Category: Economic History

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Economic History Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Advanced modern European economic history. Description, Enrollment, Final Exam. Gay, 1911-1912

Vue d'un port avec le Capitole by Claude Lorrain (Gellée) (1636)

This is listed as a full-course (i.e. both semesters). However to date I have only been able to find a copy of the final exam from the end of the second semester.

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Earlier Harvard courses
on European economic history

Links to earlier course material for European Economic History from Harvard, 1883-84 through 1910-11.

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Course Description
1911-12

[Economics] 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 10. Professor Gay and Dr. [Howard Levi] Gray. [Note that Gray was not reported as co-teaching this course in the Harvard President’s Annual Report]

At the outset a survey will be made of economic and social conditions in the chief European countries at the close of the Middle Ages. The history of agriculture, industry, and commerce in the succeeding periods down to the beginning of the nineteenth century will then be treated in some detail. England will receive the emphasis due to its increasing importance during this period.

Course 11 is open to students who have passed satisfactorily in Economics 1 or History 1.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911). p. 62.

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Course Enrollment
1911-12

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

Total 4: 3 Graduates, 1 Freshman.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 64.

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ECONOMICS 11
Year-end Final Exam
1911-12

  1. State the chief provisions and significance of (a) the Statute of Artificers, (b) the Navigation Act, and (c) the Corn Law of 1688.
  2. Trace the development of banking in Europe before 1760.
  3. What were the chief forms of company organization? Give examples.
  4. Describe in general the price movement of the sixteenth century and indicate its causes and results.
  5. “With a country almost naturally defenceless, engaged by position and religion in conflicts far beyond their real national strength, the Dutch at length became exhausted by the pressure of the taxes they paid.” Does this explain the economic decline of Holland?
  6. Discuss taxation in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], pp. 56-57.

Image Source: Wikipedia Commons.

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. US Economic History. Course Description, Enrollment, Final Exam. Gay, 1911-1912

Waltham system, ca. 1870

Economic historians of the present day must look back to the relative importance of their field in the undergraduate and graduate training of economists back in the day with some envy. U.S. economic history was an constitutive part of the educational mission of the department in 1911-12.

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Earlier Harvard courses
on U.S. economic history

Links to earlier course material for U.S. Economic History taught at Harvard, 1901-1902 through 1910-11.

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Course Description
1911-12

6b 2hf. Economic and Financial History of the United States. Halfcourse (second half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 9. Professor [Edwin F.] Gay, assisted by Mr. [Julius] Klein.

The following are among the subjects considered: aspects of the Revolution and commercial relations during the Confederation and the European wars; the history of the protective tariff policy and the growth of manufacturing industries; the settlement of the West and the history of transportation, including the early canal and turnpike enterprises of the states, the various phases of railway building and the establishment of public regulation of railways; banking and currency experiences; various aspects of agrarian history, such as the public land policy, the growth of foreign demand for American produce and the subsequent competition of other sources of supply; certain social topics, such as slavery and its economic basis, and the effects of immigration.

It is open to students who have passed in Economics 1, and, with the consent of the instructor, to all students except Freshmen who are taking Economics 1.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), p. 61.

_______________________

Course Enrollment
1911-12

Economics 6b 2hf. Professor [Edwin F.] Gay, assisted by Mr. [Julius] Klein. — Economic and Financial History of the United States.

Total 94: 19 Graduates, 11 Seniors, 48 Juniors, 12 Sophomores, 3 Freshmen, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 64.

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ECONOMICS 6b
Year-end Final Examination
1911-1912

  1. —
    1. Discuss this statement:

“Peel’s prophecy that the English policy of Free Trade would be followed by other nations was upset by the American Civil War . . . American protection, the mother of Trusts, is the daughter of war.” (MacGregor, Evolution of Industry).

    1. Give a survey of American tariff history during the period 1880–1910 with particular reference to its connection with agriculture, foreign commerce, labor problems, and finance.
  2. Analyze the causes, symptoms, and results of the periods of discontent in American agricultural history.
  3. Outline the labor history of the United States since 1870.
  4. Comment on the following passage from President Taft’s message to Congress, December 7, 1911: “I need hardly reiterate the conviction that there should speedily be built up an American merchant marine. This is necessary to assure favorable transportation facilities to our great ocean-borne commerce as well as to supplement the navy with an adequate reserve of ships and men. It would have the economic advantage of keeping at home part of the vast sums now paid foreign shipping for carrying American goods. All the great commercial nations pay heavy subsidies to their merchant marine, so that it is obvious that without some wise aid from Congress, the United States must lag behind in the matter of merchant marine.”
  5. Criticise the following statement from Callender: “Perhaps the most striking peculiarity of American expansion is the insignificance of government intervention.”
  6. —
    1. Outline the important points of difference between the woollen and cotton industries. Is there any explanation for this difference in the economic history of the two industries in the United States?
    2. It is asserted that the jobber of American cotton goods is disappearing. Is this true, and, if so, why? How far do you think the tendencies in this staple industry are found in the distribution of other commodities?

Questions seven and eight are for graduate students who have not taken the half-hour tests.

  1. Sherman’s place in the economic history of the United States.
  2. Give a list of books with brief critical estimates on two of the following topics in this course: agriculture, banking, transportation, labor.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], pp. 51-52.

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Economic History Materials
Posted Earlier

Economic History of the United States

1901-02. Economics 6. Economic History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague and J.H. Patten]

1902-03. Economics 6. Economic History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague]

1903-04. Economics 6. Economic History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague]

1904-05. Economics 6. Economic and Financial History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague]

1905-06. Economics 6. Economic and Financial History of the United States [with Frank W. Taussig]

1906-07. Economics 6b. Economic and Financial History of the United States. [E.F. Gay]

1907-08. Economics 6b. Economic and Financial History of the United States. [E.F. Gay]

1908-09. European and U.S. Economic History. Reading Lists and Exams. [E.F. Gay]

1909-10. European and U.S. Economic History. Reading Lists and Exams. [E.F. Gay and H.L. Gray]

1910-11. Economic and Financial History of the U.S. [Gay and Klein]. Including reading list.

Image Source: Harvard Business School, Baker Library, Special Collections & Archives webpage “Boston Manufacturing Company”.

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. European Economic History. Description, enrollment, final exam. Gay, 1911-1912

Borsig's Maschinenbau-Anstalt zu Berlin in der Chausseestraße

A clue that your economic history course description wasn’t written by a.i.: it includes the words “recrudescence of protectionism”. Anyone? Anyone?

Biographical notes for can be found for Edwin F. Gay and Julisus Klein in this earlier post.

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Earlier Harvard courses
on European economic history

Links to earlier course material for European Economic History from Harvard, 1883-84 through 1910-11.

________________________

Course Description
1911-12

6a 1hf. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 9. Professor Gay, assisted by Mr. Klein.

Course 6a undertakes to present the general outlines of the economic history of western Europe since the Industrial Revolution. Such topics as the following will be discussed: the economic aspects of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic regime, the Stein-Hardenberg reforms, the Zoll-Verein, Cobden and free trade in England, labor legislation and social reform, nationalism and the recrudescence of protectionism, railways and waterways, the effects of transoceanic competition, the rise of industrial Germany.

Since attention will be directed in this course to those phases of the subject which are related to the economic history of the United States, it may be taken usefully before Economics 6b. It is open to students who have passed in Economics 1, and, with the consent of the instructor, to students who have taken or are taking Economics 1.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), p. 61.

________________________

Course Enrollment
1911-12

Economics 6a 1hf. Professor Gay, assisted by Mr. Klein. — European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century.

Total 65: 22 Graduates 5 Seniors, 28 Juniors, 6 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 64.

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ECONOMICS 6a
Final Examination
Mid-year 1911-12

  1. “Trade bursts local barriers because industry is the history of invention responding to the pressure of wants.”
    Discuss this statement with special reference to the Industrial Revolution.
  2. “The years from 1800 to 1825 were suited to almost any doctrine of despair. No economic problem was generally understood; it was the age of everything done wrong.”
    Do you agree? Substantiate your answer with detailed examples.
  3. Compare the agricultural history of England during the periods 1825–1850 and 1875–1900. Describe the condition of the agricultural laborer during the two periods.
  4. —
    1. Comment upon the following statistics (compiled from the British Board of Trade “Memoranda,” 1903): —
Average ad valorem import duties. Number of inhabitants per ton of steam shipping.
Russia 131% 330
United States 73 116
Austria-Hungary 35 110
France 34 71
Italy 27 72
Germany 25 34
Denmark 18 9
Norway 12 4
Holland 3 15
United Kingdom 0 4.6
    1. Outline the development of the English merchant marine during the nineteenth century.

5.  Discuss: —

    1. The regulation of prices by English industrial combinations.
    2. “Protective tariffs do not seem to have been of special significance in the formation of industrial combinations in Europe, although in many cases the combination has been enabled to take advantage of the protective tariff.”
      — U. S. Industrial Commission Report, v. 18.
  1. Enumerate and comment upon those features of England’s cotton industry which contribute to her superiority in that field.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], pp. 50-51.

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Links to earlier course material for
European Economic History.
Harvard 1883-84 through 1910-11

1883-84. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [C.F. Dunbar]
1884-85. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [C.F. Dunbar]
1885-86. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [C.F. Dunbar]
1886-87. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [C.F. Dunbar]
1887-88. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [C.F. Dunbar]
1888-89. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [Gray]
1889-90. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [A.C. Miller]
1890-91. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [C.F. Dunbar]
1891-92. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [W.M. Cole]
1892-93. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [W.M. Cole]
1892-93. Economics 10. Economic History of Europe and America, to 1763. [W.J. Ashley]
1893-94. Economics 10. Elements of Economic History from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. [W.J. Ashley]
1893-94. Economics 13. Development of Land Tenures and of Agrarian Conditions in Europe. [W.J. Ashley]
1894-95. Economics 10. Elements of Economic History from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. [W.J. Ashley]
1895-96. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [W.J. Ashley]
1896-97. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe and America [W.J. Ashley]
1897-98. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe and America [W.J. Ashley]
1898-99. Economics 8. Western Civilization, mediaeval and modern, in its Economic Aspects [W. Cunningham, Reading List]
1898-99. Economics 11. Industrial Revolution in England. [W. Cunningham]
1899-1900. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [W.J. Ashley, Reading List]
1900-01. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [W.J. Ashley]
1901-02. No course in European economic history offered.
1902-03. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]
1902-03. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [E.F. Gay]
1903-04. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [not offered]
1903-04. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [E.F. Gay]
1903-04. Economics 24. General Outlines of Agrarian History [E.F. Gay]
1904-05. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay, only one student enrolled, no printed exam available]
1904-05. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [E.F. Gay]
1905-06. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]
1905-06. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [E.F. Gay]
1906-07. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]
1906-07. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [not offered]
1906-07. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [E.F. Gay]
1907-08. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]
1907-08. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [not offered]
1907-08. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]
1908-09. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay with M.T. Copeland]
1908-09. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [not offered]
1908-09. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [not offered]
1909-10. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay with H. L. Gray]
1909-10. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe [H.L. Gray]
1909-10. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [E.F. Gay]
1910-11. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay with J. Klein]. Reading list included.
1910-11. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [E.F. Gay]

Image Source: Borsig’s Maschinenbau-Anstalt zu Berlin in der Chausseestraße (1847) at the Märkisches Museum in Berlin. Image at Wikimedia commons.

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Modern Economic History of Europe. Description, Enrollment, Exams. Gay, 1910-1911

Facciata di Palazzo San Giorgio visto dal Bigo - Genova

European and U.S. economic history were charter subjects within the discipline of economics (née political economy) from its earliest days. This post adds Edwin F. Gay’s exam questions for his course on modern European economic history taught at Harvard 1910-11. 

Bonus material:

Links to earlier course material for European Economic History from Harvard, 1883-84 through 1909-10.

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Course Announcement and Description
1910-11

  1. Modern Economic History of Europe. Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 10. Professor Gay and Dr. Gray.
    [note the enrollment figures only has Professor Gay as the course instructor]

At the outset a survey will be made of economic and social conditions in the chief European countries at the close of the Middle Ages. The history of agriculture, industry, and commerce in the succeeding periods down to the beginning of the nineteenth century will then be treated in some detail. England will receive the emphasis due to its increasing importance during this period.

Course 11 is open to students who have taken Economics 1 or History 1.

Source: History and Political Science, Comprising the Departments of History and Government, and Economics, 1910-11. Published in the Official Register of Harvard University. Vol. VI,I No. 23 (June 21, 1910), pp. 56.

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Course Enrollment
1910-11

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

Total 9: 6 Graduates, 2 Seniors, 1 Junior.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1910-1911, p. 49.

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ECONOMICS 11
Mid-year Examination, 1910-11

  1. Trace the history of copyhold tenure in England to the time of Sir Edward Coke.
  2. Describe the agrarian development of different parts of Germany from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries.
Answer three of the following questions.
  1. Compare the development and organization of the woolen industry in the Rhine valley, in Florence, and in England.
  2. Upon what sources are based modern studies of population and wealth in mediaeval towns? What definite results have been reached? To what extent was the mediaeval merchant a wholesale trader?
  3. State Unwin’s views regarding the differentiation of classes within English crafts, and examine the evidence adduced.
  4. …“we are led to the principle that the work of townsmen should yield them a sufficient satisfaction of the necessities of life … since only the well-being of individuals was the aim … it was necessary to see to it that there be the greatest possible equality in the division of output among individual producers … hence free competition was excluded.” Discuss this view of the purpose of the craft gild, illustrating from any special study of your own.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1910-11.

