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Chicago. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus Simon James McLean, 1897

It all began as a humble search for a single mosaic tile — where did Simon James McLean study before going to the University of Chicago and becoming one of its first four Ph.D.’s in Political Economy? Before getting an answer to that question, I uncovered many other details of a life begun in Brooklyn (1871) with first academic degrees from the University of Toronto (A.B., 1894; LL.B., 1895), then A.M. at Columbia (1896) and finally Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1897).

After getting the Ph.D. McLean’s career literally went south, namely to the University of Arkansas (1897-1902), then west to Stanford (1902-05), and then back north to the University of Toronto (1906) at the age of 35.

From the University of Chicago’s registers of its Ph.D’s. for the years 1921, 1931, and 1938 I discovered that McLean morphed from a leading academic light regarding the economics of railroad regulation into a policy mover-and-shaker on the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada (1908-1938). The man covered a lot of territory in his life.

But wait, there’s more. While on McLean’s trail through Fayetteville, Arkansas, I came across the course descriptions at the University of Arkansas for economics and sociology that included his textbook choices. Since there is no indication of anyone else offering any of these courses, it would appear the young professor had a teaching load for each semester of 14 hours per week. I think it is reasonable to assume that his choices of topics and texts represent an average of his own earlier coursework at Columbia and Chicago. I have added links to all the texts given in the course descriptions.

 

Sources:

Theses of the University of Chicago, Doctors of Philosophy. June 1893—December 1921. Chicago: Harper Memorial Library, University of Chicago.

University of Chicago Announcements, Register Number, Doctors of Philosophy. June, 1893—April, 1931. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 122-127.

University of Chicago Announcements, Register of Doctors of Philosophy. Jan, 1893—April, 1938. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 139-144.

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McLean, Simon James.
University of Chicago thesis (1897):
The railway policy of Canada.

McLean’s Ph.D. thesis does appear to have been published as such. However, he did write a series of articles for the Journal of Political Economy that together account for much of his dissertation work.

An early chapter in Canadian railroad policy. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 6 (June 1898), 323-352.
Canadian railways and the bonding question. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 7 (September 1899), pp. 500-542.
The railway policy of Canada, 1849 to 1867: I. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 9 (March 1901), pp.
The railway policy of Canada, 1849 to 1867: II. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 9 (June 1901), pp. 351-383.

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Arkansas University.—Dr. Simon James McLean has been appointed Professor of History and Political Economy at the University of Arkansas. He was born at Brooklyn, N.Y., June 14, 1871. After passing through the public schools of Quebec and Cumberland, Canada, and the Ontario Collegiate Institute of Ottawa, he entered the Toronto University. Here he obtained the degree of A.B. in 1894 and that of LL.B. in 1895. He then pursued further graduate studies at Columbia, receiving his A.M. in 1896, and at Chicago, where, in 1897, he obtained the degree of Ph.D. In the same year he was appointed Professor of Economics and Sociology at the University of Arkansas. Professor McLean has published:

“Tariff History of Canada.” University of Toronto Studies, 1895. Pp.53.
“The University Settlement Movement.” Canadian Magazine, March, 1897,
“Early Railway History of Canada.” Ibid., March, 1899.
“Early Canadian Railway Policy.” Journal of Political Economy, June, 1898.
“Canadian Railways and the Bonding Question.” Ibid., September, 1899.

 

Source: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 14 (September 1899) p. 64 [page 220 in printed volume].

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Course offerings in economics and sociology at the University of Arkansas
1899-1900

ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
S. J. McLean, Professor.

 

The courses offered in this department are designed to afford such instruction as will be advantageous to those who intend to enter public life, or those callings which will bring them closely in touch with the activities of citizenship. Course 1 is required before more advanced courses in this department are taken.

  1. Principles of Economics (both terms)……….2

Recitations, prescribed readings, reports and debates. Text-book: Walker, Political Economy [3rd edition, 1888 ].

  1. Industrial History of America and Europe since 1763 (first term)……….3

The leading industrial facts of this period are considered, including panics and trusts. A detailed study of some of the more important industries will also be made. Lectures, reports, and prescribed readings. Selected portions of Rand’s Economic History [Selections Illustrating Economic History since the Seven Years’ War 3rd ed., 1895]will be studied.

  1. Banking (first part of second term)……….3

The principles of Banking and the history of Banking Systems. [Chapters on the theory and history of banking. 1st ed., New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1891. ] Lectures, recitations, reports, and readings. Text-book: Dunbar, Chapters in the Theory and History of Banking.

  1. Money (latter part of second term)……….3

The principles of Money and the history of Monetary Systems are considered. [From 1898-99 Catalogue: “Text-books: Walker and Jevons” [Francis A. Walker, Money (1878). William Stanley Jevons, Money and the mechanism of exchange (1875).]

  1. Tariff History and Problems (first term)……….2

United States, England, France and Germany. Special attention will be devoted to the tariff history of the United States. Text-book: Taussig, Tariff History of the United States. [1888] This will be supplemented by lectures and use of government documents.

  1. History of Economic Thought, from Plato and Aristotle to the Present (second term) ……….2

Text-book: Ingram’s History of Political Economy [1887]; supplementary readings and reports will also be required.

  1. Public Finance (first term)……….3

Principles and history of taxation, management of public debts, consideration of governmental activities, etc. Text-book: Plehn, Introduction to Public Finance [1896]. Lectures, readings and use of government documents.

  1. Transportation. Its History and Problems (second term)……….3

The economic aspects of water transportation, the great lakes, canal systems, and the Mississippi; the evolution of the railroad system, railroad geography, state versus private ownership, methods of government control, railroad finances, etc. Lectures, prescribed readings, and use of original material. Text-book: Hadley, Railroad Transportation. [1885]

  1. Principles of Sociology (first term)……….2

This course considers the elements and conditions of social growth and progress. Recitations, lectures and reading of assigned chapters in Spencer’s Principles of Sociology [Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3.] and in Gidding’s Principles of Sociology [1896]. Text-book: Fairbanks’s Introduction to Sociology [1896].

  1. Problems of Social Growth (second term)……….2

Trade-unionism, arbitration and conciliation, socialism, communism, co-operation and profit-sharing. Lectures and reports. For reference: Ely, The Labor Movement in America [1886], and Ely, French and German Socialism [1883].

  1. Commerce (first term)……….2

Theory of foreign commerce; investigation of the commercial resources of the leading countries of the present. Students will be expected to acquaint themselves with the United States Consular Reports. Text-book: Chisholm, Smaller Commercial Geography [1897 Handbook of Commercial Geography.].

  1. Labor Legislation (second term)……….2

History and critical investigation of the attitude of the State towards Labor; apprenticeship laws, combination laws, trade union recognition, factory legislation, etc. For reference, Stimson, Handbook to the Labor Law of the United States. [1896]

 

Source: Catalogue of the University of Arkansas, 1899-1900. Fayetteville, Ark., pp. 77-79.

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PROF. M’LEAN [sic] RESIGNS
HEAD OF ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT TO GO TO TORONTO.

Will Leave Stanford in January to Take Professsorship in Economics of Commerce and Transportation.

Professor Simon James McLean, present head of the Department of Economics, has tendered his resignation and will leave Stanford at the end of the present semester. He goes to accept the professorship of economics of commerce and transportation at the University of Toronto in Canada. Professor McLean has been contemplating this step for some time, as, aside from the fact that the work at Toronto will be along lines offering him better opportunities for advancement, the call from his alma mater was one which he felt he could not refuse. Dr. Jordan has accepted Professor McLean’s resignation and in his letter accepting it speaks as follows: “We recognize your ripe scholarship, your high ideals in education, your calmness of judgment, and your possession of those traits of character and thought which mark the gentleman among other men. As a teacher in a line of work so much afflicted by hasty judgment, by sensationalism and emotionalism, you have always held the attitude of a careful and patient investigator, one of the most solid and accurate within the range of my acquaintance.” It is still too early for any definite statement regarding the filling of Professor McLean’s place in the Department of Economics, as he will continue in charge of his classes until the twenty-second of December. Professor McLean came to Stanford in 1902 from the University of Arkansas, where he was professor of economics and sociology. He took his A. B. at the University of Toronto in 1884 and his degree of LL.B. in 1895 from the same university. The degrees A. M. from Columbia and Ph.D. from Chicago came in 1896 and 1897. Professor McLean is a recognized authority on the subject of railway rates, and has been a member of several special commissions appointed by the government to investigate conditions along this line.

 

Source: The Stanford Daily, Vol. XXVII, Issue 66, November 28, 1905.

 

 

 

 

Categories
Columbia Economic History Economists

Columbia. Ph.D. Alumnus Isaac Aaronovitch Hourwich, 1893

Some Ph.D.’s in economics go on to contribute to the development of the science, others go on to contribute to the commonwealth outside the ivory tower and others leave you wondering what were they thinking when they decided to write a dissertation anyway. Most of my interest is in the first group but sometimes the lives led by the other two groups are just too interesting to merely mention the title and date of their dissertation without further notice.

Today’s post is dedicated to Columbia Ph.D. alumnus, Isaac Aaronovich Hourwich, whose dissertation was among the first ten economics doctoral dissertations accepted by the Columbia School of Political Science. I decided to look him up after seeing him listed as a Docent in Statistics for the Department of Political Economy at the University of Chicago in 1893/94.

