired to a circa–1726 home on a 390–acre farm near Baltic, Connecticut. On December 12, 1984, Chase Woodhouse died in New Canaan, Connecticut.

Footnotes

1Current Biography, 1945 (New York: H.W. Wilson and Company, 1945): 690–692.

2Andree Brooks, “A Pioneer Feminist Savors Grandmother Role,” 10 May 1981, New York Times: CT 1.

3Current Biography, 1945: 691; see, for example, Marjorie Shuler, “University Women to Review Rights and Duty in New Fields,” 30 March 1927, Christian Science Monitor: 3.; Jessie Ash Arndt, “Mrs. Woodhouse Tells of Studies in Trends,” 21 May 1940, Washington Post: 13.

4Chase Going Woodhouse, Oral History Interview, U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress (hereinafter cited as USAFMOC), Manuscript Room, Library of Congress, Washington, DC: 161–165.

5“Connecticut Woman Seeks U.S. Senate Seat,” 22 July 1944, Christian Science Monitor: 5.

6Susan Tolchin, Women in Congress (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976): 83.

7“Connecticut Women Back Mrs. Woodhouse for Democratic Nominee Against Danaher,” 12 June 1944, New York Times: 11; “Connecticut Woman Seeks U.S. Senate Seat,” 22 July 1944, Christian Science Monitor: 5.

8“Mrs. Woodhouse in Race,” 13 August 1944, New York Times: 34.

9Current Biography, 1945: 691.

10“Daughter Serves Mother,” 27 July 1950, Christian Science Monitor: 5; a stand–alone photo and caption. See Woodhouse’s extensive recollections about Margaret in her Oral History Interview, USAFMOC.

11Congressional Record, House, 79th Cong., 2nd sess. (12 July 1946): 8861–8864; quote on 8861.

12Congressional Record, House, 79th Cong., 1st sess. (5 June 1945): 5584.

13Woodhouse, Oral History Interview, USAFMOC: 203–205.

14“Democrats Give Post to Mrs. Woodhouse,” 15 February 1947, New York Times: 3; “Political Apathy Decried by Women,” 17 April 1948, Washington Post: B4; see also, “Mrs. Woodhouse Off on Democratic Tour of 17 States With a Gibe at Mrs. Taft,” 3 October 1947, New York Times: 4.

15Woodhouse, Oral History Interview, USAFMOC: 261–262.

16Ibid.

17“Election Statistics, 1920 to Present,”  http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/index.aspx.

18Woodhouse, Oral History Interview, USAFMOC: 41

19Alexander R. George, “Hoover Reorganization Plans No. 1 on Lady Legislators’ Lists,” 3 July 1949, Washington Post: S4.

20“Rep. Woodhouse Finds Berlin Lift a Bargain,” 4 March 1949, Washington Post: C5.

21“Election Statistics, 1920 to Present,” http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/index.aspx.

22“Smear Campaigns Laid to ‘Traitors,'” 19 November 1950, New York Times: 38.

Source:  U. S. House of Representatives, Website: History, Art & Archives; article “Woodhouse, Chase Going”.

_________________________________

Smith College
Department of Economics and Sociology
Northampton, Massachusetts

88 Crescent Street
May 7, 1923.

Dean L.C. Marshall,
University of Chicago,
Chicago, Ill.

My dear Mr. Marshall:

It seems rather daring for a person who teaches sociology eleven months in the year to think of a Ph.D. in economics but I hope to complete the requirements for that degree in the not too distant future. With that in view may I ask you a few questions?

Would your department be willing to accept as a thesis a study of the relation between the state and labor in Massachusetts—the statute law and common law governing that relation and the economic and political theories underlying that law? I have a large part of such a study completed and would like to substitute it for the Financial History of Montreal which it was agree I was to offer. It has not been possible for me to be in Montreal at any time during the last four years and of course there is no material on that subject here.

Also I am not certain of my interpretation of the statement in the catalog in regard to the written examinations. Does it include the work done for the minor or is that still treated in a separate oral examination? If two writtens are taken on what basis does the department prefer to have the work divided? If two examinations are taken is it very difficult to obtain permission to have them separated by more than three months if something should happen to make that seem necessary? And further, would it be possible under any circumstances to take the written examinations here under the supervision of the Librarian or of the President’s office? I teach at the Smith College School for Social Work in the Summer so that it is quite a problem to get away for several days.

Very sincerely yours,
[signed]
Chase Going Woodhouse

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

[Carbon copy, response]
May 14, 1923

Mrs. Chase Going Woodhouse
88 Crescent Street
Northampton, Massachusetts

My dear Mrs. Woodhouse:

Upon a good many occasions we have been wondering whether you would not go on and finish your work with us and the suggestions sketched in your recent letter seem entirely feasible ones. In particular, the thesis subject which you cite is perfectly satisfactory as the title of a thesis in Economics.

As for the written examinations the situation is as follows:

  1. These written examinations cover only the field of the major department.
  2. If the examinations are divided into two parts the division may be made on any basis desired by the candidate.
  3. We have already abolished the regulation that not more than three months may intervene.
  4. We can readily make arrangements for the examination to be supervised at Smith.

And not it is to be noticed that there is no necessity of your taking these written examinations unless you prefer to do so. When your curriculum was blocked out the arrangement was that there was to be a final oral examination in which the major and the minor departments would participate. This still holds. However, anyone who wishes to shift to the new basis may do so. If you do make the shift then your final oral examination, so far as the major department is concerned, will lie primarily in the field of your thesis.

Of course, I shall be very glad indeed to answer any questions which may arise.

Yours very sincerely,
[unsigned, L.C. Marshall]

LCM: EL

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics Records. Box 38,  Folder 3.

