Category: Economists

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Chicago Economists Money and Banking

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

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

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

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

______________________________

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

Author

 Article Details of parts photographed

Box No.

1.
Bach, George [Leland]

 Price Level Stabilization: [Some Theoretical and Practical Considerations]

[blank]

[blank]

2.
Bloomfield, Arthur [Irving]

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

T-304

3.
Bronfenbrenner, Martin

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

T-10250

4.
Brooks, Benjamin [Franklin]

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

T-9885

5.
Caplan, Benjamin

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

T-7847

6.
Cox, Garfield V.

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

T-17-91

7.
Daugherty Marion [Roberts]

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

T-10282

8.
Harper, [William Canaday] Joel

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

T-145

9.
Leigh, Arthur Hertel

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

T-554

10.
Linville, Francis [Aron]

 Central Bank Co-operation Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-11508

11.
McEvoy, Raymond H.

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

T-7731

12.
McIvor R. Craig

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

T-10268

13.
McKean, Roland Neely

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

T-90

14.
Reeve, Joseph [Edwin]

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

T-11022

15.
Shaw, Ernest Ray

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

T-8322

16.
Snider, Delbert [Arthur]

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

T-1031

17.
Tongue, William [Walter]

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

T-670

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

______________________________

The University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637

Department of Economics

August 21, 1968

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

Dear Professor Patinkin:

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

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

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

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

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637

Department of Economics

October 23, 1968

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

Dear Professor Patinkin:

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

George Bach’s committee members:

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

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

Martin Bronfenbrenner:

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

Joel Harper:

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

Benjamin Brooks:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Economists Funny Business Harvard Undergraduate

Vermont. Yearbook account of economics lecture by Harvard PhD Charles W. Mixter, 1904

While trolling the yearbook of the University of Vermont in search of a portrait of Professor Charles W. Mixter (Harvard Ph.D. 1897), I came across the following student account of what one presumes is a not an untypical classroom performance by Professor Mixter. He appears to have been pretty proud of his Harvard connection, in particular with Professor O.M.W. Sprague.

Incidentally, I have yet to discover a photograph of Charles W. Mixter anywhere on the internet, and I have tried…

…and what pray are “Persian Alexis overshoes” anyhow?

_______________________________

Pol. Econ. à la Mixter

A room in the Old Mill. The bell strikes and during the next ten minutes the class straggles in. The second bell strikes; some minutes elapse during which Burrows ’o4 amuses himself — and the class — by crayon sketches from life ( ?). Macrae, to whom art of so high an order does not appeal, looks at his watch and announces that the five minutes are up. A discussion follows as to the advisability of cutting. Finally better instincts prevail and the class decides to stay. At the end of another five minutes, Pomeroy, from his lookout at the window, descries the Professor in the distance. Informed of the fact the class rushes up just in time to see His Portlyship, in Persian Alexis overshoes, and English Ulster [Note: apparently the sort of overcoat worn by Sherlock Holmes], rounding the statue of Lafayette and puffing like a tug under full steam.

 

The Professor’s tread is soon heard on the stair and the class take their seats just as he enters the room. In answer to the chorus of good-mornings, he nods a general recognition, divests himself of ulster, overshoes and Alexis and takes his seat. These preliminaries over, he fumbles for some time in the recesses of an inner pocket and at length pulls forth a slip of paper upon which is the frame-work of a lecture. After vainly trying to read his own writing, the Professor gives up in despair, puts back the notes, and launches out on another tack.

 

His eye lighting on Macrae nodding on the back seat, he explodes this poser at the offending member:

 

My friend Sprague — the great economist — of course you’ve all heard of him — edited Dunbar blur—r—r um and all that sort of thing — well he’s just returned from Oklahoma — he says the banks are holding the largest deposit in the Territory’s history. What does that indicate for general prosperity, Mr. Macrae?

 

Macrae, to whom reciting is a bore, pulls himself together with a supreme effort and begins a learned disquisition on the inter-relation of loans to deposits and the utter uselessness as an index to prosperity of bank statements in general and of this report in particular.

 

Whenever a glint of truth appears in Macrae’s remarks — which is far from often — the Professor nods approvingly, assumes his Rooseveltian grin and rumples his hair encouragingly.

 

Macrae finally comes to the end of his rope and the Professor, suddenly recollecting an anecdote that “my friend Sprague” told him at Harvard, springs it on the guileless members of Economics II. When the laughter incident on this effort has subsided, the Professor has some interesting things to say on railroad stocks.