Fun Fact: Isaac’s sister, Jhenya Hourwich, translated Marx’s Das Kapital into Russian, and he later translated Das Kapital into Yiddish in 1919.

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The Dissertation

Hourwich, Isaac Aaronovich. The economics of the Russian village. Columbia University Ph.D. dissertation published in Studies in History, Economics and Public Law. Volume II, 1892-1893.

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Teaching at the University of Chicago

 

Isaac A. Hourwich, Ph.D., Docent in Statistics.

Graduate, Classical Gymnasium, Minsk, Russia, 1877; Candidate of Jursprucence (Master of Law), Demidoff Juridical Lyceum, Yaroslavl, 1887; Member of the Bar, Court of Appeals of Wilno, Russia, 1887-90; Seligman Fellow, Columbia College, 1891-2; Ph.D., ibid., 1893.

Source: University of Chicago. Annual Register July, 1893—July, 1894. Chicago: 1894, p. 18.

 

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The following biographical note comes from the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Center for Jewish History, Guide to the Papers of Isaac A. Hourwich (1860-1924).

Isaac A. Hourwich was born April 27, 1860 in Vilna to a middle-class maskilic family. His father, who worked in a bank and knew several European languages, made sure to give his two children a modern secular education. Hourwich graduated in 1877 from the classical gymnasium at Minsk, and later studied medicine and mathematics. As a student, he became interested in nihilistic propaganda. His activities with a revolutionary Socialist circle in St. Petersburg led to his arrest and imprisonment in 1879 on the charges of hostility to the government and of aiding to establish a secret press. He was sent to Siberia as a “dangerous character,” from 1881-1886. While in prison, he studied the settlement of Russian peasants in Siberia, and wrote a book in Russian, The Peasant Immigration to Siberia, which was published in 1888. After his release, he studied law at the Imperial University in St. Petersburg. He earned his legal degree from Demidoff Lyceum of Jurisprudence in Yaroslavl, Russia and was admitted to the Russian bar in 1887. He then practiced law in Minsk and continued his involvement in radical political movements. He helped to found the first secret Socialist circles among the Jewish workers in tsarist Russia, along with his wife Yelena (Kushelevsky) Hourwich and his sister Jhenya Hourwich, who later translated Marx’s Das Kapital into Russian.

In 1890, Hourwich fled Russia, leaving behind his first wife Yelena (Kushelevsky) Hourwich and four children, Nicholas Hourwich (1882-1934), who was later involved in the founding of the Communist Party, Maria (Hourwich) Kravitz (1883-), Rosa Hourwich (ca.1884-), and Vera (Hourwich) Semmens (1890-1976), although Hourwich’s parents continued to support his family. He first went to Paris but he had to leave there as well, at which point he immigrated to the United States. He divorced his first wife and married again, to Louise Elizabeth “Lisa” (Joffe) Hourwich (1866-1947). Lisa Hourwich had taught school in Russia, and, after immigrating to the United States with her family, attended law school, eventually passing the Illinois bar, although she never practiced as a lawyer. They had five children, Iskander “Sasha” Hourwich (1895-1968), Rebecca Hourwich Reyher (1897-1987), who was a prominent suffragist, Olga “Dicky” Hourwich (1902-1977), George Kennan Hourwich (1904-1978), and Ena (Hourwich) Kunzer (1906-1989).

In New York, Hourwich joined the Russian Workers Society for Self-Education, later the Russian Social Democratic Society, which was made up mostly of Jewish immigrants from Minsk. The Society helped to finance the Group for Liberation of Labor (1883-1903), which Georgi Plekhanov, Pavel Axelrod and Lev Deutsch formed in Geneva, Switzerland for the dissemination of Marxist ideas in Russian. From 1891-1892 he was a fellow at Columbia University where he earned a Ph.D. in economics in 1893. His thesis was published under the title The Economics of the Russian Village and a Russian translation was published in Moscow in 1896. He then taught statistics at the University of Chicago from 1892-1893, after which he returned to New York City, where he practiced law while also contributing to Marxist legal magazines in Russia. In 1897-1898, after the creation of the Social Democratic Party by Eugene V. Debs, Hourwich founded the first party branch in New York City with Meyer London. He also edited a Russian Socialist newspaper, Progress, from 1901-1904.

Hourwich moved to Washington, D.C. in 1900, where he worked for the United States government for several years, first as a translator at the Bureau of the Mint in 1900-1902, then at the Census Bureau in 1902-1906 and in 1909-1913 as a statistician and expert on mining. He was a statistician for the New York Public Service Commission, 1908-1909. During this period he developed his knowledge of American politics and economics which he used in his writings in the English and Yiddish press. He briefly wrote for the Forward after it began publication in 1897, even though he did not then know much Yiddish and had to learn it as he went along. For his articles in the Forward and other Yiddish periodicals he used the pseudonyms “Marxist” and “Yitzhok Isaac ben Arye Tzvi Halevi” so as not to bring attention to the fact that a government employee was writing for radical newspapers. His articles about American politics and economic institutions, particularly for the Tog (Day), were important in popularizing Socialism and were often the main source for explaining American economics and politics to a Yiddish-speaking audience in the United States. In addition to various essays in the Yiddish press, Hourwich published: “The Persecutions of the Jews,” in The Forum in August 1901, “Russian Dissenters,” in The Arena in May 1903 and “Religious Sects in Russia,” in The International Quarterly in October 1903, to name only a few.

In the wake of the October 1905 revolution, Tsar Nicholas II declared amnesty for political prisoners and Hourwich took advantage of this to return to Russia where he ran for a seat in the second Duma in Minsk in 1906. He was the nominee of a new Democratic People’s Party. The Jewish Socialist parties resented his intrusion and his non-Socialist campaign, particularly the Bund, which was running its own candidate. He was elected and would most likely have gained the seat in the Duma but the senate in St. Petersburg annulled his election and his name was taken off the final list of candidates. When the Duma was dissolved in June 1907 Hourwich returned to the United States and his government job. He also continued to write for various English magazines. Hourwich was an expert on immigration, and his book Immigration and Labor was published in 1912. In this work, he defends unrestricted immigration by arguing that the influx of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe was beneficial to the American economy. This argument was based upon economic figures and was the first defense of open immigration based on economic, rather than humanitarian, reasons.

Hourwich was active in the garment workers union at the time the agreement known as the “Protocol of Peace” was in effect. Engineered by Louis D. Brandeis following the cloakmakers’ strike of 1910, the Protocol was a system for resolving conflicts between workers and manufacturers in the garment industry without resorting to arbitration. This system was proving difficult to implement when Hourwich was appointed Chief Clerk of the Cloak and Skirt Makers’ Union in early 1913. He was in favor of reforming the Protocol, including a change from conciliation to arbitration, exactly what Brandeis had been against when drafting the Protocol. Hourwich’s position earned him the enmity of other union leaders, of his old friend, Meyer London, and also of Brandeis, who had represented the garment employers in Boston against the union during the 1910 strike. In addition, the heads of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, Abraham Rosenberg and John Dyche, vehemently opposed Hourwich for asserting the power of the local union against its parent organization and were concerned that his actions would lead to another strike. The officers of the ILGWU tried unsuccessfully to force Hourwich out, although the majority of garment workers supported him for his populist views, despite his lack of trade union experience.

In November 1913, the Cloak, Suit and Skirt Manufacturers’ Association refused to negotiate with Hourwich as the union representative and demanded his resignation. Although the heads of the union were united in their dislike of Hourwich, they supported him in resisting the manufacturers’ pressure. However, in early 1914 when the manufacturers threatened to break off the Protocol and a strike appeared imminent, Hourwich stepped down rather than compromise, despite the protests of many rank-and-file union members. The so-called “Hourwich Affair” showed the weakness of the Protocol as a means of settling disputes and hastened its eventual reform. It also revealed the various power struggles taking place between the International and the local unions, as well as between the union leadership and the mass of garment workers.

Hourwich was an early critic of the totalitarian tendencies of the Bolshevik government. Nevertheless, he maintained some sympathy for the Marxist cause and served as legal advisor to the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Ludwig C.K. Martens. He was also connected with the weekly magazine, Friends of Soviet Russia, published by the Soviet Agency, although he never wrote in support of the Bolsheviks. A visit to the Soviet Union in 1922 disillusioned Hourwich, however, and he returned firmly opposed to the Soviet regime.

Despite his commitment to Socialism, Hourwich did not strictly adhere to party doctrine and often crossed political boundaries in his allegiances. For example, in 1912 he supported Theodore Roosevelt and ran for Congress on the ticket of Roosevelt’s Progressive Party, an unthinkable act for a Jewish radical, although he seems to have been unconcerned with any criticism this raised. He was involved with the Socialist Democratic Party but did not join the Socialist Party of America, despite its Marxist program. He wrote for various Yiddish newspapers of every political affiliation, including the Socialist Jewish Daily Forward, the anarchist Fraye Arbeter Shtimme (Free Workers Voice), where he published his unfinished memoirs Zikhroynes fun an Apikoyres (Memoirs of a Heretic), the Warheit (Truth), the Tog (Day), and the Tsukunft (Future). His non-ideological approach led some to label him a political opportunist. He was an ardent supporter of President Wilson and his advocacy of the New Freedom and social reform until Wilson’s 1916 appointment of Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court. Hourwich was still holding a grudge against Brandeis for his involvement in the “Hourwich Affair.”