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ECONOMICS 11
Year-end Examination, 1910-11

  1. Comment on the following statement, giving illustrations:
    “The whole internal history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is summed up in the opposition of the economic policy of the state to that of the town, the district, and the several estates. [Both in domestic and foreign policy] questions of political power were at issue, which were, at the same time, questions of economic organization.”
  2. Criticise the following statement: “the domestic system existed in England from the earliest times till it was superseded by capitalism; … craft gilds were a form of industrial organization which was appropriate to the domestic rather than to the capitalist system.”
  3. —
    1. Outline the history of English commerce from Elizabeth to the younger Pitt.
    2. It is stated that the total value of exports and imports for England and France was as follows for the years here given: —

England
£

France
livres

1613

 4,628,586
1750 20,471,120 1750

355,202,357

1800

 62,639,398 1789

758,104,000

Are these figures of equal statistical value? What conclusions may be drawn from a comparison of English and French commercial statistics during this period?

  1. —
    1. Describe briefly the price movement of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its extent, character, causes, and results.
    2. What are the difficulties in comparing the purchasing power of a shilling in 1450, 1550, and 1911?
  2. What connection exists between: —
    1. the Casa di San Giorgio and modern banking?
    2. the “lettre de foire” and the bill of exchange?
    3. the Statute of Artificers and changes in the gild system?
    4. the Navigation Acts and the decline of Holland?

Source: Papers set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, …, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College. June 1911, p. 44. In Harvard University Archives, Examination papers, 1873-1915 (HUC 7000.25). Box 9. Examination Papers, 1910-11, pp. 48-49.

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Links to earlier course material for
European Economic History.
Harvard 1883-84 through 1909-10

1883-84. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [C.F. Dunbar]
1884-85. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [C.F. Dunbar]
1885-86. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [C.F. Dunbar]
1886-87. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [C.F. Dunbar]
1887-88. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [C.F. Dunbar]
1888-89. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [Gray]
1889-90. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [A.C. Miller]
1890-91. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [C.F. Dunbar]
1891-92. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [W.M. Cole]
1892-93. Economics 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. [W.M. Cole]
1892-93. Economics 10. Economic History of Europe and America, to 1763. [W.J. Ashley]
1893-94. Economics 10. Elements of Economic History from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. [W.J. Ashley]
1893-94. Economics 13. Development of Land Tenures and of Agrarian Conditions in Europe. [W.J. Ashley]
1894-95. Economics 10. Elements of Economic History from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. [W.J. Ashley]
1895-96. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [W.J. Ashley]
1896-97. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe and America [W.J. Ashley]
1897-98. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe and America [W.J. Ashley]
1898-99. Economics 8. Western Civilization, mediaeval and modern, in its Economic Aspects [W. Cunningham, Reading List]
1898-99. Economics 11. Industrial Revolution in England. [W. Cunningham]
1899-1900. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [W.J. Ashley, Reading List]
1900-01. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [W.J. Ashley]
1901-02. No course in European economic history offered.
1902-03. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]
1902-03. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [E.F. Gay]
1903-04. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [not offered]
1903-04. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [E.F. Gay]
1903-04. Economics 24. General Outlines of Agrarian History [E.F. Gay]
1904-05. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay, only one student enrolled, no printed exam available]
1904-05. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [E.F. Gay]
1905-06. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]
1905-06. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [E.F. Gay]
1906-07. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]
1906-07. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [not offered]
1906-07. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [E.F. Gay]
1907-08. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]
1907-08. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [not offered]
1907-08. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]
1908-09. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay with M.T. Copeland]
1908-09. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [not offered]
1908-09. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [not offered]
1909-10. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay with H. L. Gray]
1909-10. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe [H.L. Gray]
1909-10. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe [E.F. Gay]

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Image Source: Facciata di Palazzo San Giorgio visto dal Bigo – Genova by Sidvis from Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons license.

Categories
Columbia Development Economic History Economists International Economics Socialism

Columbia. Memo of Musings Regarding Institutional Economics, Area Studies, and Economic History. Hart, 1973

A memorandum written in 1973 by 64-year old Albert G. Hart shares his laments concerning the path taken by the Columbia University department of economics to what he saw to be a grievous neglect of instruction and research into the institutional nuts-and-bolts, historical trajectories, and granular area studies of economics. A copy of the memorandum was found in the files of his colleague, historian of economics, Joseph Dorfman.

Chicago-style economics was explicitly disdained by Hart who actually wished good riddance to Gary Becker (“…he played dog-in-the-manger too much…” with a note of scorn for Milton Friedman (“… [he] ignores the risk that what passes for ‘general economic law’ may turn out to be a series of adhockeries concocted to be plausible for a very special and perhaps transitory state of society…”).

The memo closes with a question of what to do with the theoretical Wunderkinder of economics departments whose peak years have past with still another quarter century of tenure left in their respective academic life-cycles. Fortunately he stops considerably short of recommending senicide.

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Previously posted content related to Albert G. Hart

University of Chicago

Exams for Introduction to Money and Banking at Chicago, A. G. Hart, 1932-35

Course Outline for Introduction to Money and Banking at Chicago. A. G. Hart, 1933

Columbia University

Hiring Albert Gailord Hart as visiting professor, 1946

Core Economic Theory. Hart, 1946-47

First semester graduate economic analysis. First weeks’ notes. Hart, 1955

Reading list for Economic Analysis (less advanced level). Hart and Wonnacott, 1959

Hart Memo, Economics Faculty Salaries for 15 U.S. universities. April 1961

Personal Narrative of the Columbia Crisis. A.G. Hart, May 1968

__________________________

AGH 11 July 1973

RESPONSIBILITIES AND RESOURCES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Response, addressed to:

Professor Donald Dewey, Chairman,
Professor Ronald Findlay, Director of Graduate Studies
Continuing and Incoming members of the Department

Dean George S. FRANKEL, Graduate School
Dean Harvey PICKER, School of International Affairs

Interested bystanders

to report of Committee of Instruction on the Department of Economics,
by Albert G. Hart, Professor of Economies.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Preliminary generalities

The COI [Committee of Instruction] report is one of those papers which an informed reader finds simultaneously to be almost-excellent and almost-horrible. I can endorse with only minor reservations its conclusions that recent senior-staff recruiting has been of excellent calibre; that the intensification of workshop-patterns is very healthy; that much stress should be placed on catching good men before their qualifications known to us have become so generally know as to create a bull market; that the graduate students are only moderately happy, and that to build on the quantitative theoretical work of Lancaster, Phelps, and now Dhrymes is a promising way to rebuild morale as well as to establish Columbia again as a major professional focus.

Yet the report is so lop-sided that its net effect is likely not to be constructive. It overlooks entirely two major sides of economics in which Columbia has been, is, and ought to be prominent, and which are of major concern to students. And its lack of historical perspective and of a realistic view of the professional life-cycle may seriously distort its proposals and the reaction to the Department of the central leadership of the University. So I do not see how I can silently let this report stand as expressing real wisdom about the Department and its futures hence this “reaction”.

Some historical correctives

To clear the ground, let me disabuse the reader of the notion that the Department is only now beginning to work on the problems central to the COI report. In the first place, the fact that the workshop pattern of faculty-student interaction (taking in professional visitors) is central to the learning process in economics has been well understood for a long time. At the moment when I became chairman (in 1958), the Department was granted $250,000 by the Ford Foundation specifically to make a major shift toward workshop groupings. The deservedly-praised labor workshop (which non-accidentally had a Becker/Mincer leadership with experience in workshop endeavors at the University of Chicago) was one; we launched also an “Industrial Countries Workshop” (led by Carter Goodrich and Goran Ohlin) which developed a very useful line of publications, a Public Finance Workshop led by Carl Shoup and W. S. Vickrey, and an Expectational Economics workshop under my leadership which was clearly the least successful of the cluster, for reasons I won’t bother the reader with, but for all that far from useless). Presently we had a very lively and constructive International Economics workshop (led by Peter Kenen), which continued under Ronald Findlay; and for a number of years we have had a good-if-not-superlative Monetary Economics workshop (managed by Philip Cagan with partnership of Hart and Barger). In 1972/73 we tried a “Development/Regional” shop, which has been floundering somewhat — partly because it is hard to find a real focus with so many students not in the habit of working together, partly because of its natural leaders, Findlay had to put his main energy into the international field and Wellisz was absent on leave.

What is new in the workshop situation is in the first place the effort (led by Findlay, with enthusiastic support of most of the rest of the Department) to make it work for virtually everybody in the Department, faculty or student — and in the second place serious recognition by the Administration that this is an appropriate-if-expensive way to work, deserving serious backing even if no more Ford funds can be had.

A second consequential historical point (hinted at but not spelled out in the COI report) is that the Department has been working for years at the kind of staffing the COI report now indicates as appropriate. When I was chairman, for example, we had a deal arranged to recruit Svi [sic] Griliches —  which was frustrated by what I am bound to call sabotage at the ad hoc committee stage. In Carl Shoup’s chairmanship, we successfully recruited at the assistant professor level two key men who beautifully exemplify the application of quantitative theory and econometric research techniques to economics —  Peter Kenen and Gary Becker, both of whom were full professors very young, and were regarded as stars in the profession. In my chairmanship and afterwards, much of the work of the chairman went into nursing these two men’s careers and working conditions. Kenen contributed among other things a distinguished job as departmental leader — first Informally leading a curricular reform, then taking over as chairman for a term-and-a-fraction; had the 1968 not disrupted his strategy, he’d have brought us out as one of the two or three leading departments of economics. Becker, with all his virtues, was unlivable and not available as Departmental leader — being too much centered in his own work, too much inclined to insist that the only desirable recruits were quasi-Beckers, too narrow in his views of the profession’s responsibilities (despite his astounding record of success in applying his own apparently-narrow approach to an unexpectedly wide range of problems). Frankly, I felt it unburdened the Department when he moved to Chicago, because much as we must regret the loss of his lively influence on campus, he played dog-in-the-manger too much and helped foster the impression that economics was devoted to “apologetics for the system” rather than to a search for ways to guide constructive social policies.

Agreeing with the COI that we should recruit young and staff the tenure levels largely from local people, I would point out that we have been working at this with a remarkable lack of effective cooperation from outside the Department. As I just mentioned we did acquire Kenen and Becker as assistant professors; but we had no luck in persuading the Administration and ad hoc committees to let us repeat this success. In my time as chairman, we caught a star by converting Albert Hirschman (who accidentally was here without tenure as one-year replacement for Nurkse, on leave), and who was not at the time widely-enough appreciated in the profession. We were unable to hold David Landes on economic history. Two people who in the end proved to be very highly valued outside though when we acquired them they were rank outsiders are Alexander Erlich and Charles Issawi (both of whom were given tenure in my time as chairman). We should remember also that Vickrey (and earlier Barger and Shoup) started at Columbia in Junior ranks. Dewey, Hart, Cagan, Mincer (who however had filled in earlier), Lancaster, Findlay, Phelps, and now Dhrymes, represent recruiting-with-tenure.

What lends poignancy to the question of recruiting-young is that we now have a very distinguished collection of assistant professors — I think the best we’ve had simultaneously in my time at Columbia. But our uniform lack of success with ad hoc committees on promotions of such men (I think Nakamura has been our only promotion to tenure at all recently) creates a situation where we must tell them frankly that we have little hope of keeping them. Such anomalies as two successive years of leave for young Heckman (with serious problems of continuity for students, and loss of the experiential value of a disastrous first-try at reforming the econometrics curriculum) is an extreme example of the kind of handicap for the Department created by the fact that we are morally bound to help our assistant professors make the kind of showing that will get them goods jobs elsewhere — Columbia being unwilling to back us in getting deserved promotions.

Major areas disregarded

Two major areas of professional responsibility in which Columbia has had and must maintain great distinction are simply not mentioned in the COI report. These are the areas of “institutional economics” and of international/regional/developmental economics.

Traditionally, economics in the United States was split into two main camps —those of theoretical and those of “institutionalist” orientation — which maintained an uneasy partnership in the American Economic Association and in many departments. While the titular headquarters of institutionalism was at Wisconsin, its leading center was actually Columbia; and before the sudden recruitment at the end of World War II of a cluster of theoretically-oriented men (Vickrey, Stigler and myself) there was almost a vacuum in Columbia research and instruction on the theoretical side. J. M. Clark (a most distinguished mind whose personals shyness prevented him from being a major influence in face-to-face contact) was a distinguished theoretical thinker, but regarded himself as an institutionalist and had little curricular influence. Hotelling, who was just leaving at the time I came in 1946, was the nearest thing to an active theorist.

A merger of the theoretical and institutionalist schools began to shape up during the 1930’s and was to a considerable extent accomplished during and just after World War II. The terms of merger were much like those for the two meetings of Quakers in New York City, who obviated what might have been an awkward problem of merging properties by having each member of one meeting become a member also of the other! In the 1940’s and 1950’s, it began to look as if nobody could make a career as theorist without also doubling in some other area, and nobody could make a career as institutionalist without also paying serious attention to the theoretical aspects of his problem. But in the end the merger turned out to be slanted in favor of the theorists: it is again possible to make a career by pursuing problems that are trivial variations on theoretical themes; and large elements of the institutional side of economics are allowed to die out. Students doing quantitative work with data have no tradition of asking what their numbers mean in the context of wider social processes and problems.

