Category: Economists

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Economists Harvard

Harvard. Haberler Argues Against Galbraith And On Behalf of Samuelson, 1948

 

Gottfried Haberler was apparently unable to attend an Executive Committee meeting of the Department of Economics at which it must have been decided to recommend John Kenneth Galbraith as the successor to Harvard’s agricultural economist J. D. Black. Haberler was so unhappy with this decision that he went behind the backs of his colleagues in a letter to the Dean. Apparently one of his former graduate students and his later Harvard colleague, Abram Bergson, must have heard about the letter some three decades later and asked Haberler about it. It certainly looks like Haberler had to ask the Dean’s Office in 1981 to have a copy of that 1948 letter sent to him. At least as important as learning about Haberler’s opinion of Galbraith, we are also treated to a full-throated praise of Paul Samuelson’s virtues. We also get a glimpse of a coalition of School of Public Administration economists wanting to hire a policy-oriented economist with  some one or other(s) of the stock of senior economic theorists protecting their turf from Samuelson at his Wunderkind-best.

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1981 Letter from Haberler’s AEI Secretary to Abram Bergson

American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
1150 Seventeenth Street, N. W. Washington, D. C. 20036

(202) 862-5800

August 17, 1981

Professor Abram Bergson
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Dear Professor Bergson:

When Professor Haberler called his office from abroad today, he asked that the attached copy of a letter he wrote to Professor Buck in 1948 be sent to you. He also asked that you be told that although he “was ashamed his memory failed him and he did not remember writing it, he was not ashamed of the letter.”

I am certain that on his return to the office around September 8th Professor Haberler will be in touch with you.

Sincerely yours,

Secretary to
Professor Haberler

Encl.

___________________________________

1981 Cover Note from Dean Rosovsky to Gottfried Haberler

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Office of the Dean

5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

 

For Professor Haberler from Dean Rosovsky

[handwritten note: 8/11/81, cc to Sils, Envelopes#2]

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1948 Letter from Gottfried Haberler to Provost Paul H. Buck

Harvard University
Graduate School of Public Administration

International Economic Relations Seminar

Littauer Center
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

November 27, 1948

Provost Paul H. Buck
University Hall
Harvard University
Cambridge 38, Mass.

 

Dear Mr. Buck:

I had to go to Paris, London, Oxford and Cambridge for a brief visit in connection with the creation of an International Association of Economists and was therefore prevented from attending the meetings of the Executive Committee of the Department of Economics on November 17 and 24.

Let me inform you by letter that in my opinion the recommendation to appoint J. K. Galbraith to the remaining vacant professorship is a great mistake and calculated to reduce the level and reputation of our Department. I am rather hesitant to put it so bluntly, because I am on the best of terms with Galbraith. (For that reason I would be obliged if you would treat this letter as confidential.) But I think it is my duty to state my views clearly in such an important matter.

In my opinion, Galbraith is not a first-rate man. As you have said to me on one or two occasions, he has shot his bolt and there is no new evidence, it seems to me, which would warrant a change of that judgment. Galbraith is good average, not more. Moreover, he is not an agricultural economist. For years, not only during the time he served in Washington, he has written on subjects like monopoly and competition, international economic relations, full employment policies and the like. This shows a wide range of interests, but in none of these fields is he regarded as an outstanding expert. Yet he is now to be appointed as successor to John D. Black.

I am afraid the Department is on its way to fill all vacancies with respectable mediocrities. This is the more astonishing and inexcusable, because we could have a man who is almost universally regarded as one, if not the, most outstanding economist, namely P. A. Samuelson. As you know, Samuelson was awarded the Walker medal [sic, “Clark medal” is correct] by the American Economic Association which is to be given to the most outstanding economist under forty. He has had offers from first-rate universities, Chicago among others. He has without doubt the most brilliant record of all living economists under forty. He is an excellent teacher and would fit ideally into the Department from the point of view of our age distribution, a factor which has been, in my opinion very rightly, stressed by the Administration of the University. (Galbraith, on the other hand, falls more or less within the age group which is most strongly represented.)

It is, I think, a scandal (which is recognized and commented on everywhere) that the appointment of Samuelson has been prevented again and again. I have been repeatedly asked, more or less discretely, by leading economists at home and abroad, why a man like Samuelson is not at Harvard. Several of my colleagues admit that they have had the same experience. Samuelson has a tremendous reputation abroad. In London, Cambridge and Oxford where I visited last week, everyone was impressed by him and by the lectures he gave there recently.

I know, of course, the arguments which are used against his appointment. Mason, for example, while admitting that he is the most brilliant scholar in the field, says that Galbraith is more useful for the School for Public Administration. But Smithies has just been appointed to the School. If we look at the University as an institution which is primarily interested in extending the limits of scientific knowledge, rather than as a training school for Government officials, the choice between the two men should not be difficult.

Some members of the Department are afraid that Samuelson would enter the crowded field of theory. It is, of course, unavoidable that a brilliant young man would step on the toes of some older men in the Department. That is the nature of progress. But I would say that our Department is large enough and the students numerous enough to absorb a new man without undue hardship on vested interests. With Schumpeter near retiring age, it is time to look for a successor in the field of theory. Moreover, Samuelson could, and I think would, give instruction in the important field of advanced statistics, where we have an embarrassing void at the present time.

I am under no illusion that it will be possible to change the minds of the majority of the Department, although I know that several members who voted for the recommendation of Galbraith feel about it as I do. But the fact that you have prevented the Department on several occasions from making a fool of itself, gives me hope that it may not be too late. Moreover, I wanted to relieve my own conscience.

Very sincerely yours,

[signed]

G. Haberler

H:B

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Gottfried Haberler Paper, Box 12, Folder “J. Kenneth Galbraith”.

Image Source:  Harvard Class Album 1950.

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Memorial Minute for Professor Silas Marcus Macvane, 1914.

 

From this minute from the record of a meeting of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (February 17, 1914), the historian Silas Marcus Macvane (incidentally, a classmate of the first head of the Chicago Department of Political Economy, J. Laurence Laughlin), we see that his first academic appointment was as an Instructor in Political Economy in Harvard College, two years after receiving his B.A. in 1875.  Five years later he was appointed Instructor in History and rose through the ranks in that field. He published nine articles in the Quarterly Journal of Economics up through its ninth volume in 1895.

Note: The copy of the Harvard Album of the Class of 1873 (its “yearbook”) in the Harvard Archives was the personal copy of J. Laurence Laughlin.

________________________

Minute on the Life and Services of Professor Silas Marcus Macvane

The following minute on the life and services of Professor Macvane was placed upon the records of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the meeting of February 17, 1914 : —

Silas Marcus Macvane, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History, Emeritus, died at Rome, Italy, January 19, 1914, in the seventy-second year of his age.

He was born at Bothwell, Prince Edward’s Island, June 4, 1842, of Scotch farming ancestry, and spent his boyhood in the rough but wholesome discipline of farm life. His natural taste for study led him to Acadia College, Nova Scotia, where he was graduated at the age of twenty-three. The six years following were spent in school teaching and in travel and study abroad.

In 1871 he entered the Junior Class in Harvard College, and was graduated here with the Class of 1873. While in College he came under the influence of Professor Henry Adams, to whom the later development of historical study at Harvard upon a scientific basis was largely due.

Immediately after graduation here Macvane married and began teaching in the Roxbury Latin School. There, as grateful pupils still bear witness, he developed that shrewd and sympathetic insight into young human nature which was to mark all his later dealing with more advanced pupils. Two years of teaching boys, however, sufficed to show that Macvane was, as his chief, Principal Collar, used to say, too large a man for that work, and in 1875 he was appointed Instructor in Political Economy in Harvard College. In 1878 he became Instructor in History, in 1883 Assistant Professor, and in 1886 Professor. In 1887 he was assigned to the McLean Professorship, and retained that title until his retirement in 1911, after thirty-six years of continuous service.