In his later years Hourwich became active in the Zionist movement, and in 1917 he helped to organize the American Jewish Congress. Hourwich’s books in Yiddish include Mooted Questions of Socialism (1917), a Yiddish translation of Marx’s Das Kapital (1919), and a four-volume edition of his collected works (1917-1919). Hourwich died of pneumonia on July 9, 1924.

Source: Guide to the Papers of Isaac A. Hourwich (1860-1924).

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Personal Notes [1894]

Dr. Isaac Aaronovich Hourwich has been appointed Docent in Statistics at the University of Chicago. He was born April 26, 1860, at Wilno, Russia, and was educated at the Classical Gymnasium, at Minsk, from 1869-77. The year 1877-78 he spent at the Medioc-Chirurgical Academy at St. Petersburg, and 1878-79 at the University of St. Petersburg. Later he became a non-resident student of the Demidor Juridical Lyceum, at Yaroslavl, where in 1887 he graduated with the degree of LL.M. He was admitted to the bar at Minsk, and practiced law from 1887 to 1890. In 1891 he became a student of Columbia College, New York, and received in 1893 the degree of Ph.D. from that institution. Dr. Hourwich has published:

“Peasant Emigralion to Siberia.” Juridichesky Vestnik (Juridical Herald), Moscow, January, 1887.
“The Study of Peasant Emigration to Siberia.” Sibirski Sbornik (Siberian Magazine), 1887.
“Peasant Emigration t0 Siberia.” Pp. 160. Moscow, 1888.
“The Agrarian Question in Russia.” Ur Dagens Krönika. Stockholm, September, 1890.
“The Persecution of the Jews.” The Forum. August, 1891.
“The Russian Judiciary.” Political Science Quarterly, December, 1892.
“The Economics of the Russian Village.” Pp. 184. Columbia College Studies in History, Economics and Public Law.

Source:  The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 4 (Jan., 1894), p. 156.

Image Source: Portrait of Isaac Aaronovich Hourwich from his Oysgeehle shrifn, Vol. I, frontispiece, copyright 1916.

 

 

 

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. History of Economics Department. Luncheon Talk by Arthur R. Burns, 1954

The main entry of this posting is a transcription of the historical overview of economics at Columbia provided by Professor Arthur R. Burns at a reunion luncheon for Columbia economics Ph.D. graduates [Note: Arthur Robert Burns was the “other” Arthur Burns of the Columbia University economics department, as opposed to Arthur F. Burns, who was the mentor/friend of Milton Friedman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, chairman of the Board of Governors of the Fed, etc.]. He acknowledges his reliance on the definitive research of his colleague, Joseph Dorfman, that was published in the following year:

Joseph Dorfman, “The Department of Economics”, Chapt IX in R. Gordon Hoxie et al., A History of the Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955.

The cost of the luncheon was $2.15 per person. 36 members of the economics faculty attended, who paid for themselves, and some 144 attending guests (includes about one hundred Columbia economics Ph.D.’s) had their lunches paid for by the university.

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[LUNCHEON INVITATION LETTER]

Columbia University
in the City of New York
[New York 27, N.Y.]
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

March 25, 1954

 

Dear Doctor _________________

On behalf of the Department of Economics, I am writing to invite you to attend a Homecoming Luncheon of Columbia Ph.D.’s in Economics. This will be held on Saturday, May 29, at 12:30 sharp, in the Men’s Faculty Club, Morningside Drive and West 117th Street.

This Luncheon is planned as a part of Columbia University’s Bicentennial Celebration, of which, as you know, the theme is “Man’s Right to Knowledge and the free Use Thereof”. The date of May 29 is chosen in relation to the Bicentennial Conference on “National Policy for Economic Welfare at Home and Abroad” in which distinguished scholars and men of affairs from the United States and other countries will take part. The final session of this Conference, to be held at three p.m. on May 29 in McMillin Academic Theater, will have as its principal speaker our own Professor John Maurice Clark. The guests at the Luncheon are cordially invited to attend the afternoon meeting.

The Luncheon itself and brief after-luncheon speeches will be devoted to reunion, reminiscence and reacquaintance with the continuing work of the Department. At the close President Grayson Kirk will present medals on behalf of the University to the principal participants in the Bicentennial Conference.

We shall be happy to welcome to the Luncheon as guests of the University all of our Ph.D.’s, wherever their homes may be, who can arrange to be in New York on May 29. We very much hope you can be with us on that day. Please reply on the form below.

Cordially yours,

[signed]
Carter Goodrich
Chairman of the Committee

*   *   *   *   *   *

Professor Carter Goodrich
Box #22, Fayerweather Hall
Columbia University
New York 27, New York

I shall be glad…
I shall be unable… to attend the Homecoming Luncheon on May 29.

(signed) ___________

Note: Please reply promptly, not later than April 20 in the case of Ph.D.’s residing in the United States, and not later than May 5 in the case of others.

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[INVITATION TO SESSION FOLLOWING LUNCHEON]

Columbia University
in the City of New York
[New York 27, N.Y.]
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

May 6, 1954

 

TO:                 Departments of History, Math. Stat., Public and Sociology
FROM:            Helen Harwell, secretary, Graduate Department of Economics

 

Will you please bring the following notice to the attention of the students in your Department:

            A feature of Columbia’s Bicentennial celebration will be a Conference on National Policy for Economic Welfare at Home and Abroad, to be held May 27, 28 and 29.

            The final session of the Conference will take place in McMillin Theatre at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 29. The session topic is “Economic Welfare in a Free Society”. The program is:

Session paper.

John M. Clark, John Bates Clark Professor. Emeritus of Economics, Columbia University.

Discussants:

Frank H. Knight, Professor of Economics, University of Chicago
David E. Lilienthal, Industrial Consultant and Executive
Wilhelm Roepke, Professor of International Economics, Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva

 

Students in the Faculty of Political Science are cordially invited to attend this session and to bring their wives or husbands and friends who may be interested.

Tickets can be secured from Miss Helen Harwell, 505 Fayer.

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[REMARKS BY PROFESSOR ARTHUR ROBERT BURNS]

Department of Economics Bicentennial Luncheon
May 29th, 1954

President Kirk, Ladies and Gentlemen: On behalf of the Department of Economics I welcome you all to celebrate Columbia’s completion of its first two hundred years as one of the great universities. We are gratified that so many distinguished guests have come, some from afar, to participate in the Conference on National Policy for Economic Welfare at Home and Abroad. We accept their presence as testimony of their esteem for the place of Columbia in the world of scholarship. Also, we welcome among us again many of the intellectual offspring of the department. We like to believe that the department is among their warmer memories. We also greet most pleasurably some past members of the department, namely Professors Vladimir G. Simkhovitch, Eugene Agger, Eveline M. Burns and Rexford Tugwell. Finally, but not least, we are pleased to have with us the administrative staff of the department who are ceaselessly ground between the oddity and irascibility of the faculty and the personal and academic tribulations of the students. Gertrude D. Stewart who is here is evidence that this burden can be graciously carried for thirty-five years without loss of charm or cheer.

We are today concerned with the place of economics within the larger scope of Columbia University. When the bell tolls the passing of so long a period of intellectual endeavor one casts an appraising eye over the past, and I am impelled to say a few retrospective words about the faculty and the students. I have been greatly assisted in this direction by the researches of our colleague, Professor Dorfman, who has been probing into our past.

On the side of the faculty, there have been many changes, but there are also many continuities. First let me note some of the changes. As in Europe, economics made its way into the university through moral philosophy, and our College students were reading the works of Frances Hutcheson in 1763. But at the end of the 18th century, there seems to have been an atmosphere of unhurried certainty and comprehensiveness of view that has now passed away. For instance, it is difficult to imagine a colleague of today launching a work entitled “Natural Principles of Rectitude for the Conduct of Man in All States and Situations in Life Demonstrated and Explained in a Systematic Treatise on Moral Philosophy”. But one of early predecessors, Professor Gross, published such a work in 1795.

The field of professorial vision has also change. The professor Gross whom I have just mentioned occupied no narrow chair but what might better be called a sofa—that of “Moral Philosophy, German Language and Geography”. Professor McVickar, early in the nineteenth century, reclined on the even more generous sofa of “Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, Rhetoric, Belles Lettres and Political Economy”. By now, however, political economy at least existed officially and, in 1821, the College gave its undergraduates a parting touch of materialist sophistication in some twenty lectures on political economy during the last two months of their senior year.

But by the middle of the century, integration was giving way to specialization. McVickar’s sofa was cut into three parts, one of which was a still spacious chair of “History and Political Science”, into which Francis Lieber sank for a brief uneasy period. His successor, John W. Burgess, pushed specialization further. He asked for an assistant to take over the work in political economy. Moreover, his request was granted and Richmond Mayo Smith, then appointed, later became Professor of Political Economy, which, however, included Economics, Anthropology and Sociology. The staff of the department was doubled in 1885 by the appointment of E. R. A. Seligman to a three-year lectureship, and by 1891 he had become a professor of Political Economy and Finance. Subsequent fission has separated Sociology and Anthropology and now we are professors of economics, and the days when political economy was covered in twenty lectures seem long ago.

