Category: Harvard

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Chicago. Economics Professor William Hill. Events leading to his leave of absence, 1894

 

 

The “peculiarly sad circumstances”, apparently a manic break in a bi-polar disorder, were reported for University of Chicago economics professor William Hill in 1894. I was able to trace much of the c.v. of this Harvard economics A.M. for today’s post. Apparently his last professional station was at Bethany College in West Virginia where his wife was able to get an appointment teaching history. I’ll keep my eyes open for more biographical information about William Hill (not an uncommon name). There were probably also episodes of depression in his life.

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HE GOES TO KANSAS.
PROF. HILL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO GIVEN A VACATION. [1894]

Peculiarly Sad Circumstances Said to Surround the Action of the Faculty in Giving Mr. Hill Chance to Rest and Recuperate – He Is Deeply Interested in Irrigation Affairs, and a Lecture Before the Political Economy Club is Stopped by Physicians.

Prof. William Hill of the University of Chicago has been granted vacation under peculiar and sad circumstances.

Mr. Hill, who is instructor in tariff history and railway transportation, lives in Graduate Hall, occupying Suite No. 16. In addition to his duties in the university, Prof. Hill has been greatly interested in a scheme for the irrigation of arid land in the western part of Kansas. He has always been noted for his studious habits, and, having perfected his plans for reclaiming the Kansas property, he has recently been trying to form a company to give them practical application. At 4 o’clock Thursday morning of last week Night Watchmen Wilson was making his last rounds through Graduate Hall. He had just put out the lights on the third floor and was just about to descend when he heard stealthy footsteps on the floor below.

“Who is there?” He called. “Hill,” was the answer.

Going down Wilson was met by Prof. Hill, who was partially undressed.

“Do you want to make some money?” He asked.

The watchmen expressed his willingness to get rich.

“I’ll show you how you can make thousands,” said the professor, leading the astonished man into his room. There he proceeded to outline his plan for irrigating the dry lands of Kansas and to talk glibly of the vast sums of money to be made in the work.

Wilson was impressed with the peculiar manner of the professor and reported it to his superior officer. The same evening in Cobb Hall Prof. Hill was scheduled to deliver an address before the Political Economy club. He kept his appointment and began his lecture, but before going far the rambling manner of his talk so alarmed his listeners that a physician was summoned, who forbade him to finish. Later the same night Pres. Harper of the university and Prof. Laughlin were driven to the rooms of Prof. Hill and had a conference over his condition. In view of the fact that Prof. Hill’s condition is not considered serious it was decided not to remove him from his rooms, his brother coming on to attend him. Wednesday Prof. Hill was granted a vacation by the faculty and started for his old home in Kansas where he will remain until he has entirely recovered his health.

One of the launchers in graduate Hall was awakened before daylight Tuesday by hearing the professor talking in a loud and disconnected way. He was laboring under the delusion, apparently, that the faculty did not properly understand his case. “The facts must be laid before the members in a proper way,” said Prof. Hill, “so that they will know all about it. I know I am ill. Of course I am ill, but if the thing is not done right who is to know it?”

“What the professor was saying,” said the one who overheard him last night, “and his manner of saying it was like that of a man in a delirium. He has been overworked and overexcited over something. Once I went into his room and found a stranger there with him. The stranger had some sort of a machine, which he was showing Prof. Hill. I understood it was something to be used for irrigating purposes. The interest the professor showed in it was intense.”

When a call was made on Prof. J. Lawrence Laughlin last night the following conversation took place:

“It is said Prof. Hill, one of the instructors in your Department of Political Economy, is ill. Will you tell me how he is?”

“The report is utterly untrue, utterly untrue; Prof. Hill is away on his vacation.”

“Is there nothing the matter with him?”

“Nothing at all; the story is utterly untrue.”

[William Hill graduated from the University of Kansas in 1891 and spent the next year at Harvard where he took his masters degree under Dr. Taussig. At Harvard he also won the Lee Memorial Fellowship. He is the author of the American Economical Association monograph on “Colonial Tariffs.” He came to Chicago University in October, 1892 and has since then become popular with both students and faculty he is Acting President of the Political Economy club of the University and his known as a bicycle rider and tennis expert.]

Source:  Chicago Daily Tribune, 15 December 1894, p.1.

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Chicago Years

William Hill. Associate in Political Economy, 1893-94; Instructor, 1894-97; Assistant Professor, 1897-1908; Associate Professor, 1908-12.

Source: James Laurence Laughlin, Twenty-Five Years of the Department of Political Economy, University of Chicago. Chicago: Privately printed, 1916.

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Harvard Years

Resident Fellow

Henry Lee Memorial Fellowship, William Hill, A.B. (Univ. of Kansas) 1890, A.B. (Harvard Univ.) 1891, a student of Political Science.

Source:Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1890-91, p. 90. and  Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 96.

Henry Lee Memorial Fellowship

For 1892-93: WILLIAM HILL, A.B. (Kansas State Univ.) 1890, A.B. (Harvard Univ.) 1891, A.M, (Ibid.) 1892. Res. Gr. Stud., 1891-93. II. year of incumbency and as a student in the School. Studied at this University. Withdrew at the close of the year, and is now Instructor in Political Economy at the University of Chicago.

Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1892-93, p. 125.

Harvard Publications

William Hill, Colonial Tariffs, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 7, Issue 1, October 1892, Pages 78–100.

William Hill, “The First Stages of the Tariff Policy of the United States,”  Proceedings of the American Economic Association, 8 (1893), 452-614.

List of publications by William Hill at jstor.org.

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Bethany College, West Virginia

William Hill, A.B., A.M., Dean of Agriculture and Land Director.

Graduate of Friends’ Bloomingdale Academy,’ 87; Student in Earlham College [Richmond, Indiana], ’87-’88; Student in Kansas State University, ’88-’90; A.M., Harvard University, ’90-’93; Henry Lee Memorial Fellow in Harvard University, ’92-’93; Instructor in Economics in The University of Chicago, ’93-’95; Assistant Professor, ’95-’08; Associate Professor, ’08; Organizer and Director of the Agricultural Guild, ’08; Dean of Agriculture, Bethany, 1911 –

Wife:  Caroline Miles Hill, A.M., PhD., Professor of History.

A.B., Earlham College, 1887; Teacher in Friends Bloomingdale Academy, 1887-1889; A.M., Michigan State University, 1890; Fellow in History, Bryn Mawr College, 1890-1891; Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1892; Professor of History and Philosophy, Mount Holyoke College, 1892-1893; Professor of History, Wellesley College, 1893-1895; Studied in Europe, 1895-1896; Engaged in Educational and Social Work in Chicago, 1896-1910; Principal of Friends  Bloomingdale Academy, 1910-1912; Professor, Bethany, 1912 —

Source: Bethany College Bulletin, 1912 and 1913, p.8.

Source for marriage

Hill, William: s. 87-88; m. Caroline Miles, A 1887; l. add. Chicago, Ill.

Source: Who’s Who Among Earlhamites 1916, p. 82.

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Caroline Miles Hill, Instructor in History, ’93-’95, has recently published a valuable anthology, “The World’s Greatest Religious Poetry” [Macmillan, 1923].

Source:  The Michigan Alumnus. Vol 33 (1926-27), p. 127.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Economic History Exam Questions Harvard Yale

Harvard. Final Examination, U.S. Economic History. Callender, 1899-1900

 

This post is a cross between “get to know an economics Ph.D. alumnus (Harvard)” and a deposit into the data bank of old exams. For three years at the end of the 19th century Guy Stevens Callender taught U.S. economic history at Harvard where he received a Ph.D. in 1897.  He ultimately went on to a professorship at Yale. One of the connections that I discovered in preparing the post is that Guy Stevens Callender and John R. Commons were undergraduate classmates at Oberlin.

For an article about Callender’s contributions:

Engelbourg, Saul. Guy Stevens Callender: A Founding Father of American Economic History. Explorations in Economic History. Vol. 9, 1971-72, pp. 255-267.

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Biographical note:

Guy Stevens Callender was born on 9 November 1865 in Hartsgrove, Ohio, the son of Robert Foster Callender and Lois Winslow Callender.  The family moved from Massachusetts to the Western Reserve when Callender was a child.  At an early age he demonstrated that he had an active mind, intellectual curiosity, and a strong physical constitution; these attributes, along with his being an avid reader of books, led him at the age of fifteen to teach in the district schools of Ashtabula County.  Using his savings from several winters of teaching and his summer earnings made working on the family farm, Callender succeeded in paying for college preparatory courses at New Lyme Institute, South New Lyme, Ohio.

In 1886, at the age of twenty-one, Callender enrolled at Oberlin College where he took the classical course.  There he was influenced by James Monroe, professor of political science and modern history, who taught courses in political economy and sponsored Callender’s volunteer work in the Political Economy Club.  Callender also was an active participant in extracurricular organizations, including the Oberlin Glee Club, Oratorical Association, Phi Delta Society, The Review (student newspaper), and the Traveling Men’s Association.  In these groups, some of Callender’s affinity for leadership and exactness became evident (i.e., service as the financial manager and secretary).  He graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in June, 1891, counting among his classmates John R. Commons and Robert A. Millikan.

After a year spent traveling and working in the business departments of newspapers in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Chicago, enrolled (1892) for graduate study at Harvard University from which he received a B.A. (1893), an M.A. (1894), and a Ph.D. in political science (1897).  During his graduate studies at Harvard he served for some time as instructor in economics at Wellesley College, and he was considered an “outstanding man among our graduate students” by Frank W. Taussig and other members of the teaching faculty.  Following the award of his Ph.D., Callender held an appointment as instructor in economics at Harvard from 1897 to 1900.  There he conducted a course in American economic history, which he personally created.  In 1900 he was appointed professor of political economy at Bowdoin College; in 1903 he accepted an appointment as professor in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, where he continued to teach and engage in scholarly research until 1915.  He also served as a member of the Governing Board of the Sheffield Scientific School. In 1904 Callender married Harriet Belle Rice; they had one son (Everett, b. 1905).

Callender published his only book, Selections from the Economic History of the United States, 1765-1860 in 1909.  In it he revealed his entire theory of the progress of the United States from the beginning of colonization until the Civil War.  Callender’s most important contributions are to be found in his condensed, precisely written introductory essays that precede each chapter. His article “The Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises of the States in Relation to the Growth of Corporations,” in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (November 1902) was also well recognized and consulted by scholars.

Callender was as a member of the American Historical Association and the American Economic Association, and he was a frequent contributor as a book reviewer, essayist, and speaker.  Callender’s contribution to scholarship is probably best summed up in his “The Position of American Economic History,” American Historical Review 19 (October, 1913).  Therein he argued that American economic history should “be pursued as a separate subject of study” and that economic historians must be prepared to interpret facts.  For Callender economic history was more than the chronological recital of events of commercial and industrial significance.  He sought historical explanations by applying the principles of economic science to the economic and social development of communities.  His published studies included an analysis of the part played by economic factors in the adoption of the Federal Constitution and in the debate over the economic basis of slavery in the South.

Prior to his death, Callender worked on several writing projects, including a comprehensive, multivolume economic history of the United States, but poor health prohibited him from completing this project.  Another work in progress was a critical essay of Arthur Young’s Political Essays Concerning the British Empire (1772), which focused on the history of British colonies in America.  Until then, Young’s essays had not been generally appreciated or known by American scholars.  Callender was also at work on an introduction for a new edition in two volumes of American Husbandry, which was first published in London in 1775.  Callender’s review of Cyclopedia of American Government (edited by A.S. McLaughlin and Albert Bushnell Hart) appeared in the Yale Reviewshortly after his death.  According to commentator Co Wo Mixter, this highly critical review showed “in a marked degree the range, vitality and acuteness of his thinking” (Yale Alumni Weekly, Oct. 1, 1915, p. 48).

Callender was the recipient of numerous awards and honors.  In 1907 Yale University awarded him an honorary M.A.  Two months before his death the Oberlin College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa elected him to membership.  Upon Callender’s death from a cerebral hemorrhage in Branford, Connecticut, on 8 August 1915, members of the Oberlin College Class of 1891 purchased from his widow his library of some 2500 volumes and gave it to the institution in his memory.  The Class raised additional funds to purchase other titles on economic history, thus rounding out and completing the collection.  A small amount of money was also set aside as an ongoing fund to keep the collection up-to-date.  Callender’s gift to the College Library, established by his graduating class, set an Oberlin precedent.

Source:  Oberlin College Archives.  Guy Stevens Callender Papers, 1820-1870.

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Course Enrollment
1899-1900

[Economics] 6. Dr. [Guy Stevens] Callender.—The Economic History of the United States. Lectures (2 hours); discussions of assigned topics (1 hour); 2 theses.

Total: 163.  11 Graduates, 64 Seniors, 58 Juniors, 19 Sophomores, 11 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Annual report of the President of Harvard College 1899-1900, p. 69.

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Course Description
1897-98

[Economics] 6. The Economic History of the United States. Tu., Th., at 2.30, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructors. Mr. Callender.

Course 6 gives a general survey of the economic history of the United States from the formation of the Union to the present time, and considers also the mode in which economic principles are illustrated by the experience so surveyed. A review is made of the financial history of the United States, including Hamilton’s financial system, the second bank of the United States and the banking systems of the period preceding the Civil War, coinage history, the finances of the Civil War, and the banking and currency history of the period since the Civil War. The history of manufacturing industries is taken up in connection with the course of international trade and of tariff legislation, the successive tariffs being followed and their economic effects considered. The land policy of the United States is examined partly in its relation to the growth of population and the inflow of immigrants, and partly in its relation to the history of transportation, including the movement for internal improvements, the beginnings of the railway system, the land grants and subsidies, and the successive bursts of activity in railway building. Comparison will be made from time to time with the contemporary economic history of European countries.

Written work will be required of all students, and a course of reading will be prescribed, and tested by examination. The course is taken advantageously with or after History 13. While an acquaintance with economic principles is not indispensable, students are strongly advised to take the course after having taken Economics 1, or, if this be not easy to arrange, at the same time with that course.

 

Source: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98.  pp. 32-33.

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1899-1900
ECONOMICS 6
[Final examination, 1900]

  1. Into what periods may the economic history of the United States be properly divided? Give your reasons for making such a division, pointing out the chief characteristic of each periods.
  2. “A monopoly may be either legal, natural, or industrial.”—
    Distinguish each of these from the others by examples, and explain at length what is the character of an “industrial monopoly.”
  3. What legislation, if any, do you think is needed for the control of trusts? Give in full the reasons for your opinion.
  4. What features of American railway legislation do you consider open to criticism?
  5. “…As has been pointed out in the preceding chapter, cotton culture offered many and great advantages over other crops for the use of slave labor; but slavery had few, if any advantages over free labor for the cultivation of cotton….”—
    (a) Point out some of the advantages of cotton over other crops for the use of slave labor. (b) How do you reconcile the last part of the statement with the fact that cotton was produced chiefly by slave, instead of free, labor?
  6. Considering the conditions prevailing among the negroes in the South as well as in the West Indies since emancipation, what criticism, if any, would you make upon the policy of emancipation as actually carried out by the federal government during and after the war?
  7. What influences can you mention which have contributed to the recent depressed condition of cotton producers? (Do not confine your attention to the “credit system.”)
  8. What were the principal provisions of the resumption act? Explain the conditions under which it was carried into effect.
  9. Explain the conditions which led to the crisis or 1893.
  10. What reasons can you give to support the proposition that immigration has increased the population of the United States but little, if any?

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives.  Harvard University. Final examinations, 1853-2001.Box 2, Folder “Final examinations, 1899-1900”.

