Category: Harvard

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Exam Questions Harvard Socialism

Harvard. Final exam questions for Socialism and Communism. Carver and Bushée, 1901-1902

Thomas Nixon Carver was originally hired to beef up the economic theory side of the Harvard curriculum but soon found himself holding an instructional portfolio that included sociology, schemes of social reform (i.e. socialism and communism), and agricultural economics. The fields of sociology and socialism were briefly left fallow when Edward Cummings resigned to become the minister at Boston’s South Congregational Church before Carver joined the faculty in 1900.

Artifacts included below are a thick course description, enrollment figures, and the final exam questions for the half-year course “Socialism and Communism” that was co-taught by assistant professor Thomas Nixon Carver and Frederick Bushée during the Fall term of 1901-02.

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Material from earlier years: Exams and enrollment figures for economics of socialism and communism taught by Edward Cummings, 1893-1900.

Material from later years: Thomas Nixon Carver (1920), Edward S. Mason (1929), Paul Sweezy (1940), Wassily Leontief  (1942-43), Joseph Schumpeter (1943-44), and Overton Hume Taylor (1955).

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Socialism and Communism
1901-02

ECONOMICS 141
For Undergraduates and Graduates

Socialism and Communism. Half course (first half-year). Tu., Th., at 1.30. Asst. Professor Carver.

Course 14 begins with an historical study of socialistic and communistic writing and agitation. This is followed by a critical examination of socialistic theories as presented in the works of representative socialists. The purpose is to get a clear understanding of the economic reasoning that lies at the base of socialistic contentions and of the economic and social conditions which make such reasoning acceptable to socialists. Attention will be given largely to the reading of Marx’s Capital, but parts of the writings of other expounders of socialism will also be read.

Course 14 is open to those who have passed satisfactorily in Course 1; but it is to the advantage of students to take or to have taken either Course 2 or Course 3.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Official Register of Harvard University 1901-1902. Box 1. Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of History and Political Science (June 21, 1901), University Publications, New Series, No. 16, p. 37.

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Economics 14
(Carver and Bushée)
1901-1902 Syllabus

Previously posted: https://www.irwincollier.com/harvard-socialism-communism-carver-bushee-1901/

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Enrollment 1901-02
Economics 141

Economics 141 hf. Asst. Professor Carver and Mr. Bushée. — Socialism and Communism.

Total 27: 5 Graduates, 14 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 3 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1901-1902, p. 77.

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Semester Final Examination
1901-02

ECONOMICS 14

Write on the following topics.

  1. The definition of Socialism and its relation to competition
  2. Fourier’s plan of social organization.
  3. Lassalle’s place in the socialistic movement.
  4. Marx’s theory of the evolution of society.
  5. Marx’s theory of value.
  6. Marx’s theory of interest.
  7. How does Bernstein’s theory differ from that of Marx?
  8. The problem which George set out to solve and his solution of it.
  9. George’s theory of interest.
  10. The origin and early development of the German Social Democratic Labor Party.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-Year Examination Papers, 1852-1943. Box 6, Bound volume, Mid-year Examination Papers, 1901-02. Sub-volume Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, … in Harvard College (January 1902). Also included in Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 6, Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1902-03. Sub-volume Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, … in Harvard College (June 1902).

Image Sources:

Thomas Nixon Carver (left). The World’s Work. Vol. XXVI (May-October 1913) p. 127.

Frederick Alexander Bushée (right). Detail from portrait in the University of Colorado Archives. Charles Snow photograph of Professor Bushee (March 30 1921). Detail reproduced in the 1924 University of Colorado Yearbook.

Both portraits colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

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Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Final exam for graduate economics course on methods. Carver, 1902

 

This post resumes the systematic transcribing of Harvard economics exam questions year-by-year and course-by-course. Today we visit young Thomas Nixon Carver‘s graduate methods course (incidentally attended by zero graduate students during the second semester of the 1901-02 academic year). The recently hired assistant professor found Frank Taussig’s methods course dropped into his lap when the latter went on a two year leave for personal health reasons (Schumpeter called it recovery from a “nervous breakdown”, i.e., Taussig almost certainly suffered from clinical depression).

Carver’s exam questions from 1900-01 for the course have been previously posted.