Image Source:  Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b02033

 

Categories
Columbia Economist Market Race

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, Brailsford Reese Brazeal, 1942

Brazeal01

 

Two quick quotes from the brief biographical articles below about Brailsford R. Brazeal, an African American economics Ph.D. (Columbia, 1942), as amuse-bouche for this post.

“Dr. Brazeal conducted some of the research for his dissertation [on the Pullman sleeping car porters] by working as an assistant cook in the trains’ kitchens on the New York City line that traveled south.”

“It was Dr. Brazeal, who first recommended the young minister [Martin Luther King!] for acceptance at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.  Dr.  Brazeal wrote that King would mix well with the white race.” [The letter of recommendation]

_______________________

BRAILSFORD REESE BRAZEAL
b. Mar 8, 1903; d. Apr 22 1981

Ph.D., Columbia University, 1942.

TITLE OF DISSERTATION: “The Origin and Development of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.” (published: New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946.

_______________________

BRAILSFORD BRAZEAL
A Man of Morehouse

Posted by Scott B. Thompsons, Sr.

When you think of Morehouse College, you think of tradition — a tradition of higher learning for African-American college students.  When you go back seventy-five years, you think of a day unlike today when a mere few, the lucky few, had the opportunity to attend an institution of higher learning, much less one with the honorable tradition as Morehouse.  For nearly four decades, one Laurens County native helped the school rise to the prominence it still retains today.

Brailsford Reese Brazeal was born in Dublin, Georgia on March 8, 1903.  The son of the Rev. George Reese Brazeal and Walton Troup Brazeal, young Brailsford attended Georgia State College and Ballard Normal School in Macon.    Late in his life Dr. Brazeal recalled that it was his Baptist preacher father’s guidance and teachings that kindled his imagination as to what was beyond his neighborhood.  Brazeal recalled that his mother and his oldest aunt, Flora L. Troup pushed him to leave Dublin because he wouldn’t be able to obtain anything but an elementary education in Dublin.  His uncle and namesake Brailsford Troup gave him a job during summers as a carpenter’s helper.  Brazeal realized that the life of a laborer is not what he wanted and promised himself that he would do all that he could to break the barriers of race and segregation.

He completed his studies  at Morehouse Academy, a high school, in 1923.  While at Morehouse College, Brazeal came to know Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, who served as his debate coach in college and would later serve as President of Morehouse.   After graduating from Morehouse in 1927, Brazeal continued his studies and obtained a master’s degree in Economics  from the ultimately prestigious Columbia University in 1928.

Brazeal was immediately hired as a Professor of Economics by Dr. John Hope, his alma mater’s first black president.    By 1934, Brazeal was chosen to chair the Department of Economics and Business.  He was also selected to serve as the Dean of Men, a post which he held until 1936.

In his early years at Morehouse, Brailsford met and married Ernestine Erskine of Jackson, Mississippi.  Mrs. Brazeal was a graduate of Spellman College in Atlanta.  An educator in her own right, Mrs. Brazeal held a Master’s Degree in American History from the University of Chicago.  She taught at Spelman and served for many years as the Alumni Secretary.  To those who knew and loved her, Mrs. Brazeal was known to the be the superlative historian of Spelman History, though she never published the culmination of  her vast knowledge.

The Brazeals were the parents of two daughters.  Aurelia Brazeal is a career diplomat and has recently served as the United States Ambassador to Ethopia, Kenya and Micronesia.  Ernestine Brazeal has long been an advocate for the Headstart Program.

The Brazeal home in Atlanta was often a home away from home for Morehouse students.  Especially present were the freshmen who inhabited the home on weekends and after supper for the fellowship and guidance from the Brazeals.  Among these students were the nation’s greatest civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Maynard Jackson, the first black mayor of Atlanta.   It was Dr. Brazeal, who first recommended the young minister for acceptance at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania.  Dr.  Brazeal wrote that King would mix well with the white race. The Brazeal’s bought the four square home near Morehouse in 1940.  Today, the home at 193 Ashby Street (now Joseph Lowery Boulevard) was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

Through scholarships, Brailsford Brazeal was named a Julius Rosenwald Fellow and in 1942, obtained his Ph. D. from Columbia University in economics.  As a part of his doctoral dissertation, Dr. Brazeal wrote about the formation of the of one of the first labor unions for black workers.  In 1946, Brazeal published his signature work The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.    For decades, labor researchers often cited Brazeal’s writings  in his landmark work and other papers and journal articles.

During the 1950s, Brazeal worked in voter registration movements.  He wrote extensively about racial discrimination in voting, especially in his native state. He detailed many of the activities in his home county of Laurens. In his Studies of Negro Voting in Eight Rural Counties in Georgia and One in South Carolina, Brazeal examined and wrote of the  efforts of H.H. Dudley and C.H. Harris to promote more black participation in voting in Laurens County.  He chronicled the wars between the well entrenched county sheriff Carlus Gay and State Representative Herschel Lovett and their desire and competition for the black vote.   He wrote of fair employment practices, desegregation of higher education, voter disfranchisement of black voters, voter registration, and many other civil rights matters.

The members of the National Association of College Deans elected Dr. Brazeal as their president in 1947. Brazeal a member of the Executive Committee of the American Conference of Academic Deans and as a vice-president of the American Baptist Educational Institutions.

During his career Dr. Brazeal was a member of the American Economic Association, the Academy of Political Science, the Southern Sociological Society, the Advisory Council of Academic Freedom Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union, the N.A.A.C.P., the Twenty Seven Club, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Sigma Pi Phil, Delta Sigma Rho and the Friendship Baptist Church.

In 1967, Dr. Brazeal was inducted into the prestigious national honor society, Phi Beta Kappa as an alumni member of Delta Chapter  of Columbia University.  He organized a chapter at Morehouse, known to many as one of the “Ivy League” schools for African Americans.