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Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Contemporary U.S. Economic History Seminar. Galbraith, 1973

 

 

Not really sure what was actually behind Galbraith giving up his “big course in the Social Sciences” for a cozy post-lunch seminar on Galbraith and the middle-two quarters of the twentieth century U.S. economic history. It seems that you could count the reasons on the middle finger of his right hand. But maybe it reveals nothing more nor less than a desire to simply reduce his teaching obligations to a delightful minimum. Still, not uninteresting to see how John Kenneth Galbraith chose to spend his Wednesday afternoons with a couple dozen Harvard undergraduates nearly a half century ago.

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March 16, 1973

Professor and Mrs. R. Paul Levine
Co-Masters, Currier House
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Dear Ursula and Paul:

I’ve given up my big course in the Social Sciences and I’m going to give a smaller seminar in contemporary economic history. Unfortunately there are some reasons why the Department wishes that this be an Economics course—it is something of a problem that, in recent years, my courses have been outside the Department. I wonder, however, if I might schedule it over in Currier House, and I wonder whether, as a further idea, it might be possible to schedule it, say, at 2:00 p.m. on a Wednesday, with the understanding that I would meet beforehand with any students who would like to join me for lunch. I propose to limit the attendance to 20 or 25—always assuming that many want to take it—so the congestion would not be too great. Perhaps you would let me have your thoughts.

Meanwhile my best to you both.

Yours faithfully,

John Kenneth Galbraith

JKG:mjh
cc: James S. Duesenberry

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COURSE DESCRIPTION

Economics 2365. Seminar: The United States Since the Great Depression
Professor John Kenneth Galbraith

The Crash and the Slump. The reputable view of cause and cure in the current economic orthodoxy. The collapse of banks, utilities, railroads. The agricultural crisis. Unemployment and the old labor movement. Roosevelt and the rationale of the recovery program. The process of recovery and the impact of Keynes. Radicalism and the rise of the CIO. The approach of World War II. The nature of the wartime economic mobilization. The transition to peace and the rise of economic evangelism. The Fifties and the economics of euphoria. The high tide of the New Economics. The new orthodoxy and the role of conditioned irrelevance.

Half course (fall term). Wednesday, 2-4 p.m.
For Graduates and Qualified Undergraduates. Enrollment limited as necessary.

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ECONOMICS 2365
AUTUMN TERM 1973-74
PROFESSOR JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH

MEETINGS: This course will meet on Wednesday afternoons. Each week at 1:00 there will be an informal lunch in the Currier House private dining room. Class will be from 2:00 to 4:00 in the Currier House Binghem Room. There will be no meeting on Wednesday, November 21st. The course will observe the reading period.

REQUIREMENTS: The major course requirement is a twenty-five page paper due on January 14, 1974. It should develop critically one or another of the subjects discussed in the course. It is expected that the paper will display an understanding of the material presented in class and in the readings; unfamiliarity with relevant lectures and readings, however concealed or explained, will be adversely scored. Each student is to submit the proposed title of his paper by November 21st. Office hours will be arranged in early November for that purpose.

PREREQUISITES: There are no formal prerequisites.

 *  *  *  *  *

I. INTRODUCTION (Sept. 26)

II. THE GREAT CRASH AND ITS CAUSES (Oct. 3)

J. K. Galbraith, The Great Crash 1929

III. THE NATURE OF THE DEPRESSION: DOMESTIC ASPECTS (Oct. 10)

L. Chandler, America’s Great Depression 1929-1941, Chapters 1-7.

IV. THE NATURE OF THE DEPRESSION: WORLD ASPECTS (Oct. 17)

A. Lewis, Economic Survey 1919-1939

V. THE LOGIC OF THE RECOVERY PROGRAM: I (Oct. 24)

A. Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal, Chapters 1-10

VI. THE LOGIC OF THE RECOVERY PROGRAM: II (Oct. 31)

A. Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal, Chapters 16-25.

VII. THE IMPACT OF KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS (Nov. 7)

J. K. Galbraith, “How Keynes Came to America,” in Economics, Peace, and Laughter. ***
R. Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers, Chapter 9—“The Heresies of John Maynard Keynes.”
M. Stewart, Keynes and After, Chapters 4, 6, 11, 12.

VIII: THE NATURE OF WARTIME ECONOMIC MOBILIZATION (Nov. 14)

J. K. Galbraith, A Theory of Price Control
W. K. Hancock, British War Economy, chapters 11, 12, 17 ***

IX. THE NATURE OF WARTIME ECONOMIC MOBILIZATION: THE COMPARATIVE BRITISH AND GERMAN ORGANIZATION (Nov. 28)

B. Klein, Germany’s Economic Preparation for War, (Omit statistical appendix)

X. CRITIQUE OF THE NEW ECONOMICS (Dec. 5)

J. K. Galbraith, The Affluent Society, Chapters 9-25.

XI. THE ECONOMICS OF THE COLD WAR AND VIETNAM (Dec. 12)

P. B. Baran and P. M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital, Chapter 7—“The Absorption of Surplus: Militarism and Imperialism.”
G. W. Domoff, “Who Made American Foreign Policy 1945-1963.” ***
J. D. Phillips, “Economic Effects of the Cold War.” ***
R. Eisner, “The War and the Economy.” ***

XII. INFLATION AND THE PRESENT CRISIS (Dec. 19)

J. K. Galbraith, “Inflation.”
B. Bosworth, “The Current Inflation: Malign Neglect” in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1973. ***
M. Ulmer, The Welfare State, Chapter 4—“The Anatomy of Inflation and Unemployment.” ***

All of these readings are required. Unless otherwise indicated, the entire book should be read. Readings which are in xeroxed form as well as in book form are marked with a triple asterisk***. Copies of all readings are on reserve in Lamont, Hilles, and Littauer libraries.

 

Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. John Kenneth Galbraith Personal Papers.  Series 5. Harvard University File, 1949-1990. Box 522, Folder “Economics 294: Spring term, 1968 (2 of 2) [sic]”.

Image Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Biographical Profile: John Kenneth Galbraith.

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Harvard. Curriculum vitae submitted by Albert O. Hirschman, ca. 1942

 

One of those serendipitous finds in rummaging through a department’s correspondence in search of one thing (curricular material in my case) is the artifact transcribed for this post, a c.v. submitted to the Harvard department of economics by a 27 or 28 year old Rockefeller Foundation fellow,  O. Albert Hirschmann. It is written in a narrative, autobiographical style as was the custom in Europe of the time. Because I had the great pleasure of having worked as Albert O. Hirschman’s assistant at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton during the 1980-81 academic year, I photographed his early c.v. in an act of filial piety. Of course all this and more can be found in the prize-winning biography written by Jeremy Adelman: Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman. Princeton University Press, 2013. Nonetheless, the c.v. possesses the charm of being the original words chosen by Hirschman to market himself back when he was just one of dozens of European economist émigrés looking for steady work.

Thanks to Adelman’s book I learned (p. 203) that one of my Yale mentors, William Fellner, taught a general seminar on the principles of economics at Berkeley that Albert Hirschman took during his Rockefeller Foundation fellowship. Historically speaking, it’s a small world! 

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O. Albert Hirschmann
1751 Highland Place
Berkeley, Calif.

CURRICULUM VITAE

I was born on April 7th, 1915, in Berlin. My nationality is Lithuanian. In 1932 I began to study law and economics at the University of Berlin. In April, 1933, I left for Paris, where I registered at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (H.E.C.) and at the Institut de Statistiques de l’Université de Paris at the Sorbonne. In 1935 I had obtained the diplomas of both these institutions.

At the end of 1935, I went to England, in order to study for several months at the London School of Economics and Political Science under a scholarship granted to me by the International Student Service, which had already granted to me by the International Student Service, which had already helped me during my former studies. I had courses with Professors Robbins [1898-1984], T. E. Gregory [1890-1970] and B. A. Whale [Philip Barrett Whale, 1898-1950]. I worked in particular under Mr. Whale on French monetary policy since the stabilization of the Franc.

At the end of 1936, after a short stay at Paris, I applied for, and obtained a place as an assistant at the Institute of Statistics of the University of Trieste. I remained there until the middle of 1938, when I was compelled to return to Paris because of the anti-foreign and anti-semitic policy of the Fascist government. At Trieste, I worked under Professor P. Luzzatto-Fegiz [1900-1989]. I became much interested in Population Statistics and a part of my researches in this field was published in an article in the Giornale degli Economisti, January, 1938: “Nota su due recenti tavole di nuzialità della popolazione italiana.” (“A note on two recent nuptiality tables of the Italian population”.) I worked also on several problems of economic statistics and in particular on the statistics of the national income and of family budgets. At the same time I studied for my Doctor’s degree, which I obtained with the grade 120 points in a total of 120, in June, 1938. My thesis was a continuation and an expansion of the work on French monetary policy which I had begun at the London School of Economics. The thesis was to be printed in the Annals of the University, but this was rendered impossible by the subsequent political developments.

While still in Italy, during the first months of 1938, I tried to acquaint myself thoroughly with the Italian financial and economic situation. I finally sent an extensive report to Paris, which was published as a separate booklet, without naming the author, in June, 1938, by the Bulletin Quotidien de la Société d’Études et d’Informations Économiques, under the title: “Les Finances et l’Économie Italiennes – Situation actuelle et perspectives.” This report attracted some attention in Paris because by combining data from various sources I had thrown some light on the Italian economic and financial development which was surrounded by official secrecy. It was upon this report that Professor Charles Rist [1874-1955] offered me to collaborate in his Institut de Recherches Économiques et Sociales. Italy was my special field and from July, 1938, to April, 1940, I wrote regularly three-monthly reports on Italian economic development in L’Activité Économique, which was the publication of the Institute.

I also wrote a small booklet for the above named Bulletin Quotidian on the subject: “L’Industrie Textile Italienne et l’Autarcie.”

In November, 1938, Professor J. B. Condliffe [1891-1981], who was then acting as the director of studies for the International Studies Conference at Bergen, and in this capacity was organizing an international inquiry into the national systems of exchange control, entrusted me with the preparation of a report on the exchange control system of Italy. I also worked on other problems in connection with the Conference and, in particular, devised a new method of measuring the tendency toward bilateralism as completely distinct from the tendency towards equilibrium of foreign trade. Professor Condliffe encouraged me to write a small paper on this idea, and thus I presented two reports at the international Studies Conference at Bergen in 1939: (1) “Le Contrôle des Changes en Italie”—a report of ninety mimeographed pages by the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, which for various reasons was not signed, (2) “Étude Statistique de la Tendance du Commerce International [extérieur] Vers l’Équilibre et le Bilatéralisme”—a shorter paper also mimeographed and signed. A recent publication of the U.S. Tariff Commission on “Italian Commercial Policy (1922 – 1940)” has made an extensive use of my report on Italian Exchange Control, whereas Professor Condliffe has quoted my figures on bilateralism in his book “The Reconstruction of World Trade”.

I had registered as a volunteer for the French Army in case of war, in April, 1939. I was called as early as August, 1939. The stationary character of the war gave me the opportunity to prepare still two reports on the Italian economy, the necessary source-material being sent from Paris. After the armistice, in July, 1940, I was demobilized at Nîmes, in Southern France. From there I went to Marseilles, where I met Mr. Varian Fry [1907-1967], who had been sent to Marseilles by the Emergency Rescue Committee in order to evacuate political and intellectual refugees from France. I collaborated with him from August to December, 1940, when, upon the recommendation of Professor Condliffe, I obtained a Rockefeller fellowship, and thereupon the American visa. I arrived in this country on January 14, 1941.

After a short stay in the East, I went to the University of California at Berkeley to work in connection with a research project on Foreign Trade, directed by Professor Condliffe. Soon after my arrival at Berkeley, I met my wife and we were married in June 1941.

My original research plan was to give a statistical analysis of recent quantitative trends in world trade and my first months were spent in working out the specific problems which I intended to study. I wrote several papers on the measurement of concentration and related subjects in descriptive statistics which I hope to publish either as appendices to my main manuscript or as separate journal articles. The next step in my research was to apply the statistical methods which I had worked out to the foreign trade statistics. This required extensive calculations for which Professor Condliffe put an assistant at my disposal. I also participated in several graduate seminars and took a course in the theory of probability.

Upon the renewal of the Rockefeller fellowship for another year and after a two months illness during the winter of 1941-1942, I began to work at the theoretical and historical aspects of the problems which I had first studied from a purely quantitative point of view. The result of my research has now been embodied in a manuscript of 300 pages entitled “National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade”, of which only the concluding section remains to be written.

Professors Howard S. Ellis [1898-1992] and Condliffe have given me the assurance that the manuscript would be published by a series edited by the newly established Bureau of Economic and Business Research of the University of California. One chapter of the manuscript giving a new statistical analysis of the composition of world trade according to commodity groups, is somewhat loosely connected with the rest and it has been suggested to me to have it published as a separate article. The Rockefeller Foundation has granted me the expenses for a trip to the Middle West and East on which I have just had the opportunity to discuss my manuscript with Professor Viner [1892-1970] at Chicago, Professors Haberler [1900-1995] and Staley [Eugene Alvah Staley (1906-1989) was at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy] at Harvard, Professors Staudinger [1889-1980] and Lowe [1893-1995] at the New School of Social Research and with Professor Loveday [1888-1962] and Mr. [Folke] Hilgerdt [1894-1956] of the Economic Intelligence Service of the League at Princeton.

As a result of my training, I have acquired a certain specialization in statistical methods on the one hand and in the field of international economics on the other (theory and history of international trade, international monetary problems, exchange control, foreign trade statistics, etc.) Through my work in Europe I am well acquainted, in particular, with the economic problems of Italy and France.

Having studied for prolonged periods in Germany, France and Italy, I speak and write with complete fluency the languages of these countries. I also have a reading knowledge of Spanish.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950. Box 5, Folder “H”.

Image Source: Albert O. Hirschman before he was dispatched to North Africa, circa 1943. From Michele Alacevich’s Introduction to “Albert Hirschman and the Social Sciences: A Memorial Round-Table” posted July 25, 2015.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Final Exams for History of Tariff Legislation. Taussig 1883/4-1889/90

 

Frank W. Taussig first taught his half-course “History of U.S. Tariff Legislation” (one hour of class a week for the entire academic year) in 1883-84.  Beginning 1886-87 the half-course met two hours per week during the second term only. The previous post provides the entire 28 page printed syllabus with bibliography for this course dated 1888. Today’s post provides enrollment data for the course from 1883-84 through 1889-90 along with all the end-of-term examinations for the course.

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Announcement of new course on Tariff Legislation

The scheme of instruction for the year 1883-84….Of the remaining five courses, of which four are new, two are full courses, with three or two exercises a week, while three, having each one exercise a week, are rated as half-courses. The latter are devoted to the treatment of special topics: The Economic Effects of Land Tenures in England, Ireland, France, and Germany, by Professor Laughlin; Tariff Legislation in the United States, by Dr. Taussig; Comparison of the Financial Systems of France, England, Germany, and the United States by Professor Dunbar.”

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1882-1883, p. 73.

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Course Enrollments

Enrollment 1883-84

Dr. Taussig. 6. Lectures on the History of Tariff Legislation, chiefly in the United States with a discussion of the principles of tariff legislation.  Hours per week: 1.

Total 17:  13 Seniors, 1 Junior, 3 Graduates

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1883-1884, p. 72.

*  *  *  *  *

Enrollment 1884-85

Dr. Taussig. 6. History of Tariff Legislation in the United States, with a discussion of principles.—Lectures.  Hours per week: 1. *Consent of instructor required.

Total 40:  26 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 1 Graduate, 3 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1884-1885, p. 86.

