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Chicago to Princeton. Jacob Viner’s Resignation Letter, 1946

 

 

Jacob Viner was 53 years old when he decided to leave the University of Chicago for Princeton. The letter transcribed below presents the personal and professional reasons for his resignation. Viner’s letter reveals the soft note of a late mid-life crisis motivating the move — no need for a new wife and fancy sports car, but rather the scholar sought retreat to an ivory-tower library, comfort from the families of his adult children and a significantly shorter commute to points East. 

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Resignation Letter of Jacob Viner

COPY SENT TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE ON INSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH.
ORIGINAL TO MISS STROMWALL

 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Chicago 37, Illinois
Department of Economics

January 24, 1946

Chancellor Robert M. Hutchins
Office of the Central Administration
Faculty Exchange

Dear Mr. Hutchins:

I am sorry to have to tell you that I am hereby resigning from the University of Chicago as of the end of this academic year to take a professorship at Princeton University. As I am to be at the London School of Economics from April to July, I am leaving the University in March, on leave without pay for the spring quarter.

The Princeton offer first came to me over a year ago, and I definitely declined it twice. It has been renewed and I now have definitely accepted it. For many reasons the offer had great attractions for me from the start, and I am sure that it was loyalty to Chicago which led me at first to decline it — as was true also in the case of Yale. I have been associated with the University of Chicago for 30 years, and the University has always treated me, both before and since your regime, with the utmost generosity. I have never in the thirty years had any cause to feel a personal grievance against you, or any other administrative officer, or any colleague. I am not leaving because of any dissatisfaction with the way the University has treated me, or with my colleagues, with you, or with any of your aides. I did disapprove at times of some aspects of what I thought to be your policy for the University. I still do on some points. But I had my full day in court; and my disapproval of some of your ideas — which it is not impossible that I misunderstood — never carried with it any lessening of my respect for yourself, or any ill-will toward you, and was always accompanied by enthusiastic approval of other of your educational ideas. I have been very happy about the way the new Council of the University has been operating, and if there were any criticism I would venture to offer of your behavior as its presiding officer, it would be that you have been too self-effacing and have not given as much leadership as the Council would welcome and would benefit from. I assure you that when I leave it will be with the friendliest feeling toward you and with strong affection for the University which I so cherish and which has dealt so kindly with me.

Why then am I leaving? A variety of factors have played their part. Most important, probably, is that our children, although born here, never took root in Chicago, that our daughter is already living in New York, and that our son, when he gets out of the Coast Guard, is sure of only one thing, that he will not live in Chicago. They have been pressing us very hard to move East, and what with their four years at eastern colleges, Arthur’s military service, and Ellen’s removal to New York, we have not been able to have the family together except for very short intervals over a period of some seven years. While we don’t expect them to live in Princeton, we do hope that we will at least have them frequently for week-end and vacation guests.

As for myself, as I get older, the physical aspects of the routines of teaching and of committees, of inadequate secretarial help, of a library physically difficult to use, and of frequent inescapable trips East, have grown progressively more burdensome to me. I know that as time goes on, these matters will become still more important to me. In the past ten years I have done what looks to me like a great deal of research, but most of it was done while I was on leave of absence from the University and I have put little of it into print. Even when I was in Washington, the secretarial and library privileges I had enabled me to do nearly as much of my personal research in my spare time as I could do in all my time while at the University.

It is not that the University imposed unfair burdens on me. Some of my heaviest chores were self-imposed. But at Chicago I did not want special privileges which equally-deserving colleagues did not have, and some of the things I wanted badly I would for this reason not have accepted at Chicago if they had been offered to me. At Princeton I come now, without obligations going beyond my contract, and with no reason for not accepting all the facilities voluntarily offered me. If after a while I should acquire Princeton loyalties which consume time and energy, I will at least have had a long spell during which I had been free to realize some of my ambitions as a scholar. I want to be able to get some of my accumulated research into shape for print, and if I don’t succeed, it will not be Princeton’s fault, provided it delivers on all the things I have been promised. These things are not financial: my salary will be the same at Princeton as here, and was not an issue. It’s all a matter of easy access to a library easy to use, light teaching load, no journal to edit, no burdensome eastern trips for committees, government advice, work on eastern library collections, etc., a secretary, a research assistant, a good office layout, and so forth. As I could not ask you to build a new library building for me, or to give me facilities that my colleagues could not get, or to transfer the University to the East, I thought it would be easier for all concerned if I did not let anyone here  know about my negotiations.

I may be wrong in deciding that I will be happier and a more productive scholar at Princeton. No matter how well things go there, I know that I will always have a warm feeling for Chicago and a regret that I did not prove to be one of those rare creatures: a professor who passed all his working life at a single institution of which he was not a graduate. I will always be ready upon request to render any service to the University within my power, and I will carry out scrupulously my obligations to Chicago students who are working on theses under my direction or have any other claims upon me.

I hope it will be satisfactory to you if President Dodds announces my appointment on February 1st. I think it only fair to resign at once as a member of the Council and also as a member of the Social Science Research Committee where I would be participating in the making of decisions without staying to take the blame should there be any. I will continue on my other committees at your pleasure and the pleasure of their Chairmen until I leave.

I have never written an academic letter of resignation before. If there is any further action I need to take, I trust you will let me know. I am sending a copy of this letter to Dean Redfield, who has also deserved better of me.

Very sincerely yours,
/a/ Jacob Viner

JF-w

Source: University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center. Office of the President, Hutchins Administration Records 1892-1951. Box 73, Folder “Economics Department, 1946-1950”.

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Noted Economist Is Appointed To Princeton Staff

Princeton, Feb. 27. The appointment of Professor Jacob Viner, of the University of Chicago, internationally known as one of America’s most distinguished economists and editor of the “Journal of Political Economy,” to the faculty of Princeton University was announced today by President Harold W. Dodds. He will join the Princeton faculty next September.

“The addition of Professor Viner to the Department of Economics and Social institutions will contribute to the attractiveness of the university as a center of under graduate and post-graduate studies. President Dodds said. “He is distinguished as a professor and as an economist in the fields of international finance and trade. The program of our International Finance Section will benefit, but his usefulness to the university will not be limited to the activities of the section. He is a scholar whose Interests embrace the whole field of economics.”

Professor Viner, a native of Montreal, received his B.A. degree from McGill University in 1914; his M.A. from Harvard University in 1915, his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1922 and an LL.D. degree from Lawrence College in 1941.

He was a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, 1916-17; special expert with the U.S. Tariff Commission, 1917-19, and the U.S. Shipping Board during part of 1918. He returned to the University of Chicago in 1919 as an assistant professor of economics, was appointed associate professor in 1923 and professor in 1925. Since 1940 he has been Morton Hull Distinguished Service Professor at that institution.

Meanwhile, he has served variously as visiting professor at the Institute Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales, Geneva. Switzerland, 1930-31 and 1933-34 visiting professor at Yale University, 1942-43; special assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, dur[ing] part of 1934; consulting expert to the U.S. Treasury, 1935-39; special assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury during parts of 1939 and 1942; and consultant U.S. Department of State since 1943.

Professor Viner is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He is a member and former president of the American Economical [sic] Association and the author of: “Dumping a Problem in International Trade”; “Canada’s Balance of International Indebtedness”; “Studies in the Theory of International Trade”; and numerous articles on economic subjects.

Source: The Morning Call (Paterson, N.J.), February 28, 1946. Page 7.

Image Source: Jacob Viner (left); Theodore W. Schultz (right).  University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-07483, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economists Gender Wellesley

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumna, Anna Prichitt Youngman, 1908

 

This entry in the series “Get to know an economics Ph.D. alumna/us” is dedicated to the life and professional career of Anna Prichitt Youngman, the third woman to receive a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. I have spent several hours verifying that her middle name is indeed spelled “Prichitt”, though even University of Chicago alumni publications and references have sometimes gotten it wrong as have later historians.

A timeline, a linked list of publications, and miscellaneous artifacts documenting her life, e.g. courses taught at Wellesley and salaries paid her while working at the Federal Reserve Board have been assembeled for this post.

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Barbara Libby provides a brief discussion of Youngman’s more important publications in “Anna Pritchett [sic] Youngman” in A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists, Robert W. Dimand, Mary Ann Dimand, and Evelyn L. Forget (eds.). Northampton, Mass : Edward Elgar, 2000. Pages 486-489.

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Anna Prichitt Youngman.

1882, August 21. Born in Lexington, Kentucky.
1901. Graduated from Female High School in Louisville, Kentucky. Highest grade point average of her class, winning her a scholarship to University of Chicago.
1904. Ph.B. University of Chicago.
1908. Ph.D. University of Chicago.
1908-14. Instructor in economics, Wellesley College.
1911-2. Winter Semester at the University of Berlin. Later at the University of Frankfurt/Main.  August 1911 to July 1912 in Germany.
1914-20. Associate Professor, Wellesley College.
1919-20. Leave of absence from Wellesley College to work at the Federal Reserve Board.
1920-21. Lecturer in Banking, School of Business, University Extension, Columbia University.
1921-22. Research Assistant, Division of Analysis and Research, Federal Reserve Board;
1922. July 5.  Sailed from New York for a three month trip to Europe: countries listed on passport application were Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, British Isles.
1924-1933. Editorial writer, Journal of Commerce, 46 Barclay St., New York, N.Y.
1933-52. Editorial Writer, The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.
1974. February 16. Died in Silver Spring, Maryland.
1974. February 21. Buried in Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville Kentucky

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Publications of Anna Prichitt Youngman

“The Growth of Financial Banking,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 14, No. 7 (July, 1906), pp. 435-443.

“The Tendency of Modern Combination. I,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 15, No. 4 (April, 1907), pp. 193-208.

“The Tendency of Modern Combination. II,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 15, No. 5 (May, 1907), pp. 284-298.

“The Fortune of John Jacob Astor. [I],” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 16, No. 6 (June, 1908), pp. 345-368.

“The Fortune of John Jacob Astor. II. Investments in Real Estate,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 16, No. 7 (July, 1908), pp. 436-441.

“The Fortune of John Jacob Astor. III. Conclusion,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 16, No. 8 (October, 1908), pp. 514-530.