 

Prof. (clearing his throat and groping for his handkerchief in a hip pocket) Um — yum yum yum yum yum — I own some stock myself — huh — oh yes — huh (grimace à la Roosevelt). Hasn’t paid me any dividend for seventeen years, though. Speaking of railroads puts me in mind of a man I met up in the Berkshire Hills once. Oh yes — um I — I was up in the Berkshires and I met a man who had lost his fortune during the war — well he — huh — huh huh. The Professor, anticipating the ludicrous end of his tale, cannot resist the temptation to laugh, and the rest of his speech is lost in a gurgle of merriment, in which the class feels itself called upon to join.

 

Turning from the Berkshire Hermit the Professor travels to Tennessee, where he tells how he proffered a check in payment and how that check was actually received! Next he leads the class a pretty pace through Threadneedle Street, where they enter the Bank of England and help the Professor cash a ten pun’ note, after which they awake to find themselves reposing quietly in their seats none the worse for wear but a little dazed in spirit.

 

The remainder of the Professor’s talk is a brilliant counterpane, with which he covers his subject, resplendent with purple patches of travel, finance, the stock exchange, international trade, panics, industrial organization, underwriting, indigestible securities, and bank history from Daniel to Dunbar, freely interspersed with the dicta of Ami Sprague. The Professor is in the midst of an interesting Harvard reminiscence when the bell strikes and he makes a hasty end, regretting  — as always — that he hasn’t covered as much ground as he had hoped to. The class escapes furtively while the Professor worms himself into his ulster, sticks on the Alexis and descends the stair ruminating on the value of anecdote as a means of inculcating the fundamental principles of that most abstruse science of political economy.

Source: The University of Vermont Libraries, Digital Collections.Yearbook, The Ariel 1905, Vol. XVIII, pp. 277-278.

Image Source: University of Vermont (between 1900 and 1906) from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Economists Faculty Regulations Harvard

Harvard. Economics Graduate School Records of James Alfred Field, ABD. 1903-1911.

 

The artifact transcribed for the previous post came from the tenth year report for the Harvard Class of 1903 written by University of Chicago associate professor of economics James A. Field. This post begins with an excerpt from Field’s Chicago Tribune obituary to complete our picture of his career.

What makes this post noteworthy for Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is the following information transcribed from Field’s graduate student records kept at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and within the division of History and Political Science during his first two graduate years in residence at Harvard. 

Also of particular interest is the copy of a 1911 letter included in his file informing the chairman of the economics department, Professor Frank Taussig, that the submission of a single excellent paper would not satisfy the thesis requirement for the Ph.D. By this time James A. Field was well-established at the University of Chicago and appears to have subsequently abandoned his plans to complete a Harvard Ph.D. degree. 

_________________________________

From James A. Field’s obituary in the Chicago Sunday Tribune
(July 17, 1927)

James Alfred Field, professor of economics at the University of Chicago, died on Friday [cf. The Associated Press reported that he died Saturday] in Boston from a tumor of the brain. He was returning from study at the British museum when he was stricken in Boston and died after a short illness. He was 47 years old and a native of Milton, Mass…In 1910 he came to the University of Chicago and in 1923 was made dean of the college of art and literature.
He was associate editor of the Journal of Political Economy and was special investigator of the division of statistics of the council of national defense in 1917. In 1918-19 he served as chief statistician of the American shipping mission of the allied maritime transport council in London. Prof. Field was the author of “Progress of Eugenics” and co-author of “Outlines of Economics…”

Source: Chicago Sunday Tribune, 17 July, 1927, p. 12.

_________________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

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. Name (in full, and date of birth).

James Alfred Field
May 26th 1880

II. Academic career. (Mention, with dates inclusive, colleges or other higher institutions of learning attended and teaching positions held.)

Harvard College 1899-1903
Assistant in Economics 1903-1904
Austin Teaching Fellow in Economics 1904-1905

III. Degrees already attained. (Mention institutions and dates.)

A.B. Harvard 1903

IV. Academic distinctions. (Mention prizes, honors, fellowships, scholarships, etc.)

A.B. summa cum laude; honorable mention in Economics; Jacob Wendell Scholarship; John Harvard Scholarship (twice)

V. Department of study. (Do you propose to offer yourself for the Ph.D., in “History,” in “Economics,” or in “Political Science”?