Fun fact with supporting image: While a graduate student at Cornell, Thomas Nixon Carver rowed on the varsity crew. He is seen sitting on the far left in the yearbook image posted above.

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Methods of Economic Investigation
[2nd half-year, 1901-1902]

Primarily for Graduates

[Economics] 13. Methods of Economic Investigation. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., at 1.30. Asst. Professor Carver.

Course 13 will examine the methods by which the important writers of modern times have approached economic questions, and the range which they have given their inquiries; and will consider the advantage of different methods, and the expediency of a wider or narrower scope of investigation. These inquiries will necessarily include a consideration of the logic of the social sciences. Cairnes’ Logical Method of Political Economy and Keynes’ Scope and Method of Political Economy will be carefully examined. At the same time selected passages from the writings of Mill, Jevons, Marshall, and the Austrian writers will be studied, with a view to analyzing the nature and scope of the reasoning.

Course 13 is designed mainly for students who take or have taken Course 2 or Course 15; but it is open to mature students having a general acquaintance with economic theory.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Official Register of Harvard University 1901-1902. Box 1. Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of History and Political Science (June 21, 1901), University Publications, New Series, No. 16, pp. 45-46.

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Enrollment 1901-02

ECONOMICS 132

Economics 132 hf. Asst. Professor Carver. — Methods of Economic Investigation.

Total 5: 1 Senior, 1 Junior, 1 Sophomores, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1901-1902, p. 78.

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Semester Final Examination

ECONOMICS 13

Discuss the following topics.

  1. The relation of economics to history, to ethics, and to sociology.
  2. The division of economics into departments.
  3. Methods of reasoning, methods of investigation, and methods of exposition as distinguished from one another.
  4. The nature of an economic law.
  5. The methods of investigating the causes of poverty.
  6. The use of hypotheses in economic investigation.
  7. The application of mathematics to economics.
  8. The meaning of an economic quantity.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 6, Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1902-03. Sub-volume Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, … in Harvard College (June 1902).

Image Source: The Cornell varsity crew of 1894. Thomas Nixon Carver standing on the far left. The Cornellian 1895, p. 197.

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Harvard Regulations Teaching

Harvard. On the organization of the Division of History, Government, and Economics. Burbank, 1934

 

Professor Harold H. Burbank (Burbie to his friends) was a decades-long administrative multitasker during the first half of the 20th century. His realms covered both the tutorial system in the Division of History, Government, and Economics as well as the chairmanship of the economics department.The document transcribed for this post appears to have served as Burbank’s background briefing on the organization of the Division of History, Government, and Economics for the committee, chaired by the President of Princeton, Harold W. Dodds, tasked with establishing a school of public administration at Harvard.

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Who’s Who

James Bryant Conant (1893-1978) was a chemist, educator and public servant. The wide variety of his interests and occupations are reflected in the title of his memoirs, My Several Lives. Conant’s “several lives” included periods as a chemistry instructor, University president, national director of defense research, ambassador to Germany and as an author of critical works examining secondary education in the United States. Conant’s pursuits carried him from his boyhood home in Boston to Harvard University and eventually around the globe.

Conant graduated from Harvard College in 1914, completing a three-year program as an undergraduate concentrator in chemistry. He remained at the University, studying with Elmer Kohler, and received his degree two years later. An academic career followed, during which time Conant worked at Harvard as an instructor (1917), assistant professor (1919) and eventually as a tenured professor (1927) of organic chemistry. In 1921 he married Grace Thayer Richards, daughter of chemistry professor Theodore William Richards, whom Conant had met at a dinner for graduate students at Professor Richards’ house.

In 1933, despite the fact that his only previous administrative experience was a term as chair of the Chemistry Department, Conant was appointed to succeed A. Lawrence Lowell as President of Harvard University. President Conant worked to enhance Harvard’s position as a national institution with an international reputation for academic achievement. He established the National Scholarships which allowed young men of intellectual promise to attend Harvard College regardless of their financial circumstances or proximity to Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also broadened the intellectual scope of the undergraduate student body through the General Education Program. This program required each undergraduate, regardless of his concentration, to take courses in three broad disciplines: the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. President Conant further promoted intellectual exchange through the establishment of the prestigious University Professorships, which gave leading scholars tenured appointments at the University, unencumbered by ties to specific faculties or departments.