The Economic Causes of Great Fortunes [University of Chicago Ph.D. Thesis]. New York: Bankers Publishing, Co., 1909.

The New York Times Saturday Review for February 12, publishes a review of Miss Youngman’s new book which considers the source of some of our large American fortunes. We quote the first paragraph of the review:
“There is nothing feminine about the discussion of the ‘Economic Causes of Great Fortunes,’ by Anna Youngman, Ph.D., (the Bankers’ Publishing Company). She is Professor of Economics in Wellesley College for Women, but she writes as a man to men, rather than as a woman to women…”

Source: Wellesley News (February 16, 1910), p. 6.

“The Tobacco Pools of Kentucky and Tennessee,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 18, No. 1 (January, 1910), pp. 34-49.

Review of History of the Great American Fortunes by Gustavus Myers. Journal of Political Economy Vol. 18, No. 8 (October, 1910), pp. 642-643.

Review of Untersuchungen zum Maschinenproblem in der Volkswirtschaftslehre. Ruckblick und Ausblick. Eine dogmengeschichtliche Studie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der klassischen Schule by Carl Ergang. American Economic ReviewVol. 1, No. 4 (December, 1911), pp. 806-808.

“Frankfort-on-the-Main: A Study in Prussian Communal Finance Part I,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 27, No. 1 (November, 1912), pp. 150-201.

“Frankfort-on-the-Main: A Study in Prussian Communal Finance Part II,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 27, No. 2 (February, 1913), pp. 329-372.

Review of Der Wandel des Besitzes. Versuch einer Theorie des Reichtums als Organismus by Emaneul Sella (trans. by Dr. Bluwstein). American Economic ReviewVol. 3, No. 3 (September, 1913), pp. 627-629.

Review of Die Lohntheorien von Ad. Smith, Ricardo, J. St. Mill und Marx by Fredinand von Degenfeld-Schonburg. American Economic ReviewVol. 5, No. 1 (March, 1915), p. 55.

“The Revenue System of Kentucky: A Study in State Finance,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 32, No. 1 (November, 1917), pp. 142-205.

Review of The Conflict of Tax Laws by Rowland Estcourt. American Economic ReviewVol. 8, No. 4 (December, 1918), pp. 831-832.

“The Efficacy of Changes in the Discount Rates of the Federal Reserve Banks,” American Economic Review, Vol. 11, No. 3 (September 1921), pp. 466-485.

“A Popular Theory of Credit Applied to Credit Policy,” American Economic Review, Vol. 12, No. 3 (September, 1922), pp. 417-446.

Review of Money, Banking and Exchange in India by H. Stanley Jevons. American Economic ReviewVol. 13, No. 3 (September, 1923), pp. 512-513.

Participant in Discussion: Liquidating the War. Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, Vol. 14, No. 2 (January, 1931), pp. 45-50.

The Federal Reserve System in wartime. National Bureau of Economic Research Occasional Paper No. 21, Jan 1945.

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High School Class Rank

Miss Anna Prichitt Youngman, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C.A. Youngman, of 1313 Second street, received the highest average of the class of 1901 at the Female High School, and by a unanimous vote of the faculty she was awarded the scholarship at the Chicago University.

Source: The Courier-Journal of Louisville Kentucky (June 8, 1901), p. 6.

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Appointed at Wellesley to succeed Edith Abott in 1908

The fact that Dr. Edith Abbott of the Economics Department has refused reappointment in order to take up research work in Chicago is a source of sincere regret to all who have been brought into contact with her here this year. Miss Abbott will live at Hull House and work in the research department of the Chicago Institute of Social Science.

Dr. Abbott’s successor in the department of Economics is to be Miss Anna Youngman of Louisville, Kentucky. Miss Youngman graduated from the University of Chicago in 1904 and since that time has been doing graduate work in Economics and Political Science. She has held one of the University Fellowships in Political Economy and will receive the Ph.D. degree in June. Miss Youngman’s special studies have been in the line of Trusts and Corporation Finance. During the past year she has published a series of articles in the Journal of Political Economy on “Tendencies in Modern Combination” and her doctor’s thesis on “Great Fortunes” is already in press. Miss Youngman has been assisting in editorial work on the Journal of Political Economy during the past year.

Source: [Wellesley] College News (May 13, 1908), p. 3.

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Berlin and Frankfurt a.M.
Winter Semester, 1911/12

…During her stay at Wellesley, Youngman took time off to study economics at Berlin for the Winter Semester of 1911/12. At Berlin and later at the University of Frankfurt/Main, she concentrated on taxation and banking.
In 1919 Youngman took a leave of absence from Wellesley to work as an economist for the Federal Reserve Board. Youngman then resigned from Wellesley to continue her work with the Federal Reserve Board. From 1924 to 1933 she held a position as an eidtorial writer for the Journal of Commerce in New York City. She left that position to become an editorial writer for the Washington Post, where she remained until her retirement in 1952. At the Post, she wrote columns on financial and business topics. After retiring, Youngman continued to write for the Journal of Commerce.

Source: Sandra L. Singer. Adventures Abroad: North American Women at German-speaking Universities. Contributions in Women’s Studies, Number 201 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 203) p. 141.

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Wellesley College
1912-13
ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY

Professor: Katherine Coman, Ph.B. (on leave 1912-13)
Associate Professor: Emily Greene Balch, B.A.
Instructors: Anna Youngman, Ph.D., Emilie Josephine Hutchinson, M.A.

 

  1. Elements of Economics. I

Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors, but intended primarily for sophomores. Three hours a week for the year.

Miss Youngman

An introductory course designed to give the student acquaintance with economic facts and training in economic reasoning. Illustrations will be drawn from actual observation of the conditions determining prices, land values, wages, profits, and standards of living. In the second semester, certain legislative problems relating to currency, banking, the tariff, etc., will be discussed in class.

[…]

  1. Statistical Study of Certain Economic Problems. III [not offered 1912-13]

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed two courses in Economics. Three hours a week for the first semester.

Miss Youngman

The course is introduced by lectures on the principles of statistical research. Each member of the class undertakes the investigation of a particular problem, and reports the results of her inquiry in the form of a final paper. Emphasis is placed upon the critical examination of statistical methods.

[…]

  1. The Trust Problem. III.

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed one course in Economics. Three hours a week for the second semester.

Miss Youngman

This course will deal with the various forms of monopolistic organization, the growth of the movement toward large scale production, the history of characteristic combinations, federal and state legislation and judicial decisions relating to the subject, the alleged advantages and evils of trusts, and proposed remedies for the latter.

[…]

  1. Money and Banking. III.

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed one course in Economics. Three hours a week for the first semester.

Miss Youngman

This course deals mainly with the principles of money and banking, but it is also designed to give the student some acquaintance with the history and chief characteristics of typical modern systems of banking.

[…]

  1. Conservation of our Natural Resources. III.

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed two courses in Economics. Three hours a week for the second semester.

Miss Youngman

A consideration of the wastes involved in the exploitation of forests, mineral resources, soil and water power, and the means proposed for scientific conservation. The work of the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Forestry, the Reclamation Service, the Bureau of Mines, etc., will be studied in detail.

 

  1. The Distribution of Wealth. III. [not offered 1912-13]

Open to juniors and seniors who have completed course 1 or 15. Three hours a week for the second semester.

Miss Youngman

A discussion of the principles regulating wages, interest, and rent. The course will involve a critical and comparative examination of the distributive theories of such leading exponents of the classical school, as Ricardo, Mills, and Cairnes, and of certain important economists of the present day.

Source:  Wellesley College Bulletin, Calendar 1912-13, pp. 72-77.

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Salaries of the Federal Reserve Board Employees, 1919

ANALYSIS & RESEARCH Present Basic Salary, including Extra Compensation (1919)
Olive M. Bode $1,200
Ruth Cornwall $1,800
Mary Johnson $1,320
W. H. Steiner $2,750
Anna Youngman $2,500

Source: Meeting Minutes of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, December 18, 1919, 3:30 PM, Volume 6, Part 3, page 5.

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Salaries of the Federal Reserve Board Employees, 1920

Dated June 21st [1920] recommending approval of increases in salaries of employees of the Division of Analysis and Research, as follows:

From To
W. H. Steiner $3,500 $4,000
Miss Anna Youngman $2,750 $3,000
Miss Katherine Snodgrass $2,000 $2,750
F. W. Jones $2,400 $2,750
Miss Ruth Cornwall $2,000 $2,400
Miss Faith Williams $1,800 $2,250
J. M. Chapman $1,200 $1,500 ($750 half time)
M. R. Adams $1,500 $1,560
Miss Alice Ross $1,500 $1,560
Miss Rose Heller $1,080 $1,440
Miss Mary Johnson $1,440 $1,560
Miss Helen S. Grant — $1,440
Miss Olive M. Bode — $1,500

Approved.

Source: Meeting Minutes of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, June 22, 1920, 11:00 AM, Volume 7, Part 2, page 7.

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Anna Youngman’s (final) annual salary, 1922

“Letter dated May 8th, from the Director of the Division of Analysis and Research, requesting approval of the appointment of Mr. Woodlief Thomas as an employee in that Division at annual salary of $2600, said authority being requested in view of the retirement of Miss Anna Youngman, who has previously been employed in the Division of Analysis & Research, at annual salary of $3500.”

Source: Meeting Minutes of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, May 10, 1922, Volume 9, Part 1, page 1.

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From Passport Application.
Sworn May 3, 1922

Permanent residence 35 Schermerhorn St., Brooklyn, New York.
Occupation: research assistant.
Height: 5 feet 7 ½ inches

July 5, 1922 to sail from New York on the “Mongolia” to Europe: Germany, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, British Isles (“intend to return to the United States within 3 months”)

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Internal Memorandum

February 18, 1954
Washington, D.C.

Interview with Miss Anna Youngman at her new
residence in the Marlyn Apartments

Miss Youngman worked with Parker Willis on the Journal of Commerce. She was an editorial writer but the rumor that she wrote some of the Willis editorials is something which she denies. She says she did not agree with Mr. Willis on banking policies and would not have written editorials attributed to him. She has kept no files and was by no means as useful in connection with the Willis papers as I had had reason to think she would be.