At Columbia, the tradition that study of law-cases is one important way to understand the economic subject-matter is preserved chiefly by the fortunate fact that we have Dewey teaching “industrial organization”. Economic history was allowed to die out; and while at present we have in assistant professors Edelstein and Passell two excellent specimens of economic historians who are also competent theorists and econometricians, we have no assurances that economic history will not again be blanked out. Some institutional aspects of “economics of human resources” are very much alive in the labor workshop; but large parts of that tradition (including the tradition of trying to understand trade unions and more generally economic organizations other than business firms) seem to have evaporated. History of thought as an approach to economics is now represented almost entirely by Alexander Erlich (who is also our only member who is expert in Marxist economics and in the functioning of European communist economies). While in terms of professional fashions the lack of “institutionalist” instruction will not cause us to lose face in the profession, we should ask whether in bringing up a new generation of economists we should be willing to see the positive aspects of the institutionalist tradition simply evaporate.

The other major aspect of economics which is disregarded in the COI report — though in fact it absorbs much of our staff manpower and is of fundamental importance for many of our students, especially from overseas — is concern with the world outside the United States. We are seriously understaffed in the pivotal area of formal economics of international-trade-and-finance, where Ronald Findlay is saddled with both the responsibilities handled by Kenen and those which were handled by Hirschman. The problems of economic development (or its lack) in the world’s poor countries need and get a lot of attention. [Incidentally, since USA is rapidly evolving “backwards” into a state of underdevelopment, the insights one gets in studying Latin America or Asia become disconcertingly applicable at home!]

The presence at Columbia of a cluster of “regional institutes” has had an important impact on our work in economics. On the whole, the Department has resisted successfully pressures to recruit people who were expert on some “region” but lacked general professional competence. [Before Riskin fortunately turned up, we were under pressure to recruit an economist who combined Chinese language and willingness to function largely as librarian a combination of qualifications which didn’t seem to coexist with all-round professional competence. Bergson, who for years was our “Soviet specialist” was also a distinguished welfare-theorist. Erlich was originally recruited on “soft money” to be an East-Central-Europe specialist; when Bergson left, there was a closing-of-ranks operation which gave him the Russian field —  and it has turned out that his knowledge of Marxist economics and of economic thought, and the fact that he is regularly sought out by East European visitors in USA make him a major factor of general departmental strength. At present the nearest equivalents of “mere” area specialists are Issawi (who also handles general instruction in economics in the School of International Affairs, and a good deal of development-and-history work at the dissertation stage), Nakamura and Riskin — all men of great general usefulness. The roles of European and Latin American “regional specialists” are filled by two of our senior general economists —  Barger and myself.

While one could imagine a budgetary situation such that one must recommend reducing to a token scale a University’s involvement in this area (except for basic international-trade-and-finance courses), it is hard to believe that Columbia specifically should withdraw from this kind of work. Surely the economic profession in USA has as part of its responsibility an understanding of the economic processes of other countries. [True, I have heard Milton Friedman say that to have a different economics for Brazil as against USA makes no more sense than to have a different science of chemistry; but he simply disregards the ethnocentric character of the economics which inward-looking economists develop for USA, and ignores the risk that what passes for “general economic law” may turn out to be a series of adhockeries concocted to be plausible for a very special and perhaps transitory state of society.] This responsibility surely comes home to Columbia. For one thing, New York is the natural focus of such work, what with its outward-looking tradition and the presence of the UN. Besides, we incur a special responsibility because we have so many overseas students. I would add that to educate overseas students too exclusively in economics-for-USA is dysfunctional: one of the major handicaps of development has been the attempt of US-trained economists overseas to apply Keynesian remedies to unemployment problems of non-Keynesian type, for example.

Economics and the SIA [School of International Affairs]

If the University were very strong financially, it seems to me plain that one would recommend developing the Economics Department in a way that would greatly strengthen the general work on international relations and on the understanding of societies outside USA which is represented by the School of International Affairs. The SIA could advantageously be much more of a research body and center of workshop activity.

I would not recommend developing an economics department within the SIA (even if SIA eventually develops a distinct and separately-recruited faculty, which I don’t think I would recommend either). To set up standards of recruiting, teaching and publication for “SIA economists” that will pass muster with the general profession is an essential safeguard, and the generally low standards of economic thinking in the UN and in overseas universities outside Europe, Japan and Australasia should be a warning that a separate international economics might not be a genuine “discipline”. But it will be a major defeat if Columbia cannot maintain and improve its standard of keeping a stable of economists for whom understanding of outside economies (and especially of the economies of poor countries) is a major concern.

A question which interacts with this, of course, is whether the SIA can develop its own sources of financing, as seemed so probable a few years ago. If not, the general financial debility of the University will mean that we must stop far short of optimum in the whole area represented by SIA, and hence also on its economic side. Specifically, it may make a great difference whether or not SIA can finance workshop activity in this area, and make a role for research posts for young economists (for example, teaching two-thirds time in the Department and working one-third-time-plus-summer in a research branch of SIA).

If the University’s policy toward economics is primarily to develop its mathematical-economics core, the contribution the Department can make on the SIA side may suffer. And reciprocally, failure to develop strength on this side may be a handicap to SIA in its efforts to get backing for a really strong program.

A postscript on professional life-cycles

One of the most valuable pieces of education I picked up in my earlier years at Columbia was a comment by Isador Rabi at a University Seminar about the problems of a field like physics where the most impressive men “peak” very young and the work regarded as important by the profession is done largely by youngsters. It would be a tremendous waste to throw men on the scrap-heap after their “peak” years, or to regard them as living on the benefits of tenure, as non-producers, for most of their profession lifetimes. The solution, Rabl indicated, was surely to be found in an appropriate division of labor between colleagues at different stages of life-cycle, working out what economists call an area of comparative advantage for the older men.

The COI report seems to me to ignore this problem, and to frame problems as if we could hope to recruit good men between age 25 and age 30 and have them conveniently remove themselves (suicide recommended?) along about age 40 — significant activities being described as those appropriate to men aged 25-40. In good part, I think the “problem” of life-cycle (once recognized) and the “problems” of maintaining strength in institutional economics and in the development/regional areas exist largely because we don’t integrate our approaches to different aspects of economics work. To a considerable degree, the natural life-cycle of the economist is to be obsessed with very abstract problems in youth, and mature into a person more concerned with and more knowledgeable about the real world. To a very large degree, the staffing of the institutional fields and of the SIA-type activities should then be handled by shifting over of people who have graduated from being pure theorists. If we don’t do this, the channels of recruiting and promotion for the continuation of the supposedly -central mathematical-economics core are apt to get clogged. It is very tricky to suppose that giving tenure to a theoretically creative young man is to acquire forty years of theoretically creative activity. Most of the relevant people have their key ideas very young, and develop them as fully as is profitable by age 40. If they continue to preempt the key teaching roles in these fields, they will keep the young from advancing and will impair the freshness of the curriculum offered to graduate and undergraduate students. [It was because of this view that I allowed myself to be pushed out of micro-teaching by Becker and Co. in the early 1960’s.] But to suck the tenured men out of these lines and make room for their successors, a Department needs a lot of roles for the maturing older man. Unless we can do well with the institutional and SIA aspects of the field, I conclude, we can’t do well in the long run with the “core” aspects.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Joseph Dorfman Collection, Box 13 (Columbia University-teaching, etc.); Folder “Economic H…P…”

Image Source:  Obituary in The Columbia Spectator, October 3, 1997.

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. European Economic History. Description, Enrollment, Exams. Gray and Gay, 1909-1910

Historical time and cultural space are dimensions that have collapsed in the training of the the 21st century economist. We again take you back to view some of the economic history course offerings found in early 20th century Harvard. OK, let’s be honest, even at that time we can see from the course enrollments that there were only three graduate students with Latin skills robust enough to handle medieval texts (Si verum quaeris). It is also charming to see that Edwin F. Gay’s  “modern economic history” goes all the way up to … the beginning of the 19th century.

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Earlier Courses
European Economic History

1902-03. Economics 10. The Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1904-05. Economics 10. The Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay, only one student enrolled, no printed exam available]

1905-06. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1906-07. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]

1907-08. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]

1908-09. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay with M.T. Copeland]

1909-10. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay with H. L. Gray]

1902-03. Economics 11. Economic History of Europe since 1500. [E.F. Gay]

1903-04. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1904-05. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1905-06. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1907-08. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

Other Economic History Material

1903-04. Economics 24. General Outlines of Agrarian History. [E.F. Gay]

E.F. Gay and A. P. Usher’s economic history exams from 1930 through 1949.

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Mediaeval Economic History
of Europe

Course Announcement and Description
1909-10

10 2hf. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 2.30. Dr. [Howard Levi] Gray.

After a preliminary examination of early economic and social institutions, this course aims to give a general view of the economic development of society during the Middle Ages. Among other topics, the following will be considered: medieval agriculture and serfdom; the manorial system and the economic aspects of feudalism; the beginnings of town life and the gild-system of industry; and the Italian and Hanseatic commercial supremacy.

It is essential that students should possess some reading knowledge of Latin.

Source: Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VI, No. 29 (23 July 1909). History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government, and Economics, 1909-10, p. 56.

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Course Enrollment
1909-10

Economics 10 2hf. Dr. [Howard Levi] Gray. — Mediaeval Economic History of Europe.

Total 3: 3 Graduates.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1909-1910, p. 44.

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Modern Economic History
of Europe

Course Announcement and Description
1909-10

  1. Modern Economic History of Europe. Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., al 10. Professor Gay.

At the outset a survey will be made of economic and social conditions in the chief European countries at the close of the Middle Ages. The history of agriculture, industry, and commerce in the succeeding periods down to the beginning of the nineteenth century will then be treated in some detail. England will receive the emphasis due to its increasing importance during this period.

Course 11 is open to students who have taken Economics 1 or History 1.

Source: Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VI, No. 29 (23 July 1909). History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government, and Economics, 1909-10, p. 56.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Course Enrollment
1909-10

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

Total 12: 4 Graduates, 4 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1909-1910, p. 44.

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ECONOMICS 11
Mid-year Examination, 1909-10

  1. Explain briefly: —
    1. the open field system,
    2. the manorial system,
    3. copyhold,
    4. Meierrecht,
    5. Erbuntertänigkeit,
    6. yeomanry.
  2. —
    1. The second chapter in the class outline of the “Decline of the Manorial System” was entitled “The Decline of Serfdom.” Write this chapter in as full detail as your time permits.
    2. State briefly why, in your opinion, serfdom disappeared earlier in England than on the Continent.
  3. Describe the chief changes in the English craft gild in the sixteenth century.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 8, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1909-10.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

ECONOMICS 11
Year-end Examination, 1909-10

  1. —
    1. Discuss this statement:
      “In many ways the Statute of Artificers marks the transition between the gild system and the later methods of labor regulation, although the intention of the Statute to accomplish this transition is by no means certain.”
    2. Outline the policy of public regulation of prices and wages in England from the Statute of Laborers to the beginning of the nineteenth century.
  2. State the extent, causes, and results of the price movement of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
  3. —
    1. Describe the forms of company organization in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Account for the change in the attitude of public opinion toward the companies.
    2. Compare the development of mercantile companies in England, France, and Holland.
  4. In 1665 a Dutch merchant desired to ship from Amsterdam to London the following commodities: Portuguese wine, currants, olive-oil, herring, Russian timber, Prussian grain, Java coffee, and Delft tiles. How legally could he ship each commodity? Would he have shipped in the same way ten years earlier?
  5. Define (a) the manorial system, (b) the gild system, (c) the domestic system. Comment briefly on (d) John Hales, (e) the Fuggers, (f) Colbert.

Write on one of the following topics in English economic history
prior to 1800:—

  1. The problem of interest.
  2. The poor laws.
  3. Indirect taxation.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 9, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1910-11; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1910), pp. 47-48.

Image Source: Regts Delft Tiles website.

Categories
Development Economic History Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Economic Development of China and Japan. Readings and Exam. Rosovsky and Perkins, 1966-1967

Henry Rosovsky

True confession: today’s post was inspired by something less than the purest of motives to advance our understanding of the history of economics. Indeed current events inspired me to check my files of Harvard educational materials to see if I had anything related to Henry Rosovsky who rose from mild-mannered economics professordom to the status of an academic mover-and-shaker at the pinnacle of the Harvard administrative hierarchy. But wait, there’s more. Like pre-President Donald J. Trump, Dean Rosovsky was among the contributors to the 50th Birthday Album of Jeffrey Epstein and it is there that we find the specially commissioned piece of art of Annie Sprinkle, “Tit Print ’2002”.

Image from House Oversight The First Fifty Years, pp. 167-168.
“Request No. 1.pdf” as long as supplies last.

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Now that Economics in the Rear-view Mirror’s click-bait has you on its line, read on to find something about the course on the economic development of China and Japan jointly offered by Henry Rosovsky and his colleague Dwight Perkins during the fall term of 1966-67 at Harvard.

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Memorial Minute —
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Henry Rosovsky, 95

At a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on May 2, 2023, the following tribute to the life and service of the late Henry Rosovsky was spread upon the permanent records of the Faculty.

Henry Rosovsky, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Emeritus, died on Nov. 11, 2022, at the age of 95.  Twice dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), twice acting president of the University, and the only active faculty member to serve on the Harvard Corporation since the 1880s, Henry was one of Harvard’s great leaders in the 20th century and probably the most important dean of the FAS ever.

