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Chicago Exam Questions Theory

Chicago. First quarter price theory exams. Rees, 1960

Happy to add another round of first quarter price theory exams from the University of Chicago to the collection. Always nice to have a picture from the early professional years of the economists featured here. Distinguished old farts were once rising stars after all. (A general wisecrack made with the qualification, “present company excluded”.)

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Posted earlier

Reading list and exams from the Autumn quarter of 1962.

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Economics 300
Mr. Albert Rees

Midterm Examination
Autumn 1960

  1. (16 points) State whether each of the following statements about the U. S. economy is true, false, or uncertain, and explain your answers briefly.
    1. Consumers decide what will be produced.
    2. All consumers participate equally in determining what will be produced.
    3. The government influences the composition of output in the private consumer goods sector.
    4. The government determines the level of investment for the economy as a whole.
  1. (10 points) Comment briefly on the following statement:
    “When equilibrium prices in competitive markets are disturbed, they tend to be re-established. Thus the first effect of an increased supply of eggs is to lower the price. At this lower price, consumption is increased, and the increase in demand tends to drive the price back up again.”
  2. (16 points) Increased costs cause manufacturers to reduce the size of 5 cent chocolate bars from 2-1/2 ounces to 2 ounces. Because the bars are smaller, people eat more of them and consumption rises from 10, 000 bars a week to 11,000.
    1. Can these events be shown on an ordinary supply and demand diagram? If so, show them. If not, explain why.
    2. Can the elasticity of demand for chocolate be computed? If so, compute it. If not, explain.
  1. (24 Points) The following table gives hypothetical prices of pork and beef per pound in two years, and quantities consumed in a certain town.

 Price per pound Pounds consumed
1959 1960 1959

1960

Pork

 40 cents 50 cents 1000 800
Beef 60 cents 60 cents 1000

1200
    1. Compute the elasticity of demand for pork and the cross-elasticity of demand for beef in terms of the price of pork.
    2. Compute the Laspeyres price index for the price of meat from 1959 to 1960 (assuming that pork and beef are the only kinds of meat).
    3. Draw an indifference map for pork and beef for a typical consumer and illustrate the changes shown in the table on his indifference map. Derive two points on his demand curve for pork.
    4. Assume that the consumer’s money income is increased by an amount equal to his original income times the Laspeyres price index computed in (b). Demonstrate that he has been overcompensated for the price rise. Under what condition if any would this increase in income fail to overcompensate him?
  2. (16 points) Jones lives in a rented house for which he pays $150 a month. He has the opportunity of buying an identical house for $25,000, of which $15,000 will be paid in cash and $10,000 can be borrowed on a mortgage. He has figured that his monthly expenses would be $100 if he bought: $50 for interest on the mortgage, $20 for local taxes, and $30 for maintenance and depreciation. His income tax and expenses for fuel and utilities will not be affected by the purchase. He argues that it will cost him less to live if he buy the house; his wife argues that it will not.
    1. Under what conditions is Jones right? Under what conditions is Mrs. Jones right?
    2. Is there any divergence between the “right answer” to this problem from the private standpoint of the Jones family and from the standpoint of society? Explain.
  1. (18 points) The GJS corporation, manufacturers of gadgets, have determined that for every 10 per cent increase in the capacity of a gadget factory, minimum short-run average total cost falls by 1 per cent throughout the relevant range of capacities.
    1. What can you say about the production function for gadgets over the relevant range?
    2. Suppose that the company hires two factors of production, labor and capital, and pays each its marginal product. Will anything be left over for the owners of the company who contribute no services? Explain.
    3. Suppose that the company wants to build a plant to produce 10,000 gadget per week. What can you say about the size of the plant that will produce these most efficiently?

Economics 300
Mr. Rees
Fall. 1960

Final Examination
December 14, 1960

  1. (21 points) Show each of the following events on an indifference map:
    1. The change in the consumption of margarine following an increase in income (axes: butter and margarine. Assume that the income elasticity of demand is positive for butter and negative for margarine.)
    2. The change in the consumption of bread following a rise in its price. (axes: bread and all other commodities.) Identify the income and substitution effects of the price change.
    3. Do part (b) over using Friedman’s “Marshallian demand curve” concept and explain the difference between the diagrams for (b) and (c).
  2. (19 points) In the United States, about one-fifth to one-fourth of all income is property income. State briefly (a) the advantages of having private income from property in our economy (b) the costs or disadvantages. You may judge these according to any values you care to use, making the values as explicit as possible.
  3. (20 points) In a certain isolated area there are 50 farms of each of two types, A farms and B farms (100 farms in all). Within each type, all farms are identical. All farms are worked by identical workers. The marginal product schedules of one farm of each type are given below, in bushels of wheat per year.

 A Farm

B Farm

No. of workers
1 100

95

2

 90 84
3 80

73

4

 70 62
5 60

51
  1. If there are 260 workers in the area, how many will be employed on each kind of farm? What is the total product of each kind of farm? The rent of each kind of farm? The wages of workers on each type of farm in bushels per year? (Assume that farmers compete freely for labor, and labor can move within the area.)
  2. By means of an irrigation project, the owners of twenty B farms transform them into A farms. Recompute the answers to (a), counting the transformed farms as A farms. Who gained and who lost from the project, and why?
    1. (20 points) By means of appropriate diagrams and/or explanations, show the short-run effect of each of the following taxes on the output and profits of a monopolist.
    2. An excise tax of 10 cents per unit of product.
    3. An excise tax of 10 percent of the price of the product.
    4. A corporate profit tax equal to 50 percent of net profits.
  1. (20 points) The Edgeworth Box Company is the only employer in the town of Yarmouth. Its supply schedule of labor is given by W = 40 + 1/4 q, where W is the wage in cents per hour and q is the number of manhours supplied per week. The company sells boxes in a competitive market. The value of the marginal product of labor is given by
    V = 100 – 1/2 q for values of q greater than zero.
  2. How many man-hours of labor will the company employ, and at what wage?
  3. Show diagramatically for part (a) first, the wage bill and second, the sum of monopoly profits and the return to factors of production other than labor.
  4. What will be the effect on employment of a legal minimum wage of 60 cents an hour? of 80 cents an hour?

This problem may be solved algebraically or graphically. The following table gives numerically some points on the schedules whose equations are given above:

Supply

Marginal Product

q (Man-hours)

 W (cents) q (man-hours) W (cents)
1 40.25 1

99.5

2

 40.50 2 99.0
3 40.75 3

98.5

4

 41.00 4 98.0
etc.

etc.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Albert Rees Papers, Box 1, Folder “Economics 300”.

Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-07002, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

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Chicago Exam Questions

Chicago. First quarter of price theory. Midterm and final exams. Harberger, 1957

Arnold Harberger

 

A copy of the reading list for the first quarter of price theory at the University of Chicago taught by Arnold Harberger in the autumn quarter of 1955 has been transcribed and posted earlier. That copy was found in Milton Friedman’s papers at the Hoover Institution Archives. Copies of the two mid-term exams and the final exam for the same course in 1957 were found in Zvi Griliches’ papers in the Harvard University Archives. While not a perfect match, some items might have been added/subtracted to the later course, price theory à la Harberger in the mid-1950sis better reflected in these two posts together now.

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Economics 300A
Hour Examination
November 5, 1957

(60 points)

  1. True, False, or Uncertain. In each case write a paragraph explaining your answer. Your grade will depend heavily on your explanation.
    1. The price elasticity of demand for a good will be higher, the higher is the income elasticity of demand for that good.
    2. If X and Y are substitutes, a decline in the price of X can lead to an increase in the amount of Y demanded only if Y is an inferior good.
    3. If a particular producer of grapefruit produces 10 percent of the total supply of grapefruit, the elasticity of demand facing that producer must be at least -10.
    4. If the cross-elasticity of demand for X with respect to the price of Y is .5, the cross elasticity of demand for Y with respect to the price of X will also be .5.
    5. The demand curve for a commodity which includes the “income effect” is necessarily more elastic than the demand curve for the same commodity which includes only the substitution effect.
    6. Food and “all other commodities” cannot be complements.

(15 points)

  1. Derive the expression for the elasticity of demand facing a particular producer in terms of the elasticity of “total demand” in the market and of the elasticity of “other supply”.

(25 points)

  1. Using indifference curves, derive the supply curve of labor as A function of real wages. Distinguish between the “income effect” and the substitution effect. State what, if any, will be the circumstances under which a rise in real wages will lead to a reduction in the quantity of labor offers.

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Economics 300A
Hour Examination
4 December 1957
Mr. Harberger

(48 points)

  1. True, False or Uncertain. In each case write a few sentences explaining your answer.
    1. If the firms in the coal industry were to merge into one single firm, the demand curve for coal miners would become more elastic.
    2. Marginal cost exceeds average cost wherever marginal cost is rising.
    3. In the case in which factors combine in fixed proportions to produce a product X, the elasticity of demand in industry X for a factor will be greater, the larger is the fraction of the total costs of producing X which is spent on hiring the factor in question.
    4. A firm having monopsony power in the market for its labor will hire workers up to the point where their wage is equal to their marginal value product (marginal physical product times marginal revenue), not to the value of their marginal physical product.
    5. If, at a point in a homogeneous production function, the marginal product of A is rising, the marginal product of B will be negative. (Consider A and B as the only two factors.)
    6. If, at a point in a homogeneous production function, the marginal product of B is negative, the marginal product of A will be rising. (Consider A and B as the only two factors.)

(34 points)

  1. Discuss and comment on Marshall’s four rules of derived demand

(18 points)

  1. Discuss the relationship between short run and long run cost curves. Is a shorter run marginal cost curve always more elastic than a longer run marginal cost curve going through the same point on the long run average cost curve

 

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Final Examination
Economics 300A
Autumn, 1957

(70 points)

  1. True, False, or Uncertain. In each case write a few sentences explaining your answer. Your grade will depend heavily on your explanation.
    1. If the United States exports one tenth of its coal, the elasticity of supply of domestic coal being unity, the elasticity of supply of U.S. coal exports must be at least 10.
    2. If the price of X rises while the price of X stays constant, the amount of Y demanded will always increase, so long as X and Y are substitutes. (Assume money income and other prices remain unchanged.)
    3. The own-price elasticity of demand for a commodity must always equal or exceed, in absolute value, the cross elasticity of demand for that commodity with respect to the price of any other commodity.
    4. The own-price elasticity of demand for a commodity must always equal or exceed, in absolute value, the marginal propensity to consume that commodity.
    5. When the production function is such that factors of production combine with each other in fixed proportions to produce a product, the own price elasticity of demand for the use of any of the factors in the production of the product must be less than the price elasticity of demand for the product. (Assume that the production of the product in question is competitive.)
    6. The income elasticity of demand for a commodity is the marginal propensity to consume that commodity divided by the average propensity to consume that commodity.
    7. The elasticity of demand for labor in the production of automobiles will be lower in the case in which the quantities of other factors are given than in the case in which the prices of other factors are taken as given.
    8. The elasticity of demand facing a monopolist will be lower than the elasticity of demand facing the same industry if it were competitive.
    9. The welfare cost of a 5 percent tax on automobiles is the same as the welfare cost of a 5 percent subsidy on all goods and services other than automobiles.
    10. The welfare cost per dollar of tax receipts of a 5 percent tax on automobiles is the same as the welfare cost per dollar of tax receipts of a 5 percent tax on all goods and services other than automobiles.
    11. If, at a point in a production function which is homogeneous (of degree 1), the marginal product of factor B is negative, the marginal product of factor A will be rising (in the sense that the marginal product of A will be higher when the proportion of factor A to factor B is slightly increased). Assume that A and B are the only two factors.
    12. The supply curve of labor can be backward bending only if leisure is an inferior good.
    13. The demand for the services of a factor of production in a particular industry will be more elastic, the larger is the share of that factor in the total costs of the industry in question.
    14. All short run average cost curves are tangent at (at least) one point to the long run average cost curve.