Miss Youngman confirmed what I had heard from other sources that Mr. Willis headed the first Research Division of the Federal Reserve Board and that on being asked to teach at Columbia he took the Division to New York and kept it there for three years. During this time a running fight went on with Mr. Jacobson (now deceased) and Mr. Goldenweiser and Mr. Adolf Miller.

Obviously the distance between the Research Division and the Board for which research was being done caused a great deal of the difficulty and at the end of three years the division was restored to Washington and put into other hands.

When Mr. Eugene Meyer bought the Washington Post he took Miss Anna Youngman with him to write editorials there. She did financial editorials for the Post for many years. Her last job at the Post was the classification of Mr. Myer’s own papers. Miss Youngman says that these papers have now been brought from New York and the summer place belonging to Mr. Meyer at White Plains and are in Washington. She says that they include seven or eight volumes of diaries carefully typed and indexed.

Obviously some of these diaries which, according to Miss Youngman, are better in the earlier period than the later ones will have material which is important to this project. Miss Youngman says that Mr. Floyd Harrison, who is Mr. Meyer’s right hand man in New York, is the person who can give further information about the papers and who will know if any provision has been made for their disposal after Mr. Meyer’s death.

Miss Youngman lives alone with her sister. Both ladies are far from young and any information which is needed from Miss Youngman should be gained as soon as possible.

Concerning Mr. Willis she said that he was not a difficult man to work with because he protected the people who worked with him. Assumed responsibility for the things they did and gave them credit when he thought they deserved it. He was on the other hand a man of lively mind and extremely fond of argument. She suggested that Mr. Jules Bogen, Mr. John M. Chapman of the school of business at Columbia University, who was at one time assistant to Mr. Williams and Mr. W. H. Stiner (correction that might be Steiner but I am not sure [Note: “W. H. Steiner” is correct spelling). At 328 Riverside Drive, New York[.] Might at all of them have further information about Mr. Willis.

Source: Committee on the History of the Federal Reserve System. Interview with Miss Anna Youngman at her new residence in the Marlyn Apartments, Washington, D.C. (February 18, 1954). Entry 167, Box 2, Folder 1, Item 42.

Image Source: Passport application of Anna Youngman (May 3, 1922).

 

 

 

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economists Gender Minnesota Social Work

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus Max Ira West, 1893.

 

 

Max Ira West (b. Nov. 11, 1870 in St. Cloud, MN; d. Jan 7, 1909 in Washington, D.C.) entered government service relatively soon after being awarded his Ph.D. in economics at Columbia University with a dissertation on the inheritance tax. He was a student of E.R.A. Seligman. West died at age 38, leaving a wife and five children. 

Max West and his future wife Mary Mills were fellow officers of the University of Minnesota’s Class of 1890. She was the designated class “prophet” and he served as the class “statistician”. Max was a professional economist of the family and rightly the main subject of this post. Max’s widow deserves some mention in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror for her later work. Mary attained great prominence for her pamphlets on pre-natal and infant care for the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor that were analogous to Dr. Benjamin Spock’s Baby and Child Care for later generations of parents. The Children’s Bureau was an absorbing state for the careers of many a professional woman economist of the time.

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Announcement of death of Max Ira West

The following communication with reference to the unfortunate death of Dr. Max West is printed at the request of the committee whose names appear below:

The members of the Association have no doubt read of the recent death, under most unfortunate circumstances, of Dr. Max West, of the Bureau of Corporations, Department of Labor, Washington, D. C.

Dr. West died after a short illness, a slight cold developing into pneumonia. He has left a wife and five children, ranging from thirteen years to only nine months, with no visible means of support, save a very small annuity terminable in ten years. Friends in Washington have contributed a considerable sum for immediate needs, including the expenses pertaining to Dr. West’s sickness and death, and have secured for Mrs. West a temporary position in the Government, which we hope will become a permanent position. This, with the closest economy, will enable Mrs. West to look after the bare physical needs of her five little children, but will leave no margin at all either for education or for contingencies.

It has therefore occurred to us and to some of the other friends of Dr. West that it might be possible to solicit and collect a fund for such a purpose. It is hoped to raise a fund of at least $5000. The suggestion is to be sent to all those who may be supposed to have known Dr. West personally, or to be in sympathy with the scholarly work for which he stood, and the committee will be very glad to receive any subscriptions that you may deem fit to make.

Checks may be sent to Mr. Edwin R. A. Seligman, at No. 324 West 86th street, New York, who has consented to act as treasurer for the committee.

Respectfully yours,

EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN, Columbia University.

JACOB H. HOLLANDER, Johns Hopkins University.

E. DANA DURAND, Dept. of Commerce and Labor, Washington.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Dr. Max West died of pneumonia at his home in Washington, D. C., on January 7, 1909.

Dr. West was born at St. Cloud, Minnesota, in November, 1870. He was graduated from the University of Minnesota at nineteen, and went at first into newspaper work. In 1891 he went to Columbia University as a fellow in economics. There he received his master’s degree the next year, and his doctorate the year following. From 1893 to 1895 he was connected with the University of Chicago, first as an honorary fellow and then as a docent. The great railroad strike of 1894 drew him again into newspaper work; he reported it for the Chicago Herald. In 1895 he was an editorial writer for the Chicago Record. During the academic year 1895-1896 he lectured at Columbia.

In 1896 he entered the government service, to which the rest of his life was chiefly devoted. For four years he was connected with the Division of Statistics of the Department of Agriculture, and for nearly two years with the Industrial Commission. During the latter part of this period, from 1900 to 1902, he was also associate professor of economics in Columbian University, Washington, and in 1902 he again lectured at Columbia. In that year he became assistant registrar of the Tenement House Department of New York City. In 1903 he went to Porto Rico as chief of the island Bureau of Internal Revenue. His health did not permit him to continue there, and in 1904 he returned to Washington as a special examiner of the Bureau of Corporations. Here he remained until his death.

Dr. West’s chief published work was The Inheritance Tax, which appeared in 1893, was translated into French in 1895, and was republished in a revised and enlarged edition in 1907. A projected work, entitled Principles of Taxation, is left unfinished. He wrote many articles for periodicals, dealing oftenest with taxation, but sometimes with sociological subjects, questions of constitutional law, and other topics.

More of Dr. West’s scanty strength than he could well spare was devoted to the promotion of public well-being. During his two years in Chicago he was a resident successively of Hull House, the University of Chicago Settlement, and the Chicago Commons. At Washington he was warmly interested in social settlement work and in the Associated Charities, and he was the most active and efficient member of the Civic Center.

Source: American Economic Association, The Economic Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Apr., 1909), pp. 12-14.

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Mary Mills West, ca. 1926

The following photograph was from a short alumna feature in the University of Minnesota yearbook The Gopher (1926). It is noted there that she was a member of the class of 1890, an editor of that year’s Gopher, and a member of the Delta Sigma literary society. The entry adds:

In 1909, she entered the Government service and filled various offices for the following ten years. She took a great interest in the newly created Children’s Bureau, and while there wrote three pamphlets regarding the health and care of mothers and babies which are widely distributed throughout the United States.

Mrs. West resigned her position with the Children’s Bureau in 1919, and moved to Berkeley where she engaged in newspaper syndicate work and other writings. She is, at present, an instructor in short-story writing for the University of California, and is gaining a considerable foothold in fiction writing for herself. She recently submitted a story to the Forum short story contest of 1924 and was awarded second place by a jury of noted writers and critics.

Image Source: University of Minnesota, The Gopher, 1926, p. 181.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Production of Mary Mills West’s pamphlets

West’s publications became the best-selling pamphlets of the Government Printing Office in the 1910s. The first edition of West’s pamphlet, Prenatal Care, sold out in two months. Only six months later, the Bureau had distributed 30,000 coopies and could have sent out twice that number but for the inability of the printeres to keep up with the demand. …Nearly a million and a half copies of West’s second pamphlet, Infant Care, were disseminated between 1914 and 1921.

Source:  Robyn Muncy. Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890-1935 (Oxford University Press, 1991) p. 55.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Children’s Bureau Publications of Mary Mills West

(with Nettie McGill) Child-Welfare Programs: Study Outlines for the Use of Clubs and Classes. U.S. Department of Labor, Children’s Bureau. Bureau Publication No. 73, Children’s Year Follow-up Series, No. 7. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1920.

Prenatal Care. Care of Children Series, No. 1 Children’s Bureau Publication No. 4. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1913.

Infant Care. Care of Children Series, No. 2 Children’s Bureau Publication No. 8 (Revised) Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1921. (first published in 1914)

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Mary Mills West’s obituary

Mrs. Mary West, Writer, Dies at 88

BERKELEY, Aug. 13. Mrs. Mary Mills West, whose pamphlets’ on infants and children’s care have been distributed by the United States Children’s Bureau to millions of American homes, died here yesterday. Her home was at 549 Santa Barbara Road.

Mrs. West, 88, was the widow of Dr. Max West, an economic consultant for the U.S. Departments of Labor and Commerce. She became associated with the Children’s Bureau when it was organized in 1915. After moving to Berkeley 30 years ago, she was associated with the University of California Extension Division as a writing instructor.

Surviving Mrs. West are two daughters, Mrs. W. R. Lorimer of Honolulu and Mrs. Charles Manson of Wausau, Wis., and a son, Philip S. West of Berkeley. Three grandchildren also survive.

Funeral services will be held at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow; in the Berkeley Hills Chapel, Shattuck Ave. and Cedar St .The Rev. Ray L. Wells, assistant pastor of the First Congregational Church, will officiate.

Source: Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California), August 3, 1955, p. 30.

________________________

Image Source: Alumnus feature on Max West published in University of Minnesota, The Gopher, 1896, p. 133.

 

 

Categories
Chicago Economics Programs Economists Fields

Chicago. Schedule of the preliminary economics exams for the Ph.D. and A.M., Summer 1951

 

The following schedule for preliminary examinations in economics at the University of Chicago from the summer quarter of 1951 comes from Milton Friedman’s papers at the Hoover Institution Archives. We see that he was on the two economic theory examination committees along with Lloyd Metzler and Frank Knight. Besides providing the names of the faculty members serving on the nine committees, the schedule also provides the names of the sixty students registered for the examinations during that quarter.