Born in 1927 in the Free City of Danzig, Henry fled the Nazi occupation and arrived in America in 1940. Immediately following the war, he served in the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps in occupied Germany, where he interviewed former Wehrmacht officers under the Allied-imposed denazification program and attended the Nuremberg trials.  Returning to the U.S., he graduated from William and Mary on the G.I. Bill.  Returning to the army, he served in wartime Korea and then in occupied Japan, where he learned Japanese and had his interest piqued by the country’s economic and cultural modernization.

After his second army stint, Henry entered graduate school at Harvard to study economics and was elected to the Society of Fellows.  Writing his dissertation on Japanese capital formation between the Meiji Restoration and World War II, he earned his Ph.D. in 1959 and joined the Department of Economics at Berkeley.  Dismayed by Berkeley’s student unrest, however, in 1965 he returned to Harvard as a professor of economics.

Back at Harvard, Henry played an increasingly central role within the FAS.  In 1968 he chaired a committee that recommended a program to grant degrees in African and Afro-American Studies.  The next year he became chairman of the Department of Economics.  In 1973 President Derek Bok appointed him Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

For Henry, serving as dean was akin to an art form.  His approach to the job was intensely personal.  He understood that he was managing not Ford or IBM but a medium-sized (just over 400 tenured professors) collection of highly motivated individuals.  He spent his time engaging with his faculty, not his staff.  When he needed to make decisions regarding proposals not already within his sphere of direct knowledge, he would ask which half-dozen professors most wanted it to happen.  He figured he would already know some of them well enough to understand their motivation and would sit down over lunch to talk with the others; then he would decide.  He intuitively understood human aspirations and ambitions, and they fascinated him.  He saw his role as fostering his faculty’s individual aims and nurturing their talent, while, nonetheless, maintaining a harmonious setting for a group enterprise.

Crucially for Harvard at that time, this personal approach built trust among his faculty.  When Henry became dean, the divisions left from the 1960s student uprising were still bitter.  Within the FAS, separate liberal and conservative “caucuses” met regularly, and tension between them impeded progress on multiple fronts.  With Henry as dean, both groups soon disbanded.  As many faculty members explained, “We all trust Henry.”  Once the divisiveness dissipated, Henry was able to advance important educational reforms, most notably the Core Curriculum — the first restructuring of Harvard’s undergraduate General Education since its introduction in 1949.  Another key achievement was reducing graduate school admissions in response to the end of the extraordinary post-war growth surge in American higher education.

Part of what made Henry’s personal touch so effective was his keen awareness of his own unusual insider/outsider status: his experience of having had his life turned upside down; the humiliation of flight and refugee rejection; the irony of a Jew standing at the top of one of America’s premier bastions of WASP privilege.  In a story that he sometimes recounted, usually with a sardonic yet elegiac tone, one of the former Wehrmacht officers he interviewed after the war asked him, “Sergeant, where did they teach you German? You speak perfectly, but you have the vocabulary of a 10-year-old.”  It was vintage Henry: funny, yes, but aching with unspoken loss — of a civilization and the people who created it; of a refugee achiever who had lost a golden youth to hatred.

Another key trait of Henry’s leadership was courage.  The African and Afro-American Studies proposal was controversial enough within the academy, but also elicited passions, sometimes ugly ones, more broadly.  Al Capp, the newspaper cartoonist long associated with the Li’l Abner strip and a Cambridge resident, launched a vicious campaign to oppose Harvard’s initiative and, in the process, to vilify Rosovsky personally.  Henry did not cower before Mr. Capp.  His public bravery was a welcome mark of integrity and dedication on the part of American higher education.  Years later, when Henry returned as dean for President Bok’s last year, together they went to extraordinary efforts to make two distinguished appointments that cemented the department’s preeminence in the field.

Henry was exceptionally loyal to Harvard as well.  In 1977 he was offered the presidency of Yale.  At the time, to pick as president someone without a Yale degree — and a Jew besides — was unprecedented.  Yet Henry declined, choosing to remain at Harvard and complete the Core Curriculum review, which he guided to faculty approval the next spring.  Beyond loyalty, Henry had a deep and abiding love for Harvard, an infectious emotional pull that proved especially effective in his efforts as dean to recruit new faculty members.

Henry was also a stalwart supporter of Harvard’s Jewish community.  As dean he helped Harvard Hillel move from Bryant Street to Mount Auburn Street, first in a recently vacated building and then on a plot of open ground where in 1994 Hillel erected a new building: Rosovsky Hall.  As Henry famously put it, Hillel at Harvard thereby moved “from the periphery to the center.”  Some two decades later, Hillel launched its new capital campaign with a grand dinner celebrating Henry’s 90th birthday.

Henry was devoted to his family: Nitza, his wife of 66 years, who was born a seventh-generation Jerusalemite, and their children, Leah, Judy, and Michael.

Respectfully submitted,

Derek C. Bok
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Michael McCormick
Benjamin M. Friedman, Chair

Source:  The Harvard Gazette, 4 May 2023.

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Meet Dwight H. Perkins

Dwight Heald Perkins’ Vita.

Dwight H. Perkins is the Harold Hitchings Burbank Research Professor of Political Economy of Harvard University, where he joined the faculty in 1963. Previous positions at Harvard include Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy, 1963-2006; Associate Director of the East Asian (now Fairbank) Research Center, 1973-1977; chairman of the Department of Economics, 1977-1980; Director of the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), the University’s former multi-disciplinary institute for research, teaching, and technical assistance on development policy,1980-1995; and Director of the Harvard University Asia Center, 2002-2005.

Source: Harvard Square Library. Digital library of Unitarian Universalist biographies, history, books, and media.

Dwight Perkins has authored or edited twelve books and over one hundred articles on economic history and economic development, with special references to the economies of China, Korea, Vietnam and the other nations of east and southeast Asia. Topics include the transition from central planning to the market, long-term agricultural development, industrial policy, the underlying sources of growth in East Asia, and the role of economic and legal institutions in East Asian growth. He has served as an advisor or consultant on economic policy and reform to the governments of Korea, China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. He has also been a long-term consultant to the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, various private corporations, and agencies of the U.S. government, including the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (then chaired by Senator Henry M. Jackson). He has been a Visiting Professor or Scholar at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, the University of Washington, and Fudan University in Shanghai. He also served as a Phi Beta Kappa Lecturer at eight colleges and universities around the U.S. in 1993-94. In 1997 he taught for a semester at the Fulbright Economic Training Program in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and has continued to teach in that program for several weeks each year since 1997. He and has given individual lectures to numerous audiences in the U.S., Asia, Europe, and elsewhere. Dwight Perkins served in the U.S. Navy (active duty 1956-58), received his B.A. from Cornell University in Far Eastern Studies in 1956, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1961 and 1964. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society and of various professional organizations in the fields of economics and Asian Studies.

7/2006

Source: Harvard biography page for Dwight H. Perkins from 2016.

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Course Announcement and Description

Economics 146. The Economic Development of China and Japan

Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., S., at 9. Professor H. Rosovsky and Associate Professor D. H. Perkins.

Contrasting problems of economic development in China (pre-Communist and Communist periods) and Japan. Among the topics covered are the role of government in economic development, strategies of development, planning, measurement of national income, and the effect of monetary and fiscal policies on development.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Courses of Instruction for Harvard and Radcliffe, 1966-1967, p. 113.

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Department of Economics
Economics 14

THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
OF CHINA AND JAPAN

Fall Term, 1966

Professor Henry Rosovsky
Professor Dwight Perkins

Students who haven’t taken Economics 1 or its equivalent or have not taken it recently should read B. Higgins, Economic Development, Chapters 1 and 8 (Section II); P. Samuelson, Economics: An Introductory Analysis (5th Edition), Chapters 32 (Section III), 11 (Section IV), 12, 13, 15, 16, 17 (Section IX); and C. P. Kindleberger, International Economics, Chapter 5.

I. STRATEGY OF DEVELOPMENT

READINGS

China

A. Eckstein, Communist China’s Economic Growth and Foreign Trade, pp. 1-86.

Japan

H. Rosovsky, Capital Formation in Japan, Chapter IV, pp. 55-104.

REFERENCES

China

C. M. Li, Economic Development of Communist China.

Y. L. Wu, The Economy of Communist China.

W. W. Rostow, The Prospects for Communist China (1954).

T. J. Hughes and D.E.T. Luard, The Economic Development of Communist China.

N. R. Chen, The Economy of Mainland China, 1949-1963: A Bibliography of Materials in English.

H. T. Patrick and P. Schran, “Economic Contrasts: China, India and Japan,” Journal of International Affairs, 1963, No. 2, pp. 168-184.

II. PREREQUISITES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

A. The Role of Government

READINGS

China

P. Balazs, Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy, Chapters 1, 3, 4, pp. 3-12, 28-54.

M. Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism, Chapters 1, 2, 8.

A. Feuerwerker, China’s Early Industrialization, Chapters 1, 2, 4, 7.

Japan

W. W. Lockwood, The Economic Development of Japan, Chapters 1, 10.

D. S. Landes, “Japan and Europe: Contrasts in Industrialization,” in W. W. Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan, pp. 93-182.

H. Rosovsky, “Japan’s Transition to Modern Economic Growth,” in Rosovsky, ed., Industrialization in Two Systems (1966).

T. C. Smith, Political Change and Industrial Development in Japan (1955).

R. P. Dore, Education in Tokugawa Japan (1965), Chapter X.

B. Entrepreneurship and Other Sociological Prerequisites of Economic Growth.

READINGS

China & Japan

M. J. Levy, “Contrasting Factors in the Modernization of China and Japan,” Kuznets et al., eds., Economic Growth: Brazil, India, Japan, pp. 496-536.

Japan

J. Hirschmeier, “Shibusawa Eiichi: Industrial Pioneer,” in Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan, pp. 209-248.

T. C. Smith, “Landlords’ Sons in the Business Elite,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, IX, I, Part II, October 1960.

G. Ranis, “The Community Centered Entrepreneur in Japanese Development,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, December 1955.

K. I. Choi, “Tokugawa Feudalism and the Emergence of the New Leaders of Early Modern Japan,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, Dec. 1956.

REFERENCES

China

T. Metzger, “Ch’ing Commercial Policy,” Ch’ing-Shih Wen-t’i, February 1966.

Japan

W. W. Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise in Modern Japan, Chapters I, IV, V, VIII.

C. D. Sheldon, The Rise of the Merchant Class in Tokugawa Japan (1958).

H. Passin, Society and Education in Japan (1965), Part II.

J. Hirschmeier, The Origins of Entrepreneurship in Modern Japan (1964).

Elichi Kiyooka (trans.) The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi.

III. EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

READINGS

China & Japan

G. C. Allen, Western Enterprise in Far Eastern Economic Development, Part II.

China

C. M. Hou, “External Trade, Foreign Investment, and Domestic Development: The Chinese Experience, 1840-1937,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. X, No. 1, October 1961, pp. 21-41.

A. Eckstein, op. cit., pp. 135-182.

Japan

W. W. Lockwood, The Economic Development of Japan, Chapters 6, 7.

M. Shinohara, “Economic Development and Foreign Trade in Japan,” in C.D. Cowan, ed., The Economic Development of China and Japan.

REFERENCES

China

C. M. Hou, Foreign Investment and Economic Development in China, 1840-1937.

S. Ishikawa, “Strategy of Foreign Trade Under Planned Economic Development with Special Reference to China’s Experience,” Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, January 1965, pp. 27-57.

IV. NATIONAL INCOME MEASUREMENT

READINGS

China

R. W. Campbell, Soviet Economic Power, Chapter 3.

T. C. Liu and K. C. Yeh, The Economy of the Chinese Mainland, pp. 17-70.

Japan

K. Okawa and H. Rosovsky, “A Century of Japanese Economic Growth,” in Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan, pp- 47-92.

A. Maddison, “Japanese Economic Performance,” Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, No. 75, December 1965.

REFERENCES

China

A. Eckstein, The National Income of Communist China (1952).

W. W. Hollister, China’s Gross National Product and Social Accounts 1950-1957.

K. Chao, The Rate and Pattern of Industrial Growth in Communist China.

C. M. Li, The Statistical System of Communist China.

S. Ishikawa, National Income and Capital Formation in Mainland China.

Japan

K. Okawa and H. Rosovsky, “Economic Fluctuations in Prewar Japan,” Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, October 1962.

K. Okawa, The Growth Rate of the Japanese Economy.

H. Rosovsky, “The Statistical Measurement of Japanese Economic Growth,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, October 1958.

V. AGRICULTURE

READINGS

China

R. H. Tawney, Land and Labour in China (entire).

D. Perkins, Market Control and Planning in Communist China, Chapters III-IV, pp. 21-98.

Japan

K. Ohkawa and H. Rosovsky, “The Role of Agriculture in Modern Japanese Economic Development,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. IX, No. 1, October 1960, pp. 43-67.

W. W. Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise…, Chapter VI.

R. P. Dore, “Agricultural Improvement in Japan, 1870-1900,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, IX, I, Part II (October 1960).

B. F. Johnston and R. W. Melor, “The Role of Agriculture in Economic Development,” American Economic Review, September 1961.

REFERENCES

China

K. R. Walker, Planning in Chinese Agriculture: Socialization and the Private Sector, 1956-1962.

Japan

T. C. Smith, The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan.

R. P. Dore, Land Reform in Japan.

Japan FAO Organization, A Century of Technical Development in Japanese Agriculture.