(15 points)

  1. Outline the economics of the fishing industry. What resemblance, if any, do you see between the economics of the fishing industry under conditions of competition and the economics of monopolistic competition.

(15 points)

  1. Indicate, using supply and demand diagrams, what is the welfare cost of a tariff. Assume that the tariff is on a product (woolen cloth) in which the domestic demand is partly met by domestic supplies and partly met by imports. The tariff, of course, is a tax only on the imports. Assume that the imported product and the domestic product are for all relevant purposes homogeneous. What role does the elasticity of domestic demand for woolen cloth play in your measure of welfare cost? The elasticity of domestic supply of woolen cloth? The ratio of domestic supply to domestic demand?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches, Box 130, Folder “Syllabi and exams, 1955-1959”.

Image Source: Arnold C. Harberger, 1957 Fellowship in Economics from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

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Chicago Exam Questions

Chicago. Final exam for Price Theory (B). Friedman. Winter quarter 1964

The spirit of Chicago’s boot-camp training in price theory with Milton Friedman as canonical drill  instructor is captured in the examination transcribed below. 

Trivial observation: Questions 9 through 11 are based on a fictional monopoly Gimcrack Company that appears to be a homage to the old song “Jim Crack Corn” (a.k.a. “Blue tail Fly”). One can imagine the American graduate students hearing the voice of the folk singer Burl Ives rendering the tune as they attempted to answer the questions.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Some other exams for the second quarter of graduate price theory at Chicago from this period have been previously posted:

December 16, 1959 (Friedman); December 1960 (Friedman?); February 10/March 15, 1965 (Griliches); December 1965 (Telser)

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ECONOMICS 301
FINAL EXAM — Winter, 1964

M. Friedman
March 19, 1964

I. [25 Points] Indicate whether each of the following statements is true (T), false (F), or uncertain (U) and state briefly (on this paper) the reason for your answer.

  1. The elasticity of a straight line demand curve varies from point to point.
  2. In the long run, demand has no influence on the price of the product of a competitive industry that uses no specialized resources.
  3. Marginal revenue is always greater than average revenue when average revenue is rising as quantity increases.

[4. and 5.] Assume that the government is going to purchase a predetermined quantity of rice for foreign relief and that it is considering making its purchases (a) directly from the growers of rice, or (b) through the regular dealer on the grain exchange. Assume also that there are no other governmental actions affecting rise growing or marketing.

  1. The price to the domestic consumer of rice that remains will be higher in case (a) than in case (b).
  2. The price received by the farmer for the rice that remains will be higher in case (a) than in case (b).
  1. An “inferior” good is one such that a larger quantity is demanded at a high than at a low price.
  2. If the quantity of Y increases and the quantity of X decreases in such a way as to keep total utility constant, then the rate of substitution of Y for X is independent of the quantity of X.
  3. The income of the farmers raising corn increases when the price of corn rises. The rise in income is the “income effect of the rise in price.”

[9., 10., 11.] The Gimcrack Company is a monopoly, selling in two distinct markets. Transportation costs between the two markets can be neglected.

  1. The company will always charge the same price for gimcracks in the two markets.
  2. The company will sell such quantities in the two markets as will make the elasticities of demand the same in the two markets.
  3. The company will sell such quantities in the two markets as will make marginal revenue the same in the two markets.

II. [25 Points] Fill in the blanks in the following questions.

  1. Consider three demand curves for commodity X: A for given money income and other prices; B, for given apparent real income in Slutsky’s sense; C, for given real income in Hick’s sense. Let all three curves go through the point (po , xo)
    If X is a superior good, then for a price lower than p0, the quantity demanded will be larger for_____ than for _____. (Insert A, B, C, in correct spaces.)
    If X is an inferior good, then for a price lower than p0, the quantity demanded will be larger for _____ than for _____.
    Suppose p0 = $5, X0 = $20, the corresponding money income $1, 000, and the income elasticity of demand for X is 2. Suppose that at a price $4, the quantity demanded on curve A is 25. Then the income compensation required to pass from A to B is $_____ (be sure to indicate sign of change) and the quantity demanded on curve B is _____.
  2. Blank is indifferent whether he wagers $1 at even-money that a coin he regards as fair will come up heads. He is eager to wager $1 against $3 (i.e., he pays $1 if he loses, receives $3 if he wins) that heads will come up twice in two successive throws of this coin. (He regards the throws as independent and so the chances of two successive heads as one in four.) Let the utility of his income if he loses $1 be 100; if he wins $1, 101. Then the utility to him of his present income can be taken to be _____ (insert a number); the utility to his present income plus $3 _____ (insert the most accurate statement the evidence permits).

III. [25 Points.] Find the mistakes (there are at least six) in the accompanying diagram showing long run and short run marginal and average cost curves for an individual firm, and explain the general principle corresponding to each particular mistake.

[NOTE: The answer to question III has been transcribed and posted with the Friedman’s December 16, 1959 exam for Economics 301.]

IV. [25 Points] Consider two alternative taxes imposed on a commodity: (a) a specific tax of T dollars per unit sold: (b) an ad valorem tax of t per cent of the price of the product.
Assume that the commodity is produced and sold under strictly competitive conditions and that the price inclusive of tax when the tax of T is imposed is P0. (i) Prove graphically that an ad valorem tax of t – T/P0will result in the same equilibrium price. (ii) Suppose a tax rate slightly greater than t – T/P0 is imposed. Under what conditions, if any, is it certain that the revenue will increase? (iii) Decrease?
Assume alternatively that the commodity is produced and sold by a monopoly. Suppose that, when a specific tax of T is imposed, the monopolist chose to sell at a price (inclusive of tax) of P1. Suppose now, an ad valorem tax of t – T/P1 is imposed. (iv) Will the monopolist’s optimum price be P1? If not, will it be higher? or lower? Prove your answer.

V. [20 Points] When someone offers a cigarette to pipe-puffing Surgeon General Luther Terry, he always grabs it. “Every one I accept I tear up,” he says. “That way there’s one less cigarette.” (Time, February 7, 1964).
Analyze the economics of the Surgeon General’s policy. In doing so, assume of course, that a substantial class of people with similar beliefs behave the same way, so the effect is at least potentially appreciable. Would it contribute to his objective of reducing smoking? If so, through what channels?

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PROBLEM
for
ECONOMICS 301
Winter Quarter, 1964

Analyze the business practice discussed in the accompanying excerpt from a Wall Street Journal story of December 4 1963.

Under what circumstances, if any would you expect such a practice to be in the self-interest of the participating companies? How would you suggest testing your explanation?

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers. Box 77. Folder: University of Chicago, Econ. 301.

Image Source: Detail from picture of Milton Friedman (November 1957) at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, pf1-06234, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

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Chicago Economists

Chicago. Alvin Johnson remembers Robert Hoxie and his relationship to Veblen, 1906-16.

 

Labor economist Robert Hoxie (1868-1916) taught at the University of Chicago from 1906 to 1916. From the autobiography of Alvin S. Johnson we learn that Hoxie’s suicide would probably have come as no surprise to someone who knew him at all well.

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Alvin S. Johnson on his personal and professional friendship with Robert Hoxie

Of all the faculty I most enjoyed Robert Hoxie. He specialized in labor problems and had the enterprise to bring before his class all types of labor leaders, to state their aims and unfold their hopes. He had in unexampled degree the art to bring even the most stubborn-tongued labor leader to an adequate expression of his views.

Hoxie was square built and well poised, of ruddy complexion and bright eyes, well equipped with wit and humor, and, you’d have said, here, anyway, was a scholar well adjusted to life. But the fact was he was subject to terrible nervous crises. He imputed his condition to an attack of poliomyelitis in his childhood, which, while it did not cripple his limbs, impaired permanently his nervous structure. I questioned the validity of his explanation until I came to know him.

He was my good friend, and we saw a lot of each other. Whenever he could get free from his office he’d come to mine and insist that we go for a walk, even if the cold wind was blowing at forty miles an hour. However busy I was I would comply, for if I did not he would fall into a lamentable fit of depression, asserting that I no longer found him interesting.

When he was scheduled for a seminar paper I had a choice of unattractive alternatives. If I did not attend, he put this down as my judgment that he had nothing to say. If I attended, he felt sure that I detected all the points where the author of a seminar paper sidesteps difficulties.

Matters were simpler when we were alone together, on our walks or over the beer at the White City, where we could argue to the accompaniment of an orchestra playing with great éclat the scores of Traviata or Aïda. So far as I could, I kept away from contentious economic subjects.

One subject of contention would, however, inevitably intrude: Veblen. Hoxie loved Veblen with a love that passeth understanding. I admired Veblen’s genius, but Veblen and I could never get nearer each other than arm’s length. He regarded me as a plodding Dane; I regarded him as a romantic Norwegian. Whenever we found ourselves together in company we spoiled each other’s style. On occasion friends would urge me to remain away from a Veblen party, for Veblen never made himself interesting when I was around.

I considered Veblen good reading for the scholar who knew how to discriminate, but a singularly dangerous guide for anyone who followed him blindly. I asserted that Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class was really a satirical essay, with literary potency and scientific intent closely parallel to Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus. Both authors counted on the pleasure a reader gets out of judiciously worded insults to himself. Both liked to make use of the principle that two half-truths make a whole truth.

Such observations filled Hoxie with indignation, but pleasant indignation, for they proved to him that I fell far short of him in the understanding of the man he considered the greatest economist of all time. Hoxie boasted that his whole system of thought came from Veblen. It was Veblen who had taught him that all ideas of reconciling the interests of labor and the employer were a fantastic delusion. For the minds of labor and of the employer were built out of completely different philosophic elements. The philosophy the worker had hammered into him by his job ran in terms of cause and effect — the efficient cause. The employer thought in terms of values, purposes, final causes. As well try to mate a sheep with a tunny fish as try to bring efficient cause and final cause to an agreement.

I argued that this contrast was just a hocus-pocus. The employer, in considering the properties of a machine he is tempted to buy, or in considering how to cut the waste of material, is thinking in terms of cause and effect. The worker in demanding an enlarged take-home is thinking in terms of values.

I refused to concede that there are impermeable septa between the thinking of any two classes, indeed, between any two individuals. Business conceptions, labor conceptions, wander afield. Does one not encounter the divine who calculates on the “unit cost of saving souls”?

Years later Hoxie visited New York and asked me to come to his hotel for the evening. He was frightening in his appearance.