Dr. Brazeal retired in 1972 after a career of more than forty years, many of which he served as Dean of the College.  At the age of seventy eight he died in Atlanta on April 22, 1981. His body lies next to that of his wife, who died in 2002, in Southview Cemetery in Atlanta.

Source:  Laurens County African American History (blog). Monday, February 3, 2014

___________________________

HE WAS A MOREHOUSE MAN:
THE LEGACY OF BRAILSFORD REESE BRAZEAL

Jeanne Cyriaque, African American Programs Coordinator
Historic Preservation Division

Brailsford Reese Brazeal was an African American economist and Dean of Academics at Morehouse College. From the late 1920s until he retired from Morehouse College in 1972, Dr. Brazeal’s leadership in research, publications, and academic standards helped Morehouse College achieve national significance as an institution of higher learning. Brazeal was a native of Dublin (Laurens County). He attended Macon’s Ballard Normal School until his family moved to Atlanta, where Brazeal completed high school at Morehouse Academy in 1923. Brazeal received his bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College in 1927, and completed his master’s degree in economics at Columbia University in 1928.

Dr. John Hope, who was Morehouse College’s first African American president, hired Brazeal as an economics instructor in 1928. By 1934, Brazeal was a professor of economics, head of the Department of Economics and Business Administration, and Dean of Men. Brailsford Brazeal was the recipient of two fellowships from the Julius Rosenwald Fund to pursue advanced studies in economics. While the history of the Rosenwald Fund community school building program is widely known, the fund also provided fellowships to many African American scholars. With this assistance and aid from Morehouse College, Brazeal received his Ph.D. in economics and political science from Columbia University in 1942.

Brailsford Brazeal published The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1946. This book was based upon his dissertation research on the Pullman train-car porters and their successful efforts to form America’s first African American labor union. This book remains a standard reference in labor history, American economic history and race relations. Brazeal subsequently wrote an unpublished biography about the Brotherhood’s union leader, A. Philip Randolph.

When George Pullman first arrived in Chicago in 1859, he had learned the art of moving buildings from his father, Lewis Pullman, who had patented a device to roll huge edifices away from the banks of the Erie Canal. After successfully applying this skill in a number of public works projects in Chicago, George Pullman envisioned a hotel on wheels with his luxurious, “palace” sleeping cars. To provide overnight accommodations and dining to the emerging middle class traveler, Pullman needed a workforce to provide personal services. This workforce who provided the necessary work of bellhop, cook, dining car attendant, maid and janitor were called Pullman porters, and they were African American men. Dr. Brazeal conducted some of the research for his dissertation by working as an assistant cook in the trains’ kitchens on the New York City line that traveled south.

Pullman porters worked longer hours and made considerably lower wages than whites, as they monopolized other positions such as conductors on the Pullman sleeping cars. Yet, a porter job provided unique employment opportunities that encouraged the Great Migration of thousands of African Americans from the segregated south. The Pullman porters relied on tips from their expert personal services, and were discouraged from forming unions.

By 1925, the Pullman Company was the nation’s largest private employer of African Americans, and the company used intimidation tactics, company spies, and harassment to deny the porters’ pensions and company benefits. Dr. Brazeal’s book discussed how A. Philip Randolph and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters organized an eleven-year effort to eventually be presented an international charter by the American Federation of Labor in 1936.

In 1962, Cornelius V. Troup published Distinguished Negro Georgians. Brailsford Brazeal wrote the introduction to this book while he was Academic Dean at Morehouse College. “Although I am a native Georgian and have lived and worked in Georgia virtually all of my life, I have learned for the first time that many distinguished persons whom I know or have read about are also natives of this state. Many of them were born in remote places in the state and had to obtain their education in vicarious ways which were enough to baffle and discourage persons of even extra-ordinary ability.” Brazeal’s comments on African American education in Georgia pointed out the fact that “without private, church-supported schools many of the persons mentioned in this book would never have attained an education which proved to be the key to their achievements.”

In 1933, Brailsford Reese Brazeal married Ernestine Erskine of Jackson, Mississippi. Ernestine Brazeal was a graduate of Spelman College. She received her master’s degree in American history at the University of Chicago. Mrs. Brazeal taught at Spelman and served as the college’s alumnae secretary. In 2003, the Spelman College Messenger featured an article about Mrs. Ernestine Erksine Brazeal that was written by one of her former students, Taronda Spencer. She is the Spelman College archivist and historian. “I learned how to be a Spelman woman from her example. Because of Mrs. Brazeal’s foresight, scholars and researchers are documenting the importance of Spelman’s place in the history of women’s education nationally and internationally. Her legacy and her spirit will forever be an integral part of the essence of Spelman.”

In 1940, Brailsford Reese Brazeal purchased an American Foursquare-type house that is located just west of Morehouse College. Brazeal made few changes to this house during his lifetime. In 1962, a rear addition was added that reflected mid-20th- century ranch house influences, such as built-in bookcases and a stone fireplace.

The home, now on Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard (formerly 193 Ashby Street), was constructed in 1927 by the Adair Construction Company. It was occupied by members of the Adair family until 1939. Charles Hubert, acting president of Morehouse College, leased the home prior to the Brazeal purchase (1940). The home was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on April 8, 2005.

Soon, the Brazeals had two daughters: Ernestine and Aurelia. Though the Brazeals lived in a segregated south, Ernestine Brazeal did not want her children to be born in segregated hospitals, and traveled to Chicago to have both of her daughters. Ernestine and Aurelia Brazeal attended a private girls’ school in Massachusetts, and both are Spelman alumnae.