VI. CAPITAL

READINGS

R. Nurkse, Problems of Capital formation in Underdeveloped Countries, Introduction, Chapters I-III.

Japan

G. Ranis, “The Financing of Japanese Economic Development,” Economic History Review, XI, 3 (1959), pp. 440-454.

H. Rosovsky, “Capital Formation in Prewar Japan,” in Cowan, ed., The Economic Development of China and Japan.

REFERENCES

China

W. W. Hollister, “Capital Formation in Communist China,” The China Quarterly, January-March 1954, pp. 39-55.

Japan

H. Rosovsky, Capital Formation in Japan, Chapters I-III.

J. C. Abegglen, The Japanese Factory.

T. Watanabe, “Economic Aspects of Dualism in the Industrial Development of Japan,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, April 1965.

VII. PLANNING

READINGS

R. W. Campbell, Soviet Economic Power, Chapter 5.

O. Lange and F. M. Taylor, On the Economic Theory of Socialism, pp. 55-129.

Chou En-lai, “Report on the Proposals for the Second Five-Year Plan for Development of the National Economy,” Bowie and Fairbank, eds., Communist China 1955-1959, Document 11, pp. 216-242.

Li Fu-chun, “On the Big Leap Forward in China’s Socialist Construction,” Bowie and Fairbank, eds., op. cit., Document 47, pp. 587-596.

D. Perkins, Market Control and Planning in Communist China, Chapters V-VI, pp. 99-135.

B. G. Hickman, ed., Quantitative Planning of Economic Policy, Chapters IX & X.

S. Tsuru, “Rapid Growth with Formal Planning Divorced from Action: Japan,” in E. E. Hagen, ed., Planning Economic Development.

REFERENCE

Japanese Government, Economic Planning Agency, New Long-Range Economic Plan of Japan, 1961-1970 (Doubling National Income Plan).

VIII. MONETARY AND FISCAL POLICY

READINGS

China

Chang Kia-ngau, The Inflationary Spiral, The Experience of China, 1939-1950, Chapters 1-5.

D. Perkins, Market Control and Planning in Communist China, Chapter VIII, pp. 154-176.

Japan

H. T. Patrick, “Cyclical Instability and Fiscal-Monetary Policy in Postwar Japan,” in Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise…, pp. 555-618.

H. T. Patrick, “External Equilibrium and Internal Convertibility,” Journal of Economic History, June 1965.

REFERENCES

China

S. H. Chou, The Chinese Inflation, 1937-1949.

A. N. Young, China’s Wartime Finance and Inflation, 1937-1945.

F.H.H. King, Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1845-1895.

Japan

H. T. Patrick, Monetary Policy and Central Banking in Contemporary Japan.

IX. POSTWAR GROWTH IN JAPAN

READINGS

Ohkawa and Rosovsky, “Recent Japanese Growth in Historical Perspective,” American Economic Review, May 1963.

Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise…, Chapter X.

REFERENCES

London Economist, Consider Japan.

G. C. Allen, Japan’s Economic Expansion.

Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise…, Chapters XIII, XIV, XV.

S. B. Levine, Industrial Relations in Postwar Japan.

J. B. Cohen, Japan’s Economy, in War and Reconstruction.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 9, Folder “Economics, 1966-1967”.

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Economics 146
Final Examination
January 1967

Part I

Answer either 1 or 2; 45 minutes

  1. Okawa and Rosovsky have made frequent use of the notion of a “differential structure”. Explain the meaning of the term, and critically discuss the explanatory value and empirical validity of the concept for Japanese economic growth in the twentieth century, and also in the future.
  2. “’There is nothing new under the sun’ does not apply to economics. What has happened to the Japanese economy in the post World War II period is in almost all respects ‘new’.” Discuss both the true and false aspects of this statement.
Part II

Answer question 3; no choice; 45 minutes

  1. The word planning covers many different ways of organizing and controlling an economy. In what sense are China and Japan’s post-war economies planned? How is balance (coordination of inputs and outputs) achieved in the two systems? How is efficiency (more output for a given input or less input for a given output) achieved in the two systems?
Part III

Answer question 4; no choice; 60 minutes

  1. Write an essay on the relevance of the Japanese developmental experience for China. Be specific and make reference to your readings, and make perfectly clear what historical periods are referred to for each country.
Part IV

Write a short paragraph on any four of the following; 30 minutes

    1. T’ung Chih Restoration
    2. Matsukata Deflation
    3. Economic Planning Agency (Keizai Kikaku-Cho)
    4. Rural People’s Commune
    5. Industrial and commercial tax, i.e., “turnover tax”
    6. Treaty Tariff (China)

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Papers Printed for Mid-Year Examinations. History, History of Religions, Government, Economics,…, January, 1967.

Image Source: “Henry Rosovsky, Former Harvard FAS Dean, Remembered for Contributions to Undergrad Education and African American Studies,” The Harvard Crimson, 5 December 2022. Cropped and polished by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Bibliography Economic History Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. European and U.S. Economic History. Reading Lists and Exams. Gay and Gray, 1909-10

Edwin Francis Gay and Howard Levi Gray

 

Edwin Francis Gay teamed up a young history Ph.D., Howard L. Gray [see biographical material included below], to teach the European and U.S. economic history sequence, Economics 6a and 6b in 1909-10 at Harvard.

Materials, mainly course descriptions, enrollment and final exams for 1901/2-1908/9, that have been transcribed earlier are linked below.

Course bibliographies for 1909-10 are included in this post as well.

__________________________

Economic History Materials
Posted Earlier

Economic History of the United States

1901-02. Economics 6. Economic History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague and J.H. Patten]

1902-03. Economics 6. Economic History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague]

1903-04. Economics 6. Economic History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague]

1904-05. Economics 6. Economic and Financial History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague]

1905-06. Economics 6. Economic and Financial History of the United States [with Frank W. Taussig]

1906-07. Economics 6b. Economic and Financial History of the United States. [E.F. Gay]

1907-08. Economics 6b. Economic and Financial History of the United States. [E.F. Gay]

1908-09. Economics 6b. Economic and Financial History of the United States. [E.F. Gay and M.T. Copeland]

European Economic History

1902-03. Economics 10. The Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1904-05. Economics 10. The Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay, only one student enrolled, no printed exam available]

1905-06. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1906-07. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]

1907-08. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]

1908-09. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]

1902-03. Economics 11. Economic History of Europe since 1500. [E.F. Gay]

1903-04. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1904-05. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1905-06. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1907-08. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

Other Economic History Material

1903-04. Economics 24. General Outlines of Agrarian History. [E.F. Gay]

E.F. Gay and A. P. Usher’s economic history exams from 1930 through 1949.

__________________________

A short bibliography for “serious students” of economic history assembled by Gay and published in 1910 that was posted earlier.

______________

Howard Levi Gray, History Ph.D. 1907

HOWARD LEVI GRAY, A.B. (Univ. of Rochester) 1897, A.B. (Harvard Univ.) 1898, A.M. (ibid.) 1900. Subject, History. Special Field, Economic History. Thesis, “A Contribution to the Study of Anglo-Saxon Settlement.” Continuing his studies at London, as Edward William Hooper Fellow.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-07, p. 135.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Howard Levi Gray (see A.B. 1898), Instr. in History 1909-1914; Instr. in Economics 1911-1912; Tutor 1914-1915; Asst. Prof, of History 1914-1915.

Source: Harvard University, Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates 1636-1930, p. 83.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Howard L. Gray, Historian, 71, Dies

Professor at Bryn Mawr for 25 Years Retired in 1940
—Had Taught at Harvard

Special to The New York Times

BRYN MAWR, Pa., Sept 15— Howard Levi Gray, professor emeritus of history at Bryn Mawr College, died in his sleep early yesterday at Canajoharie, N. Y., at the age of 71, according to word received at the college here.

Professor Gray was born in Starkesville, N. Y., near Fort Plain, where his family had lived for many generations. He received an A.B. degree from the University of Rochester in 1897; an A.B. from Harvard University in 1898, and an M.A. in 1900.

He was an instructor in history at Harvard from 1909 through 1913 and assistant professor of history from 1914 until 1915 when he came to Bryn Mawr College as Professor of History. At his retirement in 1940 he was the Marjorie Walter Goodhart Professor of History.

While in Government service in London in the department of supply for the year 1918-1919, Professor Gray gathered material for his book, “Wartime Control of Industry.” His other publications included “Influence of the Commons on Early Legislation,” “English Field Systems,” “The First Benevolence” and “Greek Visitors to England in 1455-1456.” At his death he was at work on a new book, a study of mid-Fifteenth Century finance and administration.

Source: The New York Times, 16 Sept 1945.

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________________________

Econ 6a.
European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century, 1909-10

________________________

Course Announcement and Description
1909-10

6a 1hf. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 9. Professor Gay, assisted by Dr. Gray.

Course 6a undertakes to present the general outlines of the economic history of western Europe since the Industrial Revolution. Such topics as the following will be discussed: the economic aspects of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic regime, the Stein-Hardenberg reforms, the Zoll-Verein, Cobden and free-trade in England, labor legislation and social reform, nationalism and the recrudescence of protectionism, railways and waterways, the effects of transoceanic competition, the rise of industrial Germany.

Since attention will be directed in this course to those phases of the subject which are related to the economic history of the United States, it may be taken usefully before Economics 6b. It is open to students who have taken or are taking Economics 1.

Source: Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VI, No. 29 (23 July 1909). History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government, and Economics, 1909-10, p. 55.

______________

Course Enrollment
1909-10

Economics 6a 1hf. Professor Gay, assisted by Dr. Gray — European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century.

Total 96: 12 Graduates, 15 Seniors, 42 Juniors, 13 Sophomores, 5 Freshmen, 9 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1909-1910, p. 44.

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ECONOMICS 6a (1909)

Required Reading is indicated by an asterisk (*)

  1. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

*Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Vol. III, pp. 609-669.

*Hobson, Evolution of Modern Capitalism, pp. 10-82.

*Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, pp. 32-93.

Woollen Report of 1806; reprinted in Bullock, Selected Readings in Economics, pp. 114-124.

Walpole, The Great Inventions, in History of England, Vol. I, pp. 50-76; reprinted in Bullock, pp. 125-145, and Rand, Selections illustrating Economic History, chapter ii.

Chapman, The Lancashire Cotton Industry, pp. 1-112.

Webb, History of Trade Unionism, pp. 1-101.

Hutchins and Harrison, History of Factory Legislation, pp. 14-42.

Wallas, Life of Francis Place, pp. 197-240.

Mantoux, La Révolution Industrielle, pp. 179-502.

Cooke Taylor, The Modern Factory System, pp. 44-225.

  1. AGRARIAN MOVEMENT. – CONTINENT.

*Von Sybel, French Revolution, in Rand, Selections, pp. 55-85.

*Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, Vol. I, pp. 287-297. (Rand, pp. 86-98.)

*Morier, Agrarian Legislation of Prussia, in “Systems of Land Tenure,” pp. 267-275. (Rand, pp. 98-108.)

*Brentano, Agrarian Reform in Prussia, Econ. Jour., Vol. VII, pp. 1-20.

Flour de St. Genis, La Propriété Rurale, pp. 80-164.

De Foville, Le Morcellement, pp. 52-89.

Von Goltz, Agrarwesen und Agrarpolitik, pp. 40-50.

Colman, European Agriculture (2d ed.), Vol. II, pp. 371-394.

Schulze-Gävernitz, Volkswirtschaftliche Studien aus Russland, pp. 308-383.

  1. AGRARIAN MOVEMENT. – ENGLAND.

*Hasbach, History of the English Agricultural Labourer, pp. 71-116.

*Taylor, Decline of Land-Owning Farmers in England, pp. 1-61.

Prothero, Pioneers and Progress of English Farming, pp. 64-103.

Brodrick, English Land and English Landlords, pp. 65-240.

Caird, English Agriculture in 1850, pp. 473-528.

Garnier, English Landed Interest, Vol. II, pp. 360-512.

Colman, European Agriculture (2d ed.), Vol. I, pp. 10-109, 133-174.

Levy, Entstehung und Rückgang des landwirtschaftlichen Grossbetriebs in England.

  1. THE FREE TRADE MOVEMENT. – ENGLAND.

*Levi, History of British Commerce, pp. 218-227, 261-272, 292-303; in Rand, pp. 207-241.

*Morley, Life of Cobden, chapters vi, vii, xvi.

Ashworth, Recollections of Cobden and the League, pp. 32-64, 296-392.

Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, Vol. I, pp. 49-77.

Parker, Sir Robert Peel from his Private Letters, Vol. II, pp. 522-559; Vol. III, pp. 220-252.

Cunningham, Rise and Decline of the Free Trade Movement, pp. 27-99.

Tooke, History of Prices, Vol. V, pp. 391-457.

  1. THE TARIFF. – CONTINENT.

*Ashley, Modern Tariff History, pp. 3-62, 301-312, [267-300].

Worms, L’Allemagne Économique, pp. 57-393.

Amé, Les Tarifs de Douanes, Vol. I, pp. 21-34, 219-316.

Perigot, Histoire de Commerce Français, pp. 77-185.

Lang, Hundert Jahre Zollpolitik, pp. 168-230.

  1. FINANCE.

*Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Vol. III, pp. 689-703, 822-829, 833-840.

*Andréadès, History of the Bank of England, pp. 284-294, 331-369, 381-388.