Economics

VI. Choice of Subjects for the General Examination. (Write out each subject, and at the end put in [brackets] the number of that subject in the Division lists. Indicate any digressions from the normal choices, and any combinations of partial subjects. State briefly what your means of preparation have been on each subject, as by Harvard courses, courses taken elsewhere, private reading, teaching the subject, etc., etc.)

    1. Economic Theory and its History [1]. Based on Econ. 1, taken and for two years taught. Econ. 3, Econ. 15.
    2. Economic History [2 and 3 merged] Based on Econ. 6 and 11 and parts of History 9.
    3. Sociology [4] Based on Econ. 3 taken and taught; Anthropology 1, and on private reading.
    4. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization [9]. Based on Econ 9a and 9b.
    5. The Sociological Aspect of the Evolution Theory [4 and 16, modified]. Based chiefly on private reading; and on parts of Philosophy 1b, of the courses mentioned under (3), and of other courses and work in biological subjects.
    6. International Law [14, adapted] Based on Gov. 4.

VII. Special Subject for the special examination.

[Left blank]

VIII. Thesis Subject. (State the subject and mention the instructor who knows most about your work upon it.)

[Left blank]

IX. Examinations. (Indicate any preferences as to the time of either of the general or special examinations.)

General examination as late in the present academic year as is practicable.

X. Remarks.

[Left blank]

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

[Not to be filled out by the applicant]

Name: James Alfred Field

Date of reception: Feb. 13, 1905

Approved: Feb. 14, 1905

Date of general examination: June 12, 1905. Passed.

Thesis received: [blank]

Read by; [blank]

Approved: [blank]

Date of special examination: [blank]

Recommended for the Doctorate: [blank]

Voted by the Faculty: [blank]

Degree conferred: [blank].

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Unsigned copy of letter to F.W. Taussig
(presumably from head of Division)

11 December 1911

Dear Taussig:

            I have read Field’s article with interest, and I wish all our Ph.D.’s could do things as well. I should suppose there would be no question that it shows the kind of quality which will justify a doctor’s degree, and, of course, quality is far more important than quantity. Nevertheless, I think that if this article alone were accepted as a thesis our students and former students would feel that Field had been let off easily. Good as it is, I should not suppose this article would stand in line with the substantial volumes which make up the Harvard Economic Studies, and I should be sorry to have anybody feel that we had given Field a special favor.

            I hope very much we can make Field one of our Ph.D.’s. Could he not advantageously and with comparatively little effort use this article as part of some more comprehensive study in the field of population? The stimulus of working on a larger book is something Field needs.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]

Professor F.W. Taussig

Source: Harvard University Archives. Division of History, Government & Economics, Box 3 “PhD. Exams, 1917-18 to 1920-21”, Folder “Ph.D. Applications Withdrawn”. 

[Memo: The above letter was likely written by CHARLES HOMER HASKINS, Ph.D., Litt.D., Professor of History, Chairman of the Division of History, Government, and Economics, and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.]

_________________________________

From the Announcement for Ph.D. General Examinations

James Alfred Field.

General Examination in Economics, Monday, June 12, 1905.

Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Carver, Gay, Castle, and Dr. Munro.

Academic History: Harvard College, 1899-1903; Harvard Graduate School, 1903-05; A.B. (Harvard) 1903.

General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History. 3. Sociology. 4. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization. 5. The Sociological Aspect of the Evolution Theory. 6 International Law.

Special Subject: Sociology.

Thesis Subject: (Not yet announced.)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Division of History, Government and Economics, Exams for PhD. (Schedules) 1903-1932. Examinations for 1904-05, p. 8.

_________________________________

FROM THE GRADUATE SCHOOL RECORD CARD

[Note: Boldface used to indicate printed text of the record card; italics used to indicate the handwritten entries]

Record of James Alfred Field

Years: 1903-04, 1904-05

First Registration: 1 Oct. 1903

1903-04 Grades.
First Year. Course. Half-Course.
History 9 abs.  
Government 4 A  
Economics 2 A  
Economics 11 incomplete

 

1904-05 Grades.
Second Year. Course. Half-Course.
Economics 9a1 (extra)   no report
Economics 9b2 (extra)    
Economics 15 (extra) abs.  
Economics 20 (extra) incomplete  

Division History and Political Science

Scholarship, Fellowship

Assistantship in Economics [1903-04]
Austin Teaching Fellowship in Economics [1904-05]
Proctorship in Apley 1 [1903-04, 1904-05]

College attended [Harvard]

Honors at College: Hon. Mention, Economics.