Aurelia Brazeal is a diplomat in residence at Howard University. She is a former Ambassador to Ethiopia, Kenya, and the Federated States of Micronesia. She promotes job opportunities for the Department of State to students who are pursuing Foreign Service careers. Ernestine Brazeal recently retired from her advocacy career at Head Start in the greater Atlanta area. She lives in the Brazeal home. Ernestine Brazeal supports the work and ideas of the Spelman College Women’s Research and Resource Center. The center ensures a feminist environment for scholarship, activism, leadership and change.

The Brazeal House was always a place where students could gather for mentoring sessions with Dr. Brazeal in a family atmosphere. One Morehouse tradition that Dr. Brazeal particularly liked was to invite freshmen students to his home during their first week at Morehouse College. The students would have a chance to socialize with distinguished faculty and alumni. Maynard Jackson,Martin Luther King, Jr. and Warner Meadows were guests at these sessions in the Brazeal House during their college careers at Morehouse.

The Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa elected Brailsford Brazeal for alumnus membership at Columbia University. Brazeal envisioned a Phi Beta Kappa chapter at his institution, and by 1967, it was approved for Morehouse College. In 1961, while serving as the advisor for the honors program at Morehouse College, Brazeal achieved additional support from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Under his guidance, Morehouse College was second among Georgia institutions in the number of students receiving Woodrow Wilson fellowships.

Brailsford Reese Brazeal was an active participant in voter education and registration drives throughout Georgia in the 1960s. He retired from the faculty of Morehouse College in 1972, after a career that spanned over 40 years. He died in his home in 1981. Brailsford and Ernestine Brazeal are buried at South View Cemetery, an African American cemetery that was established in 1886 by nine Atlanta black businessmen.

Source: Reflections: Georgia African American Historic Preservation Network. Vol. VI, No. 1 (April, 2006).

 

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Life and works of political economy and philosophy professor Francis Bowen (1811-1890).

 

This post is dedicated to the life and works of Harvard professor Francis Bowen who taught political economy courses when not teaching philosophy and constitutional law courses decades before economics became an established department of its own. The biography comes from a reference work published at the turn of the 20th century “Universities and their Sons”. I managed to add links to all of the works by Bowen cited in the biographical article transcribed below. 

Here a less than flattering description of Francis Bowen’s pedagogical style with respect to political economy written by Harvard President Charles W. Eliot looking back to the start of his election in 1869.

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Exams for courses of Francis Bowen
transcribed at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror

1867-68

Seniors, Political Economy, January 1868

1868-69

Seniors, Political Economy, June 1869

1869-70

Seniors, First-term. Political Economy, December 1869.

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BOWEN, Francis, 1811-1890.

Born in Charlestown, Mass., 1811; graduate of Harvard, 1833; Instructor in Intellectual Philosophy and Political Economy at the same Institution, 1835-1839; Editor and Proprietor of the North American Review; delivered Lowell Institute Lectures in Boston; succeeded Dr. Walker in the Alford Professorship at Harvard; and “Emeritus” Professor at the time of his death, (1890).

FRANCIS BOWEN, LL.D., Alford Professor at Harvard, was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, September 8, 1811. He was graduated at Harvard in 1833, two years later becoming Instructor in Natural Philosophy and Political Economy. While studying in Europe (1839-1841) he formed the acquaintance of such noted scholars as Sismondi and De Gerando. Returning to Cambridge, he, in 1843, took charge of the North American Review, as Editor and proprietor, and conducted that magazine for nearly eleven years. During the years 1848-1849 he lectured before the Lowell Institute, Boston, on the application of Metaphysical and Ethical Science to the Evidences of Religion. On account of his having taken the unpopular side in the Review on the “Hungarian Question,” the Board of Overseers of Harvard would not concur with the Corporation in appointing him to the McLean Professorship of History in 1850. In the winter of that year he again lectured before the Lowell Institute on Political Economy, and in 1852 his subjects were the Origin and Development of the English and American Constitutions. Upon the election of Dr. Walker to the Presidency of Harvard (1853), Mr. Bowen received almost unanimous confirmation by the Overseers as Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy and Civil Polity, holding that Chair continuously until 1888, when he became Professor “Emeritus.” He was also for some time the Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Phillips-Exeter Academy. His subsequent Lowell Institute lectures were devoted to the English metaphysicians and philosophers from Bacon to Sir William Hamilton. Professor Bowen died in 1890. He was a fellow of the American Academy and a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. His published works consist of: Virgil, with English notes; Critical Essays on the History and Present Condition of Speculative Philosophy; Lowell Lectures; an abridged edition of Dugald Stewart’s Philosophy of the Human Mind; Documents of the Constitution of England and America, from Magna Charta to the Federal Constitution of 1789; the lives of Steuben, Otis, and Benjamin Lincoln, in Sparks’ American Biography; Principles of Political Economy Applied to the Condition, Resources and Institutions of the American People; a revised edition of Reeve’s translation of de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America; a Treatise on Logic; American Political Economy, with remarks on the finances since the beginning of the Civil War; Modern Philosophy, from Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartmann; Gleanings from a Literary Life, 1838-1880; and A Layman’s Study of the English Bible, considered in its Literary and Secular Aspect.

Source: “Francis Bowen” in Universities and their sons. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, ed. Vol. 2 (Boston: R. Herndon Company, 1900), pp. 144-145.

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Links to Bowen’s Work Cited

Virgil, with English Notes (Boston: David H. Williams, 1842).

Critical Essays on the History and Present Condition of Speculative Philosophy (Boston: H.B. Williams, 1842).

Lowell Lectures on the Application of Metaphysical and Ethical Science to the Evidences of Religion. Lectures at the Lowell Institute, Winters of 1848-49. (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1849).

Abridged edition of Dugald Stewart’s [Elements of the] Philosophy of the Human Mind (Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1859).