Other changes stand out in our history. The speed of promotion of the faculty has markedly slowed down. Richmond Mayo Smith started as an instructor in 1877 but was a professor after seven years of teaching at the age of 27. E. R. A. Seligman even speeded matters a little and became a professor after six years of teaching. But the University has since turned from this headlong progression to a more stately gait. One last change I mention for the benefit of President Kirk, although without expectation of warm appreciation from him. President Low paid J. B. Clark’s salary out of his own pocket for the first three years of the appointment.

I turn now to some of the continuities in the history of the department. Professor McVickar displayed a concern for public affairs that has continued since his time early in the nineteenth century. He was interested in the tariff and banking but, notably, also in what he called “economic convulsions”, a term aptly suggesting an economy afflicted with the “falling sickness”. Somewhat less than a century later the subject had been rechristened “business cycles” to remove some of the nastiness of the earlier name, and professor Wesley Mitchell was focusing attention on this same subject.

The Columbia department has also shown a persistent interest in economic measurement. Professor Lieber campaigned for a government statistical bureau in the middle of the 19th century and Richmond Mayo Smith continued this interest in statistics and in the Census. Henry L. Moore, who came to the department in 1902, promoted with great devotion Mathematical Economics and Statistics with particular reference to the statistical verification of theory. This interest in quantification remains vigorous among us.

There is also a long continuity in the department’s interest in the historical and institutional setting of economic problems and in their public policy aspect. E. R. A. Seligman did not introduce, but he emphasized this approach. He began teaching the History of Theory and proceeded to Railroad Problems and the Financial and Tariff History of the United States, and of course, Public Finance. John Bates Clark, who joined the department in 1895 to provide advanced training in economics to women who were excluded from the faculty of Political Science, became keenly interested in government policy towards monopolies and in the problem of war. Henry R. Seager, in 1902, brought his warm and genial personality to add to the empirical work in the department in labor and trust problems. Vladimir G. Simkhovitch began to teach economic history in 1905 at the same time pursuing many and varied other interests, and we greet him here today. And our lately deceased colleague, Robert Murray Haig, continued the work in Public Finance both as teacher and advisor to governments.

Lastly, among these continuities is an interest in theory. E. R. A. Seligman focused attention on the history of theory. John Bates Clark was an outstanding figure in the field too well known to all of us for it to be necessary to particularize as to his work. Wesley C. Mitchell developed his course on “Current Types of Economic Theory” after 1913 and continued to give it almost continuously until 1945. The Clark dynasty was continued when John Maurice Clark joined the department as research professor in 1926. He became emeritus in 1952, but fortunately he still teaches, and neither students nor faculty are denied the stimulation of his gentle inquiring mind. He was the first appointee to the John Bates Clark professorship in 1952 and succeeded Wesley Mitchell as the second recipient of the Francis A. Walker medal of the American Economic Association in the same year.

Much of this development of the department was guided by that gracious patriarch E. R. A. Seligman who was Executive Officer of the Department for about 30 years from 1901. With benign affection and pride he smiled upon his growing academic family creating a high standard of leadership for his successors. But the period of his tenure set too high a standard and executive Officers now come and go like fireflies emitting as many gleams of light as they can in but three years of service. Seligman and J. B. Clark actively participated in the formation of the American Economic Association in which J. B. Clark hoped to include “younger men who do not believe implicitly in laisser faire doctrines nor the use of the deductive method exclusively”.

Among other members of the department I must mention Eugene Agger, Edward Van Dyke Robinson, William E. Weld, and Rexford Tugwell, who were active in College teaching, and Alvin Johnson, Benjamin Anderson and Joseph Schumpeter, who were with the department for short periods. Discretion dictates that I list none of my contemporaries, but I leave them for such mention as subsequent speakers may care to make.

When one turns to the students who are responsible for so much of the history of the department, one is faced by an embarrassment of riches. Alexander Hamilton is one of the most distinguished political economists among the alumni of the College. Richard T. Ely was the first to achieve academic reputation. In the 1880’s, he was giving economics a more humane and historical flavor. Walter F. Wilcox, a student of Mayo Smith, obtained his Ph.D. in 1891 and contributed notably to statistical measurement after he became Chief Statistician of the Census in 1891, and we extend a special welcome to him here today. Herman Hollerith (Ph.D. 1890) contributed in another way to statistics by his development of tabulating machinery. Alvin Johnson was a student as well as teacher. It is recorded that he opened his paper on rent at J. B. Clark’s seminar with the characteristically wry comment that all the things worth saying about rent had been said by J. B. Clark and his own paper was concerned with “some of the other things”. Among other past students are W. Z. Ripley, B. M. Anderson, Willard Thorp, John Maurice Clark, Senator Paul Douglas, Henry Schultz and Simon Kuznets. The last of these we greet as the present President of the American Economic Association. But the list grows too long. It should include many more of those here present as well as many who are absent, but I am going to invite two past students and one present student to fill some of the gaps in my story of the department.

I have heard that a notorious American educator some years ago told the students at Commencement that he hoped he would never see them again. They were going out into the world with the clear minds and lofty ideals which were the gift of university life. Thenceforward they would be distorted by economic interest, political pressure, and family concerns and would never again be the same pellucid and beautiful beings as at that time. I confess that the thought is troubling. But in inviting our students back we have overcome our doubts and we now confidently call upon a few of them. The first of these is George W. Stocking who, after successfully defending a dissertation on “The Oil Industry and the Competitive System” in 1925, has continued to pursue his interest in competition and monopoly as you all know. He is now at Vanderbilt University.

The second of our offspring whom I will call upon is Paul Strayer. He is one of the best pre-war vintages—full bodied, if I may borrow from the jargon of the vintner without offense to our speaker. Or I might say fruity, but again not without danger of misunderstanding. Perhaps I had better leave him to speak for himself. Paul Strayer, now of Princeton University, graduated in 1939, having completed a dissertation on the painful topic of “The Taxation of Small Incomes”.

The third speaker is Rodney H. Mills, a contemporary student and past president of the Graduate Economics Students Association. He has not yet decided on his future presidencies, but we shall watch his career with warm interest. He has a past, not a pluperfect, but certainly a future. Just now, however, no distance lends enchantment to his view of the department. And I now call upon him to share his view with us.

So far we have been egocentric and appropriately so. But many other centres of economic learning are represented here, and among them the London School of Economics of which I am proud as my own Alma Mater. I now call upon Professor Lionel Robbins of Polecon (as it used sometimes to be known) to respond briefly on behalf of our guests at the Conference. His nature and significance are or shall I say, is, too well known to you to need elaboration.

[in pencil]
A.R. Burns

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections, Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection, Box 9, Folder “Bicentennial Celebration”.

_____________________________

[BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION FOR ARTHUR ROBERT BURNS]

 

BURNS, Arthur Robert, Columbia Univ., New York 27, N.Y. (1938) Columbia Univ., prof. of econ., teach., res.; b. 1895; B.Sc. (Econ.), 1920, Ph.D. (Econ.), 1926, London Sch. of Econ. Fields 5a, 3bc, 12b. Doc. dis. Money and monetary policy in early times (Kegan Paul Trench Trubner & Co., London, 1926). Pub. Decline of competition (McGraw-Hill 1936); Comparative economic organization (Prentice-Hall, 1955); Electric power and government policy (dir. of res.) (Twentieth Century Fund, 1948) . Res. General studies in economic development. Dir. Amer. Men of Sci., III, Dir. of Amer. Schol.

Source: Handbook of the American Economic Association, American Economic Review, Vol. 47, No. 4 (July, 1957), p. 40.

 

Obituary: “Arthur Robert Burns dies at 85; economics teacher at Columbia“, New York Times, January 22, 1981.

Image: Arthur Robert Burns.  Detail from a departmental photo dated “early 1930’s” in Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections, Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection, Box 9, Folder “Photos”.

Categories
Columbia Curriculum

Columbia. Mathematics Satisfies Second Foreign Language Reqt for Economics PhDs, 1950

In the spirit of the J. Willard Gibbs quote, known by generations of economists from the title page of Paul A. Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis, i.e., “Mathematics is a Language”, the economics department at Columbia University changed its foreign language requirement in the Spring of 1950 to allow the substitution of mathematics “at a prescribed level” for one of two foreign languages it required of Ph.D. candidates. The Executive Officer of the Department at the time was James W. Angell.

_____________________________

Faculty of Political Science

April 21, 1950

[…]

            Professor [James W.]Angell presented a proposal of the Dept. of Economics to modify the language requirement for the Ph.D. degree so that Mathematics at a prescribed level may be substituted for one of the two required foreign languages. He moved the adoption of the following resolution:

The paragraph entitled “Languages” in the Announcement of the Faculty of Political Science be amended by adding the following sentence:

Prospective candidates in the Department of Economics may under certain circumstances and with the permission of the Executive Officer of that Department offer Mathematics and one foreign language instead of two foreign languages.

The motion was seconded and passed.

[…]

 

Source: Columbia University Archives, Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science, 1950-1962. pp. 1026-1027.