Tugan-Baranowsky, Studien zur Theorie und Geschichte der Handelskrisen in England, pp. 38-54, 62-121.

Giffen, Growth of Capital, pp. 115-134.

Macleod, Theory and Practice of Banking (4th ed.), Vol. I, pp. 433-540; Vol. II, pp. 1-197.

Bastable, Public Finance, Bk. V, chaps. 3 and 4 (3d ed.), pp. 629-657.

  1. THE NEW GOLD.

*Cairnes, Essays, pp. 53-108; in Rand, pp. 242-284.

*Jevons, Investigations in Currency and Finance, pp. 34-92.

Leroy-Beaulieu, Traité d’Economie Politique, Vol. III, pp. 192-238.

Giffen, Economic Inquiries and Studies, Vol. I, pp. 75-97,k 121-228.

Hooper, Recent Gold Production of the World, Roy. Stat. Soc. Jour., 1901, pp. 415-433.

  1. TRANSPORTATION. – PRIVATE OWNERSHIP.

*Hadley, Railroad Transportation, pp. 146-202.

*Preferential Treatment given by Railway Companies in Great Britain, Report of the Royal Commission of 1906, pp. 11-34.

McLean, English Railway and Canal Commission of 1888, in Q.J.E., 1905, Vol. XX, pp. 1-55, or in Ripley, Railway Problems, pp. 603-649.

Acworth, Railways of England, pp. 1-56.

Acworth, Elements of Railway Economics, pp. 50-159.

McDermott, Railways, pp. 1-149.

Porter, Progress of the Nation, pp. 287-339.

Edwards, Railways and the Trade of Great Britain, Roy. Stat. Soc. Jour., 1908, pp. 102-131.

Pratt, Railways and their Rates, pp. 1-184.

Colson, Legislation des Chemins de Fer, pp. 3-20, 133-182.

Kaufmann, Die Eisenbahnpolitik Frankreichs, Vol. II, pp. 178-284.

Guillamot, L’Organisation des Chemins de Fer, pp. 82-120.

Forbes and Ashford, Our Waterways, pp. 107-137.

Léon, Fleuves, Canaux, Chemins de Fer, pp. 1-156.

  1. TRANSPORTATION. – STATE OWNERSHIP.

*Hadley, Railroad Transportation, pp. 236-258, [203-235].

*Meyer, Governmental Regulation of Railway Rates, pp. 92-188.

Acworth, Relation of Railways to the State, Econ. Jour., 1908, pp. 501-519.

Mayer, Geschichte und Geographie des Deutschen Eisenbahnen, pp. 3-14.

Lotz, Verkehrsentwicklung in Deutschland, pp. 2-47, 96-142.

Leuschau, Deutsche Wasserstrassen, pp. 9-56, 95-161.

Peschaud, Belgian State Railways, translated in Pratt, State Railways, pp. 57-107.

Tajani, The Railway Situation in Italy, Q.J.E., Vol. XXIII, pp. 618-653.

Pratt, Railways and their Rates, pp. 185-326.

Pratt, Railways and Nationalization, pp. 1-120, 253-293.

  1. COMMERCE AND SHIPPING.

*Bowley, England’s Foreign Trade in the Nineteenth Century (ed. 1905), pp. 55-107.

*Meeker, History of Shipping Subsidies, pp. 1-95.

Fry, History of North Atlantic Steam Navigation, pp. 55-106, 207-249.

Cornewall-Jones, British Merchant Service, pp. 252-260, 306-317.

Glover, Tonnage Statistics of the Decade 1891-1900. Roy. Stat. Soc. Jour., 1902, pp. 1-41.

Ginsburg, British Shipping, in Ashley, British Industries, pp. 173-195.

LeRoux de Bretagne, Les Primes à la Marine Marchande, pp. 93-224.

Charles-Roux, L’Isthme et le Canal de Suez, Vol. II, pp. 287-339.

Von Halle, Volks- und Seewirtschaft, pp. 136-219.

  1. AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION.

*Report on Agricultural Depression, 1897, pp. 6-10, 21-40, 43-53, 85-87.

*Report on Small Holdings in Great Britain, Royal Commission of 1906.

Haggard, Rural England, Vol. II, pp. 536-576.

The Tariff Commission, Vol. III, Report of the Agricultural Committee, 1906.

Thompson, Rent of Agricultural Land in England and Wales during the Nineteenth Century. Roy. Stat. Soc. Jour., 1907, pp. 587-611.

Hasbach, History of the English Agricultural Labourer, pp. 274-364.

Arch, Autobiography, pp. 65-144, 300-345.

Little, The Agricultural Labourer, Report to the Royal Commission on Labour, 1894, Vol. I, pp. 195-253.

Adams, Position of the Small Holding in the United Kingdom. Roy. Stat. Soc. Jour., 1907, pp. 412-437.

Plunkett, Ireland in the New Century (ed. 1905), pp. 175-209.

Bastable, Some Features of the Economic Movement in Ireland, Econ. Jour., Vol. XI, pp. 31-42.

J. Méline, The Return to the Land, pp. 83-144, 185-240.

Imbart de la Tour, Le Crise Agricole, pp. 24-34, 127-223.

Simkhovitch, The Agrarian Movement in Russia, Yale Review, Vol. XVI, pp. 9-38.

King and Okey, Italy Today, pp. 156-192.

  1. RECENT TARIFF HISTORY.

*Smart, Return to Protection, pp. 7-44, 136-185, 284-259.

*Balfour, Economic Notes on Insular Free Trade. (Also in Fiscal Reform, pp. 71-95, [97-113, 266-280]).

*Chamberlain, Imperial Union and Tariff Reform, pp. 19-44.

Ashley, W.J., Tariff Problem, pp. 53-210.

Marshall, Fiscal Policy of International Trade, pp. 30-82.

Pigou, Protective and Preferential Import Duties, pp. 1-117. (See also his Riddle of the Tariff, pp. 1-107.)

Cunningham, Rise and Decline of the Free Trade Movement, pp. 100-168.

Ashley, P., Modern Tariff History, pp. 78-112, 313-358.

Zimmermann, Deutsche Handelspolitik, pp. 218-314.

Meredith, Protection in France, pp. 54-129.

  1. INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.

*Ashley, W.J., British Industries, pp. 2-38, 68-92.

*Howard, Recent Industrial Progress in Germany, pp. 51-109, [1-50]

Cox, British Industries under Free Trade, pp. 2-84, 142-175, 235-376.

Levasseur, Questions ouvrières et industrielles en France sous le troisième République, pp. 27-166.

La Belgique, 1830-1905, pp. 397-617.

Fischer, Italien und die Italiener (ed. 1901), pp. 240-267.

Machat, Le Developpment Èconomique de la Russie, pp. 157-229.

  1. INDUSTRIAL COMBINATION.

*Report of Industrial Commission, Vol. XVIII, pp. 7-13, 75-88, 101-122, 143-165, [14-38]

*Macrosty, The Trust Movement in Great Britain, in Ashley, British Industries, pp. 196-232.

Macrosty, Trust Movement in British Industry, pp. 24-56, 81-84, 117-154, 284-307, 329-345.

Walker, Monopolistic Combinations in Europe, Pol. Sci. Quart., Vol. XX, pp. 13-41.

———, Combinations in German Coal Industry, pp. 38-111, 175-289, 322-327.

Liefmann, Kartelle und Trusts, pp. 22-32.

Baumgarten und Meszlény, Kartelle und Trusts, pp. 83-152.

  1. LABOR — COÖPERATIVE MOVEMENT.

*Bowley, Wages in the United Kingdom, pp. 22-57, 81-127.

*Shadwell, Industrial Efficiency, Vol. II, pp. 307-350.

Wood, Real Wages and the Standard of Comfort since 1860. Roy. Stat. Soc. Jour., 1909, pp. 91-101.

Cost of Living of the Working Classes in the United Kingdom, Germany and France. Report to the Board of Trade, 1909.

Webb, Trade Unionism, pp. 344-478.

Howell, Labor Legislation, pp. 447-499.

Willoughby, Workingmen’s Insurance, pp. 29-87.

Beveridge, Unemployment.

Ashley, W.J., Progress of German Working Classes, pp. 1-65, 74-141.

Dawson, The German Workman, pp. 1-245.

Holyoake, History of Coöperation in England (ed. 1906), [pages missing?]

Gide, Productive Coöperation in France, Q.J.E., Vol. XIV, pp. 30-66.

Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, pp. 394-397, 407-413.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics 1895-2003. Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1909-1910”.

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ECONOMICS 6a
Mid-year Examination, 1909-10

  1. State the topics you would discuss if you were to write on the agricultural history of England in the nineteenth century.
  2. In the light of your knowledge of the movement of wages and rent in England, comment on the following statement by Henry George: —

“Though neither wages nor interest anywhere increase as material progress goes on, yet the invariable accompaniment and mark of material progress is the increase of rent … Increased power of production has everywhere added to the value of land; nowhere has it added to the value of labor; everywhere wages, as a proportion of the produce, have decreased.”

  1. Courcelle-Seneuil wrote of Peel’s Bank Charter Act: “The Bill of 1844 was based on several errors of fact … and as soon as it was put to the test of experience the inadequacy and danger of its effects became evident.” Discuss this view, stating at the outset the chief provisions of the Act.
  2. Do you find in the facts of the recent economic history of England any justification for the revival of protectionism in that country? State the chief arguments for and against such a policy.
  3. (a) Give examples of the different classes of Kartells or trade associations.
    (b) Are Kartells, as Grunzel asserts, essentially different from trusts or amalgamations?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 9, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1910-11; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1910), pp. 41-42.

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Econ 6b.
Economic and Financial History of the United States,
1909-10

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Course Announcement and Description
1909-10

6b 2hf. Economic and Financial History of the United States. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 9. Professor Gay, assisted by Dr. Gray and Mr. Eliot Jones.

The following are among the subjects considered: aspects of the Revolution and commercial relations during the Confederation and the European wars; the history of the protective tariff policy and the growth of manufacturing industries; the settlement of the West and the history of transportation, including the early canal and turnpike enterprises of the states, the various phases of railway building and the establishment of public regulation of railways; banking and currency experiences; various aspects of agrarian history, such as the public land policy, the growth of foreign demand for American produce and the subsequent competition of other sources of supply; certain social topics, such as slavery and its economic basis, and the effects of immigration.

It is open to students who have taken or are taking Economics 1.

Source: Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VI, No. 29 (23 July 1909). History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government, and Economics, 1909-10, p. 56.

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Course Enrollment
1909-10

Economics 6b 2hf. Professor Gay, assisted by Dr. Gray and Mr. Eliot Jones. — Economic and Financial History of the United States.

Total 170: 12 Graduates, 24 Seniors, 70 Juniors, 35 Sophomores, 14 Freshmen, 15 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1909-1910, p. 44.

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ECONOMICS 6b (1909)

Required Reading is indicated by an asterisk (*)

  1. COLONIAL PERIOD.

*Callender, Economic History of the United States, pp. 6-63, 85-121.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Callender, Economic History, pp. 432-563.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  1. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

*Callender, Economic History, pp. 271-275, 345-404.

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

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

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

Phillips, History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt, pp. 46-131.

Bishop, State Works of Pennsylvania, pp. 150-261.

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

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

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

  1. AGRICULTURE AND LAND POLICY. — WESTWARD MOVEMENT.

*Callender, Economic History, pp. 597-692.

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

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

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

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

Hibbard, History of Agriculture in Dane County, Wisconsin, pp. 86-90, 105-133.

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

  1. THE SOUTH AND SLAVERY.

*Callender, Economic History, pp. 738-819.

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

Hammond, Cotton Industry, pp. 34-119.

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

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

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

Ballagh, Land System of the South, Publications of Amer. Hist. Assoc., 1897, pp. 101-129.

  1. FINANCE, BANKING AND CURRENCY.

*Dewey, Financial History of the United States, pp. 34-59, 76-117, 224-246, 252-262.

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

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

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

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

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

Ross, Sinking Funds, pp. 21-85.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  1. TRANSPORTATION.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  1. COMMERCE AND SHIPPING.

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

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

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

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

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

Day, History of Commerce, pp. 553-575.

  1. AGRICULTURE AND OPENING OF THE WEST.

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

*Noyes, Forty Years of American Finance, pp. 257-283.

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

Hammond, Cotton Industry, pp. 120-226.

Quaintance, Influence of Farm Machinery, pp. 1-103.

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

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

  1. INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION.

*Noyes, Forty Years of American Finance, pp. 114-152, 182-233.

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

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

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

Sparks, National Development, pp. 37-52.

  1. THE TARIFF.

*Taussig, Tariff History, pp. 155-229, 321-360.

*Taussig, Tariff Act of 1909, Q.J.E., Vol. XXIV, pp. 1-38.

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

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

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

Taussig, Sugar, Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CI, pp. 334-344.

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

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

Laughlin and Willis, Reciprocity, pp. 311-487.

  1. INDUSTRIAL CONCENTRATION.

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

*Noyes, Forty Years of American Finance, pp. 284-354.

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

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

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

  1. THE LABOR PROBLEM.

*Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX, pp. 724-746, 793-833.

*Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, pp. 502-547.

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

Levasseur, American Workman, pp. 436-509.

Mitchell, Organized Labor, pp. 391-411.

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

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

  1. POPULATION, IMMIGRATION AND THE RACE QUESTION.

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

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

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

Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration, pp. 33-78.