“Johnson,” he said, “I’m finished. I can see now, all my work has been bunk. All my writing, every lecture I have ever given, has been bunk.”

“What in heaven’s name has happened to you, Hoxie?”

“I’ve come to see through Veblen. You partly saw through him, but not the way I do.”

In an evening that extended until four in the morning — for I did not dare to leave him — Hoxie unfolded the rather inconsequential course of his deconversion from Veblen. They had disagreed on a personal matter and Veblen had treated Hoxie rudely. But Hoxie had always known that Veblen could glory in rudeness.

Such an incident could have been effective only as a catalyst. Hoxie had been working for months with Frey, a distinguished labor leader, on a book, Industrial Management and Labor. [sic, Scientific Management and Labor is the correct title] Undoubtedly he had been unconsciously accumulating cases that exhibited the shortcomings of Veblen’s theories.

“I got to thinking,” Hoxie said, “how could a man be so great a scientist and such a damn fool? And the more I thought, the more the idea rode my mind: how great a scientist is he? Johnson thought his science was phony.”

“No,” I said, “I never thought that. I thought you had to watch him. His equations didn’t solve, and he patched them up by rhetorical ‘by and large,’ for the most part.’ Almost all economists do something of the kind sometimes.”

“Veblen knew his equations didn’t solve, but he used them just the same. And his class dope; he pretended it was psychology. It was pure abstractions; no, not pure, but with a purpose.”

“We’re all purposive, Hoxie.”

“I wouldn’t care if it was just the matter of my finding out a phony I had taken for okay. But Veblen has been the premise of all my work. My work is all rotten with Veblenism.”

“Hoxie, I’ve read about everything you ever wrote. Your work stands on its own feet. Sometimes you’re wrong–not often.”

“Johnson, you know the basis of my labor theory. Two philosophies, the employer’s and the laborer’s. The first based on the final cause. the other on the efficient cause. You called that bunk the first time we met, when we were both on the American Economic Association program.”

“It is bunk,” I agreed. “But all that enormous amount of concrete investigation you have done is quite independent of any such premise. It stands.”

“No, it doesn’t. It’s all diseased, from that premise.”

I argued with Hoxie for eight hours at a stretch. Our positions were reversed, Hoxie was attacking Veblen, I was defending him. I marshaled as many telling and meaningful passages as I held in my memory, from Veblen’s Theory of Business Enterprise, Imperial Germany, The Engineers and the Price System, even from Veblen’s most sardonic and least sincere book, The Higher Learning. Finally Hoxie seemed to be calmed down enough, or wearied enough, for sleep. I left him, promising to visit him in Chicago and renew the discussion.

But before I could get around to a Chicago trip Hoxie killed himself.

Source: Alvin Saunders Johnson. A Pioneer’s Progress. New York: Viking Press, 1952. Pages pp. 204-207.

Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-02878, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. Potrait colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

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Chicago Economist Market Salaries

Chicago. Suggestions to make University of Chicago professorships more attractive. Leland, 1945

 

On April 10, 1945, the chairman of the University of Chicago’s economics department, Professor Simeon E. Leland, submitted a 77 page (!) memorandum to President Robert M. Hutchins entitled “Postwar Plans of the Department of Economics – A Wide Variety of Observations and Suggestions All Intended To Be Helpful in Improving the State of the University”.

In his cover letter Leland wrote “…in the preparation of the memorandum, I learned much that was new about the past history of the Department. Some of this, incorporated in the memorandum, looks like filler stuck in, but I thought it ought to be included for historical reasons and to furnish some background for a few of the suggestions.” 

In earlier posts I have provided (1) a list of visiting professors who taught economics at the University of Chicago up through 1944 (excluding those visitors who were to receive permanent appointments); (2) supporting tables with enrollment trends and faculty data (ages and educational backgrounds); (3) three lists of names for economists who in 1945 could be taken into consideration for either permanent economics, joint appointments with other department or visiting appointments at the University of Chicago.

The excerpt transcribed for this post deals with the employment conditions and prospects of University of Chicago faculty. The basic message was that Chicago had lost its position as highest-bidder in the academic market and that relative attractiveness was a function of salary to be sure, but also other conditions (teaching loads, research support, clerical support, burden of special (extra) examinations, housing, medical benefits, etc.) should be improved as well.

Leland’s laundry list of suggestions seems pretty familiar to early 21st century academics. Would love to have an analogous memo for the present to see which additional items are now included.

_________________________

POSTWAR PLANS
OF THE
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

A Wide Variety of Observations and Suggestions
All Intended To Be Helpful
in Improving the State
of the
University

by Simeon E. Leland, Chairman
(on his own behalf and for the Department)

1945

[…]

Making University of Chicago Professorships More Attractive

The following suggestions are, in large part, the result of actual experiences in negotiating with “outsiders” over appointments to our faculty, or are reactions observed in dealing with present faculty members with respect to appointments or promotions within the Department. Some of them undoubtedly represent aspirations of the staff. They are offered, not as criticisms of present conditions, but as suggestions for improvements for realization in the future.

1. Distinguished Professorships

At the inception of the University, President Harper established a salary scale for full professors which was the highest in the country. He literally bought his faculty, outbidding all competitors for the services of distinguished men. The University of Chicago at once gained a reputation for the payment of attractive salaries. With the passage of time this situation has changed. Although the University of Chicago is still a “high-salary” institution, the emoluments it offers are by no means the most attractive in the United States.

The enhanced salaries paid (on an individual competitive bargaining arrangement) to present staff members on the 4E contracts render utterly inadequate the $10,000 salaries paid to the holders of University Distinguished Service Professorships. When these Professorships were established the salary differentials between the Distinguished Professorships and other professorships were quite large. They are far narrower today due to the liberal treatment by the University of the “ordinary” professors. Rising costs of living have also lowered the real wages paid to our Distinguished colleagues, and others as well.

If the Distinguished Professorships are to mean much to the holders over the years to come, the stipends should be increased; otherwise, the recognition bestowed will be rewarded only by a name or possibly by a degree of freedom not possessed by colleagues — both of which by that time may be empty honors. The times seem to call for $12,000 salaries as a minimum rather than $10,000 for these Professorships.

2. Divisional Professorships

If the Divisional Professorships, such as the Social Sciences Professorships, are to carry any real distinction they should be made to rank in terms of prestige and desirability next to the Distinguished Service Professorships. At present all they have to offer is some relief from fixed teaching (which is illusory for men with real scholarly interests who always talk about problems of their intellectual world with students) and the right to teach what they wish, irrespective of departmental lines. Both of these freedoms in greater or lesser degree are accorded every member of the staff, especially the freedom to teach.

In the Social Sciences Division, a Social Sciences Professorship is supposed to signify a recognition of competence or achievement. The breadth of knowledge, the spread of intellectual interest and the true humanity of the holder (or holders) indicate a degree of competence beyond that of the ordinary professor and that of many of the University’s most distinguished appointees, yet, in last analysis, all that a Social Sciences Professorship confers upon the holder is a title with, perhaps, a scintilla of freedom. Such a chair should be made into something tangible for the holder — into something to be sought after by other members of the staff — into something to attract men from abroad. The minimum salary should be $10,000 at least. The working conditions should be far above those for ordinary men.

3. A New Type of Professorship

It is believed that named professorships with research stipends attached would attract outstanding scholars to the University. Such an appointment would not only carry an adequate salary for the incumbent but also a fund to assure him of a definite research budget so long as he occupied the designated chair. The University is probably not rich enough to afford many such appointments, but certainly it should seek to establish one in at least every division and school — granted that willing donors could be found. In any case, if the University believes its own statements concerning the importance of research and has faith in its appointees, it might well combine the two, in a few instances, to provide University Research Professorships which carry with them definite research grants to be spent as the incumbent elects. The Thomas W. Lamont Professorship at Harvard is of this type. It is held at the moment by Mr. Sumner H. Slichter, a Ph.D. of the Department of Economics of the University of Chicago.

4. Research, Clerical and Library Assistance

The climate for research around the University is not as favorable as speeches and propaganda would indicate. The professorial staff — the highest-priced talent along with administrators in the University — is required and expected to do all manner of chores that should be done for them if research output is to be maximized. Adequate stenographic service is often lacking or, at most, is not always immediately available to members of the Department. The stenographic pool in the Dean’s office is inadequate, a reflection, of course, of the present labor situation. But it is operated on the basis of bookkeeping arrangements which seem to make it freely available to all staff members only on the basis of antecedent budgets. Stenographic service should be available freely to all members of the staff for University business, for correspondence arising in connection with their work (in order to save valuable time) and for all research needs, including the copying of materials. Courses also could be improved if professors could make more materials available to students, perhaps on a nominal fee basis operated through departmental offices.

Similarly, a reasonable amount of clerical and library service should be available to staff members. Now such service is extended only as given research projects are approved, as special deals are made with individual faculty members, or as special services are given as a favor or in recognition of something or other. So long as these services are not generally available or can be had only upon request, there is a tendency that they will go first to the most vocal groups. In any case, the Department has too few people available to do the odd jobs to lighten the work and increase the research output of the faculty. Arrangements might be made whereby a clerical or service pool could meet the needs of many staff members.

5. Reduction in Examinations

The emphasis on examinations other than course examinations makes such tests too arduous a task to be well performed by the University staff. Everywhere there is objection! The time given to special terminal, qualifying and other examinations is grudgingly provided. It is given at the expense of research, creative thinking, or writing. And when the work is turned over to hired examiners who know examination techniques, but who are untrained in the fields involved, the examinations themselves become an intellectual travesty. (Actual illustrations can be supplied on request.)

It is recognized that many examinations are required and that there is a place for trained examiners; but the emphasis on examinations at the University is out of proportion to their worth. At the graduate level these examinations have operated to lower scholastic standards. Part of this is due to the efforts to deprecate courses and to offer illusory means for speeding up the educational process, hardly appropriate in the graduate and professional schools. Students are told they can visit courses (registering for R’s) and as long as they can pass final examinations they can qualify for degrees. The result is that special examinations have to be prepared; that students are rated on too limited a sample of their work; that recommendations of the University count for less than they once did. Another result of the examination emphasis is that students bone up for examinations, try their luck on this or that test and if they pass (by good fortune or otherwise), they are advanced or awarded the appropriate degrees.

From every point of view, too much faculty time is spent on examinations of various kinds; too large a fraction of the student’s record is based upon them.

6. Teaching Loads

In the matter of teaching loads, the Department, on the basis of University of Chicago conditions, has little cause for complaint. The Department has been well treated. Nevertheless, for the greatest good of the University it would like to indicate that teaching loads, even in the Department, are too high for the attainment of the best standards of graduate instruction and research.

Differentiations in teaching loads are appropriate. The load in the College may well be higher than in the Division, but in graduate and professional schools the teaching load should be low if the scholarship and research of the faculty are to be maximized. It may also be appropriate to have different teaching loads, on the average, for the ranks of assistant professor, associate professor and professor. It is the load of the productive scholars which really counts. Harvard and Columbia both have a teaching load of four hours a week for professors of Economics. This is also a factor of importance in the competition with these universities for staff members. It is a factor also affecting the quality of graduate instruction.

The reduction of teaching loads should be made a matter of University policy.