*  *  *  *  *

Enrollment 1885-86

Dr. Taussig. 6. History of Tariff Legislation in the United States.— Discussion of principles.  Hours per week: 1. *Consent of instructor required.

Total 35:  17 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 2 Graduates, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1885-1886, p. 51.

*  *  *  *  *

Enrollment 1886-87

Dr. Taussig. 6. History of Tariff Legislation in the United States, and consideration of its economic effects.—Lectures, written exercises, and oral discussion.  Hours per week: 2, 2ndhalf-year. *Consent of instructor required.

Total 38:  28 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 2 Graduates, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1886-1887, p. 59.

*  *  *  *  *

Enrollment 1887-88

Dr. Taussig. 6. History of Tariff Legislation in the United States.—Lectures, required reading, and investigation of special topics.  Hours per week: 2, 2ndhalf-year. *Consent of instructor required.

Total 58:  31 Seniors, 17 Juniors, 5 Graduates, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1887-1888, p. 62.

*  *  *  *  *

Enrollment 1888-89

Dr. Taussig. 6. History of Tariff Legislation in the United States.—Lectures and reports on special topics. Hours per week: 2, 2ndhalf-year. *Consent of instructor required.

Total 34:  18 Seniors, 14 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1888-1889, p. 72.

*  *  *  *  *

Enrollment 1889-90

Dr. Taussig. 6. History of Tariff Legislation in the United States.—Lectures on the History of Tariff Legislation.—Discussion of brief theses (two from each student).—Lectures on the Tariff history of France and England.  Hours per week: 2 or 3, 2ndhalf-year. *Consent of instructor required.

Total 29:  19 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 1 Other.

Source:Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1889-1890, p. 80.

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1883-84.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6
[Mid-Year]

  1. Give a brief summary of the contents of Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures. Comment on his discussion of the relative productiveness of agriculture and manufactures; and on the proposition that manufactures are peculiarly productive, and particularly desirable in a country, because they admit of a greater division of labor and more extended use of machinery.
    Make some comparison between the general character of Hamilton’s Report and Gallatin’s Memorial, of 1831, on the Tariff.
  2. Describe the tariff act of 1789. Should you consider it a protective measure?
  3. Give a brief history of the cotton manufacture from 1789 to 1824, and of the tariff legislation on cottons. Comment on the following: “It is seen that the manufacture of coarse cotton cloth has been more efficiently and steadily protected than any other and that such cloths are now supplied so cheaply that as to enter largely into the list of exports….The more perfectly the home market is secured to the domestic artisan, the greater is the tendency to cheapening the commodity.”— H.C. Carey.
  4. Give an account of the passage of the tariff act of 1828, and of the provisions of that act. Why was it called “the tariff of abominations”? Comment on this statement: “Next came the tariff of 1828, the first that was based on the idea of protection for the sake of protection.”
  5. What was the “forty-bale theory,” or “export tax theory” of Congressman McDuffie? Discuss, in connection with it, the incidence of taxation by duties on imports.
  6. Given the important provisions of the Compromise Act of 1833. How long was that act, by its terms, to remain in force, and how long did it remain in force? Criticize the tariff system which the act finally brought into operation. Comment briefly on the following: “Mr. Calhoun introduced and carried the scheme of what is called a revenue tariff, which, taking off by gradations, should finally reduce the income, through the custom house, to the measure necessary to support the Government, and adjust it on the principles of a tariff for revenue only. And how long did it take this beneficent measure…to do its work on the industries of this country? In 1837 a bankruptcy covered the whole land, without distinction of sections, with ruin.”—W.M. Evarts.

Mid-Year. 1884.

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1883-84.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6
[End-Year]

  1. Secretary Walker, in his report on the tariff in 1845, laid down these general rules:—
    No duty should be imposed above the lowest rate that will yield the largest revenue.
    Below such a rate discrimination may be made.
    The maximum revenue duty should be imposed on luxuries.
    Should you say that these rules were sound, and stated the proper principles applicable to import duties? Should you say that the legislation based on them in the tariff of 1846 was a sound application of the principles of free trade?
  2. Describe and discuss the plan on which the wool and woolens schedule of the existing tariff was formed.
  3. Compare the tariff history of France during and after the wars of the French Revolution, with that of the United States during and after the war of the rebellion.
  4. Comment on the following:—
    “A tax on raw materials is not like a tax on finished goods. A tax on raw materials is equal to its own amount, plus the usual percentage of gross profit, multiplied by the number of procedures through which it has to pass until it reaches the consumer in the finished state. A protection of $28,000,000 on raw wool [a duty of 10 cents a pound, with a domestic production of 280,000,000 pounds] keeps swelling and swelling at each intermediate stage till it reaches the consumer, and may be called nearly a hundred million dollars when it reaches the consumer it its most finished state.”
  5. What should you say of the tariff as a factor in the general prosperity of the United States during the past hundred years?

Ann. June, 1884.

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1884-85.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6
[Mid-Year]

(Omit either question 3 or question 4.)

  1. Comment briefly on the following:—
    “There is not a single great branch of domestic manufactures which had not been established in some form in this country long before a protective tariff had been or could have been imposed. The manufacture of iron is nearly as old as the history of every colony or territory in which there is any iron ore. The manufacture of woolens is as old as the country itself, and was more truly a domestic manufacture when our ancestors were clothed with homespun than now. The manufacture of cotton is almost as old as the production of the fibre on our territory.”
  2. Compare the tariff act of 1816 with that of 1824, noting differences in (1) the general range of duties, (2) the circumstances under which they were passed, (3) the action taken in regard to them by the representatives of New England, the Middle States, and the South. It has been said that “the tariff of 1816 marks the beginning of protection in this country,” and that “the tariff of 1824 was our first tariff worthy of the name of protection.” Which of these statements is true, if either?
  3. Comment on the following:—
    “No protective duty was ever levied on a single article, the home manufacture of which grew to large proportions under that duty, without the price to the consumer growing cheaper, the duty thus being a boon instead of a tax.”
    “A duty on an imported article is invariably added to its price, at the cost of the buyer, and added also to the price of like articles made here.”
  4. State carefully the argument for the protection of young industries and mention the conditions, if any, which might justify the application of such protection.
  5. Give a brief critical statement of the views expressed by Hamilton, Gallatin, Clay, and Webster on the protective controversy.

Mid-year. 1885

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1884-85.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6
[End-Year]

  1. State as nearly as you can the duties on the following articles from 1846 to 1884: pig-iron, steel-rails, wool, woolen cloths, silks, coffee, copper
    Take any one of the following articles: pig-iron, wool, woolen cloths, silks, copper; and say something as the economic effect of the duties on that one between 1860 and 1884.
  2. Give an account of the tariff act of 1864. Compare the tariff policy adopted in the United States after the close of the civil war, and with the policy of France after 1815.
  3. What has been the practice in our tariff acts since 1842 as regards the imposition of specific and ad valorem duties? Comment on the following: “It is an economic truth that the ad valorem system is the only equitable rule for assessing duties. With the whole power of a great government behind, there is no reason why the laws of the country should not be enforced. The outcry of undervaluation is simply a trick to blind the people, as it would be impossible to enact a law imposing duties of 80, 100, even 200 percent. in the plain unvarnished form of ad valorem duties.”
  4. Comment briefly on two of the following:—
    1. “The fairest and most satisfactory test of the effect of the tariff on prices is to compare prices of the same article under high and low tariffs. The average gold price of pig-iron before 1860 was $28.50 per ton; in recent years it has been $33.70. The average is higher by $5.20 under a high tariff than during the period of low duties.”
    2. “Nothing can be more false than the claim of free trade advocates than that a duty is a tax that comes out of the farmers and artisans of this country. By far the greater part of the revenue collected on importations is the toll paid by people of other countries for the admission of their goods….I was assured by a score of manufacturers in England that the recent increase in the French tariff came out of their pockets, and not from the consumers in France; that they were compelled to sell their goods in France at the same price as before the increase of duty.”
    3. “A conclusive answer to the assertion that the protective policy secures high wages to the laborers of this country, is found in the fact that wages are higher in the United States—absolutely and in comparison with the old world rates—in those industries which do not have, or confessedly do not need, protection.”
  5. Compare the grounds on which a policy of protection has been advocated in recent years with the grounds put forward in 1820-30, and give any reasons that may occur to you for changes in the arguments.

Ann. June. 1885.

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1885-86.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6
[Mid-Year]

  1. Comment on the following:—
    “Beside the protection thrown over the manufacturing interest by Congress during this period (1789-1812), the war which raged in Europe produced a favorable effect. As the United States was a neutral nation, she fattened on the miseries of the European nations, and her commerce increased with astonishing rapidity. Our manufactures flourished from the same cause, though not to a corresponding degree with our commerce.”
  2. Take two of the following:—
    (a) Give some account of the sources from which we learn the character of the act of 1828, and the circumstances under which it was passed.
    (b) What was Webster’s position on the tariff question, in 1824, in 1828, and in 1833?
    (c) What was Clay’s position on the tariff question in 1820, in 1828, and in 1832?
    Under (b) and (c) discuss briefly the reasons why Clay and Webster acted as they did at the dates mentioned.
  3. Comment on the following:—
    “Whenever we diminish importation by a protective tariff, we must at the same time diminish the production of those goods which, were trade free, we should given in exchange for the goods imported…..It would, however, be a mistake in the other direction to assume that all the industry set in operation by the tariff is withdrawn from other employments, and that there is no increase whatever. The very fact that, under free trade, goods are imported instead of being made at home shows that we find it easier to make the goods which we send abroad than to make those which we receive in exchange for them. Hence when we are forced to make them for ourselves, there must be an increase in the sum total of our industry.”
  4. Comment on the following, and state when and by whom you think it was written:—
    “The principal argument for the superior productiveness of agricultural labor turns on the allegation that the labor employed on manufactures yields nothing equivalent to the rent of the land, or to that net surplus, as it is called, which accrues to the proprietor of the soil….It seems to have been overlooked that the land itself is a stock or capital, advanced or lent by its owner to the occupier or tenant, and that the rent he receives is only the ordinary profit of a certain stock in land, not managed by the proprietor himself, but by another, to whom he lends or lets it, and who, on his part, advances a second capital, to stock and improve the land, upon which he also receives the usual profit. The rent of the landlord and the profit of the farmer are, therefore, nothing more than the ordinary profit of two capitals belonging to two different persons, and united in the cultivation of the farm.”
  5. State as nearly as you can what were the duties on cotton goods, woolen goods, bar iron, hemp, and articles not specifically provided for, in the years 1800, 1814, 1820, 1830, and 1837. Mention what tariff act was in force at each date, and whether the duty was specific or ad valorem. Use tabular form if you wish.

Mid-year. 1886.

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1885-86.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6
[End-Year]

[Omit one question.]

  1. Does a tax on imports operate as a tax on exports? Apply your reasoning to the exports of Southern cotton in 1830, and to those of Western grain in 1880.
  2. Assuming that you were called on to reduce duties, state the order of preference in which you would effect reductions in the present duties on iron, sugar, silks. Give your reasons.
  3. Make a comparison between the general course of tariff legislation in the United States and on the continent of Europe, from 1860 to the present time.
  4. Make a comparison between the tariff legislation of the United States in 1833 and in 1846.
  5. Comment on the reasoning and the statement of fact in the following:—
    “The duty of 1867 on wool, which gave to wool-growing its greatest encouragement, has added nothing to the cost of wool to the manufacturer or the consumer. On the contrary, the price has been greatly cheapened. In 1867 the price was 51 cents, in 1870 it was 46 cents, in 1875 it was 43 cents. There has been a steady reduction, with occasional fluctuations, since 1867. Free wool will be of no permanent benefit to manufacturer or consumer, but a positive loss to both. On the other hand, the wool-growing interest will be ruined by the competition of Australia, New Zealand, and the South American State.”
  6. Would you impose specific or ad-valorem duties on steel rails, wool, woolen cloths? Give your reasons. What has been the practice in imposing duties on these articles since 1860?

Final. June, 1886.

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1886-87.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6
[End-Year]

  1. Comment on the historical statements, and on the reasoning from them, in the following extracts:—
    “Such was the state of things [bankruptcy and ruin the most complete] at the date of the passage of the tariff act of 1842. Scarcely had it become a law, when confidence began to reappear and commerce to revive—the first steps toward the restoration of the whole country, in the briefest period, to a state of prosperity the like of which had never before been known. Seeing that these remarkable facts were totally opposed to the free-trade theory, the author was led to study the phenomena presented in the free-trade period from 1817 to 1824, and in the protective one which commenced in 1825 and ended in 1834,–the one terminating in bankruptcy and ruin similar to that which exhibited itself in 1842, and the other giving to the country a state of prosperity such as had again been realized in 1846….The more he studied these facts, the more did he become satisfied that the free-trade theory embodied some great error.” H.C. Carey, Preface to the Principles of Social Science.”
  2. It has been said that protective duties cause the price of the protected articles to fall; and such an effect is said to have been produced on the prices of cotton cloth after 1816, of copper after 1869, and of steel rails after 1870. Comment on the principle, and on its application in these three cases.
  3. “This ill-understood and much reviled principle [the minimum principle] appears to me to be a just, proper, effective, and strictly philosophical mode of laying protective duties. It is exactly conformable, as I think, to the soundest and most accurate principles of political economy. It is, in the most rigid sense, what all such enactments so far as practical be ought to be: that is to say, a mode of laying a specific duty. It lays the import exactly where it will do good and leaves the rest free. It is an intelligent, discerning, discriminating principle, no a blind, headlong, generalizing, uncalculating operation….The minimum principle, however, was overthrown by the law of 1832, and that law, as it came from the House, and as it finally passed, substituted a general and universal ad valorem duty of fifty per cent.” Webster, Speech in the Senate, 1836.
    What were the duties to which Webster refers in this passage? And what should you say to his comments on them?
  4. Explain carefully what is the fundamental proposition in Walker’s Treasury Report of 1845, and discuss its soundness as a principle of tariff reform.
  5. Explain the present system of duties on woolen cloths, stating briefly its history; and say something as to its effects.
  6. It has been said that high duties should be levied on manufactured articles and low duties on raw materials, because raw materials, being more bulky, require much shipping to transport them, and their free admission would give increased employment to American vessels. Assuming that the materials would fact be carried in American vessels, should you say the argument was a sound one?
  7. How can you explain the fact that, while the manufacture of cotton cloths has been little, if at all, dependent on protection, the heavy duties on silk piece-goods have not prevented a continuous large importation?
  8. It has been proposed to admit sugar from Cuba duty free, by a reciprocity treaty. Should you be in favor of such a measure?
  9. Discuss on of the following subjects. (Those who have prepared special reports on any one of these subjects are not to select that one for discussion.)
    1. The financial working of the tariff act of 1846.
    2. Proposed tariff legislation since 1883
    3. The circumstances under which the tariff act of 1833 was passed.

Final. 1887.