____________________

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

SCHEDULE FOR PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONS
FOR THE PH.D. AND FOR THE A.M.

Summer Quarter, 1951

The schedule below shows the examinations requested for the current quarter. Will the chairman of each committee please be responsible for turning in the complete examination at least one week before the date on which it is to be given?

 

Date

 Examination Committee

Students Registered

Thurs., Aug. 2
8:30
Law Court

Agricultural Economics

 D.G. Johnson, chr.
C. Hildreth
T.W. Schultz		 Dunsing, Marilyn (A.M.)
Fox, Kirk (Ph.D)
Hughes, Rufus (Ph.D.)
Taylor, Maurice (Ph.D.)

Tues., July 31
8:30
Law Court

Economic Theory I

 L. Metzler, chr.
M. Friedman
F. Knight		 Baskind, Irwin (Ph.D.) in abs.
Bassett, Marjorie (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Blumberg, Lionel (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Chen, Ho-Mei (Ph.D.)
Chen, Sze-te (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Chien, Chih Chien (Ph.D.)
Cleaver, George (Ph.D.)
Dunsing, Marilyn (A.M.)
Emmer, Robert (Ph.D.)
Fox, Kirk (Ph.D.)
Frank, Andrew (Ph.D.-A.M.) in abs
Gustus, Warren (Ph.D.)
Heizer, Raymond (Ph.D.)
Herlihy, Murray (Ph.D.)
Hoch, Irving (Ph.D.)
Hughes, Rufus (Ph.D.)
Krawczyk, Richard (Ph.D.-A.M.) in abs
Lerner, Eugene (Ph.D.)
Liang, Wei K. Liang (Ph.D.)
Lininger, Charles (Ph.D.)
Lurie, Melvin (Ph.D.)
McGuire, Charles (Ph.D.)
Malhotra, Man Mohan (Ph.D.)
Malone, John (Ph.D.)
Mitcham, Clinton (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Morrison, George (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Sonley, Lorne (Ph.D.)
Taylor, Maurice (Ph.D.)
Terrell, James (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Toscano, Peter (Ph.D.)
Traeger, Gordon (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Viscasillas, Felipe (Ph.D.)
Waldorf, William (Ph.D.)
Weir, Thomas (Ph.D.)
Weiss, Roger (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Zelder, Raymond (Ph.D.)

Tues., Aug. 7
8:30
Law Court

Economic Theory II

 L. Metzler, chr.
M. Friedman
F. Knight		 Chen, Ho-Mei (Ph.D.)
Herlihy, Murray (Ph.D.)
Hoch, Irving (Ph.D.)
Toscano, Peter (Ph.D.)
Weir, Thomas (Ph.D.)

Thurs., Aug. 9
8:30
Law Court

Government Finance

 P. Thomson, chr.
J. Marschak
D.G. Johnson		 Frank, Andrew (Ph.D.-A.M.) in abs
Haskell, Max (Ph.D.) in abs
Henry, Edward L. (Ph.D.)
Horwitz, Bertrand (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Lininger, Charles (Ph.D.)
Selden, Richard (Ph.D.)

Thurs., Aug. 9
8:30
Law Court

Industrial Relations

 F. Harbison, chr.
E. Hamilton
H.G. Lewis		 Barghout, Saad (Ph.D.)
Bechtolt, Richard (Ph.D.)
Hoch, Irving (Ph.D.)
Liang, Wei K. (Ph.D.)
Mullady, Philomena (Ph.D.)
Ness, David (Ph.D.)

Thurs., Aug. 2
8:30
Law Court

International Economics

 L. Metzler, chr.
B. Hoselitz
A. Rees		 Alberts, William (Ph.D.)
Anderson, Edwin (Ph.D.) in abs
Chen, Sze-te (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Chien, Chih Chien (Ph.D.)
Cleaver, George (Ph.D.)
Frank, Andrew (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Glick, Milton (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Gustus, Warren (Ph.D.)
Lukomski, Jesse (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Mitcham, Clinton (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Morey, Donald J. (Ph.D.-A.M.)

Tues., Aug. 7
8:30
Law Court

Money, Banking, and Monetary Policy

 L. Mints, chr.
E. Hamilton
J. Marschak		 Alberts, William (Ph.D.)
Bauer, Milton (Ph.D.)
Blumberg, Lionel (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Chen, Sze-te (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Chien, Chih Chien (Ph.D.)
Cleaver, George (Ph.D.)
Conomikes, George (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Davis, George (Ph.D.) in abs
Emmer, Robert (Ph.D.)
Heizer, Raymond (Ph.D.)
Horwitz, Bertrand (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Hughes, Rufus (Ph.D.)
Krawczyk, Richard (Ph.D.-A.M.) in abs
Lerner, Eugene (Ph.D.)
Liang, Wei K. (Ph.D.)
Lukomski, Jesse (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Meckling, William (Ph.D.)
Mitcham, Clinton (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Morey, Donald (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Ogawa, George (Ph.D.)
Smulekoff, Suzanne (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Sonley, Lorne (Ph.D.)
Taylor, Maurice (Ph.D.)
Terrell, James (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Traeger, Gordon (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Zelder, Raymond (Ph.D.)
Zingarelli, Carla (Ph.D.-A.M.)
Rayack, Elton  (Ph.D.) in abs

Thurs., Aug. 2
8:30
Law Court

Statistics

 T. Koopmans, chr.
C. Hildreth
H.G. Lewis		 Cagan, Phillip (Ph.D.)
Hogan, Lloyd (Ph.D.)
Katzman, Irwin (Ph.D.)
Malhotra, Man Hohan (Ph.D.)
Waldorf, William (Ph.D.)

Thurs., Aug. 2
8:30
Law Court

Economic History

 E. Hamilton Mullady, Philomena (Ph.D.)
Toscano, Peter (Ph.D.)

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman. Box 76, Folder “University of Chicago ‘Economic Theory’”.

Categories
Economists Gender Radcliffe Wellesley Yale

Yale. Economics Ph.D. alumna Sarah Scovill Whittelsey, 1898

 

This post adds a few details to Claire H. Hammond’s sketch of the life and brief academic career of the second woman to have received a Ph.D. in economics in the United States (note: Sarah Scovill Whittelsey tied for second place with Hannah Robie Sewall at the University of Minnesota). A link to Whittelsey’s 1894 Radcliffe portrait, note of her success in women’s college tennis, testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives, and her newspaper obituary are among the tidbits to be found below.

_____________________

Life and Career of Sarah Scovill Whittelsey

Claire H. Hammond. American Women and the Professionalization of Economics. Review of Social Economy. Vol. 51, No. 3 (Fall 1993), 347-370.   (here pp. 362-366)

_____________________

1892, College women’s tennis champion

The first intercollegiate tennis invitational for women is held at Bryn Mawr College. Radcliffe College’s Sarah Whittelsey wins the tournament. Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith Colleges turn down the invitation; many faculty members fear women cannot handle the competitive nature of sports.

Source: From the milestone timeline at the ITA Hall of Fame.

_____________________

1898, Yale Ph.D.

Sarah Scovill Whittelsey (Mrs. Percy T. Walden), B.A. Radcliffe College. In how far has Massachusetts labor legislation been in accordance with teachings of economic theory? Ann. Amer. Acad. Pol. and Soc Sci., Supplement, 1901, 1:1-157. 210 St. Ronan St., New Haven, Conn.

Source: Doctors of Philosophy of Yale University With the Titles of Their Dissertations, 1861-1927. New Haven, p. 65.

_____________________

President Hadley’s Introduction
to the published dissertation

Amid the many things which are valuable in the earlier reports of the Massachusetts Labor Bureau, none possess more permanent importance than the dispassionate analyses of the effects of labor laws which were prepared by Colonel Wright and his associates. The investigation of the workings of the ten-hour law in Massachusetts mills is a historic example of economic study which is as good as anything of its kind that has been done in the United States. But in more recent years the work of the Massachusetts Bureau has run in somewhat different channels. It has been to some degree crowded out of the fields of legislative investigation by the mass of purely statistical work which has been entrusted to its charge. And while the activity of its former chief is continued in his work as the head of the United States Bureau of Labor, the very breadth of the investigations which he is conducting forbids that complete treatment of any one field of legislation which was possible in his earlier labors.
Under these circumstances, the economic effects of Massachusetts labor legislation as they had worked themselves out in recent years seemed an appropriate subject for a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Yale. In her treatment of this theme Miss Whittelsey has presented the subject under three distinct aspects: an analysis, a history, and a criticism. Her analysis shows what is the present condition of the Massachusetts statute books on the various subjects connected with labor. The history shows when these statues were passed, and what were the motives and causes which led to their passage. The criticism undertakes to show what have been the effects, economic, social and moral, of the various forms of statutory regulation.
In a field of this kind it is hardly to be expected that the results will be startling. If they were, the method and the impartiality of the thesis would be open to great distrust. It is for the serious student of legislation rather than for the doctrinaire or the agitator that a painstaking criticism of this kind is intended. It has special value at the present day, when so many other states are following the example of Massachusetts in this line, and when there is a tendency to introduce similar methods of regulation into other departments of economic life besides those which are involved in the contract between the employer and the wage earner. Whether this tendency is to be regarded as a good or an evil thing is a matter of opinion on which thoughtful men differ; but there can be no question among thoughtful men of all parties that the maximum of good and the minimum of evil are to be obtained by studying dispassionately the results of past experience before we make experiments in new fields.

Arthur T. Hadley.
Yale University.

Source: Ann. Amer. Acad. Pol. and Soc Sci., Supplement, 1901, 1:5-6.

_____________________

CALLED TO WELLESLEY.

Miss Sarah Scovill Whittelsey Will Probably Accept.

NEW HAVEN. Jan 16—Miss Sarah Scovill Whittelsey of this city has been offered the chair of political economy at Wellesley college for one year. She has been summoned to Boston for a conference with the Wellesley authorities relative to the offer. She is to take the place of Miss Balch, who will leave Wellesley next fall to go to Europe for her Sabbatical year. Miss Whittelsey will, it is understood, accept the position.