7. Salary Schedules

Salaries of members of the Department are believed to compare favorably with other salaries paid in the University. The general level of salaries paid at the University of Chicago places it among the high-salaried institutions, but it no longer ranks at the top. Harvard has recently raised its minimum professorial salary to in excess of $9,000, with commensurate increases along the line. The level of payments at Columbia, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and California Institute of Technology, for example, exceeds the level prevailing at Chicago.

Nor is it certain that the new salary plan will help attract eminent scholars to the University of Chicago. The experience of the Department to date has not been favorable to the new plan. Regardless of sentiments for and against the 4E Contract, its operation should be watched with care lest it adversely affect the quality of new appointments. In order to correct one evil, a greater one — the refusal of offers of appointment — may have been created. Many features of the 4E Contract make such terms unattractive to men who have been well treated by other institutions of high repute. If an outstanding scholar will not accept the 4E Contract, another type of contract should be offered. It is more important to secure the right scholars than to preserve a unique salary plan.

Changes in living costs have greatly decreased the value of payments here. Among the items on the postwar agenda should be new salary scales.

8. Faculty Housing

The Department was much gratified to see that the question of adequate housing for the faculty is again being considered. During the past year, more than one person who was being approached as a potential faulty member declined to consider an offer from the University as long as housing facilities are what they are in Chicago, and especially in Hyde Park. These facilities will remain unattractive until the University improves them. Princeton and Stanford, for example, have made notable contributions to the development of faculty housing. Appropriate housing should also be a good investment. If the Trustees should be unwilling to invest endowment funds in a faculty housing venture, a private company, or even a public housing corporation, should be organized in the neighborhood to meet this vital need.

Attention should also be given to the improvement of the University neighborhood. Its deterioration is a matter of great concern, affecting far more than the value of adjacent properties.

9. Miscellaneous Suggestions

There has always been much talk about improving the lot of younger men. Greater equality could be provided if faculty perquisites were increased. Former tuition differentials to faculty children and wives could be restored, or even increased with the number of children in each family. Hospital rates could be reduced. Out-patient medical service could be provided for University families at small cost. The present shortage of practicing physicians would make such a service a real boon. The University in its own interest, too, could afford to provide free medical examinations for faculty members and employees with increased public health services available at nominal cost. It might thus decrease illness among staff members or even add to their span of life (a thing in which it may not be interested under the rigid enforcement of retirement at age 65). Even the retirement policy might be examined in connection with the state of health and mental ability of emeriti over the last decade. It may be that the University is losing the services of distinguished men a few years too soon. All of these things could be done on a group basis with returns far in excess of cash outlays. To the members of the staff they would constitute significant increases in real wages.

[…]

Source: University of Chicago Library. Department of Special Collections. Office of the President. Hutchins Administration Records. Box73, Folder “Economics Department, ‘Post-war Plans,’ Simeon E. Leland, 1945” pp. 30-36.

Image Source: Portrait of Simeon E. Leland. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-03716, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. Image colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Bibliography Chicago Economists Gender Social Work

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumna. Linked publications list. Edith Abbott, 1905

Edith Abbott by Melvin H. Sykes (1919)

The second woman to receive a Political Economy Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, Edith Abbott, became the first woman dean of a U.S. graduate school in 1924 (The University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Social Service Administration). In her day there were two main paths to an academic career for women economists: home economics and “social economy”. She and her long-time collaborator, Sophonisba Breckinridge, (the first woman to receive a political science Ph.D. at the University of Chicago…note: on an economics topic “A Study of Legal Tender in England“) were fellow research directors at Jane Addams’ Hull House. 

In Germany Sozialpolitik was, like virtually all academic disciplines, Männersache. In Anglo-American academic life social policy was where women could participate.

With this post Economics in the Rear-View Mirror very proudly offers historians of economics and social policy links to well over 90% of her publications.

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Life and Career of Edith Abbott
Economics Ph.D. alumna (1905),
Department of Political Economy
University of Chicago

Thesis Title: A statistical study of the wages of unskilled labor in the United States, 1830-1900.
Published in The Journal of Political Economy (June, 1905) as “The Wages of Unskilled Labor in the United States 1850-1900”.

1876, September 26. Born in Grand Island, Nebraska.
1888-93. Graduated as valedictorian of Brownell Hall, a private school in Omaha, Nebraska.
1893-95. Taught at Grand Island High School, Nebraska.
1901. A.B. University of Nebraska.
1901-03. Graduate Student, University of Nebraska. and Instructor in Mathematics, Lincoln High School.
1902. Summer school at the University of Chicago.
1903-05.Fellow, Department of Political Economy, University of Chicago. Supported by J. L. Laughlin and Thorstein Veblen.
1905. Ph.D. in Political Economy from the University of Chicago.
1905. Post-Ph.D. she worked two jobs in Boston: (1) Secretary at the Women’s Trade Union League and (2) assisted in the U.S. industrial history research project of Carroll D. Wright for the American Economic Association funded by the Carnegie Institution. She lived at the social settlement Dennison House.
1906. Full-time work for the Carnegie Institution. Moved in January to New York City for research. Lived at College Settlement. Next moved to Washington, D.C.
1906-07. With funds from a competitive fellowship awarded by the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, supplemented by Carnegie Institution funds, she went for postgraduate study at the London School of Economics. She took a course “Methods of Social Investigation” taught by Beatrice Webb [see description of Abbott’s own methods course taught 1909-10 at the University of Chicago below]. Lived at St. Hilda’s Settlement in Bethnal Green.
1907-1908. Instructor of economics at Wellesley College.
1908-20. Resident of Hull House. Associate Director of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy.
1909-10.Special Lecturer in Political Economy, University of Chicago.
1918-19. Vice President of the American Economic Association.
1920. Appointed Associate Professor of Social Economy in the Graduate School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
1924-42. Dean of the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago.
1926. Established Cook County (Illinois) Bureau of Public Welfare.
1927.Together with Sophonisba P. Breckinridge co-founded Social Service Review.
1929-31.  Chaired the Committee on Crime and the Foreign Born of the Wickersham National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement
1935. Assisted in drafting the Social Security Act.
1942-1953. Dean Emeritus.
1953. Returned to Grand Island, Nebraska and lived with her brother Arthur.
1957, 28 July. Died in Grand Island, Hall County, Nebraska8

Sources:
Costin, Lela B. 1983. Two Sisters for Social Justice: A Biography of Grace and Edith Abbott. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Deegan, Mary Jo and Michael R. Hill. 1991. “Edith Abbott (1876-1957).” Pp. 29-36 in Women in Sociology: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, edited by Mary Jo Deegan. New York: Greenwood Press.

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Edith Abbott report on her year at L.S.E.
1906-07

Your [Association of Collegiate Alumnae] fellow of last year, Miss Abbott, went in September to the London School of Economics where her principal work was the study of statistical methods, taking both lecture and research work with Mr. Bowley, and also taking advantage of the opportunity of attending other lecture courses both in economic theory and in economic history and in methods of social investigation. She also found helpful work in University College, and in the spring attended some lectures at the School of Sociology. The part of the year that she counted most valuable, however, was the time spent with Miss Collet, Investigator of Women’s Trades for the English Labor Department, who for the past 20 years has been studying various questions connected with the employment of women. In the winter she made an investigation in connection with the “Outer London Inquiry,” and in the summer she had an opportunity of studying the working of the Unemployed Act. A short account of one phase of this “Municipal Employment of Unemployed Women in London” will appear in the current number of the Journal of Political Economy. Her History of the Industrial Employment of Women has made some progress. She will publish in the December number of the Journal of Political Economy, “Women in Manufactures: A Supplementary Note,” and in the January, 1907, she published a paper on “The History of the Employment of Women in Cigar-Making.” She has been appointed instructor at Wellesley College to carry on some of Professor Comane’s work during the latter’s leave of absence.

Source: The Association of Collegiate Alumnae Magazine III.17 (Jan. 1908) pp. 140-141.

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Faculty Blurb and Course Description,
University of Chicago, 1909-10

Edith Abbott, Ph.D., Special Lecturer in Political Economy.

A.B., University of Nebraska, 1901; Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1905; Fellow in Political Economy, ibid., 1903 -05; Research Work for Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1906; European Fellow of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae and Student at the London School of Economics, 1906 -7; Instructor in Political Economy, Wellesley College, 1907-8; Associate Director Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, 1908—; Special Lecturer in Political Economy, University of Chicago, 1909—.

  1. Methods of Social Investigation. A course designed primarily to acquaint students with the purpose, methods, and results of the most important work that has been done in the field of social research. Such investigations as Le Play’s Ouvriers européens, Booth’s Life and Labor of the People of London, Rowntree’s Poverty, women in the printing trades, and the recent Dundee and West Ham inquiries will be studied, as well as some selected reports of Royal Commissions and of the English and American Labor Departments. The application of statistical methods to social problems, the collection and tabulation of data, the use and misuse of averages, index-numbers, and weighting will be treated briefly; and the use and limitations of experiment, the interview, the document, and personal observation will be considered.

Students may supplement this course by practical work in investigation in connection with one of the Inquiries being carried on by the Research Department of the School of Civics and Philanthropy. An additional major’s credit will be given to students who give not less than 12 hours a week to this part of the course. Mj. or 2 Mj. Winter Quarter, 9:30, Dr. Abbott.

Source: University of Chicago. Annual Register,  July, 1908—July, 1909 with Announcements for 1909-1910 (Chicago: July 1908),  pp. 50, 237.

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Jane Adams of Hull House:
Introducing Edith Abbott

From Jane Addams’ preface to the pamphlet The Wage-Earning Woman and the State by Edith Abbott and Sophonisba P. Breckinridge published by the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government (1910)

…Miss Edith Abbott was graduated from the University of Nebraska, and later received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics and Law from the University of Chicago. She was for two years a Fellow of the University, and studied in Europe for one year at the University of London in the School of Economics. After teaching political economy at Wellesley College for one year, she entered the School of Civics and Philanthropy, where she has been Associate Director for the last five years. She is the author of a very authoritative work entitled « Women in Industry; A Study in American Economic » Her knowledge of the conditions surrounding working women is by no means confined to America. She is in constant correspondence with the people most interested in the conditions of working women in England and the continental countries, and by travel and correspondence has kept herself well informed concerning the legal and industrial changes which affect the lives of women the world over. Both Miss [Sophonisba P.] Breckinridge and Miss Abbott are personally acquainted with hundreds of working women. Miss Abbott has been a resident of Hull House for the last few years, and Miss Breckinridge is in residence each year during her three months’ vacation from teaching at the University. They thus add to their scholarly qualifications a keen and living interest in thousands of working women.

JANE ADDAMS.
Hull House, Chicago.

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Back story of  the Graduate School of Social Service Administration

The most recently established of the graduate schools of the University makes its entry somewhat timidly for the first time in the rather jovial surroundings and setting provided by the Cap and Gown. The School deals with almost discordantly sombre themes — pauperism, crime, drunkenness, insanity, and vice. Its laboratories are the mean streets of the West Side, the deteriorated area of “Lower North,” the industrial district to the south along the banks of the Calumet. But the School is older, in its traditions at least, than its debut would indicate.