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1887-88.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6
[End-Year]

  1. “I will not argue the question whether, looking to the policy indicated by the laws of 1789, 1817, 1824, 1828, 1832, and 1842, there has been ground for the industrious and enterprising people of the United States, engaged in home pursuits, to expect government protection for internal industry. The question is, do these laws, or do they not, from 1789 to the present time, constantly show and maintain a purpose, a policy, which might naturally induce men to invest property in manufactures, and to commit themselves to those pursuits in life? Without lengthened argument, I shall take this for granted.”—Webster, Speech of 1846.
    Was Webster justified in taking so much for granted?
  2. Compare the treatment of the bearing of protective duties on wages in Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures with the treatment of the same topic in Walker’s Report of 1846, and give an opinion on the value of the discussion at the hands of both statesmen.
  3. What connection has been alleged to exist, and what connection in fact existed, between tariff legislation and general prosperity in 1837-39, in 1843, and in 1857?
  4. Point out wherein the duties on wool and woolens under the act of 1828 resembled, and wherein they differed from, the duties on the same articles under the act of 1867.
  5. Compare the effect of the duties on cotton goods between 1816 and 1824, with the effect of the duties on the same goods between 1864 and 1883.
  6. Point out wherein Mill’s reasoning as to the effect of an import duty on the terms of an international exchange is different from the export tax theory of 1832.
  7. Explain what conclusions you can draw as to the economic effect of the duties on pig iron between 1870 and 1888, from your knowledge of foreign and domestic prices, duties, domestic production, and imports.
  8. Explain why the duty on imported sugar has not stimulated the production of beet sugar in the United States. Apply a similar explanation to some other industry, not connected with agriculture, in which high duties have had less effect than might have been expected.
  9. Point out wherein the course of the tariff legislation of the United States between 1864 and 1883 was similar to the course of legislation in France between 1815 and 1860, and wherein it was not similar.
  10. “First, there is no sufficient market for our surplus agricultural products except a foreign market, and, in default of this, such surplus will either not be raised, or, if raised, will rot on the ground. Second, the domestic demand for the products of existing furnaces and factories is very far short of the capacity of such furnaces and factories to supply; and, until larger and more extended markets are obtainable, domestic competition will inevitably continue, as now, to reduce profits to a minimum and greatly restrict the extension of the so-called manufacturing industries….Industrial depression, business stagnation, and social discontent in the United States, as a rule, are going to continue and increase until the nation adopts a fiscal and commercial policy more liberal and better suited to the new condition of affairs.”— D.A. Wells, in the North American Review.
    Do you think the remedy of lower import duties will remove the difficulties said to arise from excessive production?

Final, 1888.

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1888-89.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6
[End-Year]

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

  1. State the duties on cotton cloths, woolen cloths, pig iron, and coffee, in 1790, 1840, 1850, 1885, noting whether the duties were specific or ad valorem, and what tariff acts were in force at these dates, respectively [Use tabular form if you wish.]
  2. “Beside the protection thrown over the manufacturing interest by Congress during this period (1789-1812), the war which raged in Europe produced a favorable effect. As the United States was a neutral nation, she fattened on the miseries of the European nations, and her commerce increased with astonishing rapidity. Our manufactures flourished from the same cause, though not to a corresponding degree with our commerce”
    Did Congress protect manufactures during this period? Did the wars in Europe have the effect described on our commerce and manufactures?
  3. Wherein were the duties on rolled iron in France, in the first half of this century, similar to those in the United States at the same period? How do you account for the similarity, and what was the effect of the duties in either country?
  4. Why was a compound duty imposed on wool in 1828? Why in 1867? Is such a duty now imposed on wool?
  5. Wherein does the present duty on worsted goods differ from that imposed on woolen goods in 1828? wherein from the present duty on woolens? What has been the effect of the difference between the present rates on woolens and worsteds?
  6. Point out some general features in the tariff act of 1846 which were recommended in Secretary Walker’s Report of the year preceding.
  7. What would be the effect of a treaty with Spain admitting free of duty sugar from Cuba?
  8. Wherein has the effect of the duties of the last twenty-five years been different as to cottons, linens, woolens? Why the differences?
    [Omit one of the following:—]
  9. Mill says that certain conclusions which he reaches as to the effect on foreign countries of import duties, do not hold good as to protective duties. Is there good ground for distinguishing as he does
    [Note: Taussig appears to have pasted questions 10 and 11 below over the last line (or two) of question 9.]
  10. “The only case indeed in which personal aptitudes go for much in the commerce of nations is where the nations concerned occupy different grades in the scale of civilization…In the main it would seem that this cause does not go for very much in international commerce. The principal condition, to which all others are subordinate, must be looked for in that other form of adaptation founded on the special advantages, positive or comparative, offered by particular localities for the prosecution of particular industries.”—Cairnes, Leading Principles.
    Discuss, with reference to the general line of reasoning in this passage, the international trade of the United States in (1) glassware, (2) hardware and cutlery, (3) hemp and flax [take any two].
  11. Comment on the following:—
    “The manufacture of silk goods in the United States at the present time [1882] probably supplies an example of an industry which, though comparatively new, can hardly be said to deserve protection as a young industry. The methods and machinery in use are not essentially different from those of other branches of textile manufactures. No great departure from the usual track of production is necessary in order to make silks….Those artificial obstacles which might temporarily prevent the rise of the industry do not exist; and it may be inferred that, if there are no permanent causes which prevent silks from being made as cheaply in the United States as in foreign countries, the manufacture will be undertaken and carried on without needing any stimulus from protecting duties.”— Taussig, Protection to Young Industries.

Final 1889.

Political Economy 6. Grade Distribution 1888-89, 2d half-year.

Total (32) Senior (16) Junior (14) Other (2)
A 2 2
A- 1
B+ 3 2
B 4 4
B- 1 1
C 1 3 2
D 4
E 2

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1889-90.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6
[End-Year]

  1. What grounds are there for believing that the restrictive policy of Great Britain did or did not have a considerable effect on the industrial development of the American colonies?
  2. What was the effect of the political situation in 1824 on the tariff act of that year? in 1842 on the act of 1842?
  3. “The tariff of 1846 was passed by a party vote. It followed the strict constructionist theory in aiming at a list of duties sufficient only to provide revenue for the government, without regard to protection.”—Johnston’s American Politics.
    Was the act passed by a party vote? Did it disregard protection? Did it succeed in fixing duties sufficient only to provide revenue?
  4. What basis is there for the assertion that the gold premium, in the years after the civil war, increased the protection given by the import duties?
  5. Under what circumstances was the tariff act of 1864 passed? How long did it remain in force?
  6. Is there any analogy between the effects of the duties on cotton goods after 1816 and those on steel rails after 1870?
  7. Wherein would there probably be differences in the effects of reciprocity treaties (1) with Canada, admitting coal free; (2) with Great Britain, admitting iron free; (3) with Brazil, admitting sugar free?
  8. Apply Gallatin’s test as to the effect of duties on the price of the protected articles, to the present facts in regard to (1) clothing wool, (2) silks.
  9. On what grounds is the removal of the duty on pig iron more or less desirable than that of the duty on sugar?
  10. Is it a strong objection to ad valorem duties that they depend on foreign prices and that therefore the duties are fixed by foreigners? Is it a strong objection to specific duties that they operate unequally?

Final. 1890.

Political Economy 6. Grade Distribution 1889-90, 2d half-year.

Total (27) Senior (17) Junior (9) Other (1)
A 2 1
A- 1
B+ 4
B 6 3 1
B-
C+ 1 1
C 3 3
D- 1
E

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers in economics, 1882-1935. Prof. F. W. Taussig.

 

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Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. History of Tariff Legislation. Taussig, 1888

 

This post provides an extended bibliography and syllabus printed in 1888 for Frank W. Taussig’s course on the history of tariff legislation. In a later post I will provide transcriptions of the final exam questions for this course. This artifact is 28 printed pages long!  Exam for June 1888. Exam for June 1889.

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Course Announcement 1888-89

[Political Economy] 6. History of Tariff Legislation in the United States. Half-course. Tu., Th., at 2, and a third hour at the pleasure of the Instructor (second half-year). Professor Taussig.

Source: Harvard University. Announcements of Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Harvard College for the Academic Year 1888-89. Cambridge, May 1888. pp. 18-19.

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TOPICS AND REFERENCES
IN POLITICAL ECONOMY VI.
HARVARD COLLEGE.

TARIFF LEGISLATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

Cambridge, Mass.
1888.

Published for Members of Harvard University by the Harvard Co-operative Society. For others by A. A. Waterman.

 

[p. 2]

POLITICAL ECONOMY VI.

PART I. IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS AND PAPERS.

  1. Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures.

Read Hamilton’s Works, ed. of 1810, I, 157-196; ed. of 1850, III, 192-223; ed. of 1885, III, 294-335.

Summary of the Report:

  1. The relative productiveness of agriculture and manufactures. Rent, as a sign of the productiveness of agriculture.
  2. Circumstances rendering manufactures productive: (1) division of labor; (2) use of machinery; (3) employment of women and children; (4) promotion of immigration; (5) greater diversity of talent; (6) more various field for enterprise; (7) greater demand for products of the soil, “home market.”
  3. Peculiar circumstances of U. S.: (1) absence of reciprocity; (2) cultivation of land not retarded; (3) force of habit opposes manufactures; (4) improbability of success, from (a) scarcity of labor, (b) dearness of labor, (c) scarcity of capital (remedied by funded debt).
  4. General arguments again: (1) will encouragement of manufactures cause a rise in prices? (2) independence in time of war; (3) charge of transportation saved; (4) no opposition of interest between North and South.

[p. 3]

  1. Means for encouraging manufactures enumerated and discussed; e. g. duties on imports, prohibitions of importation, prohibitions of exportation, bounties (commended, and constitutionality maintained), premiums, drawbacks, encouragement of inventions, etc.
  2. List of industries existing, and recommendations in regard to them.

 

  1. Gallatin’s Memorial of 1831.

Read Gallatin’s Memorial on Free Trade, pp. 1-47; the same passages in Congressional Documents, 1stsession, 22nd Congress, Senate Doc., vol. I, No. 5, pp. 1-30, and in The Banner of the Constitution, vol. III, pp. 97-101.

Summary of the Memorial:

  1. The needed revenue, and the average duty which would secure it.
  2. The general principles of free trade.
  3. Compensating advantages from protection, as the employment of female labor [compare Mill, Political Economy, Book I, ch. V, § 1, note], the stimulus to producing some raw materials, the creation of a home market.
  4. Certain arguments for protection: high wages; that foreign trade stimulates foreign industry; the relation of imports and exports; reciprocity and retaliation; the experience of other countries.
  5. The reduction of prices by domestic competition.
  6. Careful and detailed examination of duties then in force.

 

  1. Walker’s Report of 1845.

Read Report of the Secretary of the Treasury for 1845, Executive Documents, 29th Congress, 1st session, vol. II, No. 6, pp. 3-14. Printed also in Niles’s Register, vol. 69, pp. 233-235.

[p. 4]

  1. Noteworthy principles laid down:
    (a) No duty should be imposed above the lowest rate that will yield the largest revenue. What does this mean? (b) Below this rate discrimination may be made. What sort of discrimination would Walker favor? (c) The maximum rate may be imposed on luxuries. (d) All specific and minimum duties should be abolished.
  2. How far the reasoning and the proposals of the report are consistent with the principles of free trade.
  3. The treatment of the effects of a protective tariff on wages and on profits.
  4. Specific and ad valorem duties. The warehousing system.
  5. The general merit of the Report; the praise it has often received. Report of the Tariff Commission of 1882, pp. 1428-1427.

 

PART II. HISTORY OF TARIFF LEGISLATION.

  1. Period before 1789.

General References: Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations(Rogers’s ed.), II, 156-166. Pitkin, Statistical View, ch. I. In general, read on the period till 1816, H. C. Adams, Taxation in the U. S., 1789-1816.

  1. Policy of England. The Mercantile System.
    (a) The Navigation Laws and the Colonial System. (b) Bounties. (c) Prohibitions. (d) History of the iron manufacture, as a type. Bishop, Hist. Manuf., I, 623-629.
  2. Policy of the Colonies.
    (a) Bounties. Bishop, vol. I, passim. (b) Effect of war of revolution. Non-importation agreements. Bishop, I, 365-396.
  3. Industrial state of the Colonies. How far affected by legislation. H. C. Adams, Taxation, etc., 5-13. Thompson, Social Science, 353.

[p. 5]

  1. Tariff acts of individual States before 1789, g.Pennsylvania act of 1785, Hoyt’s Protection versus Free Trade, Preface, p. xii; Adams, Taxation in U. S., 27.
  2. Scheme of a Federal Impost (5% duty) under the Confederation. The effect of its failure on the formation of the Union. Elliot, Debates, 92-106. Pitkin, Statist. View, 26-29.

 

  1. Tariff Act of 1789.

General References: Hamilton, Life of Hamilton, IV, 2-7. Sumner, Protection in U. S., 21-25. Young, Report on Customs Legist., p. xv.

  1. Debate of 1789.
    (a) Madison’s position. Young, Report, p. vii, viii. Madison, Writings,
  2. I, 466, 468. (b) Protectionist views advanced. (c) General tendency of the debate to look mainly at the revenue.
  3. Act of 1789.
    (a) The preamble. (b) Modelled on 5% scheme of confederation. General 5% duty. (c) Duties of 7½ , 10, 15%, on certain articles. (d) Specific duties on cordage, hemp, nails, steel, etc. Hamilton, Works, II, 55.
  4. A common account of the significance of the act of 1789.
    Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, I, 182-186.
  5. Tonnage act of 1789.
  6. Revenue Collection act of July 31, 1789.

 

  1. 1789-1816.

General References: Bolles, Fin. Hist., II, 73-87. Taussig, Young Ind., 14-21.

  1. Tariff Acts from 1789 till 1816. Gradual increase of duties. Act of 1804 (Barbary Powers act) as an example. Young’s Report, xxxi, xxxii.

[p. 6]

  1. Industrial history, 1792-1807. Expansion of trade, due largely to wars in Europe. Large imports, especially from England.
  2. Restrictions, 1808-1815. Embargo, 1808-1809. Non-intercourse Act, 1809. War, 1812-1815. Duties doubled during the war. Effect of restrictions on foreign trade; on manufactures.
  3. Public opinion on protection in the earlier part of the period. Madison’s attitude in 1789, Young’s Report, p. viii; his Resolutions of 1794, Annals of Congress, 1794, pp. 155, 209. Jefferson’s feeling in 1787, Notes on Virginia, Works, VIII, 404; his Report on Commerce, in 1793, Works, VII, 637-651. Various Committee Reports of this period in American State Papers, Finance, vol. I.
  4. Public opinion during the period of restriction. Clay’s speech of 1810, Works, I, 195-199 (edition of 1848).

 

  1. Act of 1816.

General References: Taussig, Young Ind., 28-34, 40-44. Sumner, 34-38. Calhoun, Works, II, 163-173. Stat. at Large, III, 310-311.

  1. Great growth of manufactures during the war. Manufacturers ask for aid. Appleton, The power-loom, etc., 12-13.
  2. Madison’s Message, Statesman’s Man., I, 331. Dallas’s Report, Am. St. P. Finance, III, 87-91.
  3. Provisions of the act. General increase of duties. Duties on cottons and woollens; on rolled and hammered bar iron. Taussig, Young Ind., 54, 56.
  4. Public opinion not strongly aroused. Attitude of New England, the Middle States, and the South. The act of 1816 marks transition from the period 1789-1815 to the period 1820-32.
  5. The War Argument. Calhoun’s speech of 1816. Holst’s Life of Calhoun, pp. 27-37.

[p. 7]

  1. The Protective Movement after 1819. The Act of 1824.

General References: Taussig, Young Industries, 21-28, 33-40, 43-48, and in Political Science Quarterly, vol. III, March, 1888; Webster, Works, 96-106. Stat. at Large, IV, 25.