During that long period he was called upon by the demands of a rapid departmental expansion to teach at one time or another in every branch of Political Science, in History, Economics, International and Constitutional Law, Modern Government and Political Theory. In all these he showed himself adequately and evenly prepared, and his instruction in each was broadened and enriched by this many-sided preparation. For many years, however, he was especially identified with the instruction in Modern European History, a subject which he inherited directly from his favorite teacher, Henry Warren Torrey of happy memory. His method of teaching was deliberate, with cautious but incisive criticism, appealing to the better elements of his large classes and always commanding the respect of the rest by its obvious sincerity.

As a scholar he represented the older, wholesome tradition which dreaded a narrow specialization, abhorred the parade of curious learning, and shrank from hasty or ill-considered publication.

In the field of Economic Theory he was a recognized authority, and most of his published work was in that subject. He was a frequent contributor to the Quarterly Journal of Economics during the editorship of Professor Dunbar. In historical publication his most important work was a translation and revision of Seignobos’ Political History of Europe since 1814.

As a working member of this Faculty during the critical years in which the system of academic freedom was being worked out into practicable shape, he was a factor always to be reckoned with. His sympathy was with what in those days was rightly described as progressive, but he saw also the perils of too rapid progress. Never a quick debater, he followed carefully the course of discussion and invariably came in at the close with some shrewd comment which brought out the essential point and not infrequently turned the tide of opinion. His command of practical details led to his appointment on the Committee on the Tabular View, and for many years he was its responsible head, performing a thankless task with infinite patience and consideration for the wishes of his colleagues.

He was a sturdy fighter for the best things, a courteous opponent, a loyal friend and a devoted servant of the truth through loyalty to the College which he loved. Patient under prolonged trial, thinking no evil, he gave his life without complaint to the service of others, finding his sufficient reward in the sense of duty well done.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 22, February 21, 1914, p. 149-50  .

 

Economic Publications of Silas Marcus Macvane

Crocker, Uriel H., and S. M. Macvane. “General Overproduction.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 1, no. 3 (1887): 362-66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1882763.

Macvane, S. M. “The Theory of Business Profits.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 2, no. 1 (1887): 1-36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1879348.

__________. “Analysis of Cost of Production.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 1, no. 4 (1887): 481-87. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1879343.

__________. “Business Profits and Wages: A Rejoinder.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 2, no. 4 (1888): 453-68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1879389.

__________. The Working Principles of Political Economy in a New and Practical form: a Book for Beginners. New York: Effingham Maynard & Co., 1890. https://archive.org/details/workingprincipl02macvgoog

__________. “Boehm-Bawerk on Value and Wages.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 5, no. 1 (1890): 24-43. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1880831.

__________. “Capital and Interest.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 6, no. 2 (1892): 129-50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1882544.

__________. “Marginal Utility and Value.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics7, no. 3 (1893): 255-85. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1884004.

__________. “The Austrian Theory of Value.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 4 (1893): 12-41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1009036.

__________. “The Economists and the Public.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 9, no. 2 (1895): 132-50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1885596.

__________. Review of The Letters of John Stuart Mill by Hugh S. R. Eliot, Mary Taylor. The American Economic Review 1, no. 4 (1911): 800-02. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1806884.

 

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Six Economics Ph.D. examinees, 1906-07

 

 

This posting lists six graduate students in economics who took their subject examinations for the Ph.D. at Harvard from April 4 through May 23, 1907, apparently the entire 1906-07 Ph.D. examination cohort. The examination committee members, academic history, general and specific subjects are provided along with the doctoral thesis subject, when declared. Lists for 1903-04, 1904-05, 1915-16, and 1926-27 were posted previously. In the same archival box one finds lists for the academic years 1902-03 through 1904-05, 1906-07 through 1913-14, 1915-16, 1917-18 through 1918-19, and finally 1926-27. I only include graduate students of economics (i.e. not included are the Ph.D. candidates in history and government).

Titles and dates of Harvard economic dissertations for the period 1875-1926 can be found here.

 

________________________________________

 

DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D.

1906-07

 

Arthur Norman Holcombe.

General Examination in Economics, Thursday, April 4, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Lowell, Bullock, Gay, Ripley, and Andrew.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1902-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-07; A.B. (Harvard) 1906.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. [2. Economic History to 1750.] 3. Economic History since 1750. [4. Sociology and Social Reform.] 5. Public Finance. [6. Modern Government and Comparative Constitutional Law.] Excused from further examination in subjects 2, 4, and 6 on account of having taken Highest Final Honors.
Special Subject:
Thesis Subject: “The Telephone Situation.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Walter Wallace McLaren.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, April 10, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Hart, Bullock, Munro, and Andrew.
Academic History: Queen’s University (Canada), 1894-99; Queen’s University Theological College, 1899-1902; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-07; A.M. (Queen’s Univ.) 1899; B.D. (ibid.) 1902.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Sociology and Social Reform. 3. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 4. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization. 5. The History of Canada. 6. Municipal and Local Government.
Special Subject: Canadian Economic History.
Thesis Subject: “History of the Canadian Tariff.” (With Professor Taussig.)

Frank Richardson Mason.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 8, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Channing, Bullock, Gay, Ripley, and Andrew.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1901-05; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-07; A.B. (Harvard) 1905; A.M. (ibid.) 1906.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Economic History since 1750. 4. Money, Banking and Commercial Crises. 5. Social Reform and Industrial Organization. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: United States Economic History (or Crises?).
Thesis Subject: “The Silk Industry in Europe and America.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Charles Phillips Huse.

Special Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 15, 1907.
General Examination passed May 11, 1906.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Stimson, Taussig, Bullock, and Andrew.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1900-03; Harvard Graduate School, 1904-07; A.B. (Harvard) 1904; A.M. (ibid.) 1906.
Special Subject: Public Finance and Financial History.
Thesis Subject: “Financial History of Boston, 1822-1859, with a Preliminary Chapter.” (With Professor Bullock.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Bullock, Taussig, Ripley.

 

William Jackman.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 22, 1907.
Committee: Professors Gay (chairman), Macvane, Taussig, Bullock, Ripley, and Andrew.
Academic History: University of Toronto, 1892-96; University of Pennsylvania, 1899-1900; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-07; A.B. (Univ. of Toronto) 1896; A.M. (ibid.) 1900.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Statistics. 4. Sociology and Social Reform. 5. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization. 6. English History since 1500.
Special Subject: Modern Economic History of England.
Thesis Subject: “The Development of Transportation in Modern England before the Steam Railway Era.” (With Professor Gay.)

 

Edmund Ezra Day.

General Examination in Economics, Thursday, May 23, 1907.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Channing, Taussig, Bullock, Andrew, and Wyman.
Academic History: Dartmouth College, 1901-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-07; S.B. (Dartmouth) 1905; A.M. (ibid.) 1906.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Statistics. 3. Money, Banking and Crises. 4. Public Finance and Financial History. 5. Industrial Organization and Corporation Finance. 6. American Institutions and Constitutional Law.
Special Subject: Taxation.
Thesis Subject: “Taxation of Corporations in Connecticut and Maine.”(?) (With Professor Bullock.)

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1906-1907”.

Image Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 .

Categories
Economists Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Readings for Chinese Economic Problems, 1947

 

Today I thought I would have a light posting, not even a page of readings for a course offered at Harvard University on the Chinese economy in the spring semester of the 1946-47 academic year. Transcribing the reading list itself was child’s play. Next I wanted to get the course enrolment found in the annual report of the Harvard president that also provided the name of the instructor, “Dr. Lindsay”. I had never come across his name so I decided to try to track down Dr. Lindsay. Fortunately that name and China narrows down the field considerably.

Long story short: Michael Francis Morris Lindsay, 2nd Baron Lindsay of Birker certainly led an exciting life before coming to offer that course at Harvard as seen in the newspaper article about his exploits and his obituary. The obituary of his Chinese wife adds a few other details to the story.