First established more than twenty years ago as the Institute of Social Science under the auspices of the University of Chicago, University College, the School numbered among its first members of its faculty Professor Graham Taylor of the Chicago Commons, Professor Charles Richmond Henderson of the University, and Miss Julia C. Lathrop of Hull House. In May, 1908, the Institute of Social Science became the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy and maintained an independent existence from 1908 to 1920, when it was combined with the philanthropic service division that had been organized under the rapidly expanding School of Commerce and Administration, with Mr. [Leon Carroll] Marshall as the first dean of the new School. The present Graduate School of Social Service Administration is therefore the successor of the Chicago School of Civics and the Philanthropic Service Division of the School of Commerce.

The School differs from other schools in the social service field in that it offers the student not only a series of graduate professional courses but also the opportunity of combining his professional work with a wide choice of graduate courses in the Social Service departments of a great University.

Source: University of Chicago. The Cap and Gown 1924, p. 220.

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Edith Abbott’s Writings

Over 125 items in the following bibliography are accessible via the links that have been collected by the curator of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror. Alas, seven items have not (yet) been found, of which four are significant books published by University of Chicago Press and still under copyright protection.

“Wage Statistics in the Twelfth Census.” Journal of Political Economy, 12 (June 1904), 339-61. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1833345/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Elements of Political Economy by J. Shield Nicolson. In School Review 12 (Nov. 1904), 754-755. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1075897/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Trade Unionism and British Industry by Edwin A. Pratt. Journal of Political Economy 13 (Dec. 1904), 129-132. https://archive.org/details/paper-doi-10_1086_251116

Review of Women in the Printing Trades: A Sociological Study, edited by J. Ramsay MacDonald. In Journal of Political Economy 13 (March 1905), 299-303. https://archive.org/details/paper-doi-10_1086_251145/mode/2up

“Are Women Business Failures?” Harper’s Weekly, 49 (Apr. 8, 1905) Issue 2520, 496. https://archive.org/details/sim_harpers-weekly_1905-04-08_49_2520/page/496/mode/2up

“Wages of Unskilled Labor in the United States, 1850-1900.” Journal of Political Economy, 13 (June 1905), 321-67. (Ph.D. Dissertation) https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819499/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Labor Organization among Women by Belva Mary Herron. In Journal of Political Economy 13 (Sept. 1905), 605-607. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817853/page/n1/mode/2up

“Harriett Martineau and the Employment of Women in 1836.” Journal of Political Economy, 14 (Dec. 1906), 614-26. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819994/page/n1/mode/2up

“Employment of Women in Industries: Twelfth Census Statistics.” Journal of Political Economy, 14 (Jan. 1906), 14-40 (with Breckinridge). https://www.jstor.org/stable/1817279

Review of Trade Unions by Geoffrey Drage. In Journal of Political Economy 14 (Jan. 1906), 53-56. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817284/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of The Clothing Industry in New York by Jesse Eliphalet Pope. In Journal of Political Economy 14(April 1906), 252-254. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817940/page/n1/mode/2up

“The History of Industrial Employment of Women in the United States: An Introductory Study.” In  Journal of Political Economy, 14 (Oct. 1906), 461-501. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817741/page/n1/mode/2up

“Woman Suffrage Militant: The New Movement in England.” The Independent, 61 (Nov. 29, 1906), 1276-78. https://archive.org/details/sim_independent_1906-11-29_61_3026/page/1276/mode/2up

“Employment of Women in Industries: Cigar Making — Its History and Present Tendencies.” Journal of Political Economy, 15 (Jan. 1907), 1-25. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817494/page/n1/mode/2up

“Municipal Employment of Unemployed Women in London.” Journal of Political Economy, 15 (Nov. 1907), 513-30. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819109/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Women’s Work and Wages: A Phase of Life in an Industrial City by Edward Cadbury et al. In Journal of Political Economy 15 (Nov. 1907), 563-565.  https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819119/page/n1/mode/2up

“Women in Manufactures: A Supplementary Note,” Journal of Political Economy, 15 (Dec. 1907), 619-24 (with Breckinridge and Anne S. Davis). https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820425/page/n1/mode/2up

“A Study of the Early History of Child Labor in America.” American Journal of Sociology, 14 (Jul. 1908), 15-37. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2762758/page/n1/mode/2up

“English Working Women and the Franchise.” Atlantic, 102 (Sept 1908), 343-46. https://archive.org/details/sim_atlantic_1908-09_102_3/page/342/mode/2up

“The Public Moralist and the Working Woman. Association of Collegiate Alumnae Magazine, III.18 (Dec. 1908), 12-18. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/iau.31858028383911?urlappend=%3Bseq=188%3Bownerid=13510798903605987-200

“History of the Employment of Women in the American Cotton Mills.” Journal of Political Economy:

Part I. 16 (Nov. 1908), 602-21; https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820913/page/n1/mode/2up

Part II. 16 (Dec. 1908), 680-92; https://archive.org/details/jstor-1821966/page/n1/mode/2up

Part III. 17 (Jan. 1909), 19-35. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819902/page/n1/mode/2up

“Women in Industry: The Manufacture of Boots and Shoes.” American Journal of Sociology, 15 (Nov. 1909), 335-60. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2762515/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Where Shall She Live? The Homelessness of the Woman Worker by Mary Higgs and Edward E. Hayward. In American Journal of Sociology 16 (Sept. 1910), 272-273. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763060/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Frederick William Maitland by H.A.L. Fisher. In Journal of Political Economy 18 (Nov. 1910), 750-751. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820690/page/n1/mode/2up

Women in Industry. A Study of American Economic History. New York: Appleton and Co., 1910. https://archive.org/details/WomenInIndustryStudy/page/n4/mode/1up   

The Housing Problem in Chicago. (with Breckinridge). (parts I, VI-X written by others)

  1. Introductory Note to “Housing of Non-Family Groups of Working Men” by Milton B. Hunt. American Journal of Sociology, 16 (Sept. 1910),145-146 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763051/page/n1/mode/2up
  2. “Families in Furnished Rooms.” American Journal of Sociology, 16 (Nov. 1910), 289-308 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763087/page/n1/mode/2up
  3. “Back of the Yards.” American Journal of Sociology, 16 (Jan. 1911), 433-68 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763005/page/n1/mode/2up
  4. “The West Side Revisited.” American Journal of Sociology, 17 (July 1911), 1-34 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763253/page/n1/mode/2up
  5. “South Chicago at the Gates of the Steel Mills.” American Journal of Sociology, 17 (Sept. 1911), 145-76 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2762945/page/n1/mode/2up

“English Poor-Law Reform.” Journal of Political Economy, 19 (Jan. 1911), 47-59. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820483/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Child Labor Legislation in Europe by C.W.A. Vedite. In American Economic Review (March 1911), 110-112. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1802931/page/n1/mode/2up

Finding Employment for Children Who Leave the Grade Schools to Go to Work: Report to the Chicago Woman’s Club, the Chicago Association of Collegiate Alumni, and the Women’s City Club. Chicago: Hollister Press, 1911 (with Breckinridge and Anne S. Davis). https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t33205206

“Women in Industry: The Chicago Stockyards.” Journal of Political Economy, 19 (Oct. 1911), 632-54 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819424/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of The Solution of the Child Labor Problem by Scott Nearing, in American Economic Review (Dec. 1911), 846. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1806913/page/n1/mode/2up

The Delinquent Child and the Home. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1912 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/cu31924030383214/page/n7/mode/2up

Review of Wages in the United States, 1908-1910 by Scott Nearing. In Journal of Political Economy 20 (May 1912), 529-531. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1822107/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of The Living Wage of Women Workers: A Study of Incomes and Expenditures of Four Hundred and Fifty Women Workers in the City of Boston by Louise Marion Bosworth. In American Economic Review (June 1912), 380-382. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1827614/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of The Prevention of Destitution by Sidney and Beatrice Webb. In Journal of Political Economy 20 (July 1912), 754-756. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820154/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Making Both Ends Meet: The Income and Outlay of New York Working Girls by Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt. In American Economic Review (September 1912), 652-654. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1804628/page/n1/mode/2up

“The First Chief of the Children’s Bureau.” Life and Labor, 2 (Oct. 1912), 299-301. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/coo.31924069101354?urlappend=%3Bseq=343%3Bownerid=27021597770090515-357

Wage-earning Woman and the State: A Reply to Miss Minnie Bronson. Boston: Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government, 1912 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/wageearningwoman00abbo

“Women’s Wages in Chicago: Some Notes on Available Data.” Journal of Political Economy, 21 (Feb. 1913), 143-58. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819961/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Progress and Uniformity in Child-Labor Legislation. A Study in Statistical Measurement by William F. Ogburn. In American Economic Review, 3 (June 1913), 397-399. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1827991/page/n1/mode/2up

“Public Pensions to Widows and Children.” American Economic Review, 3 (June 1913), 473-78. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1828023/page/n27/mode/2up

Reviews of The American Girl in the Stockyards District by Louise Montgomery; Women in Trade Unions in San Francisco by Lillian R. Matthews; Artifical Flower Makers by Mary Van Kleeck. In American Economic Review (March 1914), 164-166. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1805013/page/n1/mode/2up

“A Forgotten Minimum Wage Bill.” Life and Labor, 5 (Jan. 1915), 13-16. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015010962978?urlappend=%3Bseq=21%3Bownerid=13510798887191435-25

“Progress of the Minimum Wage in England.” Journal of Political Economy, 23 (Mar. 1915), 268-77. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819662/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Minimum Rates in the Chain-making Industry (Studies in the Minimum Wage, No. 1) by R. H. Tawney. Journal of Political Economy 23 (April 1915), 400-401. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819291/page/n1/mode/2up

“Statistics Relating to Crime in Chicago.” In Report of the City Council Committee of Chicago on Crime in the City of Chicago, pp. 17-88. Chicago: City Council Committee, 1915. https://archive.org/details/reportofcitycoun00chic/page/16/mode/2up

“The Copycat Vote.” New Republic, 2 (Apr. 24, 1915), 304. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hxqfnz?urlappend=%3Bseq=366%3Bownerid=27021597764513068-380

“Education for Social Work.” In Department of Interior, Bureau of Education, Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year Ended June 30, 1915, vol. 1 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1915). https://archive.org/details/reportofcommissi00unit_51/page/344/mode/2up

“Field-Work and the Training of the Social Workers.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Charities and Correction at the Forty-Second Annual Session held in Baltimore, Maryland, May 12-19, 1915, pp. 615-21. Chicago: Hildmann Printing Co., 1915. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-12-19-1915_42/page/614/mode/2up

“Statistics in Chicago Suffrage.” New Republic, 3 (June 12, 1915), 151. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015086341164?urlappend=%3Bseq=191%3Bownerid=13510798902096126-219

“Are Women a Force for Good Government?” National Municipal Review, 4 (July 1915), 437-447. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044106250632?urlappend=%3Bseq=497%3Bownerid=27021597765335525-549

The Real Jail Problem. Chicago: Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, 1915. https://archive.org/details/realjailproblem00abbo/page/n3/mode/2up

The One Hundred and One County Jails of Illinois and Why They Ought to Be Abolished. Chicago: Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, 1916. https://archive.org/details/onehundredonecou00abbo/page/n3/mode/2up