Conant’s achievements also included expansion in the teaching of education and of journalism. In the fall of 1935 the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School of Education voted to recommend his plan for the establishment of a new degree, the Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.). The M.A.T. required prospective teachers to demonstrate a command of educational theory as well as familiarity with specific subjects by undergoing examination by members from both the teaching faculty and their specific subject faculty. Three years later, Conant helped to establish the Nieman Fellowships. These fellowships fund a year of study at Harvard for professional journalists.

During wartime, Conant balanced his service to the University with a commitment to national affairs. In 1917 he briefly left Harvard to join the Chemical Warfare Service and by the end of the First World War he was promoted to the rank of major. Conant, an outspoken critic of Nazi Germany, played a more prominent role during the Second World War. As a member and chairman of the National Defense Research Committee, he and his colleagues were responsible for the technical direction of military scientific research, including atomic research. At the end of the war he declined to become the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, although he continued to serve as Chairman of the National Science Board.

Conant retired from Harvard in 1953. He immediately began another of his “lives,” serving as U.S. High Commissioner to Germany and Ambassador to Germany. In 1957 he resigned his diplomatic post and once again turned his attention to American education. In 1957, Conant, along with the Educational Testing Service, administered a large scale study of American high schools. Following this, he studied and reported on teacher education in American Universities. In 1964, he returned to Berlin for eighteen months as an educational advisor under the auspices of the Ford Foundation.

Conant spent his final years as a resident of New York City, Summering in Hanover, New Hampshire. He took ill in Hanover during the spring of 1977 and remained there until his death on February 11, 1978. He was survived by his wife who died in 1985 and his sons James Richards and Theodore Richards.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Collection overview: Papers of James Bryant Conant, 1862-1987.

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Vernon Munroe, Jr., Harvard Class of 1931. One of three members of a special committee of the Student Council who wrote a report “The Tutorial System in Harvard College” (published as a supplement to the Harvard Alumni Bulletin, October 9, 1931).

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College 1930-31, p. 96.

MUNROE RESIGNS AS SECRETARY TO PRESIDENT CONANT

The Harvard Crimson, May 7, 1934

Announcement was made at University Hall yesterday of the resignation of Vernon Munroe, Jr. ’31, as secretary to President Conant.

Munroe has held the position since September 1, 1933 when he was appointed by the Corporation to a new post as assistant to the President of the University.

Graduating from Harvard in 1931 he spent the next year at the Law School, leaving there to assume his post as aide to the President. He plans to continue next year with his work in the Law School.

At college Munroe was President of the Student Council, Captain of the University track team, Chairman of the Dunster House Committee, and Third Marshal of his class. As President of the Student Council he was active in preparing a special undergraduate report on the Tutorial System at Harvard.

Although no one yet has been chosen to succeed Munroe, it is believed that the appointment of his successor will be made in the near future.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Princeton University President (1933-57) Harold W. Dodds  was appointed by President Conant as head of a commission to consider the establishment of a new school of public administration (today’s John F. Kennedy School of Government).

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College 1934-35, p. 23.

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Harold Hitchings Burbank. Chairman of the department of economics 1927-38 and 1942-46 and Chairman of the Board of Tutorials in the Division 1916-46.

From the active list, Harold Hitchings Burbank, David A. Wells Professor of Political Economy, died on February 6, 1951, in his sixty-fourth year. He began his career in the field of Economics at Dartmouth where he taught for one year, 191o-11. He came to the University in 1911 as an Assistant in Economics, becoming an Instructor in 1912. In 1914 he was appointed a Tutor in that Department, and from 1916 to 1946 he served as Chairman of the Board of Tutors in the Division of History, Government and Economics. He was Assistant Professor of Economics from 1919 to 1923, Associate Professor from 1923 to 1926, and Professor of Economics from 1926 to 1932. From 1932 until his death he held the David A. Wells Professorship of Political Economy. He was also Chairman of the Department of Economics from 1927 to 1938, and again from 1942 to 1949; he acted as Chairman of the Division of History, Government and Economics from 1942 to 1946. Few Harvard teachers ever worked with as many students individually or gave so lavishly of their time and energy.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1950-51, p. 29.