Degrees received: A.B. summa cum laude 1903

Non-Resident Student Years: 1905 John Harvard Fellow

Source: Harvard University Archives. GSAS, Record Cards of Students, 1895-1930. File I, Box 5 “Eames-Garrett”.

_________________________________

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror Note:
Course numbers, names, and instructors

1903-04

History 9. Constitutional History of England to the Sixteenth Century. Professor Gross.

Government 4. Elements of International Law. Professor Macvane and Mr. Jones.

Economics 2. Economic Theory. Professors Taussig and Carver.

Economics 11. The Modern Economic History of Europe. Asst. Prof. Gay.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1903-04.

1904-05

Economics 3. Principles of Sociology, Theories of Social Progress. Professor Carver and Mr. Field.

Economics 9a1. Problems of Labor. Professor Ripley and Mr. Custis.

Economics 9a2. Economics of Corporations. Professor Ripley and Mr. Custis.

Economics 15. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848. Asst. Professor Bullock.

Economics 20. The Seminary in Economics.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1904-05.

Image Source: Original black-and-white image from the Special Diplomatic Passport Application by James Alfred Field (January 1918). Cropped and colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. (Note: left third of the image is slightly distorted because of a transparent plastic strip used to hold pages in the imaging process)

Categories
Chicago Economists Germany Harvard Principles

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

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

____________________________

JAMES ALFRED FIELD

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

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

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

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

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus (1969) Paul Gregory. He actually knew Lee Harvey Oswald. 1963.

Something tells me that this happy little niche blog is about to get swamped with comments by legions of JFK-assassination “experts”. Be that as it may, Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has a duty to share the good, bad, and the ugly artefacts and accounts of the lives of economists and the structures of their training. Besides which, Paul Gregory, the subject of this post, is an old friend and a senior colleague from my University of Houston years. He is a co-author of the leading undergraduate textbooks on the Soviet Economy and Comparative Economic Systems with Robert Stuart, and together, we once wrote an article on unemployment in the Soviet Union that was published in the American Economic Review. Paul Gregory is currently a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Before he went off to graduate school at Harvard, Paul Gregory happened to  be tutored in conversational Russian by Marina Oswald, the wife of the, then, future assassin of John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald. Husband Lee was always present during those tutorials, to keep Marina under his watchful jealous eye. Because of this connection to the Oswald family, both Paul Gregory and his father became persons of great interest to investigators in the days and months following President Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963. They turn up in the Warren Commission Report.  (Testimony of father Peter Paul Gregory and his son Paul Roderick Gregory.)

His book The Oswalds: An Untold Account of Marina and Lee has just been published. A (clutching my pearls) sensational summary of its content has been published in the Daily Mail. I haven’t read the book yet, but over the years Paul has shared with his colleagues the one or the other anecdote about Lee and Marina. Of course I’m going to read this book soon!

Addition July 8, 2023..Here is an interview with Paul Gregory about his book.

For my fellow veterans of the Cold War in or out of the academic trenches, here is a convenient link to a list of Paul Gregory’s many substantial publications.

I close with a colorized undergraduate yearbook photo of Paul Gregory in his scholar-athlete days, much as the Oswalds would have known him.

Paul R. Gregory was quite an intercollegiate tennis player at the University of Oklahoma. Picture from the 1963 yearbook, p. 148.

Image Sources: Mugshot of Lee Harvey Oswald from the Dallas Police; Senior Class portrait of Paul Gregory from the 1963 University of Oklahoma Yearbook, p. 291. Both images have been colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror because there was color in 1963 America.

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. List of Ph.D. recipients in History and Political Science, 1873-1901

Before there was a department of political economy or economics at Harvard there was a Division of History and Political Science that continued on to become the Division of History, Government and Economics. Earlier student records for graduate students of economics as well as for the other departments were kept at this divisional and not departmental level. Altogether a total of 45 Ph.D. degrees were awarded at Harvard going up through 1901, not quite a third to men who were or became economists or economic historians.

The following list includes the activity of the Ph.D. alumni, presumably as of 1900-01.