“Cheap Clothes and Nasty.” New Republic, 4 (Jan. 1, 1916), 217-219. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hxqfp4?urlappend=%3Bseq=274%3Bownerid=27021597764513482-278

“The Woman Voter and the Spoils System in Chicago.” National Municipal Review, 5 (July 1916), 460-465. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044106250624?urlappend=%3Bseq=498%3Bownerid=27021597765323744-544

Review of Women in Modern Industry by B. L. Hutchins. In American Economic Review (June 1916), 399-400. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1813274/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Summary of the Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Bulletin of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In American Economic Review, 662-664. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1808551/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Old Age Pensions: Their Actual Working and Ascertained Results in the United Kingdom by H. J. Hoare. American Journal of Sociology (Sept. 1916), 277-278. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763833/page/n1/mode/2up

“Administration of the Illinois Funds-to-Parents Laws.” United States Department of Labor Bulletin 212, pp. 818-34. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1917. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.a0004011193?urlappend=%3Bseq=980%3Bownerid=13510798903282064-1000

“The Experimental Period of Widows Pension Legislation.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1917, pp. 154-65. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-6-13-1917_44/page/154/mode/2up

“Charles Booth, 1840-1916.” Journal of Political Economy, 25 (Feb 1917), 195-200. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819721/page/n1/mode/2up

“The War and Women’s Work in England.” Journal of Political Economy, 15 (July 1917), 641-678. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1821772/page/n1/mode/2up

“Field Work Training with Social Agencies.” In Report of the Association of Urban Universities, November, 1917, pp. 92-103. Concord, N.H.: Rumford Press, 1917-18. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/iau.31858045945593?urlappend=%3Bseq=274%3Bownerid=117203284-282

Truancy and Non-Attendance in the Chicago Schools: A Study of the Social Aspects of the Compulsory Education and Child Labor Legislation of Illinois. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1917 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/truancynonattend00abbo/page/n5/mode/2up

Democracy and Social Progress in England. University of Chicago War Papers, 8. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918. https://archive.org/details/democracysocialp00abbo/mode/2up

“The Social Case Worker and the Enforcement of Industrial Legislation.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1918, pp. 312-19. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-15-22-1918_45/page/312/mode/2up

“Pensions, Insurance and the State.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1918, pp. 388-89. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-15-22-1918_45/page/388/mode/2up

“Crime and the War.” Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, 9 (May 1918), 32-45. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1133731/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of three works on women workers. In American Journal of Sociology 23 (Jan. 1918), 551-552. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763523/page/n1/mode/2up

Reviews of six books on women and war work. In American Economic Review (Dec. 1918), 819-824.https://archive.org/details/jstor-1803702/page/n1/mode/2up

“Health Insurance in Great Britain.” In Report of the Health Insurance Commission of the State of Illinois, May 1, 1919, pp. 600-624. Springfield: Illinois State Journal Co., 1919. Also in Report of the Ohio Health and Old Age Insurance Commission, February, 1919, pp. 312-40. Columbus: F. J. Heer Printing Co., 1919. https://archive.org/details/cu31924002406951/page/600/mode/2up

“Probation and Suspended Sentence” (Report of Committee “B” of the Institute). Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, 10 (Nov. 1919), 341-50. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1133813/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Report of the War Cabinet Committee on Women in Industry in American Economic Review (June 1920), 358-362. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1804881/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Italian Emigration of our Times by Robert F. Foerster. In American Political Science Review 14 (Aug. 1920), 523-524. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1946285/page/n1/mode/2up

The Administration of the Aid-to-Mothers Law in Illinois. U.S. Children’s Bureau. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921 (with Breckinridge).https://archive.org/details/administrationof00abbo/page/n3/mode/2up

Review of The Passing of the County Jail: Individualization of Misdemeanants through a Unified Correctional System by Stuart Alfred Queen. The American Journal of Sociology (May 1921), 792-793. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2764348

“The Promise and Practice of Social Legislation.” University Journal (alumni edition, University of Nebraska), 17 July 1921), 4-11. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015080407714?urlappend=%3Bseq=6%3Bownerid=13510798897152302-10

“Police Brutality in Chicago.” The Nation, 114 (Mar. 8, 1922), 286-87. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/pst.000068744618?urlappend=%3Bseq=308%3Bownerid=13510798902987282-322

“Tragedy of the Excess Quota.” New Republic, 30 (Mar. 8, 1922), 52-53. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hwqwpg?urlappend=%3Bseq=66%3Bownerid=27021597767357933-72

Review of Immigration and the Future and The Federal Administration and the Alien both by Frances Kellor. In Journal of Political Economy 30 (Apr. 1922), 312-314. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1822697/page/n1/mode/2up

Discussion of “Immigration under the Percentum Limit Law,” by W. W. Husband. In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1922, pp. 463-66. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-22-29-1922_49/page/462/mode/2up

What the Women of Illinois Ought to Know and Ought to Do about the Questions of Social Hygiene: A Report Submitted to the Committee Appointed at the Request of the Joint Conference of the Women’s Clubs of Chicago, 1922.

“Recent Statistics Relating to Crime in Chicago.” Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, 13 (Nov. 1922), 329-58. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1133931/page/n1/mode/2up

“Training in Case Work and Special Administrative Problems in a University.” In The Social Service of the Courts: Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Conference of The National Probation Association, 1922, pp 59-68. New York: National Probation Association, 1923. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101067578383?urlappend=%3Bseq=65%3Bownerid=27021597769832968-69

Review of The History of Public Poor Relief in Massachusetts, 1620-1920. In American Journal of Sociology(Nov. 1922), 364-366. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2764686/page/n1/mode/2up

“The English Census of 1921.” Journal of Political Economy, 30 (Dec. 1922), 827-40. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1822472/page/n1/mode/2up

“Is One Per Cent in Quarantine a Public Health Measure?” Illinois League of Women Voters Bulletin, 3 (1923), 7-9.

Review of Penology in the United States by Louis N. Robinson. In American Journal of Sociology 29 (July 1923), 105-106. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2764420

“Federal Immigration Policies, 1864-1924.” University Journal of Business, 2 (1924), (Mar. 1924), 133-56; (Jun. 1924), 347-67; (Sep. 1924), 455-80. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2354831 ; https://www.jstor.org/stable/2354665 ; https://www.jstor.org/stable/2354651

“Immigration Legislation and the Problems of Assimilation.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1924, pp. 82-91. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-25-july-2-1924_51/page/82/mode/2up

Immigration: Select Documents and Case Records. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015010521006

“English Statistics of Pauperism during the War.” Journal of Political Economy, 33 (Feb. 1925), 1-32. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1821974

Historical Aspects of the Immigration Problem. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1926. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015008786579

“Training for the Policewoman’s Job.” Woman Citizen, 10 (Apr 1926), 30. https://archive.org/details/sim_womans-journal_1926-04_10_13/page/30/mode/2up

“The Civil War and the Crime Wave of 1865-70.” Social Service Review, 1 (June 1927), 212-34. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1927-06_1_2/page/212/mode/2up

“The Webbs on the English Poor Law.” Social Service Review, 3 (June 1929), 252-69. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1929-06_3_2/page/252/mode/2up

Report on Crime and Criminal Justice in Relation to the Foreign Born, National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement (Wickersham Commission). No. 10. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1931. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b4628567

Social Welfare and Professional Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931, and ed. 1942.

“Poor People in Chicago.” New Republic, 72 (Oct. 5, 1932), 209. https://archive.org/details/sim_new-republic_1932-10-05_72_931/page/208/mode/2up

“The Fallacy of Local Relief.” New Republic, 72 (Nov. 9, 1932), 348-50. https://archive.org/details/sim_new-republic_1932-11-09_72_936/page/347/mode/2up

“The Crisis in Relief.” The Nation, 137 (Oct. 11, 1933), 400-402. https://archive.org/details/sim_nation_1933-10-11_137_3562/page/400/mode/2up

“Abolish the Pauper Laws.” Social Service Review, 8 (Mar. 1934), 1-16. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1934-03_8_1

“Don’t Do It, Mr. Hopkins!” The Nation, 140 (Jan. 9, 1935), 41-42. https://archive.org/details/sim_nation_1935-01-09_140_3627/page/40/mode/2up

“Evictions during the Chicago Rent Moratorium Established by the Relief Agencies, 1931-1933.” Social Service Review, 9 (Mar. 1935), 34-57 (with Katherine Kiesling). https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1935-03_9_1/page/34/mode/2up

“The Pauper Laws Still Go On.” Social Service Review, 9 (Dec. 1935), 731-56. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1935-12_9_4/page/730/mode/2up

“Jane Addams Memorial Service.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1935, pp. 3-5. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-09-15-1935/page/2/mode/2up

The Tenements of Chicago, 1908-1935. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1936 (with Breckinridge).

“Federal Relief Sold Down the River.” The Nation, 142 (Mar. 18, 1936), 346. https://archive.org/details/sim_nation_1936-03-18_142_3689/page/346/mode/2up

“Training for the Public Welfare Services.” Public Welfare News, 4 (Mar. 1936), 5.

“Public Welfare and Politics.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1936, pp. 27-45; https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-18-23-1936/page/26/mode/2up  also in Social Service Review, 10 (Sept. 1936), 395-412. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1936-09_10_3

“Public Assistance—Whither Bound?” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1937, pp. 3-25. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-23-29-1937/page/n11/mode/2up

Some American Pioneers in Social Welfare: Select Documents with Editorial Notes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937.

“Is There a Legal Right to Relief?” Social Service Review, 12 (June 1938), 260-75. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1938-06_12_2/page/260/mode/2up

“Poor Law Provision for Family Responsibility.” Social Service Review, 12 (Dec. 1938), 598-618. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1938-12_12_4/page/598/mode/2up

“A Sister’s Memories.” Social Service Review, 13 (Sept. 1939), 351-408. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1939-09_13_3

“Unemployment Relief a Federal Responsibility.” Social Service Review, 14 (Sept. 1940), 438-52. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1940-09_14_3/page/438/mode/2up

“Relief, the No Man’s Land, and How to Reclaim It.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1940, pp. 187-98. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-26-june-01-1940/page/186/mode/2up

Public Assistance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940. Vol. I [Note: very incomplete copy at archive.org] ; Vol. II https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.544099/page/n7/mode/2up

United States, 76th Cong., 3rd Sess., House, Select Committee to Investigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens, Aug. 19, 20. and 21, 1940, pp. 1179-90. https://archive.org/details/interstatemigrat03unit/page/1178/mode/2up

“Work or Maintenance: A Federal Program for the Unemployed.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1941, pp. 332-43 https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-01-07-1941/page/332/mode/2up ; revised in Social Service Review, 15 (Sept. 1941), 520-32. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1941-09_15_3/page/520/mode/2up

“Twenty-one Years of University Education for the Social Services, 1920-41.” A Report to the Alumni with a Register of Alumni Who Received Higher Degrees, 1920-1942, and Their Dissertation Subjects. Social Service Review, 15 (Dec. 1941), 670-705. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1941-12_15_4/page/670/mode/2up

“Juvenile Delinquency during the First World War, Notes on the British Experience 1914-1918.” Social Service Review, 17 (June 1943), 192-212. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1943-06_17_2/page/192/mode/2up

“Some Charitable Bequests in Early English Wills (1284-1580) and Statutes (1414-1601) to Protect Charitable Gifts.” Social Service Review, 20 (June 1946), 231-46. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1946-06_20_2/page/230/mode/2up

“Three American Pioneers in International Social Welfare.” The Compass, 28 (May 1947), 6.