  1. The years 1816-19. Inflated prices; large imports; land speculations; reckless banking. Crisis of 1819. Effect on agriculture; on manufactures. Hildreth, Banking, 64-78; Gouge, Hist. of Paper Money, 55-127.
  2. Protective movement after 1819. Agitation for Protection. M. Carey’s pamphlets, Appeal to Common Sense (1822), The Crisis (1823), etc. Niles’s Register.
  3. Tariff acts of 1818. at Large, III, 460, 461.
    Tariff bills of 1820, 1821, 1822.
    Attitude of the Middle and Western States; of New England; of the South. Question of constitutionality raised.
  4. Situation in 1824. Candidates for the presidency: Clay, Crawford, Jackson, Adams. Jackson’s Letter to Coleman. Parton, Life of Jackson, III, 34-36.
  5. Act of 1824. Its history in Congress. Attitude of Massachusetts. The measure acceptable chiefly to the West and Middle States.
    General advance of duties on raw materials (hemp, wool, iron), and on manufactures (cottons, woollens, tern cordage).

 

  1. Tariff Act of 1828.

General References: Taussig, in Political Science Quarterly, vol. III (March, 1888); Calhoun, Works, III, 47-51; Stat. at Large, IV, 270.

  1. Woollen Manufacture, 1824-28. Reduction of duty on wool in England in 1824 and 1825.

[p. 8]

  1. Woollens Bill of 1827. . The Minimum Scheme. Bishop, History of Manuf. II, 313. Bill in full, Annals Congr., III, 731.
  2. The Harrisburg Convention (1827). The demand for higher protection extended to other articles than wool and woollens. Niles, XXXII, 388-396.
  3. Political situation, 1827-28. Democratic leaders from North (Jackson men) combine with Southern members. Attitude of Adams’s supporters, especially those from New England.
  4. Act of 1828; “the tariff of abominations.” Duties on wool (note that on cheap wool); minimum system on woollens (note cheap woollens); on molasses, without drawback on rum; on iron, hemp, flax.
  5. Curious votes on this act. Niles, XXXV, 52-57. Slight political effect on the election of 1828.

 

  1. Agitation in the South. The Export Tax Theory.

General References: McDuffie’s speech, in Congr. Debates, vol. VIII, Part III, pp. 3142-3150. Mill, Political Economy, Book V, ch. IV, §§ 5, 6.

  1. Agitation in the South against the tariff, to which all depression is ascribed. Madison’s Private Correspondence, 274-285.
  2. First form of the export tax theory, as stated in 1830: a tax on imports is a tax on exports, and a tax on the South. McDuffie’s speech of 1830, Congr. Deb., vol. VI, pp. 843-847.
  3. Second form of the theory, in McDuffie’s speech of 1832. (See also his report for the Committee on ways and means in 1832, Reports of Committees, 1st sess., 23d Congr., vol. II, no. 279). The theory worked out in the movement of prices.
  4. The connection between slavery and the export tax theory.

[p. 9]

  1. Acceptance of the export tax theory by the South in 1832. Hayne’s speech, Debates, vol. VIII, pp. 86-90. Address of So. Car. Convention, in State Papers on Nullification, p. 62. Calhoun, Works, III, 411; IV, 182.
  2. The theory soon dropped in the South. Similar reasoning sometimes appears at the present time, e. g. N. Y. Nation, Dec. 31, 1885, and Dec. 15, 1887. How far is it sound?

 

  1. 1828-1832.

General References: Sumner, Life of Jackson, 215-223; Clay, Speech of Jan. 11, 1832, Works, I, 586-595. Stat. at Large, IV, 583.

  1. Tariff Acts of 1830. Tea and coffee free. Abominations of 1828 removed in part. Stat.  at Large, IV, 403, 419.
  2. Public Sentiment on the Tariff. Free Trade Convention in Philadelphia, 1831. Gallatin’s Memorial; Adams, Life of Gallatin, 610-642. Protectionist Convention in New York.
  3. The revenue question. Approaching discharge of the public debt.
  4. Various proposals in 1832.
    (a) Administration scheme. Jackson’s Message, Statesman’s Manual, II, 763. Bill prepared by Secretary McLane, Exec. Doc. 1831-32, vol. 5, No. 22. (b) Southern project. McDuffie’s report and bill, House Rep., 1831-32, vol. 2, No. 279. (c) Clay’s high protection scheme. (d) Moderate protection scheme. J. Q. Adams’s report and bill. House Rep. 1831-32, vol 5, No. 481.
  5. The act of 1832, founded on Adams’s scheme. The duties on iron, wool and woollens, cottons, silks, etc.

[p. 10]

  1. Act of 1833.

General References: Sumner’s Life of Jackson, 281-291. Clay’s speech of Feb. 12, 1833, Works, II, 106-121. Bolles, II, 422-431. Stat. at Large, IV, 629.

  1. Political Situation in 1832-33. Nullification by South Carolina. Re-election of Jackson, and election of a Congress likely to follow his suggestions. The old Congress holds over for the session of 1832-33.
  2. Verplanck bill, supported by the administration. Congr. Debates, vol. IX, p. 958. Its passage found to be impossible.
  3. Clay’s Compromise Scheme. The administration party and the South (Calhoun); the protectionists. Supposed “secret history” of the compromise. Benton’s Thirty Years’ View, I, 342-344. Clay’s speech in 1837, Congr. Debates, XIII, 969-970; Appleton’s speech in 1842, Congr. Globe, X, (Appendix), p. 575.
    The public lands bill fails because of a pocket veto. Amer. Ann. Register, 1832-33, pp. 182-185.
  4. Act of 1833. (a) Gradual reduction of duties. American Almanacfor 1834, p. 138. (b) Treatment of specific duties. U. S. Doc, 1833-34, Exec. Doc, vol I, No. 43. (c) Horizontal rate of 20 per cent. Its general policy. Webster, Works, IV, 258-261. (d) Did the act impose any duties after 1842? Decision of the Supreme Court in Aldridge vs. Williams, 3 Howard, 9.

 

  1. 1833-1842. Tariff of 1842.

General References: Hoist, Constitutional History, II., 451-463. Bolles, II, 426-431, 440-448. Statutes at Large, V, 548.
On the period between 1830 and 1860, see, in general, Taussig, in Quarterly Journal of Economics, April, 1888.

[p. 11]

  1. Economic events of 1833-42. The bank troubles, the crises of 1837 and 1839, the depression of 1839-41. These events sometimes said to be connected with the changes in duties. Carey, Social Science, II, 225; Stebbins, Protectionist Manual, 182.
  2. Operation of the act of 1833. (a) Any effect on manufacturing industries? (b) Accumulation of revenue due to the peculiar features of the act? (c) Attempts to modify it. Woodbury’s Treasury Report of 1835. Bill passed by the Senate in 1837, Congr. Debates, XIII, 939; a similar bill in the House. No proposals in 1837-41. (d) Tariff act of 1841, Stat. at Large, V, 463.
  3. Financial situation in 1842. Political situation. The Whigs and the tariff; Tyler’s position. Effect of these complications on the details of the act.
  4. Provisions of the act. Credits on duties abolished; but no warehousing system.
  5. Debates in 1842. The labor argument. The violation of the compromise of 1833. Not a word as to nullification. Prominence of the iron industry.
  6. Revival of trade in 1843-41. How far this was connected with the passage of the act of 1842.

 

  1. Tariffs of 1846 and 1867.

General References: Hoist, Const. History, II, 529-535, III, 277-280; Webster, Works, V, 225-235; Stat. at Large, IX, 42; XI, 192.

  1. Political situation. Campaign of 1844. Session of 1845-46, and passage of the act of 1846. Allegations of British Gold.
  2. Provisions of the act of 1846. The schedules; the ad valorem duties; the warehousing system. How far did it follow Secretary Walker’s recommendations? How far was it a free trade measure?

[p. 12]

  1. The debates on the act of 1846. The wages argument in the speeches of Hunt, Congr. Globe, 1845-46, Appendix, p. 967, and of Winthrop, ibid., 972-973. Its treatment by Webster.
  2. Financial operation of the act of 1846. Working of the ad valorem duties. Speech of Brooks, Congr. Globe, XXIV, 809-812 (1852). Report of the Secretary of the Treasury for 1853, pp. 62, 104.
  3. Act of 1857. The bill, as originally passed by the House, much amended in the Senate. The changes in duty made by it.
  4. Slavery and the tariff. Attempts by the Whigs to substitute the tariff for slavery as the decisive issue in politics.

 

  1. Economic History, 1840-60.

General References: Grosvenor, Does Protection Protect, 146-150, 223-229.— On manufacturing industries, see, in general, the introduction to the volume on manufactures of the census of 1860.

  1. General prosperity during this period. Can it be ascribed to the tariff acts of 1846 and 1857? — The crisis of 1857.
  2. International trade, and the growth of exports and imports. James, Amerikanischer Zoll-tarif, 49-73; International Review, XI., 450-462. Grosvenor, 50-53.
  3. Iron Manufacture. Uncertainty of the statistics. Course of production, and extent of importation. Anthracite and charcoal iron. Hewitt on Statistics of Iron, 24-32; Statistics in Hewitt’s A Century of Mining in the United States, Appendix, and in the Reports of the American Iron and Steel Association.
  4. The Cotton Manufacture. Batchelder, in Hunt’s Merchant’s Magazine, XLV, 14-16. The domestic consumption of raw cotton; statistics in Quarterly Reports of the Bureau of Statistics, No. 3, 1885-86, p. 60, in Reports of U. S. Comm. to Paris Exhibition of 1867, VI, 30-35, and in Hunt’s Merchant’s Magazine, XLV, 11.

[13]

  1. The Woollen Manufacture. Census of 1860, as above; Special Report of the Bureau of Statistics on the Manufacture of Wool (1887).
  2. The range and extent of manufacturing industry in 1860.

 

  1. The Morrill Tariff. Duties During the War.

General References: Wells, in Cobden Club Essays, Second Series, pp. 473-481.
On the history of legislation between 1860 and 1883, read Taussig, History of the Present Tariff.

  1. The state of the revenue in 1860. The political situation. The Republicans in control of the House in the 36th The tariff bill passed in the House in 1860, in the Senate in 1861.
  2. Provisions of the Morrill tariff act of 1861. Specific substituted for ad valorem duties. The rates on iron, wool and woollens, cottons, etc.
    How far the act was protectionist. Attitude of the manufacturers, especially on the wool and woollen duties.
  3. Financial needs of the civil war. General character of the war legislation. Acts of August and December, 1861, imposing direct tax, and raising revenue duties. Stat. at Large, XII, 292, 330.
  4. Internal Revenue act of 1862. Excise taxes in general at 3% on the value. Young’s Tariff Legisl., p. 126. Corresponding increase in import duties in the tariff act of 1862. Stat. at Large, XII, 433, 543.
  5. Tax and Tariff acts of 1864. Act authorizing $400,000,000 loan. Three-fold object of the tariff act: revenue, compensation of internal taxes and protection. Brief consideration of the bill in Congress. Its importance in financial and economic history. Stat. at Large, XIII. 202, 223.

[p. 14]

  1. Reduction of Duties, 1864-86.

General References: Taussig, Present Tariff, pp. 17-39, 88-101. Perry in Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. II, pp. 69-78 (Oct., 1887).

  1. Reduction and abolition of the internal taxes, 1865-72. Further changes in 1883. The present internal tax system.
  2. Attempts to reduce duties. The state of opinion on the tariff immediately after the war. The bill of 1867, passed in the Senate, lost in the House.
  3. Act of 1870. Its object, a reduction of revenue. The revenue duties lowered; also a few protective duties, e. g. on pig iron. Young’s Tariff Legisl., p. 167.
  4. Act of 1872. Pressure for a reduction of duties. The protectionist tactics. A general 10 per cent. reduction and a lowering of duties on certain raw materials, substituted for a detailed revision.
    Abolition of duties on tea and coffee in 1872.
    In 1875, repeal of the 10 per cent. reduction, with an increase in the sugar duty, and in the internal tax on spirits.
  5. The Morrison bill of 1876; in Congr. Record, 1875-76, p. 3321. The Wood bill of 1878, Congr. Record, 1877-78, p. 2398; N. Y. Nation, vol. XXVI. pp. 89, 220, 225, 380.
  6. The act of 1883. Tariff Commission act of 1882. The report and recommendations of the Commission. The tariff bill adopted by both houses, on the report of a conference committee. Nature of the reductions in the act of 1883. Report of the Tariff Commission of 1882. Compare Quarterly Reports of the Bureau of Statistics, No. 2. 1886-87, p. 364.
  7. Unsuccessful attempts at legislation, 1883-1887.

[p. 15]

  1. Increase of Duties, 1864-83.

General References: Taussig, Present Tariff, pp. 40-88.

  1. Wool and woollens. Act of 1867. Convention of wool growers and manufacturers, and agreement by them on a tariff scheme. The compensating principle; mixed specific and ad valorem duties. Large increase of duties.
  2. Copper act of 1869. Increase of duties. Character of the act. Vetoed by President Johnson, but passed over the veto.
  3. Act of 1870, while reducing some duties, raises others, e. g. on steel rails, nickel, flax, etc.
  4. Act of 1883. General character of the advance of duties under it.

 

PART III. EFFECT OF TARIFF LEGISLATION SINCE 1860.

Convenient general sources of information are:

Report of the Special Commissioner of the Revenue (D. A. Wells) for 1866, 1867, 1868 and 1869.
Report of the Tariff Commission of 1882, House Misc. Doc, 47th Congr., 2d sess., Doc. No. 6, (referred to in the following pages as Tariff Commission Report.)
Arguments made before the Committee of Ways and Means on the Morrison tariff bill of 1884, House Rep., 48th Congr., 1st session (referred to as Arguments of 1884).
Statements to the Committee of Ways and Means on the Morrison tariff bill of 1886. House Rep., 49thCongr., 1st session (referred to as Statements of 1886).

[p. 16]

Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the Revision of the Tariff, with accompanying documents. House Exec. Documents, 40th Congr., 1st session (referred to as a Report on Revision, 1886).
Report on the Existing Tariff on Imports, and the Free List, with comparative tables of present and past tariff. Senate Rep., 48th Congr., 1st sess., Rep. No. 12. (referred to as Tariff Compilation, 1884.)
Imports and Duties; a compilation showing the imports and duties on all articles from 1867 to 1883. House Misc. Doc, 48th Congr., 1st sess., No. 49.

 

  1. Iron, 1860-1885.

General References: Mineral Resources of U. S. (1886), 11-23. Wells, Practical Economics, 85-95. Tariff Commission Report, 2010-2022.
Statistics of production, imports, domestic prices, etc., are in the Reports of the American Iron and Steel Association.

  1. Iron Ore. Distance of the iron mines from the coal centres; the ores of Lake Superior. Imports of ore, chiefly from Spain, Elba, and Cuba. Swank, Production and Characteristics of Iron Ore in the United States; Mineral Resources, 39-103.
  2. Pig Iron. Increase of production since 1860. The two “boom ” periods, 1870-72, and 1879-81. Present locality of production: (a) district east of the Alleghanies, anthracite iron; (b) central district, Pennsylvania and Ohio; (c) Western and Southern States. Imports of Pig Iron; regular continuance of the imports of Scotch iron, and its explanation. Fluctuating import of other iron. Character of the pig-iron industry before 1873. J. S. Newberry, in International Review, I, 768-780. Growing production in the South.

[p. 17]

  1. Prices of pig iron, in England and in the United States. Difficulty of making comparisons. The effect of the tariff on prices; is the price in the United States made higher to the full extent of the duty? Probable consequences of removing the duty. (American prices given in Reports of the American Iron and Steel Association; English prices in Reports of British Iron Trade Association, and in the London Economist.)
  2. Bar Iron. Production; Imports; Duty. Difference between the cost of converting pig iron into manufactured iron in England and the United States.
    The manufacture of hardware. Exports of hardware.
  3. Bessemer steel. History of its manufacture in the United States. The product and import. How far prices have been affected by the tariff. Taussig, Present Tariff, p. 107. Swank, Iron in All Ages, ch. 38. Schoenhof, Destructive Influence of the Tariff, ch. 7.
  4. The controversy as to cotton ties. Tariff Comm. Report, pp. 2040, seq. The duty on tin plates. Report on Revision, 1886, pp. 383-392.
  5. The wages question in the iron trade. Mixture of skilled and unskilled workmen. The Amalgamated Iron and Steel Association, and its possible influence on the wages of skilled workmen. Discussion of the wages of unskilled laborers in (Wells’s) Census Revelations, etc.