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ANGELL, James Waterhouse, Columbia Univ., New York 27, N.Y. (1924) Columbia Univ., prof. of econ., teach., res.; b. 1898; A.B., 1918, M.A., 1921, Ph.D., 1924, Harvard; 1919-20, Chicago. Fields 6 [Business Fluctuations], 10 [International Economics], 7 [Money and Banking; Short-term Credit; Consumer Finance]. Doc. dis. Theory of international prices (Harvard Univ. Press, 1926). Pub. Recovery of Germany (Yale Univ. Press, 1929; 2nd ed., 1932; German trans., 1930); Behavior of money (1936), Investment and business cycles (1941) (McGraw-Hill). Dir. W.W. in Amer.

Source: The 1948 Directory of the American Economic Association, American Economic Review, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Jan., 1949), p. 6.

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New York Times’ obituary: “James Angell, 87; Leading Economist Taught At Columbia,” April 1, 1986.

 

Image Source: James Waterhouse Angell. Harvard Class of 1918, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report. Cambridge: 1943.

 

 

Categories
Columbia

Columbia. Preparation for Graduate Economics, 1941

Up through the 1941-1942 Course Announcements of the Columbia University Faculty of Political Science did not provide prospective graduate students of economics any guidance with respect to their undergraduate preparation. Late in the Fall of 1941 the Executive Officer of the Department of Economics, i.e. chairman, Robert Murray Haig received suggestions and comments that were discussed at the December 2, 1941 faculty meeting that resulted in the insertion of two paragraphs into the Course Announcements that address undergraduate preparation in general and mathematical preparation in particular. Horace Taylor’s suggestion for the general preparation was taken over with only minor revisions. However we can see that the suggestion for mathematical preparation by Harold Hotelling and Frederick Mills was significantly toned down.

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12 copies send around
Nov.

Dear Colleague:

Will you kindly examine the attached exhibits relating to material to be inserted in the announcements of the Faculty of Political Science and of Columbia College and be prepared to pass judgment at the meeting on December 2nd?

 

(A) The Proposed Statement on Mathematical Preparation to be Inserted in the “Announcement of Courses” of the Faculty of Political Science.
Hotelling, Mills. October 13, 1941

Mathematical Preparation. The use of mathematics, including higher mathematics, has become important in several branches of economics and advanced statistics. Calculus, probability, the algebra of matrices and quadratic forms and the calculus of variations, for example, have important applications in economic study. Since the acquisition of an adequate mathematical training requires several years, students planning work that entails the use of advanced mathematics should include in their undergraduate studies courses providing the mathematical foundation essential to these advanced studies.

 

(B) Suggestion from Horace Taylor for Paragraph to be Inserted in the Columbia College Announcement and Comment on Hotelling and Mills’ Statement

October 20, 1941

 

Professor Robert M. Haig,
Fayerweather Hall.

Dear Professor Haig:

I enclose* two copies of a tentative paragraph intended to give effect in the Announcement to the recommendation made at our last departmental dinner. I would be glad to amend or amplify this in any way that seems desirable.

I have one or two misgivings as to the statement on mathematical preparation that has been prepared for the Announcement. In the first place it almost never happens that an undergraduate student decides to study economics in the graduate school earlier than the end of his junior year. Very often it happens at the end of his senior year. This lateness makes it impossible for such students to get the amount of mathematical training that is presented as desirable in this statement. In the second place, even those students who do decide to go in for graduate study at some point fairly early in their college careers are not likely to refer to our Announcement until a very short time before their actual application for admission as graduate students. Consequently the message presented in this statement would not reach them until too late. In the third place, I believe that the indefiniteness of the statement as it now stands might serve to frighten well qualified people away from graduate study of economics – at least in our department. Perhaps this difficulty would be relieved by making it more explicit as to just the fields of work in which such intensive mathematical preparation is a desirable prerequisite.

I doubt if we can accomplish very much in this regard by our own individual effort. I wonder if a broader attack in which it would be attempted to get the understanding and support of collegiate departments of economics would not be more successful. If, for example, the economics departments at Columbia, Chicago, Harvard, and perhaps two or three other principal graduate schools would agree on a general statement of what is desirable in the way of mathematical training and would publicize this through one or another of the Journals or by some other means, I think that better results would ensue. As I understand it, this question may come up for consideration at one of our later dinner meetings.

Sincerely,

HORACE TAYLOR

* “Undergraduate preparation. Since graduate study in economics necessarily entails a high degree of concentration in this field, students planning to enter graduate work are advised not to specialize narrowly in economics during their undergraduate study. Basic training in economics and a knowledge of its general literature and methods is desirable, but for the purposes of the more advanced work in graduate school, there is greater advantage in the study of history, philosophy, modern languages and mathematics than in narrowly specialized courses in economics taken as undergraduates.”

 

(C) Memorandum to Professor Haig from Professor Wolman: November 11, 1941

Professor Wolman agrees to the last paragraph typed on the page containing the memorandum from Professor Taylor. Doesn’t care how much Mathematics they are getting, no time to scare students away.

 

(D) Comment of Dean Calkins

 

Columbia University
in the City of New York

School of Business
Local

November 11, 1941

Professor R. M. Haig
Fayerweather

Dear Professor Haig

Your request for my comments on the proposed recommendation of undergraduate preparation for graduate study in economics and on Professor Taylor’s observations with respect to it prompts the following response:

  1. I am impressed by the three points raised by Professor Taylor. They represent my own views after experience at California and Stanford. No satisfactory system now exists for detecting undergraduates who will later pursue graduate work in economics, and hence advice can rarely be given in time to be effective. It is my impression that most students who undertake graduate work in economics are as undergraduates either unacquainted with the opportunities in the field, unaware of their own interest in it, uncertain of their academic abilities to pursue graduate work, without prospects of financing graduate study, or forced by financial circumstances to utilize their four years of undergraduate study for instruction which might lead to employment upon graduation. Moreover many of these conditions also apply to first year graduate students and candidates for the master’s degree.

            That there is no easy way to overcome the foregoing conditions is evident. Ordinarily a student needs to proceed some distance in the subject as an undergraduate to convince himself that he wishes to go on for graduate study, that he has the ability to go on, and that his opportunities in the field are sufficiently promising to justify the effort. I am impressed, too, with the number of cases in which graduate students receive their first impulse to go on for advanced study from an interest in a specialized course.

  1. No statement in the Columbia College catalog alone can produce more than a small effect on the preparation of your graduate students, who are recruited so largely from other institutions. It is too vague to mean very much to the average undergraduate and will be interpreted by advisers according to their own predilections.
  2. While I agree that more graduate students ought to have more of the sort of preparation recommended, we cannot be certain that this prescription is the only, best, or preferred preparation for either the students who may wish to undertake the graduate study of economics or who should be encouraged to do so.

            In guiding the preparation of students who will be able to excel in economics we seek to produce graduates who can maintain high standards of competence, not standardized products.

  1. I have no serious objection to the statement as a guide for one type of preparation, but this is clearly not the only desirable type of preparation. Its value probably lies in the prospect that a few will heed it, and that may be desirable, and the great majority will ignore it and that may also be desirable.

I shall be glad to discuss this with you if you desire an amplification of these opinions.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Robert D. Calkins
Dean

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Columbiana, Department of Economics Collection, Faculty. Box 2, Folder “Department of Economics—Faculty Beginning Jan 1, 1944”.

_________________________________

Recommended preparations printed in the 1942-43 Course Announcements

General Undergraduate Preparation. Since graduate study in economics necessarily entails a high degree of concentration in this field, students planning to enter graduate work are advised not to specialize narrowly in economics during their undergraduate study. Basic training in economics and a knowledge of its general literature and methods is desirable, but for the purposes of the more advanced work on the graduate level, there is greater advantage in the study of history, philosophy, modern languages and mathematics than in narrowly specialized courses in economics taken as undergraduates.

Mathematical Preparation. The use of mathematics, including higher mathematics, has become important in several branches of economics and statistics. Much of the recent important literature of general economics is written in a language not easily understood without some knowledge of the differential and integral calculus. Students planning to work for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in economics will therefore find it advantageous to acquire familiarity with the calculus and with higher algebra before beginning their graduate studies in economics.

 

Source: History, Economics, Public Law, and Sociology. Courses Offered by the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions 1942-1943. Columbia University, Bulletin of Information, Forty-second Series, No. 24, May 23, 1942, p. 18.

_________________________________

 

The 1948 Directory of the American Economic Association. American Economic Review, Vol. 39, No. 1 (January 1949).