“Work of Thomas H. Gallaudet and the Teaching of the Deaf.” Social Service Review, 21 (Sept. 1947), 375-86. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1947-09_21_3/page/374/mode/2up

“Sophonisba P. Breckinridge Over the Years.” Social Service Review, 22 (Dec. 1948), 417-23. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1948-12_22_4/page/n7/mode/2up

“Grace Abbott and Hull-House, 1908-21. Social Service Review 24, Part I, (Sept. 1950), 374-94. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1950-09_24_3/page/374/mode/2up; and Part II, (Dec. 1950), 493-518. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1950-12_24_4/page/492/mode/2up

“The Survey Award: Acceptance Speech.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1951, pp. ix-x. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/n/ncosw/ACH8650.1951.001/16?rgn=full+text;view=image

“The Hull-House of Jane Addams.” Social Service Review, 26 (Sept. 1952), 334-38. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1952-09_26_3/page/334/mode/2up

Sources:
Rachel Marks, The Published Writings of Edith Abbott: A Bibliography, American Journal of Sociology 32 (March 1958), 51-56;
Lela B. Costin (1983). Two Sisters for Social Justice: A Biography of Grace and Edith Abbott. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, pp. 287-293.

Image Source: Portrait of Edith Abbott by Melvin H. Sykes (1919). University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-00004, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. Image colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Chicago Curriculum Statistics

Chicago. Report of the Committee on Mathematical Statistics. Henry Schultz, 1938

Henry Schultz

 

The following report on the work of the Committee on Mathematical Statistics by economics professor Henry Schultz to President Robert M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago was written shortly before he left Chicago to go on sabbatical leave at the University of California at Los Angeles. Schultz had just published his magnum opus, The Theory and Measurement of Demand, earlier that Spring. 

Henry Schultz, his wife and both daughters tragically died November 26, 1938 in a horrific automobile accident about sixty miles east of San Diego on U.S. highway 80, near Laguna Junction. 

_____________________________

The University of Chicago
Department of Economics

Aug. 6, 1938

President Robert M. Hutchins,
University of Chicago.

Dear Mr. Hutchins:

            The Committee on Mathematical Statistics, which was organized on March 6, 1936, and which began to work in the Autumn Quarter of 1936, completed its first series of courses in the Spring Quarter of 1938. It is, therefore, appropriate that I give a brief report of our activities.

            During the last two years the Committee gave six courses in which there were enrolled a total of 104 students from seven different departments. The courses and the professors in charge were:

Course

Professor
Statistics 301—Survey of Mathematical Statistics I.
The Elements (Autumn 1936)
1 Major		 Thurstone
Statistics 302—Survey of Mathematical Statistics II.
Probability and Least Squares (Winter 1937)
1 Major		 Bartky
Statistics 301—Survey of Mathematical Statistics I.
The Elements (Autumn 1937)
1 Major		 Bartky
Statistics 302—Survey of Mathematical Statistics II.
Probability and Least Squares (Winter 1937)
1 Major		 Bartky
Statistics 311—Correlation and Curve-fitting
(Winter 1937)
2 Majors		 Schultz
Statistics 312—Probability, Sampling, and Frequency Distributions
(Spring 1938)
2 Majors		 Schultz and Bartky

            The courses given did not, and were not intended to, avoid such duplication as may exist in the teaching of statistics on the campus. As is clearly stated in the Committee’s announcement, the instruction for which this Committee takes a co-ordinating responsibility is intended for those who have the conventional courses in analytic geometry and in the differential and integral calculus as well as a good introductory course in statistics, preferably one given in the Department in which the student intends to do his major work.

It is this policy of the Committee which is the source of its strength and of its weakness. It is a source of strength, because the prerequisite of a course in statistics in the Department in which the student intends to do his major work, has made it clear to the various Departments that the Committee was not interfering with the courses in elementary statistics given by them and has secured for it the good will of the statisticians on the campus. The policy is also a source of weakness, because it makes the Committee dependent on the various Departments for students and for providing them with the necessary prerequisites. Unless a Department is liberal in granting credits to its students for courses taken with the Committee the student cannot, as a rule, afford to take the entire sequence of courses offered.

This is probably the most important factor in the requests which we have received for a separate degree in statistics. We believe, however that the time is not yet ripe for a serious consideration of this question. In the first place, there are no positions for “pure statisticians” except to teach other “pure statisticians,” i.e., mathematicians. The demand is generally for a statistically trained biologist, psychologist, or economist but not for a ”pure” mathematical statistician. The situation in this respect is, however, likely to change.

In the second place, we are not prepared to grant degrees even if we wished to, and had the authority of the three members constituting this Committee, one is primarily an economist, the other is primarily a psychologist, and the third is primarily a mathematical astronomer.

            The economist and the psychologist have so much to do in their respective fields that they will be compelled, before long, to give up the attempt to keep in intimate touch with the very rapid developments in probability and mathematical statistics. This would leave only one person, Professor Bartky who could be counted upon to follow the developments in mathematical statistics and probability and do research in this field. What we need, therefore, ls at least one additional mathematician who has the ability and is qualified by training and experience to make the field of statistical inference his life work, and who is also at home in at least one empirical science. We believe that Professor S. S. Wilks of Princeton University comes close to meeting excellently all these requirements. We recommend that you look into his qualifications for work on this Committee and for consultation with the various statisticians on matters falling within his field of competence.

            The field of statistical inference is expanding at a very rapid rate. The University of California, Iowa State College, the University of Iowa, Princeton University, George Washington University, and other institutions have recently appointed men to develop their work in statistics. If the University of Chicago is to continue to do distinguished work in this field it will have to attract the most promising men it can find and to provide them with favorable conditions for their creative activities.

            The Committee requests that a sum of $300 be appropriated to it for the part-time services of a qualified graduate student to assist in the preparation of lecture and text materials. This sum requested is to supplement that obtained for mimeographing from the Social Science Division. It is understood that the money will not be used unless a qualified person can be obtained for the work.

Sincerely yours,

[signed]
Henry Schultz, Chairman,
Committee on Mathematical Statistics.

HS DH

_____________________________

Carbon Copy of President Hutchins Reply

September 9, 1938

Dear Mr. Schultz:

            I have read with much interest your report of August 6 on the first series of courses given by the Committee on Mathematical Statistics. The Committee is to be congratulated on the splendid progress which has been made.

            The financial aspect of this matter will have to be deferred until preparation of the budget for the year 1939-40. Your request for an appropriation for the part-time services of a graduate student to assist in the preparation of lecture and text materials will be considered at that time.

Sincerely yours,
ROBERT M. HUTCHINS

Professor Henry Schultz
404 Social Science Research Building
FACULTY EXCHANGE

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Office of the Presdient. Hutchins Administration. Records. Box 283, Folder10, “Economics”.

Categories
Chicago Faculty Regulations

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. requirement. Either linear algebra or foreign language reading comprehension, 1968

 

At the University of Chicago in the mid-1950s one economics Ph.D. requirement was to demonstrate an effective reading knowledge of either French or German or some other foreign language approved by the department..

The 1968 memo to graduate students transcribed below announced that the “satisfaction of either a mathematics or foreign language requirement” would be the rule for a Ph.D. in economics.

_________________________

History of Foreign Language Requirement for Ph.D.

January 12, 1968

To: Faculty, Division of the Social Sciences
From: D. Gale Johnson, Dean [of the] Division of the Social Sciences

In re: Foreign language requirements for the Ph. D

At a meeting of the faculty of the Division of the Social Sciences held November 18, 1931, the following Statement was adopted as one of the requirements for admission to candidacy for the Ph.D.:

“The ability, demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Board of Examiners, to read two foreign modern languages approved by the department or interdepartmental committee, one of which must be French or German. It is advised that this requirement be met as early as possible in the student’s program of study.”

On January 15, 1943, the faculty of the Division modified the language requirement and made it read as follows:

“Demonstration of the ability to use one or more foreign languages effectively toward the objective of the student’s academic program. This ability in the case of at least one language will be tested by: (I) the passing of an examination administered and evaluated by the board of Examinations; and (II) in addition to the examination, the writing of a paper or series of papers, or oral work, judged satisfactory by the Department in connection with the student’s program of study, in which extensive use is made of works in the foreign language. Departments may at their discretion specify the particular foreign language or languages required of their candidates for the doctorate. Exceptions in individual cases may be made by the Dean of Students on the recommendation of a Department.”

At its meeting on December 4, 1967, the faculty of the Division approved the following motion:

“That each Department or Committee in the Division should have the right to substitute for the divisional language requirement for the Ph.D. degree a requirement that the student demonstrate proficiency in a substantive field other than that of the department in question. The degree of proficiency to be required in such a field should be comparable or superior to that represented by the present divisional language requirement. The department at its option, may require that proficiency be demonstrated in a particular substantive field or may leave to the student, in some or all cases, the option of deciding whether to demonstrate proficiency in a language or a substantive field.”

If a department or committee wishes to act under the motion approved by the faculty of the Division, Mr. Zimring and I urge that it do so with reasonable promptness to permit students to make their plans with full information concerning the requirements. Until a department or committee has taken action and so informs the Office of the Dean it will be assumed that the language requirement as it existed on December 1, 1967, shall continue in force.

At the time a department or committee takes action, if any, to modify its language requirement, it should indicate the date on which any changes become effective and that date could be within a few days after action has been taken. I feel that before a departmental or committee action is made effective that Mr. Zimring should be given time to study it and to determine if his interpretation is the one that has been intended.

Mr. Zimring and I strongly urge that departments and committees accept a self-denying ordinance, namely that changes in the requirements will not be made more than once a year and that changes affecting 1968-69 be made by March 15, 1968.

The action taken with respect to the Divisional language requirement does not change current procedures with respect to examination if a department retains a language requirement. It is my interpretation that while departments can require a supplementary or additional examination to be administered by the department, it cannot dispense with the examinations given by the Office of the University Examiner.

DGJ:bp

Source:  Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman, Box 194, Folder 4, “Economics Dept A-G”.

_________________________

Linear Algebra
or a Foreign Language

Department of Economics  University of Chicago
May, 1968

To: Graduate Students, Department of Economics
From: Arnold C. Harberger. Chairman

Re: Revision in Foreign Language/ Mathematics Requirement

Foreign Language and Mathematics Requirement

Each Ph.D. candidate, before admission to candidacy for the Ph.D., must demonstrate effective command of relevant mathematical tools, including calculus and matrix algebra. The Department of Economics will accept three courses in calculus (mathematics 151, 152, and 154, or equivalent), and one course in linear algebra (mathematics 250, 252, Business 372, or equivalent) as meeting, respectively, the calculus and matrix algebra requirements.