Documents of the Constitution of England and America, from Magna Charta to the Federal Constitution of 1789(Cambridge, MA: John Bartlett, 1854).

The lives of Baron Steuben (Vol. 9), Sir William Phips, (Vol. 7), James Otis (Vol. 2), and Benjamin Lincoln, (Second Series, Vol. 13) in Jared Sparks, ed. The Library of American Biography.

The Principles of Political Economy applied to the Condition, the Resources, and the Institutions of the American People (2ndedition, 1859).

Revised edition of Reeve’s translation of de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Volume I (2nd ed., 1863); Volume II (2nd ed., 1863). Cambridge: Sever and Francis.

A Treatise on Logic. (Cambridge, MA: Sever and Francis, 1864)

American Political Economy; including Strictures of the Currency and the Finances since 1861 ((New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1870). 

Modern Philosophy, from Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartmann (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1877).

Gleanings from a Literary Life, 1838-1880 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1880), in which are reprinted:

A minority Report on the Silver Question. Presented to the Senate of the United States, in April, 1877

The Perpetuity of National Debt. A suppressed Chapter of Political Economy, read before the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in March, 1868

The Financial Conduct of the War. A Lecture delivered before the Lowell Institute, in Boston, in November, 1865.

The Utility and the Limitations of the Science of Political Economy. From the Christian Examiner for March, 1838.

A Layman’s Study of the English Bible, considered in its Literary and Secular Aspect (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1885).

 

Image Source: “Francis Bowen” in Universities and their sons. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, ed. Vol. 2 (Boston: R. Herndon Company, 1900), p. 144.

 

 

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exam questions for “The Labor Question in Europe and the U.S.” Edward Cummings, 1894

 

Edward Cummings, the father of the poet E. E. Cummings, covered the social economics course offerings at Harvard at the end of the 19th century. These included courses in labor economics and social reform movements (esp. “socialism and communism”). The exams for his comparative labor course from 1893-94 mostly consisted of specific unidentified quotations, with students asked to provide explanations or comments. The text-search functions at hathitrust.org, archive.org and google located a dozen of the quotations used by Cummings and links to the texts have been provided below.

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Course Description
(from 1896-97)

The Labor Question in Europe and the United States. — The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen. Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor Edward Cummings and Dr. John Cummings.    (VIII)

Course 9 is a comparative study of the condition and environments of workingmen in the United States and European countries. It is chiefly concerned with problems growing out of the relations of labor and capital. There is careful study of the voluntarily organizations of labor, — trade unions, friendly societies, and the various forms of cooperation; of profit-sharing, sliding scales, and joint standing committees for the settlement of disputes ; of factory legislation, employers’ liability, the legal status of laborers and labor organizations, state courts of arbitration, and compulsory government insurance against the exigencies of sickness, accident, and old age. All these expedients, together with the phenomena of international migration, the questions of a shorter working day and convict labor, are discussed in the light of experience and of economic theory, with a view to determining the merits, defects, and possibilities of existing movements.

The descriptive and theoretical aspects of the course are supplemented by statistical evidence in regard to wages, prices, standards of living, and the social condition of labor in different countries.

Topics will be assigned for special investigation, and students will be expected to participate in the discussion of selections from authors recommended for a systematic course of reading.

The course is open not only for students who have taken Course 1, but to Juniors and Seniors of good rank who are taking Course 1.

 

Source: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, pp. 36-37.

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Course Enrollment
1893-94

[Economics] 9. Asst. Professor Cummings. — The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen in the United States and in other countries. 3 hours.

Total 43: 7 Graduates, 16 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 5 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 61.

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Mid-year Examination
ECONOMICS 9
1893-94.

(Arrange your answers in the order in which the questions stand. So far as possible illustrate your discussions by a comparison of the experience of different countries. Omit two questions.)