I end the post with Lindsay’s list of course readings for Economics 14a: Chinese Economic Problems.

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British economist who aided China’s guerrilla resistance
By Cui Shoufeng

The Telegraph
25 Aug 2015

Englishman Michael Lindsay helped smuggle supplies to guerrilla fighters during the Second World War and spent years behind enemy lines

Michael Lindsay arrived in Beijing in 1938 to teach Keynesian economics, but instead he played an important part in China’s resistance against the Japanese.

The Englishman helped to smuggle supplies to guerrilla fighters during the Second World War and spent years behind enemy lines, where he even started a family.

War had already broken out by the time Lindsay arrived to take up a lecturing post at Yenching University (later Peking University).

The Japanese army’s all-out invasion of China began in July 1937, and three months later the first village massacre was reported in Hopei Province (now Hebei).

In the capital, Lindsay was “distressed by his students’ stories of the way they were treated by the Japanese police at the city gate”, said his granddaughter, Susan Lawrence.

The Washington-based scholar said her grandfather also witnessed appalling acts by the occupying forces.

The economist, just 28, had a life-or-death decision to make: flee or fight?

In the spring on 1938, Lindsay learned of a resistance movement forming outside Beijing and travelled with colleagues to the communist-led Jinchaji base in central China.

Inspired, he returned to the capital and began to send supplies, mostly medicine and radio parts, through secret channels to the guerrilla forces.

Due to his foreign appearance, “the Japanese troops … couldn’t search him like they did to all the locals”, said Prof Lyu Tonglin at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, who is an authority on foreigners involved in China’s resistance during the Second World War.

The economist enlisted the help of a student to re-label the items he bought, to avoid stores facing any backlash if Japanese soldiers intercepted his shipments. That student was Hsiao Li, who later became his wife.

The surprise attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, which led to the United States declaring war on Japan, meant Lindsay’s face no longer protected him, so he and his bride left for the Jinchaji base where he became a full-time radio technician.

To improve communications, he tinkered with the radio sets to make them more powerful, reliable and easier to carry over rough terrain.

Annoyed by the fact that the world — including southern China — knew hardly anything about the resistance in the north, Lindsay offered his expertise to Yan’an, the Communist Party’s central base in Shaanxi province.

A large transmitter and a directional aerial built there by Lindsay enabled the Xinhua News Agency to send reports to Washington.

“Xinhua’s radio broadcasts were of interest to Washington,” Prof Lyu explained. “It wanted to know more about the Japanese deployment and operations.”

Lindsay also wrote notes and took photographs, shared his opinions with overseas contacts, and passed advice and criticism to leaders of the resistance, including Nie Rongzhen, the top commander at Jinchaji.

In his reports to the embassies of the United States and Britain and newspapers, he wrote about what he saw in Jinchaji and Yan’an and said he believed the atrocities by the Japanese would motivate more people to join the resistance.

Securing success lied not only in the guerrillas’ military capabilities, he said, but also in their ability to mobilise the masses. Two of Lindsay and Li’s three children were born during their time in Yan’an.

After the war, the family moved to England where, upon his father’s death the economist became the second Baron Lindsay of Birker, making Li a baroness and Britain’s first Chinese-born peeress.

After a spell teaching in Australia, Lindsay and his family settled in the United States, where he died in 1994. He made only a few low-profile visits to China after the war.

It has been only recently that Lindsay has begun to gain attention in China. Today, more people are hailing him as a rare internationalist who helped the Chinese people through their most diffcult time.

Luo Wangshu contributed to this story, which was originally produced and published by China Daily.

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MICHAEL LINDSAY DIES AT 84

Washington Post
February 22, 1994

Michael Francis Morris Lindsay, 84, retired chairman of the Far East program of the American University School of International Service, died of lymphoma Feb. 13 at his home in Chevy Chase. He had lived in the Washington area for 35 years.

He retired in 1975 after 16 years as a professor of Far Eastern studies at American University. During the 1950s, he was a senior fellow in international relations at Australian National University in Canberra.

Mr. Lindsay was a native of London and a graduate of Oxford University, where he also received a master’s degree in economics. In 1952, he inherited property in the English Lake District county of Cumbria and became Baron Lindsay of Birker. Since then, Mr. Lindsay, an Australian citizen, had sat periodically in the House of Lords.

Mr. Lindsay began his teaching career in Beijing in 1937. He taught economics at Yenching University until 1942. During World War II, he was a technical adviser to the Chinese Communists.

After the war, he was a visiting lecturer in East Asian studies at Harvard University and a lecturer in economics at University College in Hull, England.

He was the author of five books about China, including “The Unknown War.” His articles about China appeared in publications that included the Times of London, the Manchester Guardian and China Quarterly.

He was a member of the Oxford Society of Washington and the Asia Society.

Survivors include his wife, Hsiao Li Lindsay of Chevy Chase; two children, James F. Lindsay, an Australian diplomat now based in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Mary Lindsay Abbott of Knoxville, Tenn.; a brother, Martin Lindsay of Brussels; a sister, Drusila Scott of Aldeburgh, England; and five grandchildren. A daughter, Erica Lindsay, died in December.

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Obituary: Lady Lindsay of Birker

The Telegraph
9 June 2010

Lady Lindsay of Birker, who has died aged 93, was the daughter of a rich Chinese landowner and became a British peeress after falling in love with Michael Lindsay, later the 2nd Lord Lindsay of Birker, an English professor teaching in Beijing in the late 1930s during the Japanese occupation of China.

For four years from 1941 Hsiao Li and her husband performed dangerous work behind enemy lines smuggling radio parts, teaching English and supporting the communist resistance in Yenan in north-west China, for which they won the personal thanks of Mao Tse-tung and other communist commanders.

After the war – but not before attending a farewell dinner thrown by Chairman Mao and his wife – the couple left for Britain, where Michael’s father was the newly ennobled Master of Balliol College, Oxford. The peerage passed to Michael in 1952, making Hsiao Li – the new Lady Lindsay – the first Chinese peeress in history, an event remarked upon by The New York Times.

Hsiao Li was born Li Yueying in Taiyuan, in China’s northern Shanxi province, on July 17 1916. A fine horsewoman, she showed an early rebellious streak, taking part in student demonstrations at Taiyuan Normal University before fleeing to Beijing, where she changed her name after being blacklisted by the authorities.

In Beijing she was admitted to Yenching University, where she met Michael Lindsay, a professor who was already using his protected foreign status to assist the communists in obtaining medical and radio supplies. Hsiao Li, one of his brightest students, was quickly recruited to the cause.

With her parents’ blessing, but nonetheless breaking the taboos of the time, the couple married in June 1941. But their wartime adventures were nearly brought to an end after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that December suddenly rendered Michael liable to arrest as a citizen of an enemy power.

The Japanese, long suspecting the Lindsays’ covert activities, moved quickly to arrest the couple – but not quickly enough. “As we escaped through one gate, the Japanese secret police came through another gate to arrest us,” recalled Hsiao Li in her memoir Bold Plum: With the Guerrillas in China’s War Against Japan, written shortly after the war but not translated into English until 2007.

So began four years of dangerous work behind enemy lines, Michael working in the communists’ all-important Radio Department and later at the New China News Agency while Hsiao Li taught English to the cadres.

Hsiao Li always credited her rebellious character to her father, Li Wenqi, an army officer who in 1912 had defied his landowning family to join Sun Yat Sen’s republican movement, running a training school for a local warlord. When Hsiao Li asked to bind her feet, he refused.

After two years in the guerrilla region, the couple completed a circuitous 500-mile journey on foot to reach the communist HQ in Yenan, taking shelter with local peasants who risked torture and death if discovered by the Japanese.

During that period Hsiao Li gave birth to two children: Erica was delivered in a hut high in the mountains, with no running water or electricity, after a Japanese offensive caused the hospital to be evacuated; James was born in the hospital cave in Yenan.