HAIG, Robert Murray, Columbia Univ., Fayerweather Hall, New York 27, N.Y. (1911) Columbia Univ., McVikar Prof. of Polit. Econ., teach., res.; b. 1887; A.B., 1908, LL.D., 1925, Ohio Wesleyan; M.A., 1909, Illinois; Ph.D., 1914, Columbia; LL.D., 1944, Rollins. Field 9 [Public Finance]. Doc.dis. History of general property tax in Illinois ([Flanigan-Pearson Company, Printers] Univ. of Illinois, 1914). Pub. “Taxation of excess profits in Great Britain,” A.E.R., 1920; Economic factors in metropolitan growth and arrangement (Russell Sage Found., 1927); Sales tax in American states (with Shoup) (Columbia Univ. Press, 1929). Res. Concept of taxable income; federal state financial relations. Dir. W.W. in Amer., Dir. of Schol., Lead. in Educa. Int. W.W. [p. 77]

MILLS, Frederick Cecil, Columbia Univ., New York 27, N.Y. (1920) Columbia Univ., prof of econ. and statis.; Nat. Bur. of Econ. Res., memb. res. staff; teach., res., govt. serv.; b. 1892; B.L., 1914, M.A., 1916, LL.D., 1947, California; Ph.D., 1917, Columbia; 1919, London School of Econ. Fields 3 [Statistics and Econometrics], 6 [Business Fluctuations], 5 [National Income and Social Accounting]. Doc dis. Contemporary theories of unemployment (Columbia Univ. Press, 1917). Pub. Behavior of prices (1927), Economic tendencies in U.S. (1932) (Nat. Bur. of Econ. Res.); Statistical Methods (Holt, 1924, 1938). Res. Prices in business cycles; industrial productivity. Dir. W.W. in Amer., Dir. of Schol. [p. 129]

WOLMAN, Leo, 993 Park Ave., New York 28, NY. (1915) Columbia Univ., prof. of econ.; Nat. Bur. of Econ. Res., res. staff; b. 1890; A.B., 1911, Ph.D., 1914, LL.D., 1948, Johns Hopkins. Fields 16 [Labor], 6 [Business Fluctuations], 3c [Economic Measurements]. Doc. dis. Boycott in American trade unions (Johns Hopkins Press, 1916). Pub. Growth of American trade unions, 1880-1923 (1924), Planning and control of public works (1930), Ebb and flow in trade unionism (1936) (Nat. Bur. of Econ. Res.). Res. Wages in U. S. since 1860; changes in union membership. Dir. W.W. in Amer., Dir. of Schol. Lead in Educa. [p. 204]

 

CALKINS, Robert D., 445 Riverside Dr., New York 27, N.Y. (1930) Gen. Educa. Bd., dir.; B.S., 1925, LL.B., 1942, William and Mary; M.A., 1929, Ph.D., 1933, Stanford. Fields 11a [Business Organization, Administration, Methods, and Management], 12a [Industrial Organization and Market Controls; Policies Concerning Competition and Monopoly], 14a [Industry Studies: Manufacturing]. Doc. dis. Price leadership among major wheat futures markets (Wheat Studies, Nov., 1933). Dir. W.W. in Amer. [p. 30]

_________________________________

 

The 1942 Directory of the American Economic Association. American Economic Review, Vol. 33, No. 1, Part 2, Supplement (March 1943).

TAYLOR, Horace, Columbia Univ., New York City. (1924) A [Institution, rank, nature of activity]Columbia Univ., prof. of econ., TRA [teaching, research, administration]. B [Degrees] A.B., 1922, Oklahoma; A.M., 1924, Ph.D., 1929, Columbia. C [doctoral dissertation]Making goods and making money (Macmillan, 1929). D [Fields] 1 [Economic theory; general works], 10 [Public control of business; public administration; national defense and war], 3 [Economic systems; national economics]. E [Research projects underway] Systematic economic theory. F [Most significant publications]Main currents in modern economic life (Harcourt, Brace, 1941). G [Directories cross referenced] SE [Biographical Directory of American Scholars, Leaders in Education].  [p. 11]

 

_________________________________

 

Harold Hotelling. Professor of Economics

A.B. Washington, 1919; M.S., 1921; Ph.D., Princeton, 1924.

Source: History, Economics, Public Law, and Sociology. Courses Offered by the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions 1942-1943. Columbia University, Bulletin of Information, Forty-second Series, No. 24, May 23, 1942, p. 4.

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Image Source: Columbia Spectator Archive. Left: Horace Taylor (14 April 1959). Right: Frederick C. Mills (11 February 1964)

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. Wholesale Price Indexes. Wesley Clair Mitchell, 1921.

I’m an index number junkie. But this blog is not about me, though it will from time to time reveal my preferences, the perogative of the blogmeister.

The kind folks at FRASER provide us really great material. Here the link to Index Numbers of Wholesale Prices in the United States and Foreign Countries : Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 284, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, October 1921. Chart 1 between pages 14 and 15 is to die for!

Aggregation is the game, and Mitchell was his name, Wesley Clair Mitchell.

Categories
Columbia Economists Harvard

Harvard. Invitations for guest lectures by Schumpeter and Rathgen, 1913

This exchange of letters between Frank Taussig and President Lowell of Harvard involves two pieces of business. The first is Taussig’s request for approval to use department lecture funds to invite Joseph Schumpeter and Karl Rathgen, who were both visiting Columbia University, to give lectures at Harvard. The second piece of business concerns a recommendation of two men to be considered for the presidency of the University of Washington, one of whom (L. C. Marshall who was the Dean of the University of Chicago Business School) the other, James Rowland Angell who would go on to become President of Yale and who also happened to be the father of the Columbia University economist James Waterhouse Angell.

__________________________________

 

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
October 22, 1913.

F. W. Taussig
T. N. Carver
W. Z. Ripley
C. J. Bullock
E.F. Gay
W. M. Cole
O. M. W. Sprague
Q. E. Rappard
E. E. Day
B. M. Anderson, Jr.
H. L. Gray
Dear Lawrence:

Two Germans are in this country, both at the present moment lecturing at Columbia, to whom we might appropriately show a little attention. One is J. Schumpeter, an Austrian with whom I have had correspondence, and a very well-known and highly respected scholar; the other is K. Rathgen of Hamburg, also well-known in the profession. Our friends at Columbia write that these men would be glad to look at this institution, and we are more than willing to show them a little civility. Would you authorize us to ask each of them to give a lecture, possibly more than one, the fee to be charged to the fund for lectures on Political Economy? Schumpeter speaks excellent English, and could certainly give an acceptable lecture. Rathgen might possibly have to speak in German, in which case we should ask him simply to talk to our Seminary.

You remember our talk about the presidency of the University of Washington. I enclose a letter from L. C. Marshall of Chicago about young Angell, the psychologist, who deserves to be considered among the possibilities. I enclose also a memorandum of my own about Marshall himself, who seems to me at least the equal of Angell. Make such use of these papers as you can, either for this opening or for others that may appear in the future. When inquiring of Marshall about Angell, I gave no intimation of the reason for asking him.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
F. W. Taussig

President A. Lawrence Lowell.

 

__________________________________

October 23, 1913.

Dear Professor Taussig:—

We should certainly be very glad to have either Schumpeter or Rathgen, or both, speak to the students in economics, at the expense of the fund for lectures in political economy. I do not know whether you want an appointment by the Corporation for this purpose, or merely an invitation by the department.

Thank you for the suggestions of presidents of Washington University. I am transmitting them.

Very truly yours,
[stamped]
A. Lawrence Lowell

Professor F. W. Taussig
2 Scott Street,
Cambridge, Mass.

__________________________________

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. President Lowell’s Papers, 1909-1914 (UAI.5.160), Box 15, Folder 413 “1909-14”.

Image Source: Karl Rathgen: Fotosammlung des Geographischen Institutes der Humboldt-Universität Berlin.    Schumpeter: Ulrich Hedtke, Joseph Alois Schumpeter. Archive.

 

 

Categories
Berkeley Chicago Columbia Economists

Columbia. Wesley C. Mitchell’s Methodological Thoughts, 1928.

The following excerpts from a typed copy of a letter from Wesley C. Mitchell to John Maurice Clark dated August 9, 1928 come from Mitchell’s papers with a hand-written note at the top of the first page, “Revised Feb 11, 1929”. The copy was made by Clark and perhaps given to Mitchell for further comment.

Mitchell begins with a longish response to a question posed by Clark regarding Mitchell’s own professional revealed preference for empirical investigation. This is followed by shorter responses to questions about the origin of his interest in business cycles, the relationship of “analytical description” to “causal theory”, and finally Mitchell’s confessed own perceived shortcomings in the use of statistical techniques for trend and seasonal analysis.

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If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below. There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

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Letter from Wesley C. Mitchell to John Maurice Clark
9 August 1928 (excerpt)

[…]

            Concerning the inclination you note to prefer concrete problems and methods to abstract ones, my hypothesis is that it got started, perhaps manifested itself would be more accurate, in childish theological discussions with my grand aunt. She was the best of Baptists, and knew exactly how the Lord had planned the world. God is love; he planned salvation; he ordained immersion; his immutable word left no doubt about the inevitable fate of those who did not walk in the path he had marked. Hell is no stain upon his honor, no inconsistency with love.—I adored the logic and thought my grand aunt flinched unworthily when she expressed hopes that some back-stairs method might be found of saving from everlasting flame the ninety and nine who are not properly baptized. But I also read the Bible and began to cherish private opinions about the character of the potentate in Heaven. Also I observed that his followers on earth did not seem to get what was promised them here and now. I developed an impish delight in dressing up logical difficulties which my grand aunt could not dispose of. She always slipped back into the logical scheme, and blinked the facts in which I came to take a proprietary interest.

I suppose there is nothing better as a teething-ring for a child who likes logic in the garden variety of Christian theology. I cut my eye-teeth on it with gusto and had not entirely lost interest in that exercise when I went to college.