Cf. Burbank’s earlier report, transcribed and archived at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror:  Report on the Tutorial System in History, Government and Economics. Burbank, 1922.

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Background information on the Division of History, Government, and Economics written by the Chairman of Economics Department, 1934

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

H. H. BURBANK

41 HOLYOKE HOUSE
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

May 21, 1934

Dear Mr. Munroe,

The organization of the Division of History, Government, and Economics is complicated. I am listing below some comments on the questions raised by President Dodd. [sic, almost certainly should be “Dodds”] I can give you complete details should you require them.

  1. The Division has developed through the separation from History of the Departments of Economics and Government. The Division is composed of the members of these three departments.
  2. The Division unit was maintained before 1914 primarily for the administration of graduate degrees. Emphasis was placed upon the formulation and administration of the degree requirements rather than on the development and coordination of the curriculum. I believe that some attention was given also to candidates for Honors for the Bachelors‘
  3. As I recall it, there was a small independent budget to provide for secretarial assistance to the Chairman of the Division and to provide for the printing of the Division pamphlet and the schedule of graduate degree examinations.
  4. The administration of graduate degrees has continued since 1914, but latterly, the programs of the three departments have become characterized by their differences rather than by their unity of conception and action.
    1. The independent Division budget for the purposes summarized above has been continued. It is prepared and administered by the Chairman of the Division.
  5. In 1914 on the recommendation of the Division, Comprehensive Examinations and a system of Tutorial Instruction were initiated. To a small degree the curriculum within the Division was coordinated. Correlation among the subjects taught in the several departments was required. To meet the new objectives, an Examining Committee, appointed by the President, was created, and the general development and supervision of the Tutorial Instruction was placed in the hands of a new Division officer — the Chairman of the Board of Tutors in the Division of History, Government, and Economics.
    1. All tutors, whether in History, Government, or Economics, were, in theory, recommended by the Division. The appointment was, and is, in the Division rather than in a particular department.
    2. Until about 1925, a Division Committee on Appointments — the Chairman of the Board of Tutors, the Chairman of the Division, and the Chairmen of the three Departments — passed upon all recommendations for appointments in the Division as tutors. Since 1925, this Committee has not been active. All appointments as tutor therefore are now on the basis of Departmental recommendation. The Chairman of the Board of Tutors is usually consulted.
    3. With the appointment of Divisional Examiners and Tutors, a budget was called for, which included the expenditures for Tutorial Instruction, for the Examiners, and for Administration.
    4. Until 1931, this budget, prepared by the Chairman of the Board of Tutors was altogether distinct from Departmental budgets, although it was always prepared in consultation with the Division Chairman.
    5. During the last five years there has developed a tendency toward complete Departmental control of Tutorial Instruction. With the development of Departmental control and responsibility, the Division budget has become less important, until for the forthcoming year it will practically disappear except for the maintenance of a small sum for administration and examining.
  6. It may be stated that from 1914 to 1928, or 1929, there was thorough Division control in the development of Tutorial Instruction. After the functions and methods of instruction had been established on a satisfactory plane, Division control was slowly withdrawn and instruction decentralized. The Division still operates unqualifiedly as a unit in the administration of examinations.
  7. With the rapid increase in the membership in the Division since 1914, the group became ineffective as an administrative unit. For some years, the affairs of the Division have been administered by a Committee of Seven— the Chairman of the Division, the Chairmen of the three Departments, and delegates from each Department — which meets when necessary. Although the principal work of the Committee is confined to the administration of graduate degrees, the Committee frequently concerns itself with Tutorial Instruction and with questions of the curriculum which have common interest. The Division meets as a group for the recommendation of degrees — A.B., A.M., and Ph.D.
  8. Until 1930, instruction in Sociology was offered by the Department of Economics. Also, some subjects ordinarily regarded as belonging to the subject of Sociology were offered by the Department of Social Ethics which was affiliated with the Department of Philosophy. Independent instruction in Sociology has been established and the Department of Sociology stands as a Division without direct affiliation with other Departments.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
H. H. Burbank

Mr. Vernon Munroe, Jr.
VS

Source: Harvard University Archives. Records of President James B. Conant, Box 9, Folder “History, Government & Economics, 1933-1934.”