She is the daughter of Joseph T. Whittelsey of this city, of national prominence as an authority in tennis, golf and college sports.

Source: The Boston Globe, 17 January 1902, p. 8.

________________________

Sarah Scovill Whittelsey (Mrs. Percy T. Walden)
B.A. Radcliffe College 1894.

Miss Whittelsey received her Doctor’s degree in 1898. During the year 1902-1903 she was Instructor in Economics at Wellesley College.

In 1905 she married Percy T. Walden, Ph.D. Yale 1896, now Professor of Chemistry in the University. They have two children, Sarah Scovill, born in 1906, and Joseph Whittelsey, born in 1911.

Since 1914 Mrs. Walden has served on the New Haven Board of Education.

Her dissertation was published in 1901, in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Supplement I, under the title “Massachusetts Labor Legislation : An Historical and Critical Study.”

Her present address is 210 St. Ronan Street, New Haven, Connecticut.

Source: Alumnae Graduate School, Yale University. 1894-1920 (New Haven: Yale University, 1920), pp. 46-47.

_____________________

Statement of Mrs. Percy T. Walden, New Haven, Conn., Chairman of Child Welfare, National League of Women Voters

Source: Hearing before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives. Seventieth Congress, Second Session. H.R. 14070 to provide a child welfare extension service and for other purposes.  Washington, D.C.: January 24 and 25, 1929. Pages 86-87.

_____________________

Obituary

Mrs. Sarah Walden.

New Haven, Aug. 7. — (AP.) — Mrs. Sarah Walden, 73, former economics teacher at Wellesley College, first woman member of the New Haven Board of Education and founder and long time president of the Connecticut Child Welfare Association, died at a hospital here yesterday after a short illness. She was the widow of Professor Percv T. Walden of Yale University.

Mrs. Walden. who was born In Paris but spent nearly all her here, was graduated from Radcliffe College in 1894, the year she won the women’s intercollegiate tennis championship at Byrn Mawr, Pa. She was a trustee of Wellesley College. She leaves a son, Joseph Walden of Elizabeth, N.J.; a daughter, Mrs. Richmond H. Curtiss of New Haven, and a sister, Mrs. Frank Dunn Berrien of New Haven.

Source: Hartford Courant. August 8, 1945, page 5

 

Image Source:  Radcliffe Archives. Portrait of Sarah Scovill Whittelsey by James Notman. Radcliffe College, Class of 1894.

Categories
Economists Gender Radcliffe

Radcliffe. Economics Ph.D. Alumna, Ada M. Harrison, 1952

 

John Bates Clark and his student Thorstein Veblen are the two most famous economists associated with Carleton College. Less famous but having a greater direct impact on more generations of Carleton students was the Radcliffe Ph.D., Ada M. Harrison. With this post she now joins our series “Meet an economics Ph.D. alumna”.

An oral history Interview with Ada M. Harrison recorded in 1993.

______________________

Ada M. Harrison, A.M.
Radcliffe Ph.D. in Economics, 1952

Special Field, Business Organization and Control.
Dissertation, “The Competitive Structure of the Wood Household Manufacturing Furniture Industry”.

Source: Radcliffe College. Reports of Officers Issue, 1951-52 Sessions.  Official Register of Radcliffe College, Vol. XVIII, No. 5 (December, 1952), p. 22.

______________________

Carleton College Emerita Professor Ada M. Harrison Dies

Ada M. Harrison, one of Carleton College’s most admired and beloved professors, died Monday, Dec. 27, [1999] in Northfield, Minn. She was 85. A respected economist and devoted teacher, Harrison taught economics for 31 years at Carleton, specializing in industrial organization, economic theory, and accounting. A public memorial service was held Friday, Jan. 28, 2000, in Carleton’s Skinner Memorial Chapel.

Harrison was born Feb. 2, 1914, in Saskatchewan, Canada. She received her bachelor’s degree from the State College of Washington, Pullman, in 1941 and earned her Ph.D. in economics from Radcliffe College in 1952. Before coming to Carleton in 1948, Harrison was a statistician for a Chicago investment firm and served as an economist with the Office of Price Administration in Washington.

“In her many years of teaching at Carleton, Ada Harrison had a profound impact on her students,” Carleton President Stephen R. Lewis, Jr. said. “A diminutive but demanding teacher of accounting and microeconomics, she expected analytical rigor and high standards of precision. With a quick mind and sharp wit, she often struck fear in the hearts of hundreds of future business leaders, who testify abundantly to her lasting effect on their lives.”

Michael S. Hunt, a 1968 graduate of Carleton and principal with Life Science Advisors in Carmel, Ind., remembered Harrison as a great teacher of economics and a dear friend. “As a freshman in her Introductory Economics class, I felt stark terror that I will always remember because she would accept only our best, critical thought and made it painfully clear when we didn’t produce. As I got to know her during my four years at Carleton I realized that she was not only a brilliant economist but also a woman with a great sense of humor and a deep concern for our professional and personal growth after Carleton.”

In 1957-58, Harrison was the only female among five college professors in the country to be awarded a National Research Professorship in Economics by the Brookings Institution of Washington, D.C. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and of the American Economic Association. During the 1950s and ’60s, Harrison traveled extensively to speak on economic issues. She also sponsored Carleton’s debate team for several years.

Harrison officially retired from Carleton in June 1979, but continued to teach for several years after her retirement.

George Lamson, the Wadsworth A. Williams Professor of Economics at Carleton and a friend and colleague of Harrison’s, recently asked her what she was most thankful for in her life. According to Lamson, Harrison answered without hesitation, “That I became a teacher and that I taught at Carleton.”

“Miss Harrison loved to teach, and she loved her students,” said Wally Weitz, Carleton class of 1970 and president of Wallace R. Weitz & Co. in Omaha. “She was demanding-there was no place to hide for the unprepared-and she taught us to think clearly and to express ourselves precisely. She had a major impact on me, and I am grateful.”

Source: Carleton College, Press Release of December 29, 1999.

Image Source: Carleton College Yearbook, Algol 1959, p. 24.

Categories
Cornell Economists Harvard Race

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, Michael Francis McPhelin, S.J., 1951

 

 

This post in the series, “Get to know an economics Ph.D.”, began unintentionally with a check of the proper capitalization for the name of a relatively obscure Harvard economics Ph.D. alumnus. The crop of 1950-51 Ph.D.’s was large (41) and included Thomas Schelling, Robert M. Solow, and William Parker who already have dedicated posts here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.  I discovered that the Jesuit priest-economist, whose name I double-checked, had been awarded a bronze star as an army chaplain in World War II and later went on to become the founding faculty member of the department of economics at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. This post presents a variety of artifacts associated with Rev. Michael Francis McPhelin, S.J. that I collected after a half-day’s worth of internet trawling.

In the history of U.S. academic economics Professor McPhelin turns out to be associated with a major moment at the intersection of the politics of race and academic freedom. There are quite a few cases of external forces attempting to influence hiring decisions and curricula involving economists (e.g. Samuelson’s textbook), but McPhelin’s case was an inside-the-ivory-tower-job. He put himself in the cross-hairs of student activists who wanted him dismissed for alleged racism in the classroom. A fairly complete accounting of the “McPhelin affair” that included an occupation of the Cornell economics department offices can be found in:

Downs, Donald Alexander. Chapter 4 “Racial Justice Versus Academic Freedom” in his Cornell ’69: Liberalism and the Crisis of the American University. Ithaca, NY Cornell University Press, 1999. pp. 68-96.
A book review by Jon Porter. 

With respect to Father McPhelin, Downs gives the benefit of the doubt:

McPhelin was treading into an area of delicate expectations and sensitivities, and he was doing so in front of the leading advocates of Black Power on campus. Worse, McPhelin entered this fray with fewer strategic skills than other professors who managed to get away with similar remarks in class. According to Nathan Tarcov, who lived in the same house as the visiting priest, McPhelin was a friendly, decent man who had the misfortune of being obtuse. “He really just could not fully comprehend what was happening to him,” Tarcov said. “He just didn’t get it.” [Downs, p. 72]

I have included a considerably less than flattering portrayal of McPhelin by a Philippine businessman/politician/journalist who clearly bore an anti-colonial grudge against the Jesuit academics, his “Great White Father(s)”.

The former president of the Philippines (Benigno Aquino III) appears to have had a much higher opinion of McPhelin.

The post ends with a list of papers that Professor Michael McPhelin published in the journal Philippine Studies.

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Michael Francis McPhelin (Ph.D., 1950-51)

Michael Francis McPhelin, A.B. (Woodstock Coll.[Baltimore, MD]) 1935, A.M. (ibid.) 1936, S.T.L. (ibid.) 1942.

Special Field, The History of Economic Thought.
Thesis, “The Meaning and Requirements of Economic Order.”

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1950-51, pp. 111.

__________________

New York Times obituary

The Rev. Michael F. McPhelin, a Jesuit who was a former dean of the Fordham University School of Business, died Jan. 21 in Manila. He was 70 years old.

In 1950 he was assigned to the faculty of Ateneo de Manila and had returned there for service over the last two decades. A native of New York, he completed his seminary studies at Woodstock College in Maryland. He served as a chaplain with the 275th Infantry in World War II and then received a doctorate from Columbia University [sic].

He became an assistant professor of economics at Fordham in 1950 and later taught at Gregorian University, Rome. He became dean at Fordham in 1954.

He is survived by a brother, James, and a sister, Ann Young.

Source: The New York Times, January 31, 1981, section 1, page 11.

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War record as Chaplain in the Infantry

McPhelin, Michael F. (New York)

Born: 16 May 1911. Entered Society: 14 Aug 1929. Ordained: 22 Jun 1941. Present Province: Philippines.

Appointed to the Army 6 Jan 1944. Serial number: 0543081. To the rank of Captain 9 Dec 1944; to Major 21 Aug 1946. Assignments: Harvard Chaplain School (10 Feb 1944) ; Monterey, Cal., and Camp Cooke, Cal. (1944) ; 275th Infantry Regiment, 70th Infantry Division, at Camp Adair, Ore., at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and in France (1944) ; 275th Infantry Regiment, France (1945) ; 23rd Corps Artillery, Germany (1945) ; 30th Infantry Regiment, Germany (1946) ; Division Artillery, 3rd Infantry Division (1946). Reverted to inactive status 20 Oct 1946. Award: Bronze Star.