  1. “It becomes my duty, therefore, in undertaking to interpret the social movement of our own times, to disclose, first, those changes in industrial methods by which harmony in industries has been disturbed, and then to trace the influence of such changes into the structure of society.” State carefully what these changes have been; and trace their influence.
    [Henry C. Adams. “An Interpretation of the Social Movements of our Time”, International Journal of Ethics, Vol II, October, 1891), p. 33]
  2. Discuss the effect upon wages of machinery, — (a) as a substitute for labor (b) as auxiliary to labor; (c) as affecting division of labor; (d) as concentrating labor and capital; (e) as affecting the nobility[sic, “mobility”] of labor and capital.
  3. “In my opinion, combination among workingmen is a necessary step in the re-crystallization of industrial rights and duties.” State fully your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with this opinion. What forms of combination do you include?
    [Henry C. Adams. “An Interpretation of the Social Movements of our Time”, International Journal of Ethics, Vol II, October, 1891), p. 45]
  4. “Trade-unions have been stronger in England than on the Continent, and in America….” In what respects stronger? Why? Contrast briefly the history and present tendencies of the trade-union movement in the United States, England, France, Germany, and Italy.
    [Alfred Marshall, Elements of Economics of Industry: being the First Volume of Elements of Economics (London: Macmillan, 1892), Book VI, Ch. XIII. §18, p. 404]
  5. “Trade-unions have been stronger in England than on the Continent, and in America; and wages have been higher in England than on the Continent, but lower than in America.” “Again, those occupations in which wages have risen most in England happen to be those in which there are no unions.” How far do such facts impeach the effectiveness of trade-unions as a means of raising wages and improving the condition of workingmen? What do you conceive to be the economic limits and the proper sphere of trade-union action?
    [Alfred Marshall, Elements of Economics of Industry: being the First Volume of Elements of Economics (London: Macmillan, 1892), Book VI, Ch. §18, pp. 404-405.]
  6. “We saw at the beginning that in comparatively recent years the difficulties of keeping up a purely offensive and defensive organization had brought many of the unions back nearer their old allies, the friendly societies, and emphasized the friendly benefits in proportion as the expenditure for trade disputes seemed less important.” Explain carefully this earlier and later relation of trade-unions and Friendly Societies in England.
    [Edward Cummings, The English Trades-Unions, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. III (July, 1889), p. 432.]
  7. “This spirit of independent self-help has its advantages and its disadvantages. We have already had occasion to remark how slow in these Friendly Societies has been the progress of reform, and we must repeat that up to the present day it still exhibits defects.” Explain and illustrate the progress of the reform and the nature of existing defects. Does English self-help experience suggest the desirability or undesirability of imitating German methods of compulsory insurance?
  8. “Countless[sic, “Doubtless” in original] boards of arbitration and conciliation, the establishment of certain rules of procedure, agreements covering definite periods of time, may aid somewhat in averting causes of dispute or in adjusting disputes as they arise; but if we have these alone to look to, strife will be the rule rather than the exception.” Explain the various methods adopted and the results obtained. What have you to say of “compulsory arbitration?”
    [Francis A. Walker. “What Shall We Tell the Working Classes?” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 2, 1887.  Reprinted in Discussions in Economics and Statistics, edited by Davis R. Dewey. Vol. II. 315-316.]
  9. “The conclusion of the whole matter seems to be, that what is desirable is not so much to put a stop to sub-contracting as to put a stop to ‘sweating,’ whether the man who treats the workman in the oppressive manner which the word ‘sweating’ denotes be a sub-contractor, a piece-master, or a contractor.” Indicate briefly some of the principal forms of industrial remuneration, — giving the special merits and defects of each.
    [David F. Schloss. Methods of Industrial Remuneration (London: Williams and Norgate, 1892), p. 140.]
  10. “Now that I am on piece-work, I am making about double what I used to make when on day-work. I know I am doing wrong. I am taking away the work of another man.” State and criticize the theory involved in this view of production.
    [David F. Schloss. Methods of Industrial Remuneration (London: Williams and Norgate, 1892), p. 43-44.]

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year, 1893-94.

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Year-End Examination
ECONOMICS 9.
1893-94.

(Arrange your answers in the order in which the questions stand. So far as possible illustrate your discussions by a comparison of the experience of different countries. Take the first three questions and four others.)

  1. “As soon, however, as the factory system was established, the inequality of women and children in their struggle with employers attracted the attention of even the most careless observers; and, attention once drawn to this circumstance, it was not long before the inequality of adult men was also brought into prominence.” How far is this true (a) of England, (b) of the United States? Trace briefly the legislative consequences for children and for adults in the two countries.
    [Arnold Toynbee. Lectures on the Industrial Revolution of the 18th Century in England (The Humboldt Library of Popular Science Literature, Vol. 13. New York: Humboldt Publishing Co.), p. 17.]
  2. “It will be necessary, in the first place, to distinguish clearly between the failure of Industrial Coöperation and the failure of the coöperative method—a method, as we have seen, adopted, even partially, by only a very small fraction of Industrial Coöperation.” Explain carefully, discussing especially the evidence furnished by France and England.
  3. “These four concerns—the Maison Leclaire, the Godin Foundry, the Coöperative Paper Works of Angoulême and the Bon Marché—are virtually coöperative; certainly they secure to the employers and stockholders the substantial benefits of purely coöperative productive enterprises, while they are still, logically, profit-sharing establishments.” State your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing. Indicate briefly the characteristic features of each enterprise.
  4. “What inferences are we to draw from the foregoing statistics? Unmistakably this, that the higher daily wages in America do not mean a correspondingly enhanced labor cost to the manufacturer. But why so?” Discuss the character of available evidence in regard to the United States, Great Britain and the continent of Europe.
    [E. R. L. Gould. The Social Condition of Labor (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, January 1893), pp. 41-2.]
  5. “The juxtaposition of figures portraying the social-economic status of workmen of different nationalities in the country of their birth and the land of their adoption furnishes lessons of even higher interest. From this we are able to learn the social effect of economic betterment.” Explain. How do the facts in question affect your attitude toward recent changes in the character and volume of our immigration?
    [E. R. L. Gould. The Social Condition of Labor (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, January 1893), pp. 35-6.]
  6. “The Senate Finance Committee issued some time ago a comparative exhibit of prices and wages for fifty-two years, from which the conclusion is generally drawn that the condition of the wage earner is better to-day than it was thirty or forty years ago. A conclusion of this kind reveals the weakness of even the best statistics. No one can doubt that the work of the Finance Committee is work of high excellence, but for comparing the economic condition of workers it is of little value.” Do you agree or disagree? Why? Indicate briefly the character of the evidence.
  7. What are the principle organizations which may be said to represent the “Labor Movement” in the United States at the present time? How far are they helpful and how far hostile to one another?
  8. “In a preceding chapter I have said that as a moral force and as a system the factory system of industry is superior to the domestic system, which it supplanted.” State your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing.
    [Carroll D. Wright. Factory Legislation from Vol. II, Tenth Census of the United States, reprinted in First Annual Report of the Factory Inspectors of the State of New York (Albany, 1887), p. 41.]
  9. Contrast the English and the German policy in regard to Government Workingmen’s Insurance.
  10. “Gladly turning to more constructive work, I next consider some industrial changes and reforms which would tend to correct the present bias towards individualism.” What are they?
  11. Give an imaginary family budget for American, English and German operatives in one of the following industries, — coal, iron, steel, cotton, wool, glass, indicating roughly characteristic differences in such items as throw most light on the social condition of labor.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95.pp. 39-41.