After moving to Britain, Hsiao Li followed her husband’s career – first to Australia, where Michael Lindsay taught at the Australian National University; and then, in 1959, to Washington, DC, where he had joined the faculty of the Far Eastern programme at American University. They remained in Washington after he retired in 1975.

In 1949 and 1954 the couple made two visits to China – where Hsiao Li said she “never stopped thinking” of living – but in 1958 they were refused visas after Michael criticised the communist leadership; his wife later revealed that he had supported the leadership not out of ideological sympathy but because he believed in the patriotic right of the Chinese to resist occupation.

Later Hsiao Li, who became a United States citizen in 1975, would echo Soong May-ling, the wife of Chiang Kai-shek, in saying that China’s totalitarian system was “worse than Hitler or Stalin”, remarking in one speech reported in the American press in 1975 that the communists had “destroyed individual belief in one’s self and have ignored human dignity”.

It was not until the late 1970s, after the death of Mao Tse-tung, that the couple were able to return to China. They made extensive visits, renewing acquaintances with old friends from their Yenan days, among them now some of the most senior members of the Chinese government.

Within six weeks of her husband’s death in 1994 Hsiao Li returned to live full time in China, taking up the offer of a Beijing apartment provided by the Chinese government “in gratitude” for her work during the wartime years. She remained in the Chinese capital until 2003, when she returned to Washington to live with her granddaughter, Susan Lawrence.

Hsiao Li Lindsay, who died on April 25, is survived by her son James (the 3rd Lord Lindsay of Birker) and another daughter, Mary Lindsay Abbott. Erica died in 1993.

Note: an English translation of her account of the war years in China was published: Hsiao Li Lindsay, Bold Plum (2006).

_____________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 14a. (spring term) Dr. Lindsay.—Chinese Economic Problems.

Total 13. 5 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 2 Business School.

 

Source: Harvard University, Reports of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1946-47, p. 69.

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Course Readings: Chinese Economic Problems

Economics 14a
1946-47

J. B. Condliffe: China Today, Economic; Ch. 195.132.5
R. H. Tawney: Land and Labour in China; Ec. 6444.232
Chen Ta: Population in Modern China; Ch. 194.146
G. B. Cressey: China’s Geographical Foundations; Ch. 189.34
J. L. Buck: Land Utilization in China; Ec. 6444.237
———— Chinese Farm Economy; Ec. 6444.230.2
Fei Hsiao-tung; Peasant Life in China; Ch. 195.139
——————- Earthbound China; Ec. 6444.245
Chen Han-seng: Landlord and Peasant in China; Ec. 6444.236
——————– Industrial Capital and the Chinese Peasant; Soc. 1405.240
R. P. Hommel: China at Work; Ch. 189.37.20
D. K. Lieu: Chinese Industry and Finance; Ch. 195.127 B
F. M. Tamagna: Banking and Finance in China; Ch. 196.42
W. Y Lin: The New Monetary System of China; Ch. 196.57
Chang Kai-ngau: China’s Struggle for Railway Development
H. D. Fong: Post-war Industrialization of China; Ch. 195.01
—————– China’s Industrialization; Oc. 3.9.60

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. HUC 8522.2.1 Box 4, Folder “Economics 1946-47”.

Image Source: Michael Lindsay tuning a radio receiver at the Jinchaji base in Hebel province, sometime between 1941 and 1944. China Daily April 8, 2015.

Categories
Barnard Columbia Economists

Columbia. Budgeting John Bates Clark’s Salary After His Retirement, ca. 1911

 

The following undated memorandum comes from Prof. E.R.A. Seligman’s papers in a folder of Columbia related material for 1911-1913. From the Bulletin of the Faculty of Political Science we know that Prof. Simkhovitch took over Clark’s course on socialism in 1908 (Seligman below writes that Simkhovitch gave a similar course “at Columbia for the last two or three years”). Robert E. Chaddock took up the statistics assistant professorship mentioned in the memo in 1911. So it is pretty clear that this memorandum was written to motivate the economics department decision not to seek a senior professor with the funds released by Clark’s retirement but instead divided the funds between hiring someone for statistics, additional compensation for Henry Roger Seager to continue his teaching a labor course at Barnard and additional compensation for Professor Vladimir Simkhovitch to take over Clark’s course on Socialism at Barnard.

_____________________________

MEMORANDUM in reference to PROFESSOR CLARK’S RETIREMENT.

Professor Clark’s retirement is a serious loss to the Department of Economics and to Barnard College. Ordinarily the withdrawal of such a distinguished member of the faculty should lead to the appointment of a successor of equal prominence. In this case, however, there is no one of equal distinction available, and after making a thorough and impartial survey of the field, the department is convinced that it will be wiser to call the most promising younger man to be found as assistant professor then to call in a full professor who might prove disappointing. This plan has the advantage, moreover, of permitting a readjustment of the courses in economics to be open to Barnard students that would be highly advantageous for the College.

It will be remembered that when the original arrangement was entered into the trustees of Barnard agreed to provide the sum of $5,000 toward the higher or university work in economics at Columbia, on condition that certain courses at Columbia be open to women graduates, and on the further understanding that the Department of Economics should provide six hours a week of lectures in economics to Barnard Seniors at Barnard College. Later on, by special arrangement with Dean Gill, as ratified by the trustees, it was provided that two of these six hours might be given at Columbia instead of Barnard. It is now proposed to readjust the courses so as to provide ampler opportunities for Barnard students.

In considering the interests of Barnard, three facts should be held in view. First, experience has shown that merely throwing open courses given at Columbia to Barnard students fails adequately to meet their needs. The plan adopted when Professor Clark was called here of having six hours advanced work in economics given at Barnard ought to be reintroduced. Second, the number of students desiring to take advanced work in economics is steadily increasing and for their benefit every opportunity should be seized which will open to them additional courses at Columbia. Third, the most important field of economics study not now covered by the courses offered at Barnard is that of economic and social statistics. Not only does the ordinary student need a knowledge of statistical methods to apply economic theories to the facts of every day life, but Barnard graduates are concerned to an ever increasing extent with different forms of social service. Some become the paid agents of settlement, charitable societies or municipal departments concerned with social work. Others become officers in reform and charitable organizations. For both classes, training in the manipulation and interpretation of statistics would be of great value.

Having regard to these three facts the plan which the Department of Economics recommends is as follows: –

(1) that $2,500 of the $5,000 released by Professor Clark’s withdrawal be used to pay the salary of an assistant professor, who shall give a course on social and economic statistics to Barnard Seniors. While this professor under the terms of the original agreement, is to be primarily a graduate professor, he may, if so desired, be asked temporarily to relieve Professor Mussey of one of the Junior sections in Economics A1–A2 in exchange for a university course by Professor Mussey. It is also proposed that in further recognition of a similar course to be given by the new instructor at Columbia and of supervising work in the statistical laboratory at Columbia, which might be open to Barnard students for research work, the Department of Economics should admit Barnard Seniors to Columbia courses given by Professors Seligman, Giddings, Seager, and Mussey, that is, Sociology 151-152, Economics 101-2, Economics 107-108, Economics 106, and Economics 104.

(2) That Professor Seager be asked to continue his course on the Labor Problem at Barnard and that a contribution of $1,500 towards his salary be paid out of the $5,000 released. Professor Clark’s withdrawal will add to Professor Seager’s burdens at Columbia and his natural inclination would be to meet the situation by discontinuing his course at Barnard. If he continues his course it seems but fair that a contribution toward his salary should be paid out of Barnard funds.

(3) That Professor Simkhovitch be asked to give at Barnard the course on Socialism and Social Reform formerly given by Professor Clark and that the remaining $1,000 of the $5,000 fund be contributed to his salary. Fortunately Professor Simkhovitch is specially qualified to give such a course acceptably, having given a similar course at Columbia for the last two or three years.