____________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
RECIPIENTS OF THE DEGREE OF PH.D., 1873-1901.

(* deceased)

Field. Date.
1. Charles Leavitt Beals Whitney* History. 1873.
2. Stuart Wood Pol. Sci. 1875.
3. James Laurence Laughlin
(Prof. Chicago)		 History. 1876.
4. Henry Cabot Lodge
(Former Instr. Harv., now Senator)		 History. 1876.
5. Ernest Young*
(Late Prof. Harvard)		 History. 1876.
6. Freeman Snow*
(Late Instr. Harvard)		 History. 1877.
7. Franklin Bartlett History. 1878.
8. Melville Madison Bigelow
(Prof. Boston Univ.)		 History. 1878.
9. Edward Channing
(Prof. Harvard)		 History. 1880.
10. Denman Waldo Ross
(Lecturer, Harvard)		 History. 1880.
11. Samuel Eppes Turner*
(once Instr. Philips Exeter)		 History. 1880.
12. Frank William Taussig
(Prof. Harvard)		 Pol. Sci. 1883.
13. Andrew Fiske
(Lawyer)		 History. 1886.
14. Charles William Colby
(Prof. McGill)		 History. 1890.
15. Edson Leone Whitney
(Prof. Bezonia)		 History. 1890.
16. Herman Vanderburg Ames
(Prof. Pennsylvania)		 History. 1891.
17. Fred Emory Haynes
(Charity Work)		 History. 1891.
18. Evarts Boutell Greene
(Prof. Illinois)		 History. 1893.
19. Charles Luke Wells
(Recent Prof. Minnesota)		 History. 1893.
20. Willian Edward Burghardt DuBois
(Prof. Atlanta)		 Pol. Sci. 1895.
21. Kendric Charles Babcock
(Prof. California)		 History. 1896.
22. Howard Hamblett Cook
(Statistician)		 Pol. Sci. 1896.
23. Theodore Clarke Smith
(Prof. Ohio State Univer.)		 Pol. Sci. 1896.
24. Guy Stevens Callender
(Prof. Bowdoin)		 Pol. Sci. 1897.
25. Clyde Augustus Duniway
(Prof. Leland Stanford Univ.)		 Pol. Sci. 1897.
26. Gaillard Thomas Lapsley
(Instr. Univ. Cali.)		 History. 1897.
27. Charles Whitney Mixter
(Instr. Harvard)		 Pol. Sci. 1897.
28. Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague
(Instr. Harvard)		 Pol. Sci. 1897.
29. George Ole Virtue
(Prof. Wisconsin Normal)		 Pol. Sci. 1897.
30. Samuel Bannister Harding
(Prof. Indiana)		 History. 1898.
31. James Sullivan, Jr.
(Instr. N.Y. [DeWitt Clinton] High School)		 History. 1898.
32. Arthur Mayer Wolfson
(Instr. N.Y. [DeWitt Clinton] High School)		 History. 1898.
33. Frederick Redman Clow
(Prof. Minnesota Normal)		 Pol. Sci. 1899.
34. Arthur Lyons Cross
(Instr. Michigan)		 History. 1899.
35. Louis Clinton Hatch. History. 1899.
36. Norman Maclaren Trenholme
(Instr. Pa. State College)		 History. 1899.
37. Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr.
(Instr. Harvard)		 Pol. Sci. 1900.
38. Sidney Bradshaw Fay
(Instr. Harvard)		 History. 1900.
39. Carl Russell Fish
(Instr. Wisconsin)		 History. 1900.
40. William Bennett Munro
(Instr. McGill)		 Pol. Sci. 1900.
41. Subharama Swaminadhan Pol. Sci. 1900.
42. Don Carlos Barrett
(Prof. Haverford)		 Pol. Sci. 1901.
43. Herbert Camp Marshall Pol. Sci. 1901.
44. Jonas Viles History. 1901.
45. Arthur Herbert Wilde
(Prof. Northeastern)		 History. 1901.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Division of History, Government & Economics. PhD. Material. Box 1, Folder “PhD degrees conferred, 1873-1901 (Folder 1 of 2).”

Image Source: Harvard Square, ca. 1901-07. History Cambridge webpage “Postcard Series I: Harvard Square”.

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Copy of Schumpeter’s letter to Crum regarding Samuelson’s course performance, 1936

Following the last post that provided a transcription of Joseph Schumpeter’s letter of recommendation for Marion Crawford, this post gives us a glimpse of the 20 year old “youngster” who would marry Marion Crawford a few years later.

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Schumpeter asking for instructor feedback for Samuelson’s SSRC fellowship

February 12, 1936

Prof. Leonard Crum
Holyoke 46

Dear Leonard:

You know, perhaps you don’t, that the Social Science Research Council has now adopted a policy for their pre-doctoral fellowships to ask a man to act as what they call a sponsor to the fellow. I am acting in this capacity for Samuelson and it is part of my duties to collect opinions from his other teachers to send to them so that they know how their lambs are shaping up, and notably whether they should get an extension for another year.