Image Source: University and their Sons. History, Influence and Characteristics of American Universities with Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Alumni and Recipients of Honorary Degrees. Editor-in-chief, General Joshua L. Chamberlain, LL.D. Vol II (1899), pp. 155-156.

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Readings, midterm and final exams for economic growth course. Kuznets, 1960-61

 

Simon Kuznets (b. 1901; d. 1985) left Johns Hopkins University to join the Harvard economics faculty beginning with the 1960-61 academic year. This post provides the reading list and exams for Kuznets’ signature course on economic growth from his first year as a Harvard professor. 

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 203 Economic Growth and Comparative Economic Structures. Professor Kuznets. Full course.

(F) Total 23: 12 Graduates, 1 Senior, 1 Junior, 2 Radcliffe, 7 Other Graduate.

(S) Total 22: 12 Graduates, 1 Senior, 1 Junior, 2 Radcliffe, 6 Other Graduates.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1960-1961, p. 77.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics
Economics 203

Long Term Changes and International Differences—National Income and its Components

GENERAL

  1. Simon Kuznets, “National Income and Industrial Structure,” in Economic Change, Chapter 6, 145-192.
  2. Simon Kuznets, “International Differences in Income Levels,” ibid., pp. 216-252.
  3. Colin Clark, Conditions of Economic Progress, 3rd Edition 1957 or any of the earlier editions (for browsing).
  4. M. Gilbert and I.B. Kravis, An International Comparison of National Products and the Purchasing Power of Currencies, Paris, O.E.E.C., 1954.
    or (Comparative National Products and Price Levels, 1958)

RATES OF GROWTH

  1. Simon Kuznets, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. V, no. 1, October 1956.
  2. Simon Kuznets, Six Lectures on Economic Growth, Free Press, 1959, pp. 13-41.

INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE

  1. A.G.B. Fisher, The Class of Progress and Security, London 1935.
  2. E.M. Ojala, Agriculture and Economic Progress, Oxford University Press, 1952.
  3. T.W. Schultz, The Economic Organization of Agriculture, N.Y. 1953, part I.
  4. Hollis B. Chenery, “Patterns of Industrial Growth,” American Economic Review, September 1960, pp. 624-654.
  5. P.T. Bauer and B.S. Yamey, Economic Journal, December 1951, pp. 741-755.
  6. Simon Kuznets, Economic Development and Cultural Change, (a) Supplement to No. 4, Vol. V, July 1957; (b) Part 2, Vol. VI, July 1958, also Six Lectures on Economic Growth, pp. 43-67.

FACTOR SHARES

  1. R. M. Solow, “The Constancy of Relative Shares,” American Economic Review, September 1952, pp. 618-30.
  2. I. B. Kravis, “Relative Income Shares in Fact and Theory,” American Economic Review, December 1959, pp. 917-947.
  3. Simon Kuznets, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. III, No. 3, Part 2, April 1959.

CAPITAL FORMATION

  1. M. Abramovitz, ed., Capital Formation and Economic Growth, Princeton 1955. Papers by Kuznets, Goldsmith, Usher, MacLaurin, and Rostow.
  2. Simon Kuznets, Economic Development and Cultural Change,
    (a) Vol. VIII, no. 4, Part II, July 1960.
    (b) Vol. IX, no. 3, Part II, April 1961

CONSUMPTION PATTERNS

  1. M. K. Bennett, “International Disparities in Consumption Levels,” American Economic Review, September 1951, pp. 632-649.
  2. Simon Kuznets, Regional Economic Trends and Levels of Living,” in P.M. Hauser, Population and World Politics, Free Press 1958.
  3. International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, Income and Wealth Series II, Chapter VI, particularly pp. 167-177. (1953)

INCOME DISTRIBUTION BY SIZE

  1. I. B. Kravis, “International Differences in the Distribution of Income,” The Review of Economics and Statistics, November 1960, pp. 402-416.
  2. Simon Kuznets, “Economic Growth and Income Inequality,” American Economic Review, March 1955, pp. 1-28.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 8, Folder “Economics, 1960-1961 (2 of 2)”.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Economics 203
Midyear Examination
January 1961

Choose 6 out of the 8 questions, omitting one out of group 2-5 and one out of group 6-8.

Please write clearly and concisely. An outline of the answer rather than a full presentation is also acceptable, provided the outline is sufficiently detailed and informative.

  1. Outline the time pattern of rates of natural increase of population in the transition from the pre-modern period to modern growth, distinguishing movements of birth rates and death rates, separately for the older (European) and younger (overseas) countries. Comment briefly on probable causes.
  2. State the connection between Malthus’ population theory, the theory of differential rent, the law of diminishing returns, the iron law of wages, and the theory of long-term trends in distribution of national product and of the approach to the stationary state.
  3. Outline the types of evidence claimed in support of Pearl’s “law of population growth” and comment on their validity.
  4. What is the general structure of assumptions underlying an empirical projection of population growth? Distinguish the theory of the model from the theory of deviations and comment briefly on each.
  5. Indicate the reasons adduced by Alvin Hansen to demonstrate the depressive effects on economic growth of retardation in the growth of population, and evaluate them.
  6. Outline the major features of trans-ocean trade in the centuries immediately prior to the industrial revolution, and the various contributions made by it to the emergence of modern capitalism.
  7. Why was the industrial revolution concentrated primarily in cotton, iron, steel, and steam power?
  8. Discuss the slackening in the rate of technical change in the cotton textile industry after the mid-nineteenth century, as well as in the economic effects of technical change in the industry. Indicate both the ways of measuring the changes, and the reasons for slackening in the rate of their occurrence.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Social Sciences, Final Examinations. Vol. 131. January 1961. Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …, Naval Science, Air Science. January 1961.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Economics 203
Final Examination
June 6, 1961

Answer at least 4 questions, choosing at least one from each of the four Roman numeral groups. You may answer more if you wish. A detailed outline of an answer, instead of a complete text, is acceptable.