By carrying out this plan the Barnard trustees will not only secure a reintroduction of the six hours of advanced instruction in economics for the special benefit of Barnard Seniors, courses even better adapted to the present needs of such Seniors than those previously given, but will also secure admission for Barnard students to eight of the most valuable courses in economics and social science offered at Columbia, without any increase in the appropriation for economic instruction. Inasmuch as at the present time only four hours are given to Barnard Seniors, and only five Columbia courses are open to them, we believe that the plan is fair to all concerned and that it will prove highly advantageous to Barnard College.

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson Collection. Box 98a, Folder “Columbia (A-Z) 1911-1913”.

Image Source:  Barnard College student council. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.

Categories
Chicago Courses Economists Gender Home Economics

Chicago. Remedial Economics Course for Entering Graduate Students, Hazel Kyrk. 1926

 

Today’s artifact documents a working link between the educational programs of the Chicago Department of Political Economy and the Department of Home Economics and Household Administration in the person of Hazel Kyrk, a pioneer in the fields of consumer and family economics. From the brief memo written by the chair of the department of political economy, L. C. Marshall, we see that Kyrk was tasked with teaching a course that would be open to seniors in the College and to entering graduate students for either home economics or economics “who have not had work in this field”. By “advanced” one presumes an accelerated introductory course perhaps covering the material of a couple of freshman level courses. Still it is interesting to see that a graduate student in 1926, completely innocent of all formal economic training, could start the graduate program of economics with (or after) only a quarter of remedial education.

I have added to this post the course listings for the year before the creation of the new course Economics 202 (The Economic Order, Advanced Course) and the following year.

For more about Hazel Kyrk: Andrea H. Beller and D. Elizabeth Kiss. “On the Contribution of Hazel Kyrk to Family Economics” (June 2008). 

A chronology of her career is included on my page of Chicago economics Ph.D.’s 1894-1926. 

_______________________________________

 

Carbon Copy of Memo from L.C. Marshall

May 22, [19]26

[To:] J. M. Clark, P. H. Douglas, J. A. Field, Hazel Kyrk, L. W. Mints, H. A. Millis, W. H. Spencer, C. W. Wright, Jacob Viner

[From:] L. C. Marshall

I have arranged with Miss Blunt to have Home Economics 141 dropped and to substitute for this course Economics 202, The Economic Order, Advanced Course, prerequisite 18 majors, given by Miss Hazel Kyrk.

As will be apparent from this statement Miss Kyrk’s work will serve as a one major survey of the economic order for senior college and graduate students who have had no previous work in economics. There is a considerable constituency of such persons who need this work as a preliminary to their work in Home Economics. Then, too, as time goes on we shall probably be under the necessity of offering this course once each quarter for our own senior college and first year graduate students who have not had work in this field. This latter matter, however, is one for later adjustment.

LCM:MLN

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics. Records. Box 22, Folder 7.

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General and (Some) Intermediate Course Listings

1925-26

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES

A. General Survey Course

101*. Industrial Society.—Mj. Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring, Professor Marshall and Others.

[*Limited-credit course: After a student has credit for 18 majors but less than 27, this course will be credited at one-half major; after he has credit for 27 majors, it will not be credited at all.]

See also Home Economics 141. The Household in Modern Industrial Society.

 

B. Intermediate Courses

201. Principles of Economics.—Mj. Spring, —

[…]

Source: University of Chicago. Annual Register covering the Academic Year Ending June 30, 1925, with Announcements for the Year 1925-1926. P. 146.

1926-27

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES

A. General Survey Course

101. Industrial Society.—Mj. Summer, 8:00, Dr. Montgomery.

102*, 103, 104. The Economic Order I, II, III.—Mj. Autumn, Winter, and Spring, Professor Marshall and Others.

[*Limited-credit course: After a student has credit for 18 majors but less than 27, this course will be credited at one-half major; after he has credit for 27 majors, it will not be credited at all.]

 

B. Intermediate Courses

201. Principles of Economics.—Mj. Winter, 10:00, Mr. Palyi; Spring, —

202. Economic Order, Advanced Course.—Mj. Autumn, 1:30, Associate Professor Kyrk and Assistant Professor Mints.

[…]

 

Source: University of Chicago. Annual Register covering the Academic Year Ending June 30, 1926, with Announcements for the Year 1926-1927. P. 138.

 

 

1927-28

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES

A. General Survey Course

102*, 103, 104. The Economic Order I, II, III.—Mj. Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring, 8:00, 11:00 and 1:30, Professor Marshall and Others.

[*Limited-credit course: After a student has credit for 18 majors but less than 27, this course will be credited at one-half major; after he has credit for 27 majors, it will not be credited at all.]

See also Home Economics 141. The Household in Modern Industrial Society.

 

B. Intermediate Courses

201. Intermediate Economic Theory.—Mj. Autumn, Winter, Spring, 8:00, Professor Douglas, Associate Professor Sorrell, and Assistant Professor Cox

202. Economic Order.—Mj. Autumn, Winter, and Spring, 9:00, Associate Professor Kyrk and Assistant Professor Mints.

[…]

Source: University of Chicago. Annual Register covering the Academic Year Ending June 30, 1927, with Announcements for the Year 1927-1928. P. 162.

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Image Source: Photo of Hazel Kyrk from her 1918 U. S. Passport Application. National Archives. Roll 0504, 20 April 1918.

 

 

 

Categories
Chicago Economists

Chicago. Visiting Professorship Offered Schumpeter for 1926

 

Joseph Schumpeter did not teach at the University of Chicago in 1926 but he was sent a cable offering him $4000 to teach  during the  five months April through August 1926. No reply was filed with the exchange of letters between the President’s Office and the Department of Political Economy and the copy of the cable sent to Schumpeter’s address in Vienna. I would guess that the Chicago colleagues were unaware that Schumpeter had just been appointed to a professorship in Bonn in 1925. In November 1925 Schumpeter was married in a Lutheran church in Vienna, so perhaps he actually saw the informal offer.

I have added “[sic]” after the street address given for Schumpeter in Vienna. An umlaut was added, presumably by someone who thought Schumpeter’s street could use a diacritical mark. The street got its name to honor the Royal Counselor (and unumlauted) Johann Peter Strudel von Strudenhof (1648-1714).

Salaries for the 1926-27 year (found in the budget recommendations for 1927-1928) ranged from $8000 for the head of the department, L. C. Marshall (Professor) through $6000 for Jacob Viner (Professor) to $3250 for L.W. Mints (Assistant Professor) so that $4000 for two quarters of teaching was a pretty generous offer.

______________________________________________

Letter from Vice President Tufts to Professor Field

[COPY]

8 October 1925

Professor James A. Field
Faculty Exchange

Dear Professor Field:

Confirming our conversation, it was the judgment of the President in consultation with Mr. Arnett and myself that in view of our present financial situation we could not go beyond the provision of the budget as would be required if Professor Schumpeter were to be invited for three quarters. The suggestion was made for the consideration of the Department that it might consider an offer, preferable for one quarter or perhaps for two quarters, one of these to be the summer quarter, for which there would be funds in the present budget. If he were to be invited for two quarters the understanding is that he might be offered four thousand dollars. If for a single quarter a larger proportionate sum would doubtless be necessary, as for example twenty-five hundred dollars, although we have had several distinguished men from Europe for the summer quarter whom we have paid eighteen hundred or two thousand dollars.

The Department will of course consider whether this appointment would be its best use of the available funds.

Very truly yours,

James H. Tufts

JHT.p

______________________________________________

 

Response by Prof. Field to Vice-President James H. Tufts

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

October 8th, 1925.

Mr. James H. Tufts,
Vice-president
The University of Chicago

Dear Mr. Tufts:

At our departmental meeting this noon we discussed at some length the proposal to invite Professor Schumpeter to give instruction here in the Spring and Summer quarters of the coming year. We were unanimously of the opinion that both our Summer schedule and our general departmental situation would be very much strengthened if Professor Schumpeter could be induced to come on the terms suggested in your memorandum, namely four thousand dollars ($4,000) for the two quarters.