Source: Woodstock Letters, vol. 89, no. 4 (November 1, 1960), p. 402.

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War Anecdote

Jan 7, 1945 (-4 to +5 deg F!!!)

…following is the story of Father Michael McPhelin…This being Sunday, he is making his rounds to say Mass. In the daylight, the men cannot stick their heads up without being shot at from Germans on higher ground. When he arrives at Co F in the forward-right sector below Baerenthal, he is told that the men could not possibly risk coming together for Mass. Chaplain McPhelin replied, “Well, if that’s the case, I will have to go to them. That’s my job.” While there is every expectation that the Germans will shoot him, since they can clearly see him move from foxhole to foxhole, they don’t.”

Source: Timothy McG. Millhiser and Ross R. Millhiser (June, 2000) “Operation Northwind” History of Company A, 275th  Regiment, 70th Division.

Cf. Charles Whiting. The Other Battle of the Bulge: Operation Northwind. The History Press (2007). Chapter 3.

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Ateneo Economics Department:
A BRIEF HISTORY

Over the past fifty years, the Ateneo Economics Department has distinguished itself with its rich history and the countless contributions its alumni have made to Philippine society.

The Economics Department started out as a subdepartment of Social Science. Although it was recognized as a separate department, Economics had no official head and was under control of the chair of Social Science. When the Economics Department was finally established in 1953, it had only Rev. Michael McPhelin, S.J. as its lone faculty member. He became the first moderator of the Economics of the Ateneo (ESA) when it was founded in 1962.

In the school year 1957-1958, the Economics Department achieved greater autonomy with the appointment of a chair separate from that of the Department of Social Science. This was Rev. William J. Nicholson, S.J., who was one of four faculty members in 1955. A notable faculty member who also became chair of the Department was Dr. Vicente Valdepeñas, who would subsequently become the director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA). He is currently a member of the Monetary Board of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

The year 1970 was significant for the Economics Department. For the first time, it acquired female faculty, among them Victoria Valdez, Ellen Palanca, and later Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The last two would go on to acquire doctorates and continue teaching in the Department. Mrs. Macapagal –Arroyo would eventually leave the academe to become a member of the Aquino cabinet, senator, vice president, and President of the Republic.

Today, the Ateneo Economics Department is widely recognized as one of the most important academic groups in the country. It boasts of faculty members who not only provide analytical assistance to government agencies, multilateral organizations and non-government organizations, but also lead their students into careers that are dedicated to the improvement of the national economy and national well-being.

The Department tirelessly and resolutely charts new directions for growth and development. It continues to offer the bachelor’s and master programs begun in 1951, the Management Economics Program introduced in 1984, and the Ph.D. program initiated in 2002. Three thousand men and women have graduated with degrees in the Department’s various courses, and thousands more will follow in the coming years.

Indeed, the Economics Department of the Ateneo de Manila is keeping alive the Jesuit tradition of academic excellence and service to God and the Filipino people.

Source: Ateneo de Manila University Economics Department website.

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The Great White Father
by Hilarion M. Henares, Jr.

Hilarion

Philippine Daily Inquirer
September 24, 1986

…Abrasive in manner and speech, a cruel glint in his eyes, inveterate party goer, he was a racist who was thrown out of Cornell University for lectures telling the Negroes they were bioogically inferior to the whites. He was Father Michael McPhelin, head of the Economics Department of Ateneo University, suspected CIA agent, a hanger-on at Malacañang as some sort of Rasputin, and the beloved mentor of NEDA Director Vince Valdepeñas…

The first time I met Father McPhelin was as a young businessman just fresh out of college invited to speak before the Ateneo Economic Society. He was the rudest person I ever met, he kept interrupting me, making insulting remarks about the integrity and competence of Filipino businessmen, and made no bones about his conviction that American multinationals should be given free rein to exploit our country…

Finally, I spoke to him thus: “McPhelin, you have me at a disadvantage. In the first place, you are a priest; that means God must be on your side. In the second place, you are a Jesuit priest, which means that you are probably one of the most brilliant of holy men. Above all, you are an American Jesuit priest, which makes you in the worst and most ominous sense of the term, a Great White Father about whom we Ateneans and Filipinos have a colonial mentality. But mark this, McPhelin, from here on, there will be no public forum you will ever attend that I will not grace with my presence.  And I promise you when we meet in debate, I will wipe the floor with the two protuberances of your ischia–that is, with your butt!” He was shocked out of his wits at the first Pinoy that ever talked back to him.

This big bully Father McPhelin browbeat an entire generation of Ateneo students into being Little Brown Brothers, without pride of race or faith in the Filipino. I hounded him for years, challenging him to a debate, questioning him in the open forum period, till he developed diarrhea at the very sight of me. Everywhere he went, he brought his assistant with him, a nice harmless young man named Vicente Valdepeñas Jr.; and when he saw me, he rushed out leaving poor Vince to face me as I complained: “Must I spend the rest of my life debating with altar boys?” And golly I still am….

Source:  From Hiarion M. Henares, Jr. Make My Day. 

For a personal report about Henares: see the blogpost in honor of his 88th birthday by Bel Cunanan “How to solve a problem like Larry Henares” from April 10, 2013.

__________________

President (2010-2016) Benigno Aquino III
recalls his economics professor

President Aquino “…was the keynote speaker at the opening program of the Ignatian Festival 2013 on his alma mater’s [Ateneo de Manila University] campus in Loyola Heights, Quezon City, with the theme “Lahing Loyola Para sa Kapwa (A Loyola Race for Others)…

…He said he “owed a debt of gratitude” to his former teachers and mentors for molding his character.

Ateneo teaches that “I am in the position to help” improve the lives of others, he said, without adding that state universities and other schools also do the same.

Repeating the age-old dichotomy between success and public service (or servant leadership, as Ateneans like to call it), Mr. Aquino asked: “Isn’t this more sensible than the other institutions’ drive to enhance their students ability to quickly ascend the ladder of wealth and prestige?”

He cited the pivotal role played by his economics professor, Fr. Michael McPhelin, a Harvard alumnus, in enriching his knowledge of the subject.

He recalled debating with McPhelin matters dealing with economics and statistics during the “last 15 minutes of each and every class” held three times a week.

After passing the course, he was told by McPhelin that “he just wanted me to be like my father so he pressured me… into getting used to going through a lot of tests,” Mr. Aquino said.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer Sunday July 21, 2013.

__________________

Papers by Michael F. McPhelin
published in Philippine Studies

Vol 7, No 4 (1959) The Margin Act

Vol 7, No 4 (1959) Economic Freedom: Adam Smith vs. The Papacy

Vol 8, No 1 (1960) Political Transmission 15 I. Economics of the Transmission

Vol 8, No 2 (1960) The “Filipino First” Policy

Vol 8, No 3 (1960) Post-Summit Reflections

Vol 8, No 3 (1960) Inducement to Invest: The United States Investment Guaranty Program and Foreign Investment

Vol 9, No 1 (1961) Financial Achievement of 1960

Vol 9, No 2 (1961) The Chinese Question

Vol 9, No 2 (1961) Where Angels Fear To Tread: Too Many Asians

Vol 9, No 3 (1961) The Purchase of Meralco

Vol 10, No 2 (1962) Not One But Ten: Southeast Asia Today and Tomorrow

Vol 10, No 4 (1962) Boeke’s Thesis Examined: Indonesian Economics

Vol 12, No 2 (1964) A Philippine Economic Geography: Shadows on the Land

Vol 12, No 4 (1964) The Economic Development Foundation

Vol 13, No 2 (1965) A Practical Man’s Economics Guide: The Planning and Execution of Economic Development

Vol 13, No 4 (1965) National Development and Human Resources: Manpower and Education

Vol 14, No 1 (1966) Wages and Justice

Vol 14, No 1 (1966) A Source Book For Economic Geography: World Economic Development

Vol 14, No 4 (1966) Philippine: International Trade and Problems of Modernization

Vol 17, No 2 (1969) Economic Dilemma of Asian Countries Asian Drama

Vol 17, No 3 (1969) On the Diversity of Philippine Geography: The Philippine Island World

Vol 17, No 4 (1969) Manila: The Primate City

Vol 18, No 1 (1970) Economic Nationalism and Planned Stagnation

Vol 18, No 3 (1970) An Inquiry into Economic Nationalism

Vol 20, No 4 (1972) The Philippines: Problems and Prospects

Vol 20, No 4 (1972) Sicat: Economic Policy and Philippine Development

Vol 24, No 4 (1976) The Philippines: An Economic and Social Geography

Vol 24, No 4 (1976) Foreign Trade Regimes and Economic Development: The Philippines

Vol 25, No 4 (1977) The Tropics and Economic Development A Provocative Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations

Categories
Columbia Economists Statistics

Columbia. Promotions and Memorial Minute for Abraham Wald

 

 

Abraham Wald (1902-1950) got his foot into the Columbia economics department door thanks to a grant from the Carnegie Foundation arranged for him by Harold Hotelling in 1938. In this post we follow Wald’s Columbia career up through the faculty memorial minute that followed his tragic, untimely death in an airplane accident during a lecture tour in India in December 1950.

___________________

Promotion to Assistant Professor

From the November 26, 1941 letter to President Nicholas Murray Butler from Robert M. Haig, Chairman of the department of economics (pp. 3-5 and supporting annex B).

“…We feel that it is important, if at all possible, that the following action be taken.

  1. Appoint Abraham Wald to an assistant professorship at $3,600 (Wald is now a lecturer at $3,000, of which $2,400 is financed by a special grant, the continuance of which is not assured.
    (See Annex B)

A recent development in the case of Wald is an offer of a permanent post (presumably an assistant professorship) at Queens College. This post will be open to him in case it proves impossible for us to give him the status recommended. Our enthusiasm for him has increased since last year when I wrote as follows:—

“The position of this recommendation at the very head of our list is attributable primarily to a conviction that Abraham Wald is an unusually interesting gamble. By risking a moderate stake, the University can put itself in a position where it may (and in our judgment probably will) be rewarded a hundred-fold. For Wald is not only a young scholar whose attainments are of a high order of merit, but one whose potentialities are obviously large.