In place of demonstration of competence in matrix algebra, students may opt to demonstrate proficiency at a high level in a foreign language by means of an examination administered by the Office of the University Examiner and must demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Department ability to translate at sight with reasonable ease material in economics in the foreign language. Any foreign language other than Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, or Swedish must be approved by the Department.

Source:  Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman, Box 194, Folder 4, “Economics Dept A-G”.

Categories
Chicago Economists Money and Banking

Chicago. Ph.D. Thesis Committees in Monetary Economics. Patinkin’s Research, 1968

The first boxes of archival material that I examined as my research project on the evolution of graduate economics training was beginning to take shape came from Don Patinkin’s papers back when Duke’s Economists’ Papers Archive still bore the modest descriptor of “Economists’ Papers Project”.

This post transcribes some of the research material collected by Patinkin in his survey of Chicago style monetary economics. Fun Fact: his research assistant while on leave at M.I.T. was the graduate student Stanley Fischer, from whom incidentally I was to take my first graduate macroeconomics course (Patinkin’s book was on the reading list, surprise, surprise).

Doctoral theses advisers were identified for a dozen and a half Chicago theses that drew Don Patinkin’s attention. This is the sort of information that doesn’t normally jump at you in digitised form through a duly diligent internet search, so I thought it worth my time to file this information for now in a blog post. Minor additions have been added in square brackets for the sake of completeness.

______________________________

List of Patinkin’s copy request for Chicago Ph.D. theses

Author

 Article Details of parts photographed

Box No.

1.
Bach, George [Leland]

 Price Level Stabilization: [Some Theoretical and Practical Considerations]

[blank]

[blank]

2.
Bloomfield, Arthur [Irving]

 International Capital Movement and the American Balance of Payments 1929-1940 Title, Contents, Bibliography.
pp. 513-514, 578-579.

T-304

3.
Bronfenbrenner, Martin

 Monetary Theory and General Equilibrium Title, Preface, Bibliography.
Chaps. 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

T-10250

4.
Brooks, Benjamin [Franklin]

 A History of Monetary Theory in the United States Before 1860 Contents, Preface, Bibliography.
Chap. 11.

T-9885

5.
Caplan, Benjamin

 The Wicksellian School—A Critical Study of the Development of Swedish Monetary Theory, 1898-1932 Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-7847

6.
Cox, Garfield V.

 Business Forecasting in the United States 1919-1928 Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-17-91

7.
Daugherty Marion [Roberts]

 The Currency-Banking Controversy Title, Contents, Bibliography
pp. 41, 54, 130, 133, 246, 316.

T-10282

8.
Harper, [William Canaday] Joel

 Scrip and Other Forms of Local Money Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-145

9.
Leigh, Arthur Hertel

 Studies in the Theory of Capital and Interest Before 1870 Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-554

10.
Linville, Francis [Aron]

 Central Bank Co-operation Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-11508

11.
McEvoy, Raymond H.

 The Effects of Federal Reserve Operations 1929-1936 Title, Contents, Preface Bibliography.

T-7731

12.
McIvor R. Craig

 Monetary Expansion in Canadian War Finance, 1939-1946 Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-10268

13.
McKean, Roland Neely

 Fluctuations in Our Private Claim-Debt Structure and Monetary Policy Title, Contents, Bibliography.
Chaps. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

T-90

14.
Reeve, Joseph [Edwin]

 Monetary Proposals for Curing the Depression in the United States 1929-1935 [blank]

T-11022

15.
Shaw, Ernest Ray

 The Investment and Secondary Reserve Policy of Commercial Banks Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-8322

16.
Snider, Delbert [Arthur]

 Monetary, Exchange, and Trade Problems in Postwar Greece Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-1031

17.
Tongue, William [Walter]

 Money, Capital, and the Business Cycle Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-670

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archive. Don Patinkin Papers, University of Chicago School of Economics Raw Materials, Box 2, Folder “Chicago, general (?). from binder: “U. Chicago Ph.D. Theses”, folder 1 of 2”.

______________________________

The University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637

Department of Economics

August 21, 1968

Professor Don E. Patinkin
Economics Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Professor Patinkin:

            I am listing below the information (Committee members) you requested in your letter of July 8, 1968. I am also hoping that you have received your microfilm by now. The Photoduplication department was to have mailed them to you on August 13.

Bach, George [Leland] 1940 S. E. Leland
C. W. Wright
H. C. Simon
Bloomfield, Arthur [Irving] 1942 J. Viner
Lloyd W. Mints
O. Lange
Bronfenbrenner, Martin 1939 Frank Knight, chr.
S. E. Leland
Brooks, Benjamin [Franklin] 1939 Frank Knight, chr.
Lloyd Mints
[Viner also thanked in thesis preface]
Caplan, Benjamin 1942 J. Viner
O. Lange		 L. W. Mints
H. C. Simons
Cox, Garfield [V.] 1929 Lionel D. Edie, chr.
Jacob Viner
Chester W. Wright
Daugherty, Marion [Roberts] (Mrs.) 1941 Jacob Viner, chr.
Garfield Cox
Lloyd Mints
Harper, Joel [William Canady] 1949
[Summer 1948]		 F. Knight
O. Lange
H. Simons		 C. W. Wright
L. Mints
S. Leland
Leigh, Arthur [Hertel] 1946 Frank Knight, chr.
Jacob Viner
Oskar Lange
McEvoy, Raymond [H.] 1950 Lloyd W. Mints, chr.
Earl J. Hamilton
Lloyd A. Metzler
McIvor, Russel [Craig] 1947 Roy Blough, chr.
J. K. Langum
L.W. Mints [in thesis acknowledgement Mints as the doctoral committee chair]
McKean, Roland [Neely] 1948 Lloyd W. Mints, chr.
Lloyd A. Metzler
Earl J. Hamilton
A. Director
Reeve, Joseph [Edwin] 1939 Lloyd W. Mints, chr.
Garfield V. Cox
Jacob Viner
Shaw, Ernest [Ray] 1930 Lionel D. Edie, chr.
Lloyd W. Mints
Stuart P. Meech (Bus. School)
Snider, Delbert [Arthur] 1951 L. Metzler, chr.
R. Blough
Bert Hoselitz
Tongue, William [Walter] 1947 L. W. Mints, chr.
Frank H. Knight
H. Gregg Lewis

            As you can see in some instances the Chairman was not listed, but the examining committee was listed. I wrote to Professor Cox, 660 W. Bonita, Apt. 24 E, Claremont, California 91711, to get the committee members for him and for Professor E. Shaw. Professor Cox also gave me the address of Professor Lloyd W. Mints, 618 E. Myrtle St., Ft. Collins, Colorado, should you have any interest. I hope this is sufficient.

Yours truly,
[signed]
(Mrs.) Hazel Bowdry
Sec. to Professor Telser

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637

Department of Economics

October 23, 1968

Professor Don Patinkin
Department of Economics
The Eliezer Kaplan School of
Economics and Social Sciences
The Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel

Dear Professor Patinkin:

            In answer to your letter of October 4, I have rechecked the files and find the below listed information.

George Bach’s committee members:

L. W. Mints, chr.
S. E. Leland
C. W. Wright
Oskar Lange
F. H. Knight
H. C. Simons
Jacob Viner
Jacob Left
Maynard Krueger

This is the order in which the examining committee is listed.

Martin Bronfenbrenner:

Henry Schultz chr.
J. Viner
L. W. Mints
F. Knight
A. G. Hart
H. C. Simon

Joel Harper:

S. E. Leland, Chr.
H. Simons
L. W. Mints
Mr. Chatters

Benjamin Brooks:

L. Mints, chr.
J. Viner
F. Knight

            I checked Faculty records with Mrs. Mosby, and found a re-appointment for Henry Simons dated June 3, 1930.

            I hope this information is helpful, and I am sorry I cannot give more definite committee members in the case of Bach.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
(Mrs.) Hayzel Bowdry

P.S. I hope you have received the microfilm by now. It was mailed via airmail yesterday.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archive. Don Patinkin Papers, University of Chicago School of Economics Raw Materials, Box 2, Folder “Chicago, general (?), Simons, Mints, Knight materials”.

Image Source: Don Patinkin article at Gonçalo L. Fonseca’s History of Economic Thought website. Colorized at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Chicago Economists Germany Harvard Principles

Chicago. Decennial Harvard Class Report of associate professor of political economy James A. Field, ABD, 1913.

College alumni reports often provide a glimpse into career paths of academic, business and government economists. I stumbled across the following tenth year report of the Harvard graduate James Alfred Field who ultimately achieved a professorship at the University of Chicago even though his highest academic degree was an A.B. from Harvard College in 1903. The next post will share some of his Harvard graduate record.  

____________________________

JAMES ALFRED FIELD

Born Milton, Mass., May 26, 1880.
Parents James Alfred, Caroline Leslie (Whitney) Field.
School Milton Academy, Milton, Mass.
Years in College 1899-1903.
Degrees A.B., 1903.
Unmarried  
Business University professor.
Address University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.

       The opportunity to teach economics at Harvard came to me, quite to my surprise, near the close of our senior year. That autumn found me a graduate student, installed as proctor in Apley Court, and section hand in Economics 1. The next year I was appointed Austin Teaching Fellow in Economics, and took up, in addition to my duties in Economics 1, the work of assisting Professor Carver in his course on social problems, Economics 3. I sailed for Europe in August, 1905; studied during the winter semester at the University of Berlin, and rounded out nearly a year abroad by attending lectures in Paris and by reading in the British Museum library. From September, 1906, to June, 1908, I was instructor in economics at Harvard. In the summer of 1908 I accepted the offer of an instructorship at the University of Chicago, where I have since been teaching economics, specializing in statistics and the theory of population. I was made assistant professor of political economy in 1910, and am to advance this year (1913) to the rank of associate professor. Three years ago I revisited the British Museum and delved in manuscript records of a social reform propaganda of the early nineteenth century. I have written a little on the results of that study and on the related subject of eugenics, and have coöperated with my associates, Professor L. C. Marshall, 1901, and Professor C. W. Wright, 1901, in the preparation of two text-books embodying a method of teaching elementary economics which we have been working out together for the past five years. On the side, I am managing editor of the Journal of Political Economy; and I find myself involved in some of the minor executive duties with which a vigorous university contrives to keep folks busy. Books and articles which I have written: Outlines of Economics developed in a Series of Problems (joint author with L. C. Marshall and C. W. Wright) (third edition, 1912), The Early Propagandist Movement in English Population Theory(American Economic Review, April, 1911), The Progress of Eugenics (Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1911; also reprinted as a pamphlet, Harvard University, 1911) ; also other lesser articles. Member: Harvard Club of Chicago; Harvard Club of Keene, N.H., Harvard Club of New York, Quadrangle Club of Chicago, University Club of Chicago, City Club of Chicago, American Economic Association, American Statistical Association, American Sociological Society, Western Economic Society, American Association for Labor Legislation, National Child Labor Committee, Playground and Recreation Association of America, American Breeders Association, American Society for the Judicial Settlement of International Disputes, Art Institute of Chicago, University Orchestral Association of Chicago, Immigrants Protective League of Chicago, National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, Harvard Travellers Club.

Source: Harvard College Class of 1903. Decennial Report (1913), pp. 161-2.

Image Source: James A. Field. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-06081, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. The black and white image has been cropped and colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.