Image Source: Portrait of Professor Harold H. Burbank in the Harvard Classbook 1934. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Economists Faculty Regulations Harvard

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

_________________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.

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

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

James Alfred Field
May 26th 1880

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

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

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

A.B. Harvard 1903

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

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

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

Economics

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

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

VII. Special Subject for the special examination.

[Left blank]

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

[Left blank]

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

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

X. Remarks.

[Left blank]

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[Not to be filled out by the applicant]

Name: James Alfred Field

Date of reception: Feb. 13, 1905

Approved: Feb. 14, 1905

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

Thesis received: [blank]

Read by; [blank]

Approved: [blank]

Date of special examination: [blank]

Recommended for the Doctorate: [blank]

Voted by the Faculty: [blank]

Degree conferred: [blank].

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

11 December 1911

Dear Taussig:

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

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

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]

Professor F.W. Taussig

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

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

_________________________________

From the Announcement for Ph.D. General Examinations

James Alfred Field.

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

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

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

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

Special Subject: Sociology.

Thesis Subject: (Not yet announced.)

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

_________________________________

FROM THE GRADUATE SCHOOL RECORD CARD

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

Record of James Alfred Field

Years: 1903-04, 1904-05

First Registration: 1 Oct. 1903

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

 

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

Division History and Political Science

Scholarship, Fellowship

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

College attended [Harvard]

Honors at College: Hon. Mention, Economics.

Degrees received: A.B. summa cum laude 1903

Non-Resident Student Years: 1905 John Harvard Fellow

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

_________________________________

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

1903-04

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

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

Economics 2. Economic Theory. Professors Taussig and Carver.

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

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

1904-05

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

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

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

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

Economics 20. The Seminary in Economics.

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

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

Categories
Chicago Economists Germany Harvard Principles

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

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

____________________________

JAMES ALFRED FIELD

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

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

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

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

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Economists Harvard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Economists Harvard

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

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

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

____________________

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

(* deceased)

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

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

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

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Economists Harvard

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

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

_______________________________

Schumpeter asking for instructor feedback for Samuelson’s SSRC fellowship

February 12, 1936

Prof. Leonard Crum
Holyoke 46

Dear Leonard:

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

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

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

With best wishes,

J. A. Schumpeter

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

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

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Economists Gender Harvard Radcliffe

Radcliffe. Schumpeter Letter Supporting Marion Crawford, 1937

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

_________________________

High-School Honours

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

_________________________

Senior Yearbook Picture
Radcliffe, 1937

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

_________________________

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

February 11, 1937

Dr. Bernice Cronkhite, Dean
Radcliffe College
Cambridge, Massachusetts

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

Very sincerely yours,

J. A. Schumpeter

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

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

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Exam Questions Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Undergraduate courses taken by John F. Kennedy, Class of 1940

 

In an earlier post Economics in the Rear-view Mirror presented James Laurence Laughlin’s recollection of Theodore Roosevelt’s economics education at Harvard.

This post moves us forward to the graduate of the Class of 1940, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who it took the standard two term principles of economics followed by three semester courses in economics at Harvard. The future president was a concentrator in the government department which accounted for much more of his studies.

We begin with a complete list of the courses taken by Kennedy that is probably not untypical for your average government major except for maybe the junior semester abroad to England where his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., happened to be serving as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

As it turns out, material for three of the courses taken by Kennedy have already been transcribed and posted.

Economics A. Principles of Economics (1936-37).
Economics 11b. Economics of Socialism (2nd term, 1940).
Economics 62b. Industrial Organization and Control (2nd term, 1940).

To help complete the picture this post adds the final examination for Kennedy’s junior year course Economics 61a, The Corporation and its Regulation. The reading list for this course used in the following year (Kennedy’s senior year, 1939-40) has been transcribed and posted earlier.

Fun fact: Nobel prize economist and economic adviser to JFK, Professor James Tobin of Yale was a fellow student in the Principles of Economics course taken by Kennedy. Plot spoiler: Tobin got an A in Economics A.