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

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

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

Twelfth Census Bulletin, No. 8.

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

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

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

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics 1895-2003. Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1909-1910”.

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ECONOMICS 6b
Year-end Examination, 1909-10

  1. Compare in its more important features the economic history of the decade 1830-40 with that of the decade 1850-60.
  2. (a) Outline the tariff legislation of the United States from 1816 to 1860.
    (b) Compare Hamilton’s argument for Protection with the recent statement of the “true principle.”
  3. Comment on the following: —
    “It is the American farmer who sustains the foreign credit of the United States, and keeps the balance of trade favorable. During the fiscal year of 1907 the exports of farm products exceeded the imports by four hundred and forty-four millions of dollars. The farmer has succeeded in keeping the balance favorable for eighteen years, the aggregate in favor of the United States during that time being more than six billion dollars, while the non-agricultural products during the same period have shown an adverse balance of more than four hundred and fifty millions.”
  4. (a) In 1891 ex-Senator Peffer wrote: “Agriculture is behind, farming is profitless. farmers are not doing business on a cash basis. The railroad builder, the banker, miner, and manufacturer are growing richer, while the farmer and his co-worker are poorer as the years pass.”
    What remedies were then proposed, and what has in fact remedied the condition of the farmer?
  5. Summarize the merits and defects of the trade union policies as compared with those of the “Trust.”
  6. Discuss briefly:
    1. Specie Circular.
    2. Suffolk Banking System.
    3. The abuses of the public land policy.
    4. The “American Invasion.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 9, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1910-11; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1910), pp. 42-43.

Image Source: The portraits of Edwin Francis Gay and Howard Levi Gray in Radcliffe College, The Book of the Class of 1916.

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. European and U.S. Economic History. Reading Lists and Exams. Gay, 1908-09

This post provides the double dose of economic history taught by Professor Edwin Francis Gay at Harvard in the 1908-09 academic year. I have transcribed the reading lists and final exams for the courses covering 19th century European economic history and United States economic history below.

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

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Economic History Materials
Posted Earlier

Economic History of the United States

1901-02. Economics 6. Economic History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague and J.H. Patten]

1902-03. Economics 6. Economic History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague]

1903-04. Economics 6. Economic History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague]

1904-05. Economics 6. Economic and Financial History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague]

1905-06. Economics 6. Economic and Financial History of the United States [with Frank W. Taussig]

1906-07. Economics 6b. Economic and Financial History of the United States. [E.F. Gay]

1907-08. Economics 6b. Economic and Financial History of the United States. [E.F. Gay]

European Economic History

1902-03. Economics 10. The Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1904-05. Economics 10. The Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay, only one student enrolled, no printed exam available]

1905-06. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1906-07. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]

1907-08. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]

1908-09. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]

1902-03. Economics 11. Economic History of Europe since 1500. [E.F. Gay]

1903-04. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1904-05. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1905-06. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1907-08. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

Other Economic History Material

1903-04. Economics 24. General Outlines of Agrarian History. [E.F. Gay]

E.F. Gay and A. P. Usher’s economic history exams from 1930 through 1949.

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Course Enrollment
19th Century European Economic History, 1908-09

Economics 6a 1hf. Professor Gay, assisted by Mr. M. T. [Melvin Thomas] Copeland — European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century.

Total 109: 11 Graduates, 28 Seniors, 48 Juniors, 19 Sophomores, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1908-1909, p. 67.

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Reading List
19th Century European Economic History, 1908-09

ECONOMICS 6a (1908)

Required Reading is indicated by an asterisk (*)

  1. GENERAL CONDITIONS. – COLONIAL POLICY.

*Smith, Colonial Policy of Europe, in Rand (4th ed.), pp. 1-30.

*Seeley, Expansion of England (ed. 1883), pp. 98-160.

Warner, Landmarks in English Industrial History, pp. 281-300.

Mantoux, La Révolution Industrielle, pp. 73-125.

  1. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

*Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, pp. 32-93,

*Hobson, Evolution of Modern Capitalism, pp. 10-82.

Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Vol. III, pp. 609-619.

Walpole, History of England, Vol. I, pp. 50-76. (Rand, pp. 31-54.)

Wallas, Life of Francis Place, pp. 197-240.

Hutchins and Harrison, History of Factory Legislation, pp. 14-42.

Webb, History of Trade Unionism, pp. 1-101.

Mantoux, La Révolution Industrielle, pp. 349-502.

  1. AGRARIAN MOVEMENT. – CONTINENT.

*Von Sybel, French Revolution, in Rand, pp. 55-85.

*Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, Vol. I, pp. 287-297. (Rand, pp. 86-98.)

*Morier, Agrarian Legislation of Prussia, in “Systems of Land Tenure,” pp. 267-275. (Rand, pp. 98-108.)

Colman, European Agriculture (2d ed.), Vol. I1, pp. 371-394.

Flour de St. Genis, La Propriétée Rurale, pp. 80-164.

De Foville, Le Morcellement, pp. 52-89.

Goltz, Agrarwesen und Agrarpolitik, pp. 40-50.

  1. AGRARIAN MOVEMENT. – ENGLAND.

*Taylor, Decline of Land-Owning Farmers in England, pp. 1-61.

Brodrick, English Land and English Landlords, pp. 65-240.

Prothero, Pioneers and Progress of English Farming, pp. 64-103.

Caird, English Agriculture in 1850, pp. 473-528.

Colman, European Agriculture (2d ed.), Vol. I, pp. 10-109, 133-174

  1. THE FREE TRADE MOVEMENT. – ENGLAND.

*Levi, History of British Commerce, pp. 218-227, 261-272, 292-303. (Rand, pp. 207-241.)

*Morley, Life of Cobden, Vol. I, pp. 140-172, 355-389.

Ashworth, Recollections of Cobden and the League, pp. 32-64,

296-392.

Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, Vol. I, pp. 49-77.

Parker, Sir Robert Peel from his Private Letters, Vol. II, pp. 522-559; Vol. III, pp. 220-252.

  1. THE TARIFF. – CONTINENT.

*Ashley, Modern Tariff History, pp. 3-62, 301-312, [267-300]

Worms, L’Allemagne Economique, pp. 57-393.

Amé, Les Tarifs de Douanes, Vol. I, pp. 21-34, 219-316.

Perigot, Histoire de Commerce Français, pp. 77-185.

  1. FINANCE.

*Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Vol. III (ed. 1903), pp. 689-703, 822-829, 833-840.

*Hobson, Evolution of Modern Capitalism, pp. 167-219.

Tugan-Baranowsky, Studien zur Theorie und Geschichte der Handelskrisen in England, pp. 38-54, 62-121.

Giffen, Growth of Capital, pp. 115-134.

Macleod, Theory and Practice of Banking (4th ed.), Vol. I, pp. 433-540; Vol. II, pp. 1-197

Bastable, Public Finance, Bk. V, chaps. 3 and 4 (3d ed.), pp. 629-657

  1. THE NEW GOLD.

*Cairnes, Essays, pp. 53-108. (Rand, pp. 242-284.)

*Chevalier. On Gold (3d English ed.), pp. 1-9, 40-71, 99-106.

Jevons, Investigations in Currency and Finance, pp. 34-92.

Leroy-Beaulieu, Traité d’Economie Politique, Vol. III, pp. 192-238.

Giffen, Economic Inquiries and Studies, Vol. I, pp. 75-97.

  1. TRANSPORTATION. – ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

*Hadley, Railroad Transportation, pp. 146-202, 236-258.

Ross, British Railways, pp. 1-36.

—— The Railway Clearing House, pp. 7-28.

Findlay, Working and Management of an English Railway (6th ed.), pp. 262-322.

Meyer, Governmental Regulation of Railway Rates, pp. 123-132.

Colson, Legislation des Chemins de Fer, pp. 3-20, 133-182.

Kaufmann, Die Eisenbahnpolitik Frankreichs, Vol. II, pp. 178-284.

Guillamot, L’Organisation des Chemins de Fer, pp. 82-120.

Forbes and Ashford, Our Waterways, pp. 107-137.

Colson, Transports et Tarifs, pp. 80-145.

Léon, Fleuves, Canaux, Chemins de Fer, pp. 1-70.

  1. TRANSPORTATION. – GERMANY AND RUSSIA.

*Meyer, Governmental Regulation of Railway Rates, pp. 93-122, 133-188.

Hadley, Railroad Transportation, pp. 203-235.

Mayer, Geschichte und Geographie des Deutschen Eisenbahnen, pp. 3-14.

Leuschau, Deutsche Wasserstrassen, pp. 9-56, 95-162.

De Koulomzine, Le Transsibérien, pp. 1-53, 261-312.

  1. COMMERCE AND SHIPPING.

*Meeker, History of Shipping Subsidies, pp. 1-95.

*Bowley, England’s Foreign Trade in the Nineteenth Century (ed. 1905), pp. 55-107.

Fry, History of North Atlantic Steam Navigation, pp. 55-106, 207-249.

Cornewall-Jones, British Merchant Service, pp. 252-260, 306-317.

Day, History of Commerce, pp. 373-379, 399-405.

LeRoux de Bretagne, Les Primes à la Marine Marchande, pp. 93-224.

Rossignol, Le Canal de Suez, pp. 23-148.

  1. AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION.

*Report on Agricultural Depression, 1897, pp. 6-87.

Pratt, Organization of Agriculture, pp. 1-104, 269-391.

Haggard, Rural England, Vol. I1, pp. 536-576.

Channing, Truth about the Agricultural Depression, pp. 1-59, 311-320.

Arch, Autobiography, pp. 65-144, 300-345.

Fillmore, Agricultural Laborer, pp. 12-24.

Winfrey, Progress of Small Holdings Movement, Econ. Jour., Vol. XVI, pp. 222-229.

Plunkett, Ireland in the New Century (ed. 1905), pp. 175-209.

Bastable, Some Features of the Economic Movement in Ireland, Econ. Jour., Vol. XI, pp. 31-42.

Imbart de la Tour, Le Crise Agricole, pp. 24-34, 127-223.

Bretano, Agrarian Reform in Prussia, Econ, Jour., Vol. VII, pp. 1-20, 165-184.

  1. RECENT TARIFF HISTORY.

*Smart, Return to Protection, pp. 7-44, 136-185, 284-259.

Ashley, W. J., Tariff Problem, pp. 53-167.

Ashley, P., Modern Tariff History, pp. 78-112, 313-358.

Dawson, Protection in Germany, pp. 17-160.

Dietzel, German Tariff Controversy, Q.J.E., Vol. XVII, pp. 365-417.

Zimmermann, Deutsche Handelspolitik, pp. 218-314.

Fisher, Protectionist Reaction in France, Econ. Jour., Vol. VI, pp. 341-355.

Meredith, Protection in France, pp. 54-129.

  1. INDUSTRIAL COMBINATION.

*Macrosty, Trust Movement in British Industry, pp. 24-56, 81-84, 117-154, 284-307, 329-345.

*Report of Industrial Commission, Vol. XVIII, pp. 7-13, 75-88, 101-122, 143-165.

Report of Industrial Commission, Vol. XVIII, pp. 14-38.

Smith, New Trades Combination Movement, pp. 1-96.

Walker, Monopolistic Combinations in Europe, Pol. Sci. Quart., Vol. XX, pp. 13-41.

———, Combinations in German Coal Industry, pp. 38-111, 175-289, 322-327.

Liefmann, Kartelle und Trusts, pp. 22-32.

Baumgarten und Meszlény, Kartelle und Trusts, pp. 83-152.

  1. LABOR, COÖPERATIVE MOVEMENT.

*Bowley, Wages in the United Kingdom, pp. 22-57, 81-127.

*Ashley, W. J., Progress of German Working Classes, pp. 60-65, 74-141, [1-52].

Shadwell, Industrial Efficiency, Vol. II, pp. 307-350.

Giffen, Essays in Finance (2d series), pp. 372-474.

Howell, Labor Legislation, pp. 447-499.

Webb, Trade Unionism, pp. 344-478.

Willoughby, Workingmen’s Insurance, pp. 29-87.

Gide, Productive Coöperation in France, Q.J.E., Vol. XIV, pp. 30-66.

Bertrand, Le Mouvement Coopératif en Belgique, Rev. d’Econ. Pol., Vol. XIII, pp. 668-694.

Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, pp. 394-397, 407-413.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics 1895-2003. Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1908-1909”.

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ECONOMICS 6a
19th Century European Economic History
Mid-year Examination, 1908-09

  1. Toynbee says concerning the English yeomanry: “It was not till about 1760 that the process of extinction became rapid. … It was the political conditions of the age, the overwhelming importance of land, which made it impossible for the yeoman to keep his grip upon the soil.”
    Von Sybel states that in France prior to the Revolution “a middle class of proprietors, substantial enough to derive from their land a sufficient livelihood, and yet humble enough to be bound to constant and diligent labor, was entirely wanting. … But what the movement of 1789 did produce is this middle class of proprietors.”
    Comment on these statements. How, furthermore, do you account for the divergence of development between French and English agrarian conditions
  2. (1) Criticise the following statements:
    “Il est évident que nous serious plus riches si nos exportations avaient été plus considérables et nos importations moines fortes.” — Méline.
    “It is a mathematical truth that if imports come into this country of manufactured goods which we can make as well as any other nation, they must displace labor.” — Mr. Chamberlain.
    (2) “What brings great changes of policy is the shifting and readjustments of interests, not the discovery of new principles.” — John Morley.
    Illustrate this from the tariff history of Germany, France, and England.
  1. “Ability to compete in the world’s market is a vital matter for Germany. …To this achievement the State railways have contributed in the past practically nothing. … Nor will the railways be able to do much more in the future than they have done in the past.” Who says this? Give the arguments for and against this view.
  2. Discuss the recent agricultural depression in England.
  3. (1) Compare concisely the trust movement in England, Germany, and France.
    (2) What were the provisions of the Austrian bill of 1897 to regulate industrial combinations?
  4. The Report of the Industrial Commission says that “France is less developed industrially than England and Germany.” What does this mean? Can such a statement be verified by the comparison of statistics? If so, what statistics would you use? What are the chief factors which have determined industrial development in the nineteenth century, and why, in your opinion, have they not operated equally in the three countries named?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1908-09; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1909), pp. 37-38.