 

  1. Cottons.

General References: Report on Cotton Manufacture in Census of 1880, pp. 5-15: Wells, Practical Economics, 81-85.
On the duties on cottons in general, see the statements in Arguments of 1884, pp. 123-181.

  1. Extent and Importance of the Cotton Manufacture.

[18]

  1. Domestic production of cheap goods. Is it desirable to check the importation of foreign cottons of lower price and poorer quality? Is it desirable to prevent foreign manufacturers from making occasional sales, at abnormally low prices, to get rid of surplus stocks?
  2. Imports of cottons. Character of the grades imported. Increase in the duty in 1883.
  3. Reasons why coarse cottons are manufactured successfully. Why the failure to manufacture finer qualities.
    Can popular education, no standing army, general intelligence, be adduced as causes enabling manufacturers in the United States to compete on equal terms with foreign manufacturers?

 

  1. Silks.

General References: Wyckoff, Silk Manufacture, 42-51; Schoenhof, Industrial Situation, ch. Ill, V, VI.

  1. Various attempts to encourage the production of raw silk in the United States. The colonial period; bounties in Georgia. Bishop, History of Manufactures, I, 358. The morus multicaulis speculation of 1830-40; see The Silk Culture in the United States (1844). Raw silk now admitted free. Whence it comes.
  2. History of the silk manufacture. Sewing-silk. State of the industry in 1860. Census Report of 1860, pp. 94-105.
    Great growth since 1865, especially since 1870, under the influence of high duties. How far were the duties originally intended to have this effect?
  3. Continued imports of silks. Reasons adduced why imports continue, in spite of the high duties: (a) adulteration of foreign silks; (b) the lower wages in European countries; (c) the difficulty arising from the nature of raw silk, of applying machinery in its manufacture in the same degree as in other textile industries. Wyckoff’s Silk Goods of America, pp. 7-40.

[p. 19]

  1. Administrative difficulties. The temptations to fraud under the high ad valorem duty. The consignment system. Reasons why it is difficult to substitute specific for ad valorem duties. Tariff Commission Report, 1048-1052, 1605-1613, 2165-2174.

 

  1. Wool and Woollens.

General References: Bulletin Wool Manufacturers, XV, 210-226: the same passage in Report on Revision, 299-313. Schoenhof, Destructive Influence, 17-35, Industrial Situation, 23-31. Taussig, Present Tariff, 53-64.
Statistics and general information are given in the Special Report of the Bureau of Statistics on Wool and Manufactures of Wool, 1887.

  1. Production of wool. Increase since 1860; transfer to the West. Bulletin Wool Mf., XIII, 102-106; Wool Report of 1887, p. 162. Meaning of this change.
    Character of American wool. Influence of climate and other physical causes.
  2. Imports of wool. What grades are imported, and why. Carpet-wool; Tariff Commission Report, 2414, 2415.
  3. Effect of the duties on wool. (a) Immediate effect of the act of 1867. Report of Special Commissioner of Revenue, 1869, p. 93; Bulletin of Wool Mf., II, pp. 2-34. (b) Effect on the prices of wool at home and abroad. Tables of prices in Wool Report of 1887, in London Economist, in Soetbeer’s Materials on the Silver Question, and in commercial circulars. (c) Temptation to fraudulent undervaluation of wool under the minimum duties. Osborn, The Administration and Undervaluation Frauds, 58, 78. Tariff Commission Report, 468. Report on Revision, 242.
  4. Production of woollens. Stimulus given by the war to the manufacture of woollens; depression after the war. Circumstances under which the act of 1867 was passed. The state of the manufacture in 1867-73. The census returns of 1870 and 1880. Character of the goods chiefly made, and their quality.

 

[p. 20]

  1. Imports of woollen goods. Their steady continuance.
    Character of the goods imported.
  2. Effect of the duties on woollens.
    (a) Effect on the consumer. How far an increased price is caused. Need of distinguishing between the effect of protection to wool and that of protection to woollens. Difference between the coarser and the finer qualities of woollen goods.
    (b) Effect on the manufacturer. Causes of the comparatively limited range of the wool manufacture.
    (c) Administrative difficulties. The mixture of specific and ad valorem duties. The minimum duties on dress goods, blankets, etc.
    (d) Change in the method of manufacture in recent years, and its unexpected effect on the working of the tariff. Report of the Secretary of the Treasury, 1887, p. 19; Wool Report of 1887, p. XXIV: Bulletin Wool Mf., XIV, 293-311.

 

  1. Sugar.

General References: D. A. Wells, in Princeton Review, VI, 319-335.

  1. The production and imports of sugar. Extent of the domestic product. Whence the imports come. Statistical Abstract, 1886: Reports on Commerce and Navigation.
  2. The duty on sugar before 1883, on the Dutch Standard. The Treasury rulings, and the decision of the Supreme Court. Change to the Polariscope test in the act of 1883.
  3. Free admission, by treaty, of sugar from the Hawaiian Islands, and its effect. Tariff Commission Report, 695-697; Statements of 1886, pp. 11-22. Anonymous pamphlet on The Hawaiian Treaty; statistics in Quart. Rep. Bureau of Statistics, No. 2, 1885-86.

[p. 21]

  1. Financial and economic aspect of the sugar duty. Proposals to reduce it, and to abolish it with or without compensation to Louisiana planters.
  2. Attempts to stimulate beet culture in the United States. Report of the Department of Agriculture on the Culture of the Sugar Beet, 1880 (note pp. 167-170). The experiment in making beet-sugar in California. Hilgard, in Overland Monthly, December, 1886.
    Reasons why beet sugar has not been made in the United States.
  3. The taxation of sugar in Europe. (a) Gradual abolition of duties in England. (b) On the continent, excise taxes on beet sugar. History of the beet sugar industry, and its connection with protection. Kaufmann, Die Zucker Industrie. (c) The system of bounties on exports, and its recent development. N.Y. Nation, XLII, 420; Wells, in Popular Science Monthly, Jan., 1888.

 

  1. Certain Raw Materials.

In general, consult the document referred to on pp. 15, 16.

  1. Character and extent of the imports and of the domestic production. The effect of the duty. Mineral Resources, 224-234, 242; Report of the Special Commissioner of Revenue for 1869, p. lxxxix; Arguments p. of 1884, p. 361; Statements of 1886, p. 187.
  2. Tariff Commission Report, pp. 955, 1015, 1599, 2379. Has the duty had the effect of promoting a dangerous destruction of forests?
  3. Hemp and Flax; Linens. The manner in which hemp and flax are raised, and the reasons why their importation continues. Report of the U. S. Commission of 1865, Senate Exec. Doc, 38th Congr., 2nd sess., No. 35; the Reports of the Flax and Hemp Spinners and Growers’ Association; Tariff Commission Report, 1452-1456.
    Tariff Commission Report, 345, 1145, 1452.
    Jute. Tariff Commission Report, 345, 1145, 1452.

[p. 22]

  1. Miscellaneous Articles.

 

  1. Copper. Circumstances under which the act of 1869 was passed. Taussig, Present Tariff, 65, 106. Conditions of production; no imports, considerable exports. Mineral Resources, 109-139; Tariff Commission Report, 2177, 2555.
  2. Tariff Commission Report, 201, 219; Wells, Practical Economics, 124; Mineral Resources, 169-173.
  3. Tariff Commission Report, 2591-2597; Mineral Resources, 160.
  4. Taussig, Present Tariff, 70; Tariff Commission Report, 227, 1553, 1648; H. M. Seely, The Marble Border of Western New England, in Proc. Middlebury Hist. Soc., vol. 1, part II, pp. 24-52.
  5. Congr. Globe, 1859-60, pp. 1020-1022; Tariff Commission Report, 227, 726, 941.
  6. Tariff Commission Report (Index).
  7. Tariff Commission Report, 613, 743, 753, 759, 2399; Arguments of 1884, 297.
  8. Arguments of 1884, 245-296. Census of 1880, vol. II., Report on Glass.

 

  1. General Discussions.

General References: Springer in North Amer. Review, vol. 136, pp. 571-580; reviewed in Bulletin Wool Manuf., vol. 13, pp. 199-211. Wells, Practical Economics, 98-116.

  1. Attempts to measure the effect of the protective system. Exaggerated estimates sometimes made. Mongredien, The Western Farmer in America; reviewed by Jonathan B. Wise. Difficulties of reaching numerical results.
  2. The enhancement of the price of articles made at home, in consequence of duties, takes place at present chiefly with raw materials. Is such an effect on raw materials more harmful than a similar effect on manufactured articles?
    Manufactures on which there is a protective tax (silks, earthenware). On very large classes of manufactures the duty is either a revenue duty (finer linen goods), or only nominal (ordinary cottons).

[p. 23]

  1. The effect of the protective system on general prosperity. The depression of 1874-78 and of 1883-85 often ascribed to it. How far such statements can be supported.
  2. Does the protective system tend to the accumulation of large fortunes, and to a spirit of communism? Rathbone, Protection and Communism (1884).
  3. The future of the United States as a manufacturing country. The prospects of New England.
  4. How far is it possible to trace the effect of protective duties?

 

  1. Specific and Ad Valorem Duties.

General References: James, Amerikanischer Zoll-tariff, 36-48; Webster, Works, V, 170-186; Tariff Commission Report, 1090-1092.

  1. Objections urged against specific duties: (a) that they are unequal, and bear more heavily on the poor than on the rich; (b) that they remain the same, though the price of the dutiable articles may vary greatly (steel rails in 1880-85); (c) that Congress is not capable of fixing them intelligently; (d) that their real incidence and effect are apt to be concealed.
  2. Objections to ad valorem duties: (a) the danger of under-valuation and fraud. The present duty on silks and its effect. Tariff Commission Report, 2469-2475. (b) The difficulties of administration.
  3. Mixed specific and ad valorem duties, as on woollens and on marble.
    Minimum duties, as in the tariff of 1828 on woollens, and at present on carpet wool, blankets, etc.

[p. 24]

  1. Distinctions to be made: (a) whether the article is homogeneous (pig-iron), or varies greatly in quality and character (silks). (b) whether duties are collected along a land frontier (Germany), or in comparatively few seaports (England; United States). (c) The character of the administrative system. Civil service reform.
  2. Tendency of free-traders to favor ad valorem duties, of protectionists to favor specific duties. Explanation of these tendencies.
  3. Practise in the United States. Judicious system until 1816; both specific and ad valorem duties. James, 29-36. Operation of the ad valorem system of the act of 1846. Strong tendency toward specific duties since 1861. Difficulties arise as duties go higher after 1816.
  4. Practise in foreign countries. None other than specific duties in England, Germany, and France.

 

  1. Collection of Duties.

General References: Bolles, Financial History, III., 489-523; Goodnow, in Political Science Quarterly, I., 36-44.

  1. History of the Revenue Collection Laws. Report on Revision, pp. 8-27.
    Act of 1789, dividing off customs districts, and establishing the offices of collector, surveyor, and naval officer. Stat. at Large, I. 36-37.
    Provisions of the acts of 1789, for ascertaining dutiable value; maintained until 1832.
  2. Acts of 1799 and 1818, establishing the moiety system; in 1799, as to penalties and forfeitures, in 1818 as to the extra duty of 50 per cent. on under-valued goods. Stat. at Large, I. 697; III. 437.
    Difficulties experienced under the moiety system. The Phelps-Dodge case; abolition of the moiety system in 1874. Bolles, as above; Stat. at Large, XVIII, 391.

[p. 25]

  1. Various devices for securing correct assessment of ad valorem duties. Appraisers appointed in 1818; additional appraisers in 1830, and in recent years. Invoices required to be sworn to before U. S. consuls in 1863.  Stat. at Large, XII, 737. Special agents authorized in 1878. The “fraud roll” authorized in 1879. Report of Secretary of Treasury, 1885, Appendix, p. 38.
  2. Frequent ambiguity in the tariff laws. The similitude clauses. The packing clause of the act of 1883 (construed in 6 Supreme Ct. Reporter, 462).
  3. Credit on duties allowed from 1789 till 1842. The compromise act of 1833 requires duties.to be paid in cash after June 30, 1842; the act of 1842 also requires cash duties. The act of 1846 retains cash duties, but establishes a general warehousing system.

 

  1. English Tariff History.

General References: Morley, Life of Cobden, ch. IX. Noble, Fiscal Legislation, ch. II., III. Bigelow, Tariff Question, pp. 1-17.

  1. The protectionist system of the 18th century. Pitt’s attempt at reform in 1876-87. Levi, British Commerce, 52-55.
  2. Huskisson’s measures in 1822-26. Modification of the navigation laws. Reduction of import duties on raw materials (wool, silk, metals) and on manufactures (woollens, cottons, silks).
  3. The corn law agitation. The corn law of 1815; the sliding scale of 1828. Anti-Corn-Law League formed in 1838.
    Character of the agitation carried on by the League. Cobden as an agitator. The causes which made certain the ultimate success of the League. Attitude of the manufacturers.
    New sliding scale in 1842. The distress of 1845-46. Repeal of the cornlaw, 1846.

[p. 26]

  1. The four great measures of Peel and Gladstone in 1842, 1846, 1853, and 1860. These measures largely of a fiscal character. Their fiscal and administrative qualities, as compared with tariff acts in the U. S. How far they are separable from the corn-law agitation.
    The present English tariff. Whitaker’s Almanac.
  2. The discussion of English tariff history in the United States. Was protection retained in England until it could he given up without a sacrifice?
    How far the supremacy of England as a manufacturing country is due to the fostering influence of the protective system of the 18th century.
    How far the growth of England since 1846 has been due to free trade.
  3. The connection between the repeal of the corn-laws, and the tariff of 1846 in the United States. Walker’s Report of 1845; p. 11; Webster, Works, V. 231.

 

  1. French Tariff History.

General References: Amé, Tarifs de Douane, vol. I, pp. 34-69. Morley, Life of Cobden, ch XXIX.

  1. Colbert, and the restrictive system of the 17thand 18th Clément, Système Protecteur.
  2. The commercial treaty with England in 1786 breaks with the restrictive system. Amé, I, 25.
    The French assembly establishes a moderate general tariff in 1791.
  3. Outbreak of the Revolutionary Wars. Re-establishment of the prohibitive system. Napoleon and the Continental system.
  4. The situation in 1814-15. Unsuccessful attempt to get rid of the prohibitive system. Gradual extension of the system, and its continuance until 1860. Efforts to get rid of it under the Restoration and under Louis Philippe. Why these efforts failed.
    Possible analogy with the experience of the United States after the civil war.

[p. 27]

  1. The government of the second empire is impelled to undertake reforms. Proposed revision of 1856.
    Commercial treaty of 1860. Its negotiation through Cobden and Chevalier. Its provisions; preparation of the tariff treaty.
    France concludes treaties with other countries than England. General adoption of the treaty system by European countries. Journal of Statistical Society, vol. 40, p. 1.
  2. The effect of the prohibitive system in France. Improvements in production retarded (iron, textiles)? The growth of the international trade after the commercial treaties. The continued advance of France as a manufacturing country under the system of moderate duties.
  3. Current toward protection in recent years. The treaty with England terminated, and the general tariff of 1882 enacted. Change from ad valorem to specific duties. Bounties on shipping and on sugar. Increase of duty on wheat in 1887. Guyot, The French Corn Laws. For the duties now in effect in France, see Report on Revision, pp. 593, seq.