Group I

  1. In what sense is the association between technical changes and scientific discoveries, illustrated by the history of the radio industry, different from that characterizing the inventions of the Industrial Revolution? Discuss.
  2. Outline (and discuss) factors making for a retardation in the rate of growth, observable in most specific industries in the Western European countries and in the United States.

Group II

  1. Indicate properties of national income or product estimates as measures of economic growth. Consider particularly limitations arising out of difficulties as to scope, netness, and valuation.
  2. What are the implications of the rates of growth in per capita product, observed for the past half century or longer for the developed countries, as to the comparative levels of per capita product in underdeveloped countries today and in the presently developed countries just prior to their industrialization? Discuss.

Group III

  1. Discuss the factors involved in the long-term decline, in the process of modern economic growth, in the share of agriculture in national product? In labor force? Distinguish clearly between the trends in the share in product and in the share in labor force.
  2. How do you explain the rise in the shares of labor force attached to the service industries in the course of economic growth? Define the service industries before answering the question.

Group IV

  1. Define various types of proportion of capital formation to aggregate product (gross-net, domestic-national, etc.) that can be calculated; the corresponding types of capital-output ratios; and discuss their possible use in the analysis of economic growth.
  2. Discuss factors that might have made for a rising trend in the proportion of capital formation to national product observed in many (if not all) countries. Distinguish between gross and net capital formation proportions; and between domestic and national.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Social Sciences, Final Examinations. Vol. 134. June 1961. Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …, Naval Science, Air Science. June 1961.

Image Source: National Academy of Sciences. 2001. Biographical Memoirs: Volume 79. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, p. 202.

Categories
Chicago Exam Questions Fields History of Economics

Chicago. History of Economic Thought, Ph.D. preliminary exam. Summer, 1989

 

The previous post provided the transcribed questions for the 1974 version of the Chicago prelim exam for the history of economic thought. Here we have the questions for a fifteen year younger exam Presumably both these sibling exams were authored by George Stigler in whose archived papers they can be found.

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History of Economic Thought Prelim Exam
Summer 1989

Answer Question 1 or Question 2, not both:

  1. Sam Hollander argues that David Ricardo’s Principles is really a neoclassical analysis (such as Marshall’s), although written in a different style and laying different amounts of emphasis upon various parts of the theory (for example, more emphasis on cost, less on demand).
    1. If this is true of Ricardo, why not also of Adam Smith? How do these two differ?
    2. What is neoclassical (Marshallian) or not neoclassical about Ricardo’s treatment of wages on average, or of wages in individual occupations?
  2. In his recent review of Samuel Hollander’s study of J. S. Mill, Pedro Schwartz argued that Hollander failed to see that J.S. Mill had a very different view of the scope of economics than Smith or Ricardo. Mill “treated (economics) as a limited science whose rationale is irreconcilable to the guiding principles of ethics and politics.”

From your knowledge of Mill’s Principles, defend Schwartz or Hollander.

Answer all of the remaining questions:

  1. Do people know what is good for them? Show how Smith and J.S. Mill draw their conclusions on this question.
  2. Arguments have often persisted for long periods over what an economist really meant. Ricardo is a favorite example, but there is hardly an economist of note who has escaped this sort of dispute. Compare the roles of…
    1. …a careful analysis of what the economist meant (relying on his writings, letters, etc.)…
    2. …a careful analysis of what his contemporaries and immediate successors thought he meant…

…in resolving such disputes. Which is the more important basis of judgment, and why? Apply both techniques to Malthus’ use of the arithmetic and geometric ratios.

  1. “Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command…the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society.
    First, every individual endeavors to employ his capital as near home as he can, and consequently as much as he can in the support of domestic industry.
    Thus, upon equal or nearly equal profits, every wholesale merchant naturally prefers the home trade to the foreign trade. …In the home trade his capital is never so long out of his sight as it frequently is in the foreign trade…yet for the sake of having some part of his capital always under his own view and command, he willingly submits to this extraordinary charge (double charge of loading and unloading as well as to the payment of some duties and customs).”

In this passage, famous for arguing free trade, Smith seems to make a case (a) for preferring domestic industry to foreign trade, and (b) to define the advantage of “society” as that of one’s own nation. Is Smith not an advocate of free trade?

  1. Read all the way through this question before beginning your answers.
    1. In explaining the advance of knowledge in a science, one must choose between:
      1. The Kuhnsian view of revolutions, which says that wholly new paradigms (incommensurable with earlier paradigms) work major revolutions such as that of Marginal Utility, and
      2. All science is basically cumulative (which Kuhn believes is true only of “normal” science within a paradigm).
        Appraise these alternatives.
    2. Again, in explaining progress in a science one must choose between:
      1. A “great man” theory, in which a genius (he’s one by definition) makes a fundamental contribution and lesser scholars fill in the details, and
      2. The science has a main direction that is the product of the whole community of scholars. If a theory needs to be invented or discovered, one or more scholars will do so (Robert Merton).
        Again, appraise these alternatives.
    3. In both parts above, try to illustrate your argument by an episode in economics—preferably from this century. Thus, the theory of the firm, statistical study of economic functions, oligopoly theory, Keynes’ General Theory, monetarism, etc., are examples.

 

Source: University of Chicago Archives. George Stigler Papers, Addenda. Box 33 (2005-16), Folder “Misc. Course Materials. History of Economic Th[ought].”

Image Source: Posted by Glory M. Liu on her personal research webpage (next to the abstract for her article “Rethinking the Chicago Smith Problem: Adam Smith and the Chicago School, 1929-1980” published in Modern Intellectual History.