____________________________

Undergraduate Courses Taken by John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Class of 1940

Note: Second term senior year courses are listed without a final grade because final examination were waived for the history, government, and economics division honors examination

JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY
S.B. cum laude June 20, 1940
Field of Concentration Government

Freshman year (1936-37)

English A. Rhetoric and English Composition, Oral and Written. (Not Required)

English 1. History and Development of English Literature in Outline. Professor Munn. (C)

Economics A. Principles of Economics. Professor Burbank. (B)

History 1. European History from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Present Time. Professor Merriman. (C)

French F. Introduction to France. Professor Morize. (C)

Sophomore year (1937-38)

English F1. Public Speaking. Asst. Professor Packard. (C)

Fine Arts 1e. Interpretation of Selected Works of Art: an Introduction to Art History. Professor Koehler. (C)

Government 1. Modern Government. Professors Holcombe and Elliott. (C)

History 32a1. Continental Europe; 1815-1871. Professor Langer. (D)

History 32b2. Continental Europe; 1871-1914. Professor Langer. (C)

Government 302. New Factors in International Relations: Asia. Asst. Professor Hopper. (B)

Junior year (1938-39)

Economics 61a1. The Corporation and its Regulation. Professor Mason. (C)

English A-11. English Composition. Messrs. Davis, Gordan, Bailey and McCreary. (B)

Government 7a1. The National Government of the United States: Politics. Professor Holcombe. (B)

Government 9a1. State Government in the United States. Professor Hanford. (B)

Government 181. New Factors in International Relations: Europe. Associate Professor Hopper. (B)

History 551. History of Russia. Asst. Professor Karpovich. (B)

Second Term Leave of absence (England)

Senior year (1939-40)

Economics 11b2. Economics of Socialism. Dr. P. M. Sweezy.

Economics 62b2. Industrial Organization and Control. Professor Mason.

Government 3a1. Principles of Politics. Professor Elliott. (B)

Government 4. Elements of International Law. Associate Professor P. S. Wild. (B)

Government 22. Theses for Honors. Members of the Department. (B)

Government 8a1. Comparative Politics: Bureaucracy, Constitutional Government and Dictatorship. Professor Friedrich. (B)

Government 10a2. Government of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Professor Elliott.

Government 281. Modern Imperialism. Associate Professor Emerson. (B)

Source: John F. Kennedy Academic Record at Harvard.  John F. Kennedy Personal Papers, 1917-1963, Harvard University Files, 1917-1963/Academic Records 1939-1940; John F. Kennedy Harvard Course Transcript. John F. Kennedy Personal Papers, 1917-1963, Harvard University Files, 1917-1963/Course listing.

____________________________

The Corporation and its Regulation
First Semester 1938-39

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 61a 1hf. Professor Mason and Dr. P. M. Sweezy. — The Corporation and its Regulation.

Total 209: 2 Graduates, 57 Seniors, 110 Juniors, 29 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 10 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1938-39, p. 98.

Reading Period Assignment
January 5-18, 1939

Economics 61a: Read one of the following

  1. Larcom, R. C., The Delaware Corporation.
  2. Flynn, Security Speculation.
  3. Lowenthal, The Investor Pays.
  4. Gordon, Lincoln, The Public Corporation in Great Britain, omit pp. 156-244.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2. Folder “Economics,1938-1939”, Reading Period, p.3.

Final Examination (Mid-Year)

1938-39
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 61a1

PART I

Write a critical review of your reading period work (about one hour).

PART II
Answer two questions.

  1. Discuss the influence of depreciation policies in the determination of net income.
  2. In corporate reorganizations what considerations determine the priority of claims on the assets of the reorganized company?
  3. “The large corporation is a bureaucracy of much the same type as a government agency. As such it faces all the management problems faced by bureaucracy.” Discuss.

PART III
Answer two questions.

  1. “The only people who gain from the stock market are brokers and speculators. Corporations, investors and underwriters would be better off if there were no stock market.” Analyse this statement with respect to each class of person or institution named.
  2. Discuss the direction and significance of present trends in the ownership of securities in the United States.
  3. Write on either the Securities Act of 1933 or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Describe the main problems with which the act in question is intended to deal, any previous efforts to solve these problems, and how the act proposes to solve them.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-Year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 13. Bound volume “Mid-Year Examinations 1939”.

Image Source: Harvard Class Album 1940.