 

  1. German Tariff History.

General References: Article on Zoll-verein in McCulloch’s Dictionary of Commerce, new ed. Wells, in Popular Science Monthly, Jan. 1888.

  1. Germany in the 18th century: (a) the country split into numerous petty States; (b) general application of the mercantile system. The policy of Frederick the Great a typical instance. Schmoller, Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, vol. VIII.
  2. Reform in Prussia in 1818. Trade between the different provinces of Prussia made free; a moderate uniform tariff established. In general, see Jahrbuch für Nat. Oek., Supplement VII. (1881); Worms, L’Allemagne Economique.

[p. 28]

  1. The agitation for a customs union. Frederic List. Gradual formation of unions between different States. Final formation of the Zoll-verein in 1834. The Zoll-verein tariff based on the Prussian tariff of 1818.
  2. The later history of the Zoll-verein. Contest in regard to the attitude of Austria; commercial treaty of 1853 with Austria. Contest between free-traders and protectionists. Reduction of duties through the treaty negotiated by Prussia with France in 1862. Zoll-verein renewed in 1865 on basis of French treaty. Treaties with other countries.
  3. In recent years a current toward protective duties and bounties in Continental Europe. The movement for protection begins in Germany after the crisis of 1873, and causes the protective tariff of 1879. Jahrbuch für Nat. Oek., vol. 34, and Supplements V and VI. The agitation for still higher duties on agricultural products.
    The duties under the present German tariff. Report on Revision, 630 seq.
  4. Austria breaks with the prohibitive system by the Zoll-verein treaty, and other treaties.
    Protectionist reaction after 1873. The tariff act of 1882 increases duties. Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, VI. 1223-1258.
    Frequent suggestions of a customs-union between the German Empire, Austro-Hungary, and the Balkan States.
  5. The arguments on protection in Germany. List’s argument for protection to young industries. Care for the laboring classes the main argument at present. Joined with it, the argument for compensation to employers for burdens imposed by legislation for social reform. Lexis, in Schönberg’s Handbuch, pp. 1104-1119.

 

Source: Frank W. Taussig.Tariff Legislation in the United States. Topics & References in Political Economy VI, Harvard College.Cambridge, Mass., 1888.

Image Source:  Harvard Class Album 1900.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Undergraduate course on Money, Banking, and Crises, 1940-41

 

This course was one of the staples of the Harvard undergraduate economics experience. In this year that was to mark the official entry of the United States into the Second World War, we have complete course outlines, assigned readings and exam questions.

_________________________

Course Material from the Other Years

1937-38
1938-39 (Paper topics)
1941-42

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Course Description

Economics 41. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructors) Fri., at 2. Professor Williams and Associate Professor Harris.

The course will be conducted by means of lectures and discussions and (in the second half-year) a thesis based on work in the library. Certain subjects, such as monetary and banking history of the United States, will be covered almost wholly by assigned reading.

Source: Harvard University, Division of History, Government, and Economics. Announcement for 1940-41. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXVII, No. 51 (August 15, 1940), p. 56.

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 41. Professor Williams and Associate Professor Harris. — Money Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 107: 3 Graduates, 18 Seniors, 58 Juniors, 27 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1940-41,p. 58.

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Economics 41
[First semester]
1940-41

  1. The nature and function of banking
    1. Dunbar, Theory and History of Banking, Chs. 1,2,3,4, pp. 1-60.
    2. White, Money and Banking, Ch. 16, pp. 349-372.
  2. Creation of Deposits
    1. Phillips, Bank Credit, Ch. 3., pp. 32-77.
    2. Currie, Supply and Control of Money, Chs. 5, 6, 7, pp. pp. 46-83.
  3. Note Issue
    1. Dunbar, op. cit., Ch. 5, pp. 50-81.
    2. Currie, op. cit., Ch. 10, pp. 110-115.
  4. Commercial Loan Theory
    1. Robertson, Money, Ch. 5, pp. 92-117.
    2. Currie, op.  cit., Ch. 4, pp. 34-46.
  5. U.S. Banking history
    1. White, op. cit., Chs. 18-23, pp. 387-529.
  6. The Federal Reserve System
    1. Dunbar, op. cit., Ch. 6, pp. 81-139.
    2. Federal Reserve Bulletin, July 1935: “Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds,” pp. 419-428.
    3. Langum, “The Statement of Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds,” Review of Economic Statistics, August, 1939, pp. 110-115.
    4. Burgess, Federal Reserve Banks and the Money Market, pp. 1-327.
    5. Currie, op. cit., Chs. 8, 9, pp. 83-110.
  7. Recent Banking Changes
    1. White, op. cit., Chs. 29-30, pp. 670-738.
    2. Moulton, Financial Organization and the Economic System, Ch. 5 [or 6?].
  8. Foreign Banking Systems
    1. Dunbar, op. cit., pp. 139-235, Chs. 8, 9, 10.

Source: Harvard University Archives. HUC 8522.2.1. Box 2, Folder “Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1940-41”.

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Reading Period
Jan. 6-15, 1941
Economics 41

Read one of the following:

  1. Hardy, Federal Reserve Policy.
  2. Hawtrey, Art of Central Banking, pp. 116-303.
  3. Keynes, Treatise on Money, Vol. II, Book VII.
  4. Sprague, Crises under the National Banking System.

Source: Harvard University Archives. HUC 8522.2.1. Box 10, Folder “Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1940-41”.

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1940-41
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 41

MONEY, BANKING, AND COMMERCIAL CRISES

Please put the day and hour of your section meeting on the cover of your first blue book.

Part I

Answer questions 1 and 5 and one other.

  1. Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds.
    (Figures are net change for year, in millions of dollars.)
Bills discounted -4
Bills bought -1
U.S. government securities -305
Industrial advances -3
Other reserve bank credit +81
Monetary gold stock +4,310
Treasury currency +119
Money in circulation +1,154
Treasury cash and deposits -369
Non-member bank deposits and other Fed. Res. accounts +1,067
Member bank reserve balances ?
  1. State briefly how the above statement of supply and use of member bank reserves funds is derived.
  2. What is the meaning of each of the above items?
  3. Describe the process by which each of the items influences the volume of member bank reserve funds.
  4. By use of a balance sheet, calculate and explain the change in member bank reserve funds for the period in question.
  5. What does the statement suggest with respect to the condition of the money market, member bank policy, and Federal Reserve policy?
  6. To what year or years do you think the statement given might apply?
  1. Discuss the significance of the more important weapons of control of the central bank.
  2. What are the important factors determining the volume of bank deposits:
    1. When a ready market for loans exists and banks are always loaned up?
    2. When banks have excess reserves?
  3. Discuss the 100 per cent reserve plan:
    1. In its relation to the “commercial loan theory” controversy.
    2. In its relation to fluctuations in the volume of deposits.
  4. Reading period. Answer one of the following:
    1. Keynes or Hawtrey: From Keynes’ or Hawtrey’s analysis, would you say that English or American central banking practice provides the more effective monetary control? Support your opinion by reference to your reading.
    2. Hardy: Basing your opinion on Hardy’s discussion, would you say that the credit policies pursued by the Federal Reserve System from 1928 to 1931 were the best possible under the circumstances?
    3. Sprague: Do you find in Sprague’s analysis of crises under the National Banking System reasons for the abandonment of that system in favor of the Federal Reserve System in 1913?

 

Part II

Answer TWO questions.

  1. Discuss the problems of reserves of member banks and of reserve banks in the United States.
  2. Compare the American banking system as it existed under the first and second Bank of the United States with the National Banking System or with the present system. Which system do you think was better adapted to the problems with which it had to deal?
  3. In view of the large excess reserves in existence at the present time, and of other factors in the existing situation, would you favor a return to the currency provisions of the National Banking Act, and extension of similar reserve provisions to bank deposits?
  4. Outline the main revisions of the Federal Reserve Act from 1931 to 1936.
  5. What revisions of the existing banking law seem most essential in view of present and impending economic conditions?
  6. Describe the experiences of the Federal Reserve System in 1914-1921, or in 1922-1929.

Mid-Year. 1941.

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archives. Wolfgang F. Stolper Papers, Box 22.

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ECONOMICS 41
Second Semester
1940-41

Outline of Lectures and Readings

Part I. International Aspects of Money (4 weeks)

Lecture

  1. Types of Monetary Standards
  2. Theory of the Gold Standard
  3. The Gold Standard in Practice.
  4. What is to Be Done about Gold?
  5. The Case for Variable exchanges.
  6. Prices under Variable Exchanges.
  7. Stabilisation Funds and Free Exchanges.
  8. Control of Exchanges.

Assignment:
Gayer, Monetary Policy and Economic Stabilisation, pp. 1-180.

Part II. Money in Relation to Prices and the Rate of Interest (4 weeks)

Lecture

  1. Definition of the Price Level.
  2. The Fisherian Approach.
  3. Velocity and Hoarding.
  4. Cambridge Approaches.
  5. Money and Forced Savings.
  6. Money and the Rate of Interest.
  7. Money and the Rate of Interest (cont.).
  8. The Significance of the Rate of Interest.

Assignment:
Chandler, Introduction to Monetary Theory, pp. 1-147.
Fisher, Purchasing Power of Money, pp. 8-73.
Keynes*, Treatise on Money, Vol. I, Chs. 2-5, 7, 14.
Mises*, Theory of Money and Credit, Part II, Ch. II.
Robertson, Money, chs. 1-3, 6-8.
Schumpeter*, Business Cycles, pp. 449-483.
Wicksell, Interest and Prices, Chs. 5-6, 7-9.

*Important but not assigned.

Part III. Money and the Economic System (4 weeks – 7 lectures)

Lecture

  1. Monetary and Non-Monetary Aspects of Economic Fluctuations.
  2. Objectives and Limitations of Monetary Control.
  3. Supplementary Instruments—Fiscal Policy.
  4. Supplementary Instruments—Fiscal Policy (cont.).
  5. Supplementary Policies—Wage, Price Policies, etc.
  6. The Monetary System under a War or Defense Economy.
  7. Various Proposals to Improve the Monetary System.

Assignment:
Chandler, Introduction to Monetary Theory, pp. 148-205.
Hayek, Profits, Interest and Investment, pp. 1-71.
Hawtrey*, Trade Depression and the Way Out.
Macfie*, Theories of the Trade Cycle, Chs. III-V.
Robbins, The Great Depression, Chs. I, II, III, VII, VIII.
Robertson, Essays on Monetary Theory, pp. 39-67, 98-113, 122-153.
Robinson, Introduction to the Theory of Employment.
Roll*, About Money, pp. 103-248.
Schumpeter, Business Cycles, pp. 109-23.

*Important but not assigned.

 

Reading Period. Read one of the following:

  1. Keynes, General Theory of Employment, Chs. 1-19, omit appendices.
  2. Hawtrey, Capital and Employment, all but Chs. 8, 9, 11.
  3. Hawtrey, Art of Central Banking, Chs. 1, 2, 4, 8.
  4. Durbin, The Problem of Credit Policy.
  5. Hansen, Full Recovery or Stagnation.
  6. Wicksell, Interest and Prices, and Keynes, Treatise, I, Chs. 2-5, 7, 14.
  7. Haberler, Prosperity and Depression (1939 ed.), Part I.
  8. Myers, Monetary Proposals for Social Reform.
  9. Wood, English Theories of Central Banking Control.
  10. Paper Pound of 1797-1821 (Cannan edition), and Heckscher, Sweden in the World War, Part III.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. HUC 8522.2.1. Box 2, Folder “Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1940-41”.

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1940-41
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 41

Answer ONE question in each part

Part I

  1. Outline and evaluate alternative solutions of the American gold problem.
  2. What are the relative merits of
    1. An international gold standard?
    2. Free exchanges?
    3. Managed currencies?

Part II

  1. Analyse the factors determining velocity of circulation of money.
  2. What are the main determinants of the general price level according to Fisher, Wicksell, Robertson, and Keynes? Are their approaches incompatible with one another? Which seems to you more valid or useful?

Part III

  1. Do you think the distinction between “monetary” and “non-monetary” theories of the trade cycle is justified, or useful? Illustrate from the literature.
  2. Apply the theories of Keynes or Robbins, or Robertson to the American Economy in one of the following periods:
    1. 1920’s
    2. 1930’s
    3. 1940’s
  3. Are we facing inflation? How can inflation be prevented or controlled?

Part IV (Reading Period)

  1. Show how the material you have covered in your reading period assignment can be applied to current economic problems.

Part V (First Semester)

  1. Discuss the 100% Reserve Plan in relation to the monetary theory of the trade cycle.
  2. Can you suggest any revisions of the Federal Reserve System which would simplify the problems of defense finance?
  3. Assuming borrowing to be a necessary part of our defense finance, analyse in detail the relative merits of borrowing from Federal Reserve Banks, member banks, the general public, and from abroad, at various stages in the defense program.

Final. 1941.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Final Examinations 1853-2001. Box 14. Papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions…, Economics, … , Military Science, Naval Science, May, 1947.

Image Source:  John Henry Williams and Seymour Edwin Harris in Harvard Album 1939.

Categories
Economists Gender Harvard Radcliffe

Harvard-Radcliffe. Economics Ph.D. alumna, Eleanor Dulles, c.v. early 1960s

 

This morning I stumbled across a c.v. for the Radcliffe M.A. and Ph.D. alumna, Eleanor Lansing Dulles,  that I found earlier in the papers of Herbert Fürth (Gottfried Haberler’s brother-in-law and Federal Reserve Board economist) at the Hoover Institution archives. While there is no date on the c.v., it would appear that it could have been prepared around 1961, though one item (International Board for construction in Berlin) is listed as running through 1964.

Her obituary in the New York Times (November 4, 1996). Best quote:

”[The State Department] is a real man’s world if ever there was one,” she said in 1958. ”It’s riddled with prejudices. If you are a woman in Government service you just have to work 10 times as hard — and even then it takes much skill to paddle around the various taboos. But it is fun to see how far you can get in spite of being a woman.”

Worth viewing are the few minutes taken from the National Portrait Gallery’s video interview of Eleanor Dulles (at age 93) conducted by Marc Pachter on November 28, 1988. She was 101 years old at the time of her death.

The major collection of her papers are at George Washington University. Papers are also to be found at the Eisenhower Presidential Library and at Princeton University.

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DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Radcliffe College

Eleanor Lansing Dulles, A.M.
Subject: Economics.
Special Field: International Finance.
Dissertation: “TheFrench Franc Since the War.”

Source: Radcliffe College, Report of the Dean 1925-26, p. 25.

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ELEANOR LANSING DULLES

Employment Record
(See also studies)
1917-1919 Refugee relief work—France
1920-1921 Employment Management—Steel Mill, etc.
1921-1922 London School of Economics—Investigation of English Industrial methods in 75 firms
1924-1936 Teaching 8 years

Simmons College
Bryn Mawr
University of Pennsylvania
Research 1925-26, 1928-1932
Study of Unemployment Insurance in England (for President Hoover) 1931
Economic advisor to investment counselor
New York City, 1932
Government
1936 Social Security Board

Director of Financial Research
(Tax, income, and investment studies)

Represented U.S. Government at Geneva Conference on Investment of Social Security Funds, 1938
1942-1961 Department of State

Postwar planning Germany, Austria, UNRRA, British balance of payments, etc.