There I began studying philosophy and economics about the same time. I found no difficulty in grasping the differences between the great philosophical systems as they were presented by our text-books and our teachers. Economic theory was easier still. Indeed, I thought the successive systems of economics were rather crude affairs compared with the subtleties of the metaphysicians. Having run the gamut from Plato to T. H. Green (as undergraduates do) I felt the gamut from Quesnay to Marshall was a minor theme. The technical part of the theory was easy. Give me premises and I could spin speculations by the yard. Also I knew that my “deductions” were futile. It seemed to me that people who took seriously the sort of articles which were then appearing in the Q.J.E. might have a better time if they went in for metaphysics proper.

Meanwhile I was finding something really interesting in philosophy and in economics. John Dewey was giving courses under all sorts of titles and every one of them dealt with the same problem – how we think. I was fascinated by his view of the place which logic holds in human behavior. It explained the economic theorists. The thing to do was to find out how they came to attack certain problems; why they took certain premises as a matter of course; why they did not consider all the permutations and variance of those problems which were logically possible; why their contemporaries thought their conclusions were significant. And, if one wanted to try his own hand at constructive theorizing, Dewey’s notion pointed the way. It is a misconception to suppose that consumers guide their course by ratiocination – they don’t think except under stress. There is no way of deducing from certain principles what they will do, just because their behavior is not itself rational. One has to find out what they do. That is a matter of observation, which the economic theorist had taken all too lightly. Economic theory became a fascinating subject – the orthodox types particularly – when one began to take the mental operations of the theorists as the problem, instead of taking their theories seriously.

Of course Veblen fit fitted perfectly into this set of notions. What drew me to him was his artistic side. I had a weakness for paradoxes – Hell set up by the God of love. But Veblen was a master developing beautiful subtleties, while I was a tyro emphasizing the obvious. He did have such a good time with the theory of the leisure class and then with the preconceptions of economic theory! And the economists reacted with such bewildered soberness! There was a man who really could play with ideas! If one wanted to indulge in the game of spinning theories who could match his skill and humor? But if anything were needed to convince me that the standard procedure of orthodox economics could meet no scientific tests, it was that Veblen got nothing more certain by his dazzling performances with another set of premises. His working conceptions of human nature might be a vast improvement; he might have uncanny insights; but he could do no more than make certain conclusions plausible – like the rest. How important were the factors he dealt with and the factors he scamped was never established.

That was a sort of problem which was beginning to concern me. William Hill set me a course paper on “Wool Growing and the Tariff.” I read a lot of the tariff speeches and got a new side-light on the uses to which economic theory is adapted, and the ease with which it is brushed aside on occasion. Also I wanted to find out what really had happened to wool growers as a result of protection. The obvious thing to do was to collect and analyze the statistical data. If at the end I had demonstrated no clear-cut conclusion, I at least knew how superficial were the notions of the gentlemen who merely debated the tariff issue, whether in Congress or in academic quarters. That was my first “investigation” – I did it in the way which seemed obvious, following up the available materials as far as I could, and reporting what I found to be the “facts.” It’s not easy to see how any student assigned this topic could do much with it in any other way.

A brief introduction to English economic history by A. C. Miller, and unsystematic readings in anthropology instigated by Veblen reinforced the impressions I was getting from other sources. Everything Dewey was saying about how we think, and when we think, made these fresh material significant, and got fresh significance itself. Men had always deluded themselves, it appeared, with strictly logical accounts of the world and their own origin; they had always fabricated theories for their spiritual comfort and practical guidance which ran far beyond the realm of fact without straining their powers of belief. My grand aunt’s theology; Plato and Quesnay; Kant, Ricardo and Karl Marx; Cairnes and Jevons, even Marshall were much of a piece. Each system was tolerably self-consistent – as if that were a test of “truth”! There were realms in which speculation on the basis of assumed premises achieved real wonders; but they were realms in which one began frankly by cutting loose from the phenomena can observe. And the results were enormously useful. But that way of thinking seem to get good results only with reference to the simplest of problems, such as numbers and spatial relations yet men practice this type of thinking with reference to all types of problems which could not be treated readily on a matter-of-fact basis – creation, God, “just” prices in the middle ages, the Wealth of Nations in Adam Smith’s time, the distribution of incomes in Ricardo’s generation, the theory of equilibrium in my own day.

There seem to be one way of making real progress, slow, very slow, but tolerably sure. That was the way of natural science. I really knew nothing of science and had enormous respect for its achievements. Not the Darwinian type of speculation which was then so much in the ascendant – that was another piece of theology. But chemistry and physics. They had been built up not in grand systems like soap bubbles; but by patient processes of observation and testing – always critical testing – of the relations between the working hypotheses and the processes observed. There was plenty of need for rigorous thinking, indeed of thinking more precise than Ricardo achieved; but the place for it was inside the investigation so to speak – the place that mathematics occupied in physics as an indispensable tool. The problems one could really do something with in economics were problems in which speculation could be controlled.

That’s the best account I can give offhand of my predilection for the concrete. Of course it seems to me rather a predilection for problems one can treat with some approach to scientific method. The abstract is to be made use of it every turn, as a handmaiden to help hew the wood and draw the water. I loved romances – particularly William Morris’ tales of lands that never were – and utopias, and economic systems, of which your father’s when I came to know it seemed the most beautiful; but these were objects of art, and I was a work man who wanted to become a scientific worker, who might enjoy the visions which we see in mountain mists but who trusted only what we see in the light of common day.

* * * *

            Besides the spice of rationalizing which doubtless vitiates my recollections – uncontrolled recollections at that – this account worries me by the time it is taking, yours as well as mine. I’ll try to answer the other questions concisely.

Business cycles turned up as a problem in the course of the studies which I began with Laughlin. My first book on the greenbacks dealt only with the years of rapid depreciation and spasmodic war-time reaction. I knew that I had not gotten to the bottom of the problems and wanted to go on. So I compiled that frightful second book as an apparatus for a more thorough analysis. By the time it was finished I had learned to see the problem in a larger way. Veblen’s paper on “Industrial and Pecuniary Employments” had a good deal to do with opening my eyes. Presently I found myself working on the system of prices and its place in modern economic life. Then I got hold of Simmel’s Theorie des Geldes – a fascinating book. But Simmel, no more than Veblen, knew the relative importance of the factors he was working with. My manuscript grew – it lies unpublished to this day. As it grew in size it became more speculative. I was working away from any solid foundation – having a good time, but sliding gaily over abysses I had not explored. One of the most formidable was the recurring readjustments of prices, which economists treated apart from their general theories of value, under the capitation “Crises.” I had to look into the problem. It proved to be susceptible of attack by methods which I thought reliable. The result was the big California monograph. I thought of it as an introduction to economic theory.

* * * *

            This conception is responsible for the chapter on “Modern Economic Organization.” I don’t remember precisely at what stage the need of such a discussion dawned upon me. But I have to do everything a dozen times. Doubtless I wrote parts of that chapter fairly early in other parts late as I found omissions in the light of the chapters on “The Rhythm of Business Activity.” Of course, I put nothing in which did not seem to me strictly pertinent to the understanding of the processes with which the volume dealt. That I did not cover the field very intelligently, even from my own viewpoint, appears from a comparison of the books published in 1913 and 1927. Doubtless before I am done with my current volume, I shall be passing a similar verdict upon the chapter as I left it last year.

* * * *

            As to the relation between my analytic description and “causal” theory I have no clear ideas – though I might develop some at need. To me it seems that I tried to follow through the inter-lacing processes involved in business expansion and contraction by the aid of everything I know, checking my speculations just as far as I can buy the data of observation. Among the things I “know” are the way in which economic activity is organized in business enterprises, and the way these enterprises are conducted for money profits. But that is not a simple matter which enables me to deduce certain results – or rather, to deduce results with certainty. There is much in the workings of business technique which I should never think of if I were not always turning back to observation. And I should not trust even my reasoning about what business men will do if I could not check it up. Some unverifiable suggestions do emerge; but I hope it is always clear that they are unverified. Very likely what I try to do is merely carrying out the requirements of John Stuart Mill’s “complete method.” But there is a great deal more passing back and forth between hypotheses and observation, each modifying and enriching the other, than I seem to remember in Mill’s version. Perhaps I do him injustice as a logician through default of memory; but I don’t think I do classical economics injustice when I say that it erred sadly in trying to think out a deductive scheme and then talked of verifying that. Until science has gotten to the stage of elaborating the details of an established body of theory – say finding a planet from the aberrations of orbits, or filling a gap in the table of elements – it is rash to suppose one can get an hypothesis which stands much chance of holding good except from a process of attempted verification, modification, fresh observation, and so on. (Of course, there is a good deal of commerce between most economic theorizing and personal observation of an irregular sort – that is what has given our theories their considerable measure of significance. But I must not go off into that issue.)

* * * *

           […] when writing the first book about business cycles I seem to have had no clear ideas about secular trends. The term does not appear to occur in the index. Seasonal variations appear to be mentioned only in connection with interest rates. Of course certain rough notions along these lines may be inferred; but not such definite ideas as would safeguard me against the errors you point out. What makes matters worse for me, I was behind the times in this respect. J. P. Norton’s Statistical Studies in the New York Money Market had come out in 1902. I ought to have known and make use made use of his work.

That is only one of several serious blemishes upon the statistical work in my 1913 volume. After Hourwich left Chicago, and that was before I got deep into economics, no courses were given on statistics in my time. I was blissfully ignorant of everything except the simplest devices. To this day I have remained an awkward amateur, always ready to invent some crude scheme for looking into anything I want to know about, and quite likely to be betrayed by my own apparatus. I shall die in the same sad state.