We shall be glad, therefore, if the president’s office will extend an invitation to Professor Schumpeter. In order that we may lose no time, either in reaching him or in obtaining his tentative answer, we suggest that a cablegram be sent him asking if he would consider an appointment on the proposed terms, requesting an answer by return cable, and indicating that if his provisional answer is favorable we will write him a letter explaining fully the sort of arrangement we are proposing and the character of the work which would be assigned to him. The cablegram should presumably specify the actual dates at which his term of service would begin and end. Professor Schumpeter’s address is Strüdlhofgasse [sic] 17, Vienna IX.

If you feel that you need any additional information before you cable Professor Schumpeter will you be good enough to let me know at once? Our hope of getting him probably depends on quick action.

Sincerely yours,

[signed| James A. Field

JAP-mk

______________________________________________

 

WESTERN UNION CABLEGRAM

October 12, 1925

Professor Schumpeter
Strüdlhofgasse [sic] 17
Vienna IX

Would you consider teaching this university April first to September first next Cable and if yes letter will explain details Honorarium four thousand dollars

President University Chicago

Prepay and charge
The University of Chicago (President’s Office)

 

Source: University of Chicago, Department of Special Collections. Office of the President. Mason Administration. Records. Box 24, Folder “24/1 Economics Department appointments and budgets 1925-1927”.

Categories
Columbia Computing Economists

Columbia. Chaddock’s Request for Funding for his Statistical Laboratory, 1911.


From time to time I like to add a little budgetary detail.  For the year 1911-12 assistant professor Robert E. Chaddock’s salary was $2500 (the top professor salary in economics, $6000, went to Henry R. Seager). Today’s post is a request for $500 of additional funds for the 1911-12 budget for the statistical laboratory run by Chaddock.  I add some biographical material for Chaddock (the photograph from the 1919 Barnard College yearbook is the only picture of him I have been able to find in my online search), including the Columbia Spectator’s report of his suicide in 1940.

Earlier posts at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror concerning the purchase of calculating equipment for economic research were:  1928 (Henry Schultz at Chicago) and  1948 (George Stigler at Columbia).

______________________________

Source: Barnard College, Mortarboard, 1919.

Memorial:  Frederick E. Croxton, “Robert Emmet Chaddock, 1879-1940,” Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 36, No. 213 (March, 1941), pp. 116-119.

 

______________________________

 

Copy of letter by Seligman to Butler

December 18, 1911

Nicholas Murray Butler, LL.D.,

President, Columbia University

New York.

Dear President Butler:-

I have asked Professor Chaddock, our new assistant professor of statistics, to give me a report of the work that has been done in the statistical laboratory this year. I take pleasure in sending a copy of his report herewith and with your permission I should like to amend the budget letter of the Department, if that is still practicable, to the extent of asking for a special appropriation of $500 for the statistical laboratory, the amount to be expended for the statistical machine and for such supplies, charts, atlases, etc. which would not properly come under the head of the library appropriation.

You will remember that two or three years ago you were kind enough to secure a special appropriation of $500 for some comptometers for the laboratory. That amount was not included in our budget letter. Perhaps this also could be taken care of in a similar way.

Respectfully,

[unsigned copy, E.R.A. Seligman]

SE-S

______________________________

Copy of letter by Chaddock to Seligman

C O P Y

December 18, 1911

Professor E. R. A. Seligman,

Columbia University.

Dear Professor Seligman:

As suggested, I am sending you this letter to describe the work and needs of the statistical laboratory. On the theory that the laboratory is a place for practice and a place where sources of information may be found, it has been our aim this year to keep the laboratory open between the hours of 9 A.M. and 6 P.M. Much of the time some men have been found there at its opening and closing hours.

The class in elementary statistics numbers about 45, of whom 40 are engaged in doing actual laboratory work in addition to the two hours of lectures weekly. Our plan has been to divide the lecture group into five sections for their laboratory work, meeting Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at nine o’clock and Monday and Wednesday at eleven o’clock, in addition to lectures Monday and Wednesday at ten o’clock. By this plan the groups are reduced to eight or ten men and scientific work is possible. The lecture work is made concrete to each individual through his own work and his misconceptions are checked and corrected by personal supervision. The student is thus enabled also to know and to use the mechanical aids without which the work of the statistician would be largely impossible today.

Besides the class in elementary statistics, there are students who, having had the lecture work, are engaged in writing their dissertation which involves statistical work. The laboratory offers facilities for work of this character and should aim to make it possible to turn out better digested statistical material in our dissertations.

An effort is being made to provide in the laboratory sources of information contained in Federal, State, and City reports and in reports of special investigations. Periodical document lists of the State and Federal governments are kept convenient for reference.

The effort has also been made to get into touch by correspondence and personal conference, with the practical statistical work being done in the city both by public and private agencies, with the view of impressing the student with the concrete problems of statistical work and with the importance of a working knowledge of how to use and judge supposed facts.

It would seem also to be important that the statistical laboratory at Columbia, by its equipment, demonstrate to all who see it and use it what the ordinary working equipment of a statistician ought to be, what the sources of information are, and how they may be handled.

In view of these aims we venture to set forth certain needs, the satisfaction of which conditions the complete efficiency of the laboratory:

(1) One calculating machine of “Millionaire” or “Ensign” type—probably $250 or $300. The present equipment of machines is not adequate to keep a group busy without loss of time.

(2) A Statistician’s working library to be kept on the laboratory shelves. Some appropriation toward this library which is to contain the chief works on theory and method as well as special sources, i.e., Webb, Dictionary of Statistics.

(3) 10 copies of Barlow’s tables of squares, cubes, etc., up to 10,000 @ 6 s. each—60 s.

(4) 10 copies of Peter’s Multiplication and division tables at 15 s. each—150 s.

(5) Provision for a card file in the laboratory itself of all the statistical material available in the library so that the student in statistics may have a ready reference. Also for the purpose of recording all documents and sources received and kept in the laboratory itself.

(6) Provision for securing portraits of certain men most prominent in the development of statistical science, for the laboratory walls, i.e. Pearson, Quetelet, Engel, La Place, etc.

Attempts have been made by correspondence and conference, and will be made, to find out the best equipment for a laboratory such as ours and we ask your cooperation.

Sincerely,

(signed) Robert E. Chaddock.

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Papers of Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman, Box 98A, Folder “Columbia (A-Z) 1911-1913”.

 

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Professor Chaddock Dies in Fall
Sociology Head, 61, Plunges from Roof; Believed a Suicide

 

Dr. Robert Emmet Chaddock. Professor of Statistics and head of the Columbia Department of Sociology, died yesterday morning at 11:20 after falling eleven stories from the roof of his apartment house at 39 Claremont Avenue. He was sixty-one years old.

It is believed that Dr. Chaddock’s death was a suicide.

Professor Chaddock left his apartment on the fifth floor at 10 A.M., the usual hour he left for his office, and walked to the roof of the building. He was dressed in an overcoat and hat, and carried a brief case and an umbrella.

Shortly after 11 A.M., a maid from an adjoining apartment, Ethel Anderson, discovered him sitting on the parapet on the west side of the building. She called the elevator boy, but before either could summon assistance, Dr. Chaddock jumped or fell to the courtyard below. He left his overcoat, hat, brief case and glasses along the edge of the roof.

Worried About Wife

Seemingly In good health and spirit prior to his death, it was learned on good authority yesterday that the 61-year old professor had been worried over the health of his wife, Mrs. Rose A. Chaddock, who survives him. Dr. Chaddock left no communication, but fatigue and overwork were some of the motives put forth as possible causes of his death.

A daughter, Mrs. Parker Soule of Roswell, New Mexico, is his only other survivor. She was in Roswell at the time of the accident.

Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of the University headed the list of bereaved faculty associates. In a statement to The Spectator yesterday, Dr. Butler stated:

“Our whole University family is stupefied and heartbroken at the tragic death of Professor Chaddock. Himself a scholar of outstanding importance and large influence in his chosen field, we all held him in affectionate friendship and looked forward to many years yet of continuing accomplishment. Our feeling at this sudden ending of his life is too deep to be put into words.”