“When Wald came to us two years ago, as a lecturer whose stipend was supplied by a special and presumably temporary grant, we were frankly apprehensive lest we should presently find ourselves indirectly committed, without adequate consideration, to a permanent addition to our staff concerning whom we might not be enthusiastic. Consequently care was exercised to make it clear to all concerned that his appointment as a lecturer supported by a special grant carried with it no future obligation. Fortunately then, we are able to approach the consideration of his case at this juncture free from any pressure of old commitments, express or implied.

“Our recommendation of Wald should be interpreted then as a free and fresh expression of our admiration for his accomplishments and of our faith in his future. As a result of our contacts with him and with his work, we are convinced that here is a man whose contributions are reasonably certain to continue to break new ground on a section of the frontier of knowledge where notable progress seems imminent.

“We recognize that Wald’s field is one that is of interest and significance to several departments of the University and that there are unsettled questions as to whether ultimately it should be attached to our own or to some other department or whether it should constitute a separate department in its own right. Irrespective of the answers that may ultimately be given to such questions of structural organization, we, in the Department of Economics, desire to express the hope that it will prove possible for the University to provide for the further development of teaching and research in statistics on a high level and we wish to take this opportunity to make it clear that, pending a final decision as to organization, we should consider it an honor to be permitted to shelter and to stand sponsor for scientific work such as that of Wald.”

[…]

ANNEX B.
BIOGRAPHIC MEMORANDUM OF ABRAHAM WALD

I was born in Cluj, October 31, 1902. I studied at the University in Cluj and at the University of Vienna, and obtained my doctor’s degree in mathematics at the University of Vienna in 1930. The subject of my doctor’s thesis was the Hilbert system of axioms of Geometry.

For the next four years I did mathematical research at the University of Vienna and collaborated with Professor Karl Menger. I was co-editor with him of “Ergebnisse eines mathematischen Kolloquiums.” During this time my interests were chiefly in general abstract and metric geometry, theory of probability, and mathematical economics, in which fields my papers were written.

In 1934 I became in addition a research associate of the Institute for Business Cycle Research in Vienna and published several papers in mathematical economics. My interest in statistics and its application in economics dates from this time, when I became the statistical expert of the Institute.

After the annexation of Austria, I came to the United States and was for several months a fellow of the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics. Thereafter I became a lecturer at Columbia University which is the position I hold at present. Since my arrival in the United States I have been interested chiefly in statistics and mathematical economics and have published a series of papers in these fields. I have been elected a fellow of both the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Econometric Society.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

  1. Abstract and metric geometry
    1. Über den allgemeinen Raumbegriff, Ergebnisse eines math. Kolloquiums, Heft 3, Vienna. [1931]
    2. Axiomatik des Zwischenbegriffes in metrischen Räumen, Mathematische Annalen, Vol. 104. [1931]
    3. Der komplexe euklidische Raum [Komplexe und indefinite Räume], Erg. eines mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    4. Indefinite euklidischen Räume, Erg. eines mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    5. Vereinfachter Beweis des Steinitzschen Satzes, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    6. Bedingt konvergente Reihen von Vektoren, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    7. Riehen in topologischen Gruppen, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    8. Eine neue Definition der Flächenkrümmung, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 6, Vienna
    9. Sur la courbure des surfaces, C. R. [Acad. Sci.] Paris, 1935.
    10. Aufbau [Begründung] einer kooridinatenlosen Differentialgeometrie der Flächen, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 7, Vienna.
    11. Eine Characterisierung des Lebesgueschen Masses, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 7, Vienna.
  1. Probability, Statistics and Mathematical Economics.
    1. Sur la notion de collectif dans le calcul des probabilités, C.R. [Acad. Sci.] Paris, 1936.
    2. Die Widerspruchsfreiheit des Kollektivbegriffes, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 8, Vienna.
    3. Die Widerspruchsfreiheit des Kollektivbegriffes, Actualités Scientifiques, 1938, Paris.
    4. Berechnung und Ausschaltung von Saisonschwankungen, Julius Springer, Vienna, 1936.
    5. Zur Theorie der Preis Indexziffern, Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, Vienna, 1937.
    6. Über die Produktionsgleichungen der ökonomischen Wertlehre, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 6, Vienna.
    7. Über die Produktionsgleichungen der ökonomischen Wertlehre, zweite Mitteilung, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 7, Vienna.
    8. Über einige Gleichungssysteme der mathematischen Ökonomie, Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, Vienna, 1936. [translated into English by Otto Eckstein, Econometrica, 1951, pp. 368-403]
    9. Extrapolation des gleitenden 12-Monatsdurchschnittes, Beilage zu den Berichten des Öster. Institutes für Konjunkturforschung, Vienna, 1937.
    10. Grundsaetzliches zur Berechnung des Produktionsindex, Beilage zu den Berichten des Öster. Institutes für Konjunkturforschung, Vienna, 1937.
    11. Generalization of the inequality of Markoff, The Annals of Math. Statistics, December, 1938.
    12. Long Cycles as a result of repeated integration, American Mathem. Monthly, March, 1939.
    13. Confidence limit for continuous distribution functions (co-author J. Wolfowitz), The Annals of Math. Statistics, June, 1939.
    14. Limits of a distribution function determined by absolute moments, Transact. of the Amer. Mathem. Society, September, 1939.
    15. A new formula for the index of cost of living, Econometrica, October, 1939.
    16. Contributions to the theory of statistical estimation, The Annals of Mathem. Statistics, December, 1939.
    17. A note on the analysis of variance with unequal class frequencies, The Annals of Mathem. Statistics, March, 1940.
    18. The approximate determination of indifference surfaces, Econometrica, April, 1940.
    19. On a test whether two samples are from the same population (with J. Wolfowitz), The Annals of Mathem. Statistics, June, 1940.
    20. Fitting of straight lines when both variables are subject to error, The Annals of Mathem. Statistics, September, 1940.
    21. Asymptotically most powerful tests of statistical hypotheses, Annals of Mathem. Statistics, March, 1941.
    22. Some examples of asymptotically most powerful tests will appear in the December, 1941 issue of the Annals of Mathem. Statistics.
    23. Asymptotically shortest confidence intervals paper presented at the meeting of the Amer. Math. Soc., September, 1940. Accepted for publication in the Annals of Mathem. Statistics.
    24. On the distribution of Wilks’ statistic for testing the independence of several groups of variates (in collaboration with R. Brookner), Annals of Mathem. Statistics, June, 1941.
    25. The large sample distribution of the likelihood ratio statistics, paper presented at the meeting of the Institute of Mathem. Statistics, September, 1941, Chicago. It will be published in the Annals of Mathem. Statistics.
    26. On testing statistical hypotheses concerning several unknown parameters, paper presented at the meeting of Amer. Mathem. Society, February, 1941, New York City. It will be published in the Annals of Mathem. Statistics.
    27. On the analysis of variance in case of multiple classifications with unequal class frequencies, Annals of Mathem. Statistics, September, 1941.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Central Files 1890—Box 386, Folder “Haig, Robert Murray 7/1941-6/1942”

Cf: “The Publications of Abraham Wald” [1931-1952] was published in The Annals of Mathematical Statistics 23:1 (March 1952, pp. 29-33.

___________________

Aliens in the Department of Economics

December 19, 1941

Mr. Philip M. Hayden, Secretary,
213 Low Memorial Library.

Dear Mr. Hayden:

In reply to the request contained in your recent Memorandum to executive officers, I report the following aliens from the Department of Economics:

Harold Barger

29 West 8th Street, New York City

Nationality: British
Age: 34
Alien Registration No.: 3239174

 

Donald Bailey Marsh

106 Morningside Drive, New York City

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 30
Alien Registration No.: 1152252

 

Robert Valeur

40 Barrow Street, New York City

Nationality: French
Age: 38
Alien Registration No.: 5061531

 

Abraham Wald

241 West 108th Street, New York City

Nationality: born in Kolozsvar [Note: Hungarian spelling of Cluj-Napoca], Transylvania, Alien Registration officials were in doubt how to describe nationality.
Age: 39
Alien Registration No.: 4506027

Very truly yours,
Chairman, Department of Economics

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collections, Faculty. Box 2, Folder “Faculty Beginning Jan 1, 1944 [sic]”.

___________________

Promotion to Associate Professor

February 7, 1944

Professor Abraham Wald,
608 Fayerweather.

Dear Professor Wald:

I am authorized by the Provost of the University to inform you that in the provisional budget for the academic year 1944-45 you are designated associate professor of Statistics at an annual stipend of $5,000. This provisional budget goes to the Trustees with the approval of the Committee on Educational Policy. While your promotion is not final until it is adopted by the Trustees at their meeting on the first Monday in April, the Provost and I agree that there is no reason whatsoever to doubt that the recommendation for your advancement will be approved, and that you run hardly an risk in declining the offer of an associate professorship at the University of Chicago.

As an associate professor you would hold your position at the pleasure of the Trustees, i.e., you would no longer be subject to year-to-year appointment and would, in effect, have continuing tenure. The position of associate professor in this respect is the same as that of a full professor.

I should like to add my personal assurance that the Department and the Administration stand behind the recommendation for your advancement. The reputation that you have won for yourself at Columbia is a very high one indeed. You have the friendship and warm support of all of your associates in the graduate faculties. I believe that you will have here a rich and promising career of creative scholarship.

Sincerely yours,

[copy unsigned, Frederick C. Mills?]

Source Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Box 3 Budget, 1915-1946-47, Folder “Budget Material 1944-1945”.

___________________

Promotion to Professor

April 23, 1945

President Nicholas Murray Butler,
Columbia University.

Dear Mr. President:

A recent development makes it necessary for me to supplement my letter of November 30th, 1944, in which I submitted to you a provisional budget for the Department of Economics for the year 1945-46. Professor Abraham Wald, who occupies a place of strategic importance in our work in Mathematical Statistics, has received a very attractive offer from another institution. If we are to hold him at Columbia we must give him some advancement here. Although I am reluctant to approach you at this time, to request that you re-open the Department budget for next year, it is my strong opinion that this should be done. This opinion is shared by my colleagues who are interested in Columbia’s past and prospective accomplishments in Mathematical Statistics.