Samuelson seems to have done very well in your course. In any case, I would be very grateful if you would be good enough to send me or to sent [sic] the Social Science Research Council (Committee on Social Research Personnel, R. H. Shryock, 230 Park Avenue, New York City) your opinion about that youngster.

I really feel that I need not apologize for intruding upon you during your well earned rest because I believe that this little bit of official business will make you feel sweet liberty from the rest all the more intensely.

With best wishes,

J. A. Schumpeter

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers, 1930-1961. Box 21, Folder “Joseph A. Schumpeter 1933-1942”.

Image Source: Original black-and-white photo of Samuelson from the slideshow at the M.I.T. Memorial Service (April 10, 2010).  Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Economists Gender Harvard Radcliffe

Radcliffe. Schumpeter Letter Supporting Marion Crawford, 1937

Paul Samuelson’s first wife (they were married in Cambridge in 1938) and mother of their six children, Marion Estelle Crawford (b. 1915, d. 1978) graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Radcliffe in 1937, with an A.B. summa cum laude in economics. For graduate study she was awarded a Harvard Annex Fellowship in 1937-38.   In 1938-39 she received an Augustus Anson Whitney and Benjamin White Whitney Fellowship. She was awarded an A.M. in economics in 1940. Her sole publication was “The Australian Case for Protection Reexamined” (Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1939). Her New York Times obituary closed with the sentence “She retired when her first child was born in 1946.”  It was still a time when motherhood was an absorbing state.

_________________________

High-School Honours

Source: Berlin High School (Wisconsin) 1933 Yearbook Mascoutin, pp. 16-17.

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Senior Yearbook Picture
Radcliffe, 1937

Source; The Radcliffe 30 and 7, p. 48.

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Copy of Joseph Schumpeter’s letter supporting Marion Crawford’s application for a fellowship

February 11, 1937

Dr. Bernice Cronkhite, Dean
Radcliffe College
Cambridge, Massachusetts

This is to support Miss Marion Crawford’s application for a fellowship for the next academic year. There cannot be any doubt but that she is one of our best students and that every effort should be made to make her further study financially possible. She proves her ability by the fact that, being a senior, she takes graduate courses with the utmost ease, and in fact much better than most of the graduates, whether male or female. Her equipment should prove particularly useful in the present state of economics, and I feel confident that her work will do credit to her and to Radcliffe.

Very sincerely yours,

J. A. Schumpeter

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers, 1930-1961. Box 21, Folder “Joseph A. Schumpeter 1933-1942”.

Image Source: Detail from a black-and-white photo of Marion Crawford and Paul Samuelson from the slideshow at the M.I.T. Memorial Service for Paul Samuelson (April 10, 2010).  Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Chicago Economists Faculty Regulations

Chicago. No French, no Economics Ph.D. Case of Robert Russ Kern, 1909

This post provides a case demonstrating that the foreign language requirement for getting a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Chicago was indeed a constraint during the first decade of the 20th century. At the time a reading knowledge of French and German was required for admission to Ph.D. degree candidacy. In the following transcribed letter (June 2, 1909) to President Harry Pratt Judson, the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Literature, sociology professor Albion Woodbury Small, recounted his encounter with a political economy graduate student, Robert Russ Kern, whose self-confessed lack of French reading skills had disqualified him from admission to his planned Ph.D. examination in economics and psychology.

It turns out that Kern never received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago or in fact anywhere else. This was reason enough to don my historian’s gumshoes and find out where Robert Russ Kern came from and how his post-Chicago career turned out. But first I’ll put into the record the letter from the University of Chicago archives that caught my attention.

Fun fact: in 1909 one apparently wrote “ ‘phone” with a leading apostrophe.

Fun with old photos: this is the first post at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror that provides a colorised black and white image from yore.