Speaking for the entire Sociology Department of which he has been acting in the capacity of chairman for the past two weeks, Dr. Willard W. Waller, Associate Professor of Sociology, stated, “We have lost a sincere friend and a valued colleague. That is the sentiment of Fayerweather Hall.”

Dr. Chaddock was born in Minerva, Ohio on April 16, 1879. A member of the University faculty for thirty-one years, he was Professor of Sociology and Statistics since 1922.

Held Two Degrees

His degrees included A.B. Wooster College, Wooster, Ohio; LL.D. (Hon.) 1929. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa; Fellow of the American Statistical Association, American Public Health Association and the Population Association of America and a member of the American Sociological Society.

He was one of the founders of the Cities Census Committee which developed the “census tract” unit for enumeration and tabulation of population and other types of data in New York City. This “census tract” idea has now been adopted by many cities, following the lead of New York.

Dr. Chaddock’s book, “Principle and Methods in Statistics,” published in 1925, has long been accepted as the standard text in the field.

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LXIV, Number 20, 22 October 1940.

 

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Comptometer

 

Comptometers were made by the Felt & Tarrant Manufacturing Company of Chicago, Illinois and the initial patent holder was Dorr E. Felt. This is a very unusual model in black paint and gold decorations. Almost all Comptometers are in copper patena or polished copper housings. While there are some very rare listing (printing) models, the ones most often found do not have printing capability as is the case with this particular one. The Comptometer was probably the most important adding machine or calculator ever made. The first one (model one) was made with an all wooden case (see the model one in our collection) and came out in 1887 and the last one was made with an cast aluminum case sometime in the early 1960s. The people who operated them (usually women) were also called comptometers and the modern term for the person in charge of an accounting department, Comptroller, is the evolution of the name comptometer (operators titles). The more modern term for the chief accountant, Controller, is also an evolution from Comptometer. The last listed patent date on this Comptometer is 1914 and that is most likely, or very close to, the year it was manufactured. This machine comes with its original tin case and the case is prlobably more rare than the machine. Both the machine and the case have an estimated condition rating of 2+, 2.

Source: Comptometer at Branford House Antiques Website.

 

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Millionaire Calculator

This lever-set, manually operated non-printing calculating machine has a brass mechanism and a metal case with lid. The lid and the flat plates that cover the mechanism are painted black. The carriage is entirely contained within the case. The machine carries out direct multiplication.
Ten German silver levers are pulled forward to set up numbers. A crank left of these may be set anywhere between 0 and 9 for direct multiplication and division. A lever right of the digit levers may be set at addition, multiplication, division, or subtraction. Right of it is the operating crank. A row of ten windows in front of the levers shows the number set on the levers. It is labeled DIVISOR.
In front of this is the carriage, with two other rows of windows. The row closest to the levers (further from the front) indicates the multiplier or quotient. The other row shows the result or the dividend. The result windows are labeled DIVIDEND and may be set with a dividend using thumbscrews. The carriage has zeroing knobs for both these registers. Holes for decimal markers are between the digits of all three registers. Between the front two registers, at left, is a button used to shift the carriage. A bell rings if the number in the result window changes sign (as when subtraction produces a negative number).
A paper sheet inside the lid gives instructions for operating the machine and related tables, along with a cleaning brush and key. The stand is stored separately.
A mark on the middle of the front of the machine reads: THE MILLIONAIRE. A metal tag on the right reads: Hans W. Egli (/) Ingenieur (/) Fabrikation von Rechenmaschinen (/) Pat. O. Steiger (/) ZURICH II. A metal tag on the left reads: W.A. Morschhauser (/) SOLE AGENT (/) 1 Madison Avenue (/) NEW YORK CITY. Just under this tag is stamped the serial number: No 2609. A mark on the carriage next to the result register reads: PTD MAY 7TH 1895. SEPT. 17TH 1895. Scratched in the middle of the front of the machine is the mark: FOR PARTS ONLY.
For related documentation see MA*319929.03 through MA*319929.07.
Daniel Lewin has estimated that Millionaire calculating machines with serial number 1600 date from 1905, and those with serial number 2800, from 1910. Hence the rough date of 1909 is assigned to the object.
This calculating machine was used by the physicist William F. Meggars of the United States National Bureau of Standards.

 

Source: Smithsonian. The National Museum of American History.

 

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Ensign Model 90 Calculating Machine

This full-keyboard direct multiplication non-printing electric calculating machine has an iron and steel case painted black, The nine columns of plastic black and white keys are colored according to the place values represented. Complementary digits are indicated on the keys. Keys for odd digits are concave, and those for even ones are flat. The keyboard is covered with green felt.

Right of the number keys is an addition bar. Considerably to the right of this is a key to be depressed in division and ten digit keys used to enter digits directly in multiplication. To the left of the keyboard is a key marked “C” that, when depressed, locks the keyboard. A row of seven number dials serves as a revolution counter. These dials are covered with glass.

On the left side is a handle for clearing the revolution counter and result register. Behind the keyboard and revolution counter, inside the machine, in a row of 16 number dials recording the result. These dials are also covered with glass. They are deep within the machine, and difficult to read. The result register may be divided to record two results simultaneously. The base of the case is open, with a cloth cover inside it. This example has no motor.

A mark on the front of the machine reads: The Ensign. A mark on the right side reads: ENSIGN (/) MANUFACTURING CO. (/) BOSTON, U.S.A. (/) PATENTED (/) NOV. 1, 1904. – JAN. 2, 1906. (/) JULY 9, 1907. – FEB. 18, 1908 (/) JUNE 2, 1908. (/) OTHER PATENTS PENDING.

The Ensign was an early example of an electrically operated calculating machine. The Ensign Manufacturing Company of Waltham, Massachusetts is listed in Thomas’ Register for 1909. The dates on the machine refer to dates of patents of Emory S. Ensign, who was president of the company. The Ensign Manufacturing Company of Boston, Massachusetts, is listed in Thomas’ Register for 1912, 1914, 1915, 1916, and 1917. It was not listed in 1918. By this time, Ensign seems to have moved to Queens, New York. The machine was manufactured until about 1925.

 

Source: Smithsonian. The National Museum of American History.

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

 

 

Categories
Chicago Economists Harvard

Harvard. Jacob Viner Beats Paul Douglas for Ricardo Prize Scholarship, 1916

 

Jacob Viner and Paul Douglas were not only colleagues at the University of Chicago, they also overlapped briefly in graduate school at Harvard in 1915-16. The Ricardo prize scholarship  that they both competed for was worth $350 and considerably exceeded the regular annual tuition-fee, e.g., for a newly enrolled (1916-17) full-time, resident student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences annual tuition was $200. Since both were already enrolled in 1915-16, they would have been charged the tuition fee published in the earlier catalogue for 1915-16 that I have not yet hunted down. One might  speculate that Douglas had hoped to complete his Ph.D. at Harvard but that he needed to win the scholarship…or perhaps “honorable mention” was not honorable enough for him. In any event, Douglas went on to receive his Ph.D. from Columbia University. In all fairness, Viner was in his second year at Harvard and could use the Ricardo prize scholarship exam in April as a dress rehearsal for his Ph.D. examinations that he took the next month.

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Ricardo Prize Exam. Will be Held in Upper Dane Tomorrow

Harvard Crimson, April 4, 1916

The Ricardo Prize Scholarship examination will be held in Upper Dane Hall tomorrow at 2 o’clock. The scholarship is valued at $350, and is open to anyone who is this year a member of the University, and who will next year be either a member of the Senior class or of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Each candidate will write in the examination room an essay on a topic chosen by himself from a list not previously announced, in economics and political science. In addition, statements of previous studies, and any written work, must be submitted by every candidate to the Chairman of the Department of Economics not later than the time of the examination. The man who wins the scholarship must devote the majority of his time next year to economics and political studies.