Work in Mathematical Statistics in American universities is in a pioneering stage. The fundamental bases of statistics, in mathematics and logic, have recently been materially extended. New horizons have been opened. We may expect in the next several decades further fruitful advances bearing upon the whole range of inquiry in the social and the natural sciences and in the arts of production and administration. In this field Columbia has already, through the work of Hotelling and Wald, achieved a leading position, one that is recognized throughout the world. Some indication of Columbia’s standing, and of the scientific and practical fruitfulness of our work in this field, I given by the accomplishments of the Statistical Research Group now serving the Army and the Navy as part of Columbia’s contribution to the war effort.

Columbia must hold and extend the position of preeminence we have won. We believe that in Hotelling and Wald we have men of intellectual vigor and established scientific competence who will be in the forefront of future advances in Mathematical Statistics. Their work will supplement and strengthen that of the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory, in which Columbia will cooperate with the International Business Machines Corporation, as the work of that Laboratory will enhance the effectiveness of our efforts in Mathematical Statistics.

The scholarly record of Professor Wald is set forth in an attached statement. I need only add here that Wald’s researches in statistical theory have been fundamental in character and seminal in their influence. A recent outstanding example of the fertility of his thought is provided by his contribution of a new mathematical basis for techniques of quality control in manufacturing production, techniques that have been widely adopted in the control of war production. The sequential methods utilized in Dr. Wald’s procedures are capable of application in scientific experiments, and in a wide variety of other fields.

In the conviction that Columbia should reinforce success, in planning for the future, and should build where firm foundations have already been laid, I urge that the position of the University in the field of Mathematical Statistics be maintained, and strengthened. Dr. Abraham Wald’s continuance here is crucial in such a program. I recommend, therefore, that Dr. Wald, who is now Associate Professor of Statistics at an annual salary of $5,000, be appointed Professor of Mathematical Statistics, at a salary of $7,500 a year, the appointment to be effective July 1, 1945.

Respectfully submitted,

FREDERICK C. MILLS

Source Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Box 3 Budget, 1915-1946-47, Folder “Budget Material 1944-1945”.

___________________

April 27, 1951

Memorial Minute for Professor A. Wald

Professor Wolfowitz then presented a minute memorializing the late Professor Abraham Wald. It was adopted by a rising vote, and a copy was ordered sent to Professor Wald’s family.

ABRAHAM WALD

Abraham Wald, Professor of Mathematical Statistics and a distinguished member of this Faculty, was killed in an airplane accident in India on December 13, 1950. He had been on a lecture tour of Indian universities and research centers. Mrs. Wald was killed in the same accident.

Dr. Wald arrived in the United States in the summer of 1938, a refugee from Nazi persecution. In the fall of 1938 he came to Columbia as a fellow of the Carnegie Corporation. He became a member of this Faculty in 1942 and professor of Mathematical Statistics in 1945. Much of his statistical work was done here. It shed luster on Columbia and largely helped to make Columbia an important center of mathematical statistics. His work changed the whole course and emphasis of modern mathematical statistics. In addition to many other contributions the theory of statistical decision functions and the theory of sequential analysis were founded by him. He also made important contributions to mathematical economics, the theory of probability, and metric geometry.

He was a good friend to many, a genial colleague, and an inspiring teacher. By his death the University and science have sustained a grievous loss.

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

Image Source: Naval Ordnance Test Station, Inyokern, California from the obituary by J. Wolfowitz published in The Annals of Mathematical Statistics 23:1 (March, 1952), pp. 1-13.

 

Categories
Columbia Economists Pennsylvania Statistics

Columbia. Statistics PhD alumnus. Robert E. Chaddock, 1908

 

The post provides another life/career overview of a Ph.D. alum. Today’s Ph.D. went on to become professor of sociology and statistics at Columbia University, Robert Emmet Chaddock.

__________________________

Previous posts at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror
with Chaddock content…

Request for funding for his statistical laboratory in 1911 (with a newspaper account of his 1940 suicide).

E.R.A. Seligman’s recommendation for Chaddock’s promotion to Associate Professor in 1912.

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Chaddock obituaries by…

Frederick E. Croxton in Journal of the American Statistical Association 36:213 (March, 1941), pp. 116-119.

William F. Ogburn in American Journal of Sociology 46:4 (January, 1941), p. 595.

__________________________

Robert E. Chaddock (1879-1940)

1879 born April 16, in Minerva, Ohio

1900 A.B. Wooster College

1900-05. Taught at Wooster College

1906 M.A., Columbia University

1906-08. University Fellow in Sociology, Columbia University

1908 Worked with the boy’s club of the Union Settlement (New York City)

1907-09. Instructor, Columbia University

1908 Ph.D. Columbia University.

1909-11. Assistant Professor of Economics and Statistics. Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

1911-12. Assistant Professor of Statistics, Columbia University

1912-22. Associate Professor of Statistics, Columbia University

1917-24. Secretary-Treasurer of the American Statistical Association

1925 Publication of Principles and Methods of Statistics.

1922-40. Professor of Sociology and Statistics.

1925 President of the American Statistical Association

1925-1940. Member of the Joint Advisory Committee to the Director of the Census.

1928 Represented the Social Science Research Council as delegate to the International Conference on Population in Paris (July).

1929 LL.D. awarded by Wooster College

1933-36. Member of the Committee on Government Statistics and Informational Services (jointly established by the American Statistical Association and the Social Science Research Council)

1937 Chairman of the Joint Advisory Committee to the Director of the Census

1940 October 21. Death by suicide.

Other memberships

Member of the American Committee of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population Problems.

Chairman of the Research Committee, member of the Executive Committee of the Research Bureau of the Welfare Council of New York City.

Consultant statistician of the Commonwealth Fund

Member of the Advisory Council of the Milbank memorial Fund.

Member and Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Research in Medical Economics. Member of the editorial board of the quarterly journal Medical Care.

Fellow of the American Public Health Association

Member of the International Statistical Institute

Member of the American Sociological Society

Member of the Century Club (New York)

Phi Beta Kappa.

__________________________

Political Science Faculty Memorial Minute
Columbia University

Dec. 13, 1940

Robert Emmet Chaddock

Professor Robert Emmet Chaddock served his University for over thirty years. Born at Minerva, Ohio, 1879, he took his A.B. at Wooster College in 1900. From the time he first came to Columbia as a graduate student in 1905, his association with the University was broken only for two years, during which he was Assistant Professor of Economics and Statistics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. At Columbia he was in turn University Fellow in Sociology, Instructor in Economics, Assistant Professor of Statistics, Associate Professor, and from 1922 until his death Professor of Sociology and Statistics. In these various capacities he fulfilled his duties with unsparing devotion, giving attention to his students, whole-heartedly cooperating with his colleagues, freely participating in various organizations for the advancement of public welfare, and contributing always to the improvement of statistical application to social problems, especially those connected with population and public health. He was the author of numerous articles and reports on these and other subjects, and his work on Principles and Methods of Statistics has given guidance to a large number of students throughout the country. His recognition as a leader in this field was shown by the many calls made upon his services, from the Bureau of the Census, the Milbank Foundation, the Welfare Council of New York City, the Cities Census Committee, and the International Statistical Institute, and other bodies. To these calls Professor Chaddock never failed to respond. He won the regard of all who knew him. His death removes a man who gave himself without limit and without afterthought, to his University, to his family, to the community. His colleagues tender their respectful sympathy to those who intimately mourn for him, his wife and daughter.

Robert M. MacIver
Carlton J. H. Hayes
Roswell C. McCrea

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science, 1940-1949, p. 881.

Image Source: Robert Emmet Chaddock from Barnard College, Mortarboard, 1919.

 

Categories
Brookings Chicago Economists Gender Social Work

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumna. Helen Russell Wright, 1922

 

From the days when economics still had room for policies of social work, Helen Russell Wright, economics Ph.D. alumna of the University of Chicago (1922). 

_______________________

Helen Russell Wright.

1891, February 26. Born in Glenwood, Iowa.
1912. A.B. Smith College.
Studied economics and social work in the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy (CSCP) under Sophonisba Breckenridge and Edith Abbott
1912-13. Appointed research student in the Department of Social Investigation. (CSCP)
1913. Certificate of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy.
1913-14. Senior Research Studentship (honorary). Department of Social Investigation (CSCP)
1914-15. Senior Research Studentship (honorary). Department of Social Investigation (CSCP)
1917-18.  Research assistant at Department of Social Investigation (CSCP)
1918-19. Assistant in Social Investigation (CSCP).
1919-1920. Assistant in Social Investigation (CSCP).
1920-21. Fellow in Political Economy, University of Chicago.
1922. Ph.D. University of Chicago. Thesis: The political labour movement in Great Britain, 1880-1914.
1922. Children of Wage-Earning Mothers: A Study of a Selected Group in Chicago. U.S. Department of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Publication No. 102. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1922.
1922-24. Senior Staff member, Brookings Graduate Institution of Economics, Washington, D.C.
1924-28. Member of the faculty of the Brookings Graduate Institution of Economics, Washington, D.C.
1926. Co-authored with Walton Hale Hamilton, The Case of Bituminous Coal. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926.
1928. Co-authored with Walton Hale Hamilton, A Way of Order for Bituminous Coal. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1928.
1928. Joins University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration.
1931. Associate Professor of Social Economy, Graduate School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
1938. Professor and Assistant Dean of the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
1944. Social Service in Wartime. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
1942-1956. Succeeded Edith Abbott as Dean of the Social Service Administration, University of Chicago.
1950-56. Editor of the Social Service Review.
1954. Received the University of Chicago’s alumni medal.
1955. Illinois Welfare association’s annual award for outstanding service in 1955.
1956. Retired from the University of Chicago
1957-58. Chief of a technical assistance team of the Council on Social Work Education to assist the development of the schools of social work in India.
Part-time teaching at the University of Southern California.
1969, August 14. Died in Pasadena, Los Angeles, California.

 

Image Source: Helen Russell Wright’s senior year portrait in Smith College, The 1912 Class-Book, p. 56.