[Handwritten: June 2-09]

The President,
My dear Chief:

I do not remember that I have ever had a more painful scene in the Graduate Office than occurred this morning with Mr. Kern. In a word Mr. Kern was expecting to take his examination for the Doctor’s degree in Economics and Psychology tomorrow. At the last meeting of the Graduate Faculty it was voted that he be allowed to take the examination, provided the Examiner and the Dean were meanwhile assured that he had complied substantially with our requirement. Yesterday Mr. Williamson reported to me that Mr. Kern confessed to him that he had forgotten all the French he ever knew, but asked him to certify to his knowledge of French. I thereupon notified Mr. Kern that as he could not satisfy our French requirement his admission to the examination was automatically closed. This morning he came to my office in a very intense state of mind, to express it within limits, and as I summed up for him his demands it was that the University should substitute its judgment for his of what was a reasonable requirement for a Doctor’s degree. He stated that for years it had been notorious that men had been passed by the French Department without knowing any more French than he does. When I asked him if he was willing to present evidence to support that statement he declined on the ground that it would make trouble for men still in the University. I told him that it was beyond my power to do anything if I wanted to in the face of the plain statement of fact about his knowledge of French. I told him further, however, that if he would put in writing any statement which he was willing to lay before the President I would put it in your hands today. I told him however that I saw no way in which you could feel called upon to interfere with the regular operation of our rules, but that he would hear from you if you saw any way to deal more favorably with his case.
I have talked over the ‘phone since the interview with Mr. Laughlin and he agrees with me that it would be a demoralizing variation from our precedents to withdraw from the position the rules required me to take. I have therefore sent the following notice to the members of the examining committee “Unless you receive word from the President reversing this decision, Mr. Kern’s examination will not be held Thursday, June 3rd.”

Sincerely,
[signed] Small

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Office of the President. Harper, Judson, and Burton Administrations. Records. Box 38. Folder „Dean of Graduate School, 1909-20. 38/12 Pres.“

The Life and Career
of Robert Russ Kern

Life Data

Robert Russ Kern was born in Kansas City, Missouri on April 9, 1878 (date from draft registration) and died April 19, 1958 in Washington, D.C.

From his obituary in the April 20, 1958 edition of the Sunday Star (Washington, D.C.), p. 34 we also learn the following professional and personal facts:

Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Missouri.
Surviving wife, Jeanette G. Kern, and daughter, Jean Russ Kern.
He retired from George Washington University in 1934.

About his wife: Jeanette Kern, née Geschickter, graduated in 1912 with an A.B. from GWU.  They married June 10, 1912 in the District of Columbia.

University of Missouri Years
(A.B. 1905)

Rollins Junior scholarship winner 1903-1904. Kern “made a higher average grade since his entrance to the university than any other student in the last ten years. He is said to be the best student of philosophy in the history of the university.”
Kansas City Star, June 2, 1904, p. 5.

Some uncertainty whether he would be the valedictorian of his class because he was confined in Parker Memorial Hospital for three weeks and unable to take final examinations. St. Joseph News Press (June 5, 1905), p. 5.

Valedictorian of the academic department of the University of Missouri. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 8, 1905, p. 10.

Cornell University Year

Graduate student at Cornell in 1907.
Source: Cornell Alumni Directory (May 15, 1922) p. 175

University of Chicago Years

Robert Russ Kern, graduate student in the department of political economy

Fellow (1907-08)
Assistant in Political Economy (1908-09)

Source: Twenty-five years of the Department of Political Economy (1916).

From the fifth list of dissertations in progress:

Robert Russ Kern, University of Chicago. The formation of the prices of consumers’ goods (probable date of completion, 1908). The Economic Bulletin, vol I, Nr. 1 (April 1908), p. 73.

From the sixth list of dissertations in progress

Robert Russ Kern, University of Chicago. Industrial finance (probably date of completion, 1909). The Economic Bulletin, vol II, Nr. 1 (April 1909), p. 21.

George Washington University Years

Instructor of Economics (listed as “Dr. (sic) Kern”) in 1909.

George Washington University Bulletin (1909), p. 13 “Robert R. Kern, Ph.D (sic)…..Instructor in Economics
Dr. (sic) Kern graduated at the University of Missouri, taught in Columbia University (Note: I have not verified his Columbia University affiliation) and Cornell University and came to this University from the Chicago University.”

Listed  in George Washington University Bulletin as Professor of Economics and Sociology only with a A.B. (1920)

Professor of Urban Sociology, GWU.

Publications

The Supervision of the Social Order. The American Journal of Sociology, 1918/1919
Part I. Part II.

The Super City. The World‘s Most Efficient and Beautiful City. Washington, D.C., 1924. By Robert Russ Kern, Professor of Economics and Sociology in the George Washington University.

Image Source: University of Missouri, The MU Yearbook Savitar (1905), p. 23. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. On Francis Bowen’s Professorial Settee. Eliot, 1898

The picture above is merely one example of an early 19th century American settee (a.k.a. a “love seat”, i.e., a chair for more than one person) that I have posted for visitors who, like the curator of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror, might have had no image in mind of what a settee actually looks like.