________________________

Ricardo Prize Scholarship

The Ricardo Prize Scholarship for 1916-17 has been awarded to Jacob Viner, A.M., of Montreal, Quebec, a second-year student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Honorable mention has been awarded to Paul Howard Douglas, A.M., of Cambridge, a first-year student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. XI, No. 34, May 13, 1916, p. 181 .

Image Source: Collage of details taken from photos apf1-08488 (Viner) and  apf1-05851 (Douglas) from University of Chicago Photographic Archive, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

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Harvard and Chicago. Harvard Class of 1873 reports from J. Laurence Laughlin 1879-1913


James Laurence Laughlin (1850-1933) was the founding head of the Department of Political Economy at the University of Chicago. One earlier post provided a mid-career biographical sketch of Laughlin and another his proposal at Cornell to expand the economics course offerings. Also of interest is his list of suggested titles for a personal library of economics as of 1887.

When compared to the notes submitted to the respective Harvard Class Secretaries,   Frank W. Taussig (Class of 1879) or Robert Franz Foerster (Class of 1909), Laughlin appears to have had a less intense filial attachment to his alma mater.

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1879

JAMES LAWRENCE [sic] LAUGHLIN.

Secretary has heard nothing from him. At last accounts he was teaching school in Boston

Source: The Second Triennial Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 of Harvard College. Boston, Geo. H. Ellis Press, Commencement 1879. Page 18.

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1883

JAMES LAWRENCE [sic] LAUGHLIN.

Received degree of Ph. D. from Harvard in 1876 and was appointed instructor in Political Economy in 1878. Has been made Assistant Professor in the same department the current year. Has been a contributor to the “Atlantic,” “International,” etc. Was married September 9, 1875, to Alice McGuffey of Cincinnati. A daughter, Agatha, was born January 3, 1880, and his wife died January 11, 1880.

Source: The Third Triennial Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 of Harvard College. Newport, Davis & Pitman, Commencement 1883. Page 17.

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1885

JAMES LAWRENCE [sic] LAUGHLIN.

Assistant professor of political economy at Cambridge. Has published ” Laughlin’s Mill’s Political Economy,” and written a few magazine articles. Was married to Miss H. M. Pitman, Sept. 4, 1883.

Source: The Fourth Triennial Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 of Harvard College. Boston, Rand, Avery, & Co., Commencement 1885. Page 14.

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1888

JAMES LAURENCE LAUGHLIN.

626 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. “I have written a new book : ‘The Elements of Political Economy; with some applications to Questions of the Day,’ in 1887, and it has gone into a second edition. ‘Gold and Prices since 1873;’ a study on the so-called appreciation of gold, etc., etc. My ‘History of Bimetalism,’ has gone into its second edition; and my edition of ‘Mill,’ into its fourth or fifth. I have resigned my position in Cambridge, and

have come to Philadelphia to take the management of an Insurance Co., the ‘Philadelphia Manufacturers Mutual Fire Insurance Co.;’ but shall continue my economic writing.”

Source: The Fifth Triennial Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 of Harvard College. Boston, S. J. Parkhill & Co., Commencement 1888. Page 21.

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1891

JAMES LAWRENCE [sic] LAUGHLIN.
“I am Professor of Political Economy and Finance at Cornell University and see Jack White every day. These are my two distinctions since last writing.”

[…]

HORATIO STEVENS WHITE.

“I have just finished my third year as Dean of the Faculty. This spring I was called to the chair of Germanic languages in the new Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. The trustees here meanwhile appointed me as head of the German department with an increase in salary. The California offer however remains open, and I shall visit the Pacific coast next winter and study the situation on the spot before coming to a final decision. Our Faculty baseball nine, which has been organized for several years, continues to win a majority of its games with various student clubs. The chair of Political Economy left vacant by the resignation of Professor E. B. Andrews, who was elected President of the Brown University, has been filled by the appointment of our classmate Laughlin, who has occupied the position this year with general acceptance. As a result of his efforts the trustees have decided to appoint an associate professor in the department, to establish two special fellowships in Political Economy, and to place at his disposal a generous publication fund. The University is to be congratulated upon this able contribution which ’73 has thus made to our Faculty.”

Source: The Sixth Triennial Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 of Harvard College. Boston, S. J. Parkhill & Co., Commencement 1891. Pp. 19, 39.

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1898

JAMES LAWRENCE [sic] LAUGHLIN.

5747 Lexington Ave., Chicago, I11. Taught school in Boston, and took degree of Ph.D. at Cambridge in 1876. Was appointed instructor in Political Economy at Harvard in 1878 and Assistant Professor in 1883. In 1888 he was in Philadelphia, where he had the management of the Philadelphia Manufacturers’ Mutual Fire Insurance Co. Subsequently he was Professor of Political Economy and Finance at Cornell, and is now at Chicago University in a similar capacity. He has devoted much time to writing on political economy and finance, and has published some important books on those subjects.

Source: The Seventh Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 of Harvard College Issued upon the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Graduation. Boston, S. J. Parkhill & Co., Commencement 1898. Page 23.

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1905

JAMES LAWRENCE [sic] LAUGHLIN.

Since 1892 he has been Head Professor of the department of Political Economy in the University of Chicago. For some years he has been editor of the “Journal of Political Economy.” He served on the Monetary Commission appointed by the Indianapolis Convention of Boards of Trade, in 1898, and was entrusted with the preparation of the report which appeared in a volume of six hundred and eight pages. In 1894 he was invited to prepare a currency law for Santo Domingo. The visit to the island on a special steamer, the negotiations with the government, the enactment of the law and its provisions, were subsequently published in the “Journal of Political Economy.” In 1902 he published the first volume of a magnum opus on money. This volume, “The Principles of Money,” will be followed by five succeeding volumes “when time is granted to finish them.” In addition to this work he has written many books and articles treating of the various phases of his specialty in this and other countries.

Source: The Eight Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 Harvard. Boston, Rockwell and Churchill Press, Commencement 1905. Pp. 23-4.

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1913

JAMES LAURENCE LAUGHLIN.

Is at the head of the Department of Political Economy at Chicago, and an authority on finance whose reputation is world-wide. At the Three Hundredth Jubilee of the University of Giessen, Germany, in 1907, he was given an Honorary Doctorate. He writes:

“Any modest member of the Class of 1873 does not feel that he has done anything worth reporting. In 1906 I was appointed by the German Kultus Ministerium an exchange professor from the University of Chicago to Berlin. I lectured in German before the Vereinigung für Staatswissenschaftliche Fortbildung, and also in Cologne, as well as at the University of Berlin. In the winter of 1908-09, I was one of two delegates (the other being Professor A. A. Michaelson, the recipient of a Nobel Prize) to the Scientific Congress of all American Republics in Santiago, Chile. I crossed the Andes, visiting Argentina, and came home by the east coast. In June, 1911, I was given leave of absence from the University in order to take charge of the nation-wide campaign to obtain a reconstruction of our currency and banking system. In this work I was chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Citizens’ League for the promotion of a sound banking system. The results of this campaign are now apparent. Not only is there an insistent and intelligent public opinion demanding reform, but the new administration is ready to put a satisfactory measure through Congress. It now looks as if the purpose of this campaign was certainly attained. Of course I have been guilty off and on of publishing some books and articles, but they are not as good as I should like to have them, and when I get to the next world I am going to revise them and make them just what they ought to be for an audience that I hope will not yet be made up very largely of the Class of 1873. For I hope that the surviving members of the class will long be here after I have departed.”

Source: The Ninth Report of the Secretary of the Class of 1873 Harvard. Boston, Rockwell and Churchill Press, Commencement 1913. Pp. 25-6.

Image Source: Clipped from printed speech given at the 78th meeting of The Sunset Club at the Grand Pacific Hotel, Chicago, December 6, 1894 found in Laughlin, James Laurence. Papers, [Box 1, Folder 17], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.