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Course Enrollment
United States Economic History
1908-09

Economics 6b 2hf. Professor Gay, assisted by Mr. M. T. [Melvin Thomas] Copeland — Economic and Financial History of the United States.

Total 198: 15 Graduates, 41 Seniors, 87 Juniors, 41 Sophomores, 7 Freshmen, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1908-1909, p. 68.

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Reading List
United States Economic History
ECONOMICS 6b (1909)

Required Reading is indicated by an asterisk (*)

  1. COLONIAL PERIOD.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  1. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

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

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

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

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

Phillips, History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt, pp. 46-131.

Bishop, State Works of Pennsylvania, pp. 150-261.

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

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

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

  1. AGRICULTURE AND LAND POLICY. — WESTWARD MOVEMENT.

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

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

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

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

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

Hibbard, History of Agriculture in Dane County, Wisconsin, pp. 86-90, 105-133.

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

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

  1. THE SOUTH AND SLAVERY.

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

Hammond, Cotton Industry, pp. 34-66.

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

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

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

Ballagh, Land System of the South, Publications of Amer. Hist. Assoc., 1897, pp. 101-129.

  1. FINANCE, BANKING AND CURRENCY.

*Dewey, Financial History of the United States, pp. 34-59, 76-117, 224-246, 252-262.

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

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

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

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

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

Ross, Sinking Funds, pp. 21-85.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  1. TRANSPORTATION.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  1. COMMERCE AND SHIPPING.

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

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

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

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

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

Day, History of Commerce, pp. 553-575.

  1. AGRICULTURE AND OPENING OF THE WEST.

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

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

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

Hammond, Cotton Industry, pp. 120-226.

Quaintance, Influence of Farm Machinery, pp. 1-103.

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

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

  1. INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION.

*Twelfth United States Census (1900), Vol. VII, pp. clxx-clxxviii.

*Noyes, Thirty Years of American Finance, pp. 113-152, 182-233.

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

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

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

Sparks, National Development, pp. 37-52.

  1. THE TARIFF.

*Taussig, Tariff History, pp. 155-229, 321-360.

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

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

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

Taussig, Sugar, Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CI, pp. 334-344.

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

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

Laughlin and Willis, Reciprocity, pp. 311-487.

  1. INDUSTRIAL CONCENTRATION.

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

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

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

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

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

  1. THE LABOR PROBLEM.

*Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, pp. 502-547.

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

Levassesur, American Workman, pp. 436-509.

Mitchell, Organized Labor, pp. 391-411.

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

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

  1. POPULATION, IMMIGRATION AND THE RACE QUESTION.

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

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

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

Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration, pp. 33-78.

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

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

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

Twelfth Census Bulletin, No. 8.

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

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

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

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics 1895-2003. Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1908-1909”.

________________________

United States Economic History
ECONOMICS 6b
Year-end Examination, 1909

  1. Compare the financial history of the United States during the period 1829-1840 with that of the period 1880-1896.
  2. Trace briefly the relation between tariff legislation and the public revenue since the establishment of the Independent Treasury.
  3. —
    1. Comment on the following (from President Grant’s message of 1870):—
      “Building ships and navigating them utilizes vast capital at home; it creates a home market for the farm and the shop; it diminishes the balance of trade against us precisely to the extent of freights and passage money paid to American vessels, and gives us a supremacy of the seas of inestimable value in case of foreign war.”
    2. Was the balance of trade before 1870 “favorable” or “unfavorable” to the United States? Why?
  4. Sketch the history of wheat-growing in the United States: changes in geographical location, markets, and prices.
  5. What is meant by the integration of industry? How far has it affected, and how far do you think it will affect, the following industries: Cotton; woolen; iron; sugar; tobacco; boots and shoes? Give reasons.
  6. (a) The distribution of immigrants in the different industries as shown by the Industrial Commission report. (b) The alien contract labor law.
  7. State briefly what you consider to be the most significant point brought out in your thesis for this course.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1908-09; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1909), p. 38.

Image Source: John George Brown, The Longshoremen’s Noon, 1879, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.136.2. From the National Gallery of Art’s web-page “Industrial Revolution.”

Categories
Economic History Economists Gender Harvard

Radcliffe/Harvard. Ph.D. economic history alumna Esther Clark Wright, 1931

Esther Clark Wright (1916)

Today we meet the Canadian Radcliffe/Harvard Ph.D. in economic history (1931), Esther Clark Wright. A link to her list of publications will be found below. The main artifact for this post consists of transcriptions of documents in her graduate record in the Division of History, Government, and Economics.

_______________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS

Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.

[Note: Boldface used to indicate printed text of the application; italics used to indicate the handwritten entries]

I. Full Name, with date and place of birth.

Esther Clark Wright, May 4, 1895, Fredericton, N.B., Canada.

II. Academic Career: (Mention, with dates inclusive, colleges or other higher institutions of learning attended; and teaching positions held.)

1912-1916. Acadia University.
1918. Toronto University.
1920-21. Oxford University.
1926–. Radcliffe College.

Fredericton High School. 1920,1922-23. English and History.
Moulton Ladies College, 1923. History and Latin.
Harvard. Assistant in Business History, 1927.

III. Degrees already attained. (Mention institutions and dates.)

B.A. Acadia, 1916. Honors in Economics.

IV. General Preparation. (Indicate briefly the range and character of your under-graduate studies in History, Economics, Government, and in such other fields as Ancient and Modern Languages, Philosophy, etc. In case you are a candidate for the degree in History, state the number of years you have studied preparatory and college Latin.)

History, 1 yr.
Economics and Sociology 3 yrs.
Greek and Latin, 4 yrs. each.
French and German, 1½ yrs each.
Philosophy, 1 yr.
Logic and Ethics, 1 yr.
Psychology, 1 yr..

V. Department of Study. (Do you propose to offer yourself for the Ph.D., “History,” in “Economics,” or in “Political Science”?)

Economics.

VI. Choice of Subjects for the General Examination. (State briefly the nature of your preparation in each subject, as by Harvard courses, courses taken elsewhere, private reading, teaching the subject, etc., etc.)

  1. Economic Theory. S7a. Ec. 11. Courses at Toronto and Stanford (not registered).
  2. Labor Problems. Ec 34. Seminary at Toronto. Private reading..
  3. Socialism and Social Reconstruction. Ec. 7b. Private reading.
  4. Canadian History. Course at Toronto. Private reading. (Special Topic: The Settlement of New Brunswick). Teaching.
  5. [Sociology] Ec. 12. Course at Toronto. (Course credit).
  6. (Economic History since 1750) Ec 2. Ec 20. Course at Oxford. Assistant in Business History at Business School.

VII. Special Subject for the special examination.

Economic History since 1750.

VIII. Thesis Subject. (State the subject and mention the instructor who knows most about your work upon it.)

The Genesis of the Civil Engineer. A Study in the Economic History of Great Britain, 1760-1830. Professor Gay..

IX. Examinations. (Indicate any preferences as to the time of the general and special examinations.)

April 28 or 30, 1930. General.
Special, Tues May 19/31

X. Remarks

Professors Gay, Ripley, Mason, [Dr.] Furber, Chamberlin

Special Committee:  Professors Gay, Usher, and Dr. Monroe

Signature of a member of the Division certifying approval of the above outline of subjects.

[signed] H. H. Burbank

*   *   *   [Last page of application] *   *   *

[Not to be filled out by the applicant]

Name: Esther Clark Wright

Approved: December 10, 1929

Ability to use French certified by Professor A. E. Monroe, March 8, 1930.

Ability to use German certified by Professor A. E. Monroe, November 6, 1930.

Date of general examination April 30, 1930. Passed (Edwin F. Gay, Chairman)

Thesis received April 1, 1931

Read by Professors Gay and Usher

Approved June 1, 1931.

Date of special examination Monday, June 8, 1931. Passed. (Edwin F. Gay, Chairman)

Recommended for the Doctorate June 4, 1931

Degree conferred  June 17, 1931

Remarks.  [left blank]

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

General Examination,
date and examiners requested
[carbon copy]

April 21, 1930.

Dear Sir:

Will it be possible for you to serve as a member of the committee for the general examination in Economics of Mrs. Esther Wright on Wednesday, April 30, at four o’clock? Mrs. Wright’s fields for this examination are:

  1. Economic Theory and its History.
  2. Labor Problems.
  3. Socialism and Social Reconstruction.
  4. Canadian History.

Mrs. Wright’s special field is Economic History since 1750 and she is offering course credit in Sociology.

The committee consists of Professors Gay (chairman), Chamberlin, Mason, Ripley, and Dr. Furber.

Very truly yours,
[unsigned copy]
Secretary of the Division

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

Change of thesis title
[carbon copy]

June 6, 1931

My dear Mrs. Wright:

Professor Gay has asked me to tell you that he would like you to change the title of your thesis to

The Genesis of the Civil Engineer in Great Britain

As it is desirable to have this done before the examination, could you attend to it on Monday? The thesis is in my office.

Very sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]
Secretary

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

Radcliffe College

College Record of Mrs. Esther Clark Wright.
SUBJECT GRADE
1926-27 Course

Half-Course

Economics 2

A minus

 

SUBJECT GRADE
1927-28 2hf. Course

Half-Course

Economics 20″
Prof. Gay

A minus

 

SUBJECT GRADE
1928-29 Course

Half-Course

Economics 20
Prof. Gay

A minus
Economics 34″ A
Economics 7b” A

 

SUBJECT GRADE
1929-30 Course

Half-Course

Economics 11

Economics 12

A.B. Acadia University 1916

Source: Harvard University Archives. Division of History, Government & Economics, Ph.D. Degrees Conferred 1930-31. (UA V 453.270), Box 11.

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Course Names and Instructors

1926-27

Economics 2. Economic History since the Industrial Revolution. Professor Gay.

1927-28

Economics 20. Economic Research. Professor Gay.

1928-29

Economics 20. Economic Research. Professor Gay.

Economics 34. Problems of Labor. Professor Ripley.

Economics 7b. Programs of Social Reconstruction. Asst. Professor E. S. Mason.

1929-30

Economics 11. Economic Theory. Professor Taussig.

Economics 12. Some Fundamental Problems in Economic and Social Theory. Professor Carver.

Source: Radcliffe College Catalogue [for] 1926-27, 1927-28, 1928-29, 1929-30.

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Some of her personal backstory

…After her undergraduate study at Acadia, she studied at the University of Toronto and then at Oxford. Her studies at Oxford were cut short after just one year by her younger brother’s illness, which ended his life in October 1921. It was on the journey back to Fredericton from Oxford that she met her future husband, Conrad Payling Wright.

The courtship between the two comprised largely of correspondence over the next two years and culminated in their marriage, in 1924, on the family farm outside of Fredericton. This was unusual at the time because her family held positions of esteem in the local congregation and thus they were expected to marry in a church. After marriage, Esther Clark Wright moved to California where her husband was studying at Stanford University. She soon discovered that she was unable to have children which, though devastating, enabled her to pursue her academic studies and research at liberty. She joined her husband at Stanford, and then following that she studied at Radcliffe (Harvard University), where she graduated with a PhD in economics in 1931.

Back in Fredericton, her father had risen through the political ranks, beginning as mayor of Fredericton and eventually becoming the Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick. He had also opened several car dealerships in anticipation of the coming demand for automobiles. Her family’s prosperity ensured that Wright never had to depend on any other income to maintain her material comfort and this enabled her to spend time pursuing her research. This also provided her with much more independence in marriage than her female contemporaries enjoyed. Her relationship with her husband was tumultuous with the two of them often maintaining separate residences throughout their sixty-five-year marriage….

Source: New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia website article “Esther Isabelle (Clark) Wright”.

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Esther Isabelle Clark Wright’s publications, 1914-1988.

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Esther Isabelle Clark Wright
Timeline of her life and career

1895. Born May 4 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

1916. B.A. Acadia University (Wolville, Nova Scotia). Honors in Economics.

1924. July 31. Married Conrad Payling Wright.

1931. Ph.D. in economics from Harvard. Dissertation: “The Genesis of the Civil Engineer in Great Britain, 1760-1830.”

1943-47. Lectured in sociology at Acadia University.

1975. Honorary D. Litt. awarded by Acadia University

1981. Honorary Ll.D. awarded by Dalhousie University.

1984. Honorary D. Litt. awarded by the University of New Brunswick.

1990. Died June 17

1990. Posthumously awarded Order of Canada. “A prolific author and respected scholar, her excellent research has been used by many students, historians and genealogists studying Maritime history, particularly the Loyalist migration, or tracing family roots.”

Image Source: Esther Isabelle Clark from the Acadia University Class of 1916 photo.