Harvard President Charles William Eliot was amused by this felicitous metaphor used by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. to describe the breadth of his own professorial chair that covered the subjects of histology and pathology.

Eliot became president of Harvard in 1869 and saw the inherent problem in tasking a single professor with instruction in disparate disciplines. Alford Professor Francis Bowen, whose courses covered logic, metaphysics, ethics, and political economy, was Eliot’s poster-child for the lack of specialization resulting from spanning academic disciplines. Eliot appears to have been quite proud in the development of the department of Economics at Harvard that began with its first full-time professor of political economy, Charles Franklin Dunbar in 1871.

To be fair to Bowen, I thought it only right to first post a list of his book/pamphlet length publications to show that Eliot’s problem with Bowen was not so much one of Bowen being an unproductive scholar (in the bean-counting sense) but that economics apparently only accounted for a small share of Bowen’s scholarly attention. But in any event, Dunbar was definitely a big step up for Political Economy at Harvard.

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Books and articles
by Francis Bowen

1842. Critical Essays on a few Subjects connected with the History and Present Condition of Speculative Philosophy.

1849. Lowell Lectures on the Application of Metaphysical and Ethical Science to the Evidences of Religion.

1850. The War of Races in Hungary [The first of two controversial articles regarding Hungary led to Harvard’s Board of Overseers not approving appointment of Bowen to the McLean professor of history. From The North American Review (January, pp. 78-136; April, pp. 473-520.]

1851. The Rebellion of the Slavonic, Wallachian, and German Hungarians against the Magyars [The second of Bowen’s articles on Hungary to displease the Harvard Board of Overseers. From The North American Review (January, pp. 205-249).]

1854. Documents of the Constitution of England and America from Magna Charta to the Federal Constitution of 1789. Compiled and edited, with notes by Francis Bowen.

1855. The Principles of Metaphysical and Ethical Science: Applied to the Evidences of Religion.

1856. The Principles of Political Economy Applied to the Condition, the Resources, and the Institutions of the American People.

1864. A Treatise on Logic or, The Laws of Pure Thought; Comprising both the Aristotelic and Hamiltonian Analyses of Logical Forms and Some Chapters of Applied Logic.

1865. The Metaphysics of Sir William Hamilton, Collected, Arranged, and Abridged for the Use of Colleges and Private Students.

1870. American Political Economy: Including Strictures on the Management of the Currency and the Finances since 1861.

1877. Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartmann.

1880. Gleanings From a Literary Life.

1885. A Layman’s Study of the English Bible considered in its Literary and Secular Aspect.

Links to many other articles written by Francis Bowen at Gonçalo L. Fonseca’s History of Economic Thought website.

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From President Eliot’s remarks at the 11th annual dinner of the Harvard Club of Fall River, Massachusetts

…I know most of you keep the warmest spot in your hearts for the college. Let me point out what has happened there. When I went back, I found one man, Professor Bowen, occupying the chair of political economy, philosophy and civil polity, and, as Dr. Holmes said, that “chair” should have been called a “settee.” Now there are four full professors of political economy, four in philosophy, with five or six instructors and as many assistants in each subject. That’s the change. Professor Bowen was not productive except of one book, naively called “American Political Economy”. All the professors of political economy are now productive. They belong to the advanced lines. Two have recently rendered important services to country and State, in the matters of currency and taxation….

Source: Fall River Evening News (Massachusetts), February 24, 1898.

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Oh, that Dr. Holmes

…Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was professor of anatomy and physiology in Harvard University down to 1871; and he really taught, in addition to these two immense subjects, portions of histology and pathology. He described himself as occupying, not a chair, but a settee. The professorship in Harvard University which was successively occupied by George Ticknor, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell is the Smith professorship of the French and Spanish languages and literatures. In many American colleges we find to-day the same professor teaching logic, metaphysics, ethics, and political economy. Indeed, this was the case in Harvard College down to 1871, except that moral philosophy and Christian ethics were detached from the Alford professorship from and after 1860. The specialization of instruction is by no means completed in American colleges….

Source: Charles William Eliot’s “The Unity of Educational Reform” before the American Institute of Instruction at Bethlehem, New Hampshire, July 11, 1894 in his Educational Reform: Essays and Addresses (1898). pp. 330-1.

Image Source: Settee from Salem, Massachusetts, ca. 1820. From the (sold) inventory at the Thistlethwaite Americana website.