 

[…]

Ever yours,
Wesley C. Mitchell.
(Copy by J.M.C.)

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. Wesley Clair Mitchell Collection, Box 8 “Ch-Ec”, Folder “Clark, John Maurice: v.p., 8 Apr 1926 & 21 Apr 1927. To Wesley C. Mitchell 2 a.l.s. (with related material)”.

Image Source: Foundation for the Study of Cycles.

Categories
Berkeley Columbia Economists

Columbia Ph.D. and Berkeley Professor, Charles Adams Gulick

In his review essay on Alexander Gerschenkron’s Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective, Albert Fishlow wrote: “a decisive point in [Gerschenkron’s] career, was the invitation from Charles Gulick, a Berkeley professor whom he had earlier helped in his research in Austria, to come to the United States. His acceptance marked the real beginning of his academic career that subsequently was to flourish over the rest of his life.”

Besides being the scholar who brought Gerschenkron to the U.S., Charles Adams Gulick had a life-long research interest in labor policy from his 1924 Columbia Ph.D. dissertation to the international bibliography on labor movements linked below. His two-volume work Austria From Habsburg to Hitler (1948), into which flowed some 12 months of intensive research and writing input from Alexander Gerschenkron, was “the great achievement of his scholarly career” according to the memorial note reproduced below.

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If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below. There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

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History and Theories of Working-Class Movements: A Select Bibliography. Compiled by Charles A. Gulick, Roy A. Ockert and Raymond J. Wallace. Bureau of Business and Economic Research and Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Berkeley, 1955. 392 pages.

______________________________

 

Charles Adams Gulick, Economics: Berkeley
1896-1984
Professor Emeritus

Charles Gulick was born and raised in Texas and had all his schooling there through the M.A. degree. The Texas influence on his speech and certain mannerisms of expression remained with him all his life. Certainly at the University of Texas he acquired key elements of his life-long economic and social philosophy. It was the Progressive era and he became committed to central themes of that movement–that the great aggregations of power must be controlled and humanized and that a larger measure of social justice must be won for the less privileged members of society. Not surprisingly, his first monograph, published in 1920 when he was 24, was on the subject, Open Shop vs. Closed Shop.

Having majored in modern European history for the B.A. and M.A. degrees in Texas, he moved to Columbia University to major in economics for the Ph.D., awarded in 1924. At Columbia, he became strongly influenced by the ideas and interests of Professor Henry Seager, a leading academic writer on the widely debated issue of what to do about the power of the large, rapidly growing industrial and financial corporations commonly known as trusts. Combining his growing interest in labor subjects with his interest in trust problems, Gulick’s doctoral dissertation was published as Labor Policy of the U.S. Steel Corporation. While serving as an instructor in Economics at Columbia, he continued to work with Seager and later co-authored with him a large volume on Trust and Corporation Problems. He also edited a volume of Seager’s essays.

Gulick joined the faculty of the Berkeley Department of Economics in 1926, where he served until his retirement in 1963. It was in the course of a trip to Germany for research purposes in 1930 that he almost by accident paid a visit to Vienna and acquired the interest in Austria that led him eventually to the great achievement of his scholarly career, Austria From Habsburg to Hitler, published in 1948 in two volumes running to 1900 pages. The sub-titles that Gulick gave the two volumes, “Labor’s Workshop of Democracy” and “Fascism’s Subversion of Democracy,” are expressive of the book’s major themes and of his twin interests in the contributions labor movements can make to democratic society and in the anti-democratic forces that citizens of democracies must continuously fight against. The German translation of this work was published in Vienna in 1950 and immediately won a large readership and wide acclaim. In the same year, the city of Vienna awarded Gulick a prize for “distinguished achievement in moral sciences,” an honor not ordinarily accorded to non-Austrians. In the years since, the book has continued to be esteemed as one of the authoritative accounts of the first Austrian republic and in 1972 the President of Austria presented a gold medal to Gulick for “Services to the Republic.” A somewhat abbreviated German-language edition of the book was published in Austria in 1976 and a new printing of the original English edition was issued in 1980. In keeping with his long preoccupation with the fortunes of the labor movement and democracy in Austria, most of the articles he contributed to academic journals dealt with labor questions or political issues in that country.

While Gulick served conscientiously on a variety of Academic Senate and administrative committees, his primary campus interest was in teaching and working with students, and many generations of undergraduate and graduate students knew Gulick as a dedicated teacher and adviser and as a friend and supporter. He was generous of his time in meeting with individuals and with groups of students. He also felt a responsibility to help improve student writing. It was perhaps prophetic that his first academic appointment as a graduate student in Texas was as Tutor in English. He became widely known among his students for his practice of sprinkling the pages of their papers with notations or corrections concerning spelling, grammar, syntax, punctuation, and inaccurate quotations. He even enlisted his wife’s assistance in this work. He regularly held seminars in his home and he and his wife entertained students on many other occasions. It was appealing to students to find that Gulick shared many of their ideals for a good society and that he could voice in colorful language many of their criticisms of current social ills. An illustration of his outspokenness is his title for an article he wrote for a Vienna magazine after Ronald Reagan’s first election as governor of California, “The Political Landslide in California: Mass Lunacy, Fear and Hate.”

Charles Gulick died on August 27, 1984, leaving his wife, Esther, a daughter, two grandsons, and two great granddaughters.

Van Dusen Kennedy / Clark Kerr / Lloyd Ulman

 

Source: University of California History Digital Archives. University of California: In Memoriam, 1985, pp. 164-65.

Image Source: The Blue and Gold, 1922. University of California Yearbook.

 

 

Categories
Columbia Courses Undergraduate

Columbia. Undergraduate Economic Courses Chosen. 1923-1929

In a university with the scope of  Columbia, economics courses are taught within several different administrative units. While the economics department that grew within the graduate Faculty of Political Science is of primary importance, we probably want to keep an eye on developments in the undergraduate programs of Columbia College and Barnard College and courses taught in the Business School. The following table caught my eye in a folder labelled “Columbia College” in an archival box of the economics department. I have inserted a column with the course names found in the annual university catalogue. I find it interesting that “comparative economic systems” was already a course designation no later than 1921-22 (p. 114 of the departmental listings in the 1921-22 catalogue, taught by assistant professor W. E. Weld). Google N-Gram first registers the use of “comparative economic systems” in 1955.

From the 1921-22 catalogue (p. 38): William E. Weld, Assistant Professor of Economics,  A.B., Wooster, 1903; A.M., 1909; Ph.D., Columbia, 1920. He went on to become professor and Dean at Rochester University (1929-1937) and President of Wells College (1936-48).  Here is his obituary in the New York Times.

Historical enrollment figures by class as well as course-staffing information are easily available (on-line!) for Harvard in the Annual Reports of the President. For other universities  I just continue to look for relevant administrative memos (like that posted here) in departmental and university records.

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If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below. There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

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COURSES AND ELECTIONS
[by Columbia College Students]

I A. Elections by Courses

 

Course number or letter

 [course name] Or, is this course one in business? 1928-29* 27-28 26-27 25-26 24-25 23-24

Increased
Decreased
Steady
Economics

1

 Principles of Economics—Principles and practical problems. 6 points. 301 271 259 274 281 322

1r

 – 7 – – –

–
2 – 230 241 244 264

286

3

 Economic institutions in operation. 2 points. 12 20 – – – –
6 Principles of economics. Combination of Economics 1-2. 5 points. – 56 60 52 29

32

7

 Phases of American economic life. 2 points. – 14 17 9 41 20

8

 Proposals for economic reorganization. 2 points. – 8 23 15 33

8

9

 Comparative economic systems, or International comparison and economic welfare. 6 points. 19 – 35 34 10

20
10 – – 33 29 9

13

11

 Early, Legal economics. Then, The development and content of present-day economic theory. 4 points 8 15 – – 15 23
12 – 11 – – 9

8

14

 Financial organization. 2 points. Yes – – 25 6 –

–

17

 Elements of business administration “ 152 107 82 81 94 138
18 “ – 90 67 53 68

105

20

 Earlier, Elements of Business Administration. Later, Financial and business organization. 4 points. “ – 41 16 11 13 26
33 Methods in social sciences. 2 points. – – – 4 15

–

101

 Public finance. 6 points. Yes 15 13 11 17 21 38
102 “ – 11 6 12 12

25

103

 Principles of money and banking. 3 points. “ 75 38 26 28 25

54

104

 The organization of the banking system. 3 points. “ – 31 23 25 19

34

105

 Labor problems. 3 points. 20 7 14 6 10 32
106 Corporation and trust problems. 3 points. – 13 9 5 10

31

107

 Fiscal and industrial history of the United States. 3 points. 3 – 3 – – –
108 Railroad problems; economic, social and legal. 3 points. – – 4 – 7

–

131

 Earlier, Legal economics. Later, Legal factors in economics. 4 points. 5 8 8 6 – –
132 – 6 3 2 –

–
Total Elections of Economics Courses by Columbia College Students 621* 1010 972 923 1002 1254

*For Winter Session Only

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries and Archives. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Box 6, Folder “Columbia College”.

Image Source: Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. (1913). Library Columbia University, New York City. Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e2-8bad-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99