Bretton Woods Banks (attended conference)

Vienna, Austria (1945-49) Financial Attaché

Berlin reconstruction, investment, (1952-1960)

Underdeveloped countries
(Studies of 60 Asian, African and Latin American countries, travelled in 42)
Detailed to National Production Board 1951-52

Representative on Petroleum Committee for Defense
Originator of Benjamin Franklin Foundation

International Board for construction in Berlin 1956-1964
Personal Rank of Minister—1960
Awards and Degrees
1934 Phi Beta Kappa, University of Pennsylvania
1950 LL.D., Wilson College
1955 Distinguished Service Medal, Radcliffe
1957 Dr. h. c. rerum, Political & Econ. Science, Free University of Berlin
1957 LL.D., Western College for Women, Oxford, Ohio
1957 Carl Schurz-Steuben Plaque for Distinguished Service in furthering German-American cultural relations, presented at Berlin
1959 Ernst Reuter Medallion for Service to Berlin
1960 Citation for Distinguished Service, Bryn Mawr College
Studies and Fellowships
1914-17 A.B. Bryn Mawr College
(First New England scholarship, 1914)
1919-20 M.A. Bryn Mawr College
(Fellow labor & industrial economics)
1921-22 London School of Economics
1922-26 M.A., Ph.D. Radcliffe and Harvard College
1925-27 Faculté de Droit, University of Paris
Other courses: Bonn, Germany; Geneva, Switzerland

Languages: French, German, Spanish
Public Relations
For many years I have been on the roster for public speaking for the Department of State.

I have given some 100 or more speeches mainly in this country and have appeared on television and radio.
Publications
The French Franc, 1914-1928.
MacMillan, New York, 1929, pp. 570

A study of inflation, public finance, speculation, and changing international financial relationships with consideration of political and economic factors.
The Bank for International Settlements at Work.
Macmillan, New York, 1932, pp. 631

The origins and early operations of the BIS, the hopes for a world bank, plans for international investment and clearance mechanism, bank policy in relation to the central banks of various nations.
The Dollar, the Franc, and Inflation.
MacMillan, New York, 1933, pp. 100

A short discussion of recurrent characteristics of inflation, the dangers to special groups, and to the economy as a whole.
Depression and Reconstruction—A Study of Causes and Controls.
University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1936, pp. 340

A review of alleged causes of the depression of 1929 and subsequent years, an appraisal of major national and international maladjustments and areas of disturbance and relationships changing in the development of a dynamic policy.
Financing the Social Security Act, 1936

Basic study of the tax and benefit laws and formuli.
Fiscal Capacity of States

Planned (1938) and supervised a five year study in Social Security Board of the income and capacity to pay taxes of the states & localities.

Among the several hundred articles published are for instance:
The Evolution of Reparation Ideas
The French Franc, 1928-1934
The Export-Import Bank—The First Ten Years, 1943
War and Investment Opportunity
Inflation
The Impact of the United States on Europe
The Arithmetic (financial) of Postwar Occupation
Africa—Hopes and Contradictions

Source:  Hoover Institution Archives, Papers of J. Herbert Furth, Box 4.

Image Source:. World Bank webpage: The Bretton Woods Institutions turn 60/Breaking the Mold.

Categories
Columbia Economists Harvard

Harvard. Career of A.M. in economics alumnus, Arthur Morgan Day (1867-1942)

 

This post began as a simple transcription of two typed pages that Alvin S. Johnson sent to Joseph Dorfman, who at the time was collecting material on the history of economics at Columbia University. The Columbia economics instructor who was the subject of Johnson’s letter, Arthur Morgan Day, was new to me, and I presume something of an unknown even to Joseph Dorfman. My curiosity sparked a chase through a variety of genealogical sources accessible at Ancestry.com, then a search through yearbooks of Barnard College and Columbia University catalogues at archive.org, and eventually a discovery of the reports of the Harvard Class of 1892 (available at hathitrust.org) that taken together provide us a fairly good account of Day’s life and career through age 55.

I have located only a single source that gives the year of his death: “Arthur Morgan Day (1867-1942)” in the National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. 31. New York: James T. White & Co., 1944.

_______________

Alvin Johnson’s recollection of Arthur Morgan Day at Columbia College

THE NEW SCHOOL
66 West 12th St. New York 11
[Tel.] Oregon 5-2700

July 17, 1951

Dear Joe Dorfman:

This is the best I can do on Day. If you don’t like it, throw it into the waste-basket.

Sincerely,
[signed]
Alvin Johnson

encl.

Dr. Joseph Dorfman
Faculty of Political Science
Columbia University
New York 27, N.Y.

[Handwritten addition by Johnson]

I’m trying to write
something on the
Faculty
AJ

* *  *  * *

Alvin Johnson’s attachment to his letter to Joseph Dorfman of July 17, 1951

When I presented myself to Dean Burgess for registration in November 1898 and announced that I wished to study economics, the Dean advised me to register for the Marshall course by Mayo-Smith, the course on History of Economics by E. R. A. Seligman, the course on theory by John Bates Clark. I confessed that my training had been in classics; that I had never attended a course, nor even a single lecture in economics. I asked whether I ought not to take the course in elementary economics, under an instructor, Arthur Morgan Day. No, said Dean Burgess, that course was only for undergraduate cubs, who had no desire to know economics. The Committee on College Requirements had seen fit to make a required course out of it; but a mature man would be wasting his time under Day.

I did not register for Day’s course. I’m sorry I did not. For Day was a true representative of the old, solid economics of Adam Smith and Malthus and Ricardo, of Senior and Cairnes and John Stuart Mill. He made shift to comprehend the marginal utilitarianism of Marshall, but it gave him no inspiration. He saw no advance in Clark’s theory and he regarded Seligman’s Historismus as merely a change of venue in economic reasoning.

Day detested me, for my ardent devotion to J. B. Clark, for my eager acceptance of Seligman’s wide explorations in all literatures. He pitied me for my destiny of going forth into the world equipped only with fluff and froth, with no sense of the grand old economists who looked facts in the face and wrote in language that the most unlicked cub of a business man could understand. When I was awarded a fellowship Day proposed that I should have the privilege of reading and grading all his examination papers, a privilege I was too immature to appreciate. The President of the University vetoed the proposal. I had my year of complete freedom, to follow my teachers, Clark and Seligman, with uncrippled ardor.

Yet I came to realize that Day was a better economist than we then assumed. It was not possible for him to follow the marginal utility calculus into a field of abstractions divorced from the comprehension of the ordinary citizen. Any man, however sodden in business thinking, could follow John Stuart Mill, agreeing, or most likely disagreeing. Only the intellectual elite could follow Menger and Wieser and Böhm[-]Bawerk, Marshall and Clark, Fisher and Fetter.

If Day were living he would find justification for his repugnance to the marginal utility theories. Keynes, an adept in marginal theory, shifted the emphasis from value to price.

Said Chesterfield, “In mixed company I always talk bawdy, for that is something in which all men can join.” Keynes always talked price. Day, prematurely, talked price, believed in talking price. There was no place for him in the marginal utility universe of talk, of those days. But I surmise, Day was a good deal of a man.

[signed]
Alvin Johnson

 

Source:  Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Joseph Dorfman Collection, Box 13, Folder “C.U. Dept.al history”.

_______________

From the Columbia College Catalogue, 1898-99

Economics A—Outlines of Economics—Recitations, lectures, and essays. 3 hours, second half-year. Professor Mayo-Smith and Mr. Day. [Economics A was required of juniors in the College, and open to sophomores who have taken economics I.]

Economics 1—Economic history of England America—Selected textbooks, recitations, essays, and lectures. 3 hours, first half-year. Professor Seligman and Mr. Day. [Economics I was open to juniors and qualified sophomores in the College.]

[Note: p. 11 under officers of instruction, Assistants. Address given as 128 West 103d Street.]

Source:  Columbia University in the City of New York. Catalogue 1898-99, p. 74.

_______________

1900 U.S. Census

Name: Arthur M Day
Age:    33
Birth Date:     Apr 1867
Birthplace:      Connecticut
Home in 1900:           Danbury, Fairfield, Connecticut
Ward of City: 2
Street: Westoria Avenue
House Number:          28
Race:   White
Gender:           Male
Relation to Head of House:   Son
Marital Status:           Single
Father’s name:            Josiah L Day
Father’s Birthplace:    New York
Mother’s name:          Ellen L Day
Mother’s Birthplace:  Connecticut
Occupation:    College Instructor
Months not employed:         0
Can Read:       Yes
Can Write:      Yes
Can Speak English:    Yes
Household Members:

Josiah L Day  60
Ellen L Day    58
Arthur M Day           33

_______________

From Mortarboard 1902
[Barnard College Yearbook]

Leisure Hours of Great Men
or
Intimate Glimpses of the World’s Workers at Play

Arthur Morgan Day

It is certainly pathetic
How he smothers the aesthetic
Under money, banking, trusts and corporations,
But he soothes his longing heart,
Studying dramatic art,
And high tragedy completes his aspirations.

Source: 1902 Mortarboard , p. 71.

_______________

From the Columbia Daily Spectator, 1902

Mr. Day Resigns

Mr. A. M. Day, Instructor in Economics, has resigned his position at Columbia to take a position on the new Tenement House Commission of New York City. He is to serve as one of two men to take charge of registration and compilation of statistics of tenement houses in the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Mr. Henry Raymond Mussey, Fellow in the Department, has taken Mr. Day’s position as instructor in Economics for the time being. Mr. Mussey has already acquired much popularity and confidence among the students in his classes.

*  *  *  *  *

Congratulations for Mr. Day.

The members of the Course Economics I have sent the following message of congratulation to their instructor, upon his appointment as chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the New York City Tenement House Commission. “We the undersigned members of the course, Economics I, of the current University year, having heard with pleasure of the great honor which has been conferred upon our former instructor Mr. Arthur Morgan Day, desire to extend to him our sincere congratulations and to assure him of our best wishes for a successful career in his new office.

 

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume XLV, Number 42, 21 March 1902, page 1.

_______________

From Harvard College Class of 1892 Reports

Arthur Morgan Day (1892)

[Joined the Harvard Class of 1892 in the junior year, received A.B. together with the degree of A.M.]
Honorable Mention: English Composition; Political Economy; History.

 

Source:  Secretary’s Report Harvard College Class of 1892, Number I, (1893), pp. 6, 27, 29.

 

*  *  *  *  *

Arthur Morgan Day (1896)

“1892-93, graduate student in History and Economics, H.U.; 1893-94, graduate student in History and Economics and assistant in History, H.U.; 1894-95, assistant in Economics, School of Political Science, Columbia College; 1895-96, assistant and lecturer in Economics, School of Political Science, Columbia College, and lecturer in Economics, Barnard College.”

Published “Syllabus of six lectures on ‘Money’ for Extension Department of Rutgers College, 1895.”

Delivered “six lectures on ‘Money,’ Univ. Ex. course, New Brunswick, N.J., December-January, 1894-95; two lectures on ‘Monetary Literature in U.S.’ in course of ‘Free Lectures to the People,’ under direction of Board of Education, N.Y.”

Source:  Secretary’s Report Harvard College Class of 1892, Number II, (1896), pp. 30-31.

*  *  *  *  *

Arthur Morgan Day (1902)

From 1892 to 1894 was graduate student in History and Economics at Harvard; 1893-4, was assistant in History at Harvard; 1894-1902, was successively assistant lecturer, and instructor in Economics at Columbia and Barnard Colleges, and also assistant editor of “Political Science Quarterly” and “Columbia University Quarterly “; in March, 1902, resigned from Columbia to become Registrar of the Tenement House Department of New York City for Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond.

Has given numerous courses of lectures for the New York Board of Education; has lectured also in extension department of Rutgers College and in the Educational Alliance. Has published syllabi of lectures on “Money” and “Economic History”, signed reviews in the “Political Science Quarterly” and elsewhere, and editorials in a New York daily. Assisted in the preparation of Seligman’s “Essays in Taxation” and “Incidence of Taxation”, Giddings’ “Democracy and Empire “, Clark’s “Distribution of Wealth,” and the second edition (rewritten) of White’s “Money and Banking.”

Source:  Harvard College, Record of the Class of 1892. Secretary’s Report No. III for the Tenth Anniversary (1902),  pp. 46-47.

*  *  *  *  *

Arthur Morgan Day (1907)

Son of Josiah Lyon Day and Ellen Louisa (Baldwin) Day. Born at Danbury, Connecticut, April 12, 1867. Prepared for college at the Danbury High School.

Received A.M. in 1892. From 1892 to 1894 was a graduate student in History and Economics at Harvard; 1893-94, was Assistant in History at Harvard; 1894-1902, was successively Assistant, Lecturer, and Instructor in Economics at Columbia and Barnard Colleges; also Assistant Editor of Political Science Quarterly and Columbia University Quarterly; in March, 1902, resigned from Columbia to become Registrar of the Tenement House Department of New York City for Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond. In May, 1902, resigned Registrarship to become Assistant to President of Manhattan Trust Co.; in July, 1903, was made Secretary and Treasurer of Casualty Company of America; in January, 1905, entered publicity business. Has published syllabi of lectures on “Money” and “Economic History,” signed reviews in the Political Science Quarterly and elsewhere, and editorials in a New York daily. Assisted in the preparation of Seligman’s “Essays in Taxation” and ” Incidence of Taxation,” Giddings’ “Democracy and Empire,” Clark’s “Distribution of Wealth,” and the second edition (rewritten) of White’s “Money and Banking.” Belongs to Harvard Club of New York.

Source:  Secretary’s Report for the Fifteenth Anniversary. Harvard College Class of 1892, Number IV, (1907), p.48.

*  *  *  *  *

Arthur Morgan Day (1912)

Son of Josiah Lyon Day and Ellen Louisa (Baldwin) Day. Born at Danbury, Connecticut, April 12, 1867. Prepared for college at the Danbury High School.

Attended Harvard 1888-92, A.B. and A.M.; Graduate School 1892-94.

1892 to 1894, graduate student in history and economics at Harvard; 1893-94, assistant in history at Harvard; 1894-1902, successively assistant, lecturer, and instructor in economics at Columbia and Barnard colleges; also assistant editor of Political Science Quarterly and Columbia University Quarterly; in March, 1902, resigned from Columbia to become registrar of the Tenement House Department of New York City for Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond. In May, 1902, resigned registrarship to become assistant to president of Manhattan Trust Company; in July, 1903, was made secretary and treasurer of Casualty Company of America; in January, 1905, entered publicity business; in June, 1906, employed by United Gas Improvement Company of Philadelphia; in August, 1906, serious attack of typhoid caused long absence from business; in June, 1908, with Blair & Co., bankers, New York; in April, 1910, began independent work as financial agent for various clients; in January, 1912, entered bond department of Prudential Insurance Company at Newark. Has published syllabi of lectures on “Money” and “Economic History,” signed reviews in the Political Science Quarterly and elsewhere, and editorials in a New York daily. Assisted in the preparation of Seligman’s “Essays in Taxation” and “Incidence of Taxation,” Giddings’ “Democracy and Empire,” Clark’s “Distribution of Wealth,” and the second edition (rewritten) of White’s “Money and Banking.” Belongs to Harvard Club of New York.

Source:  Secretary’s Report for the Twentieth Anniversary. Harvard College Class of 1892, [Number V, (1912)], p.54.

*  *  *  *  *

Arthur Morgan Day (1917)

Born at Danbury, Conn., April 12, 1867. Son of Josiah Lyon and Ellen Louisa (Baldwin) Day. Prepared for College at Danbury High School, Danbury, Conn.

Attended Harvard:  1888-92; Graduate School, 1892-94.

Degrees: A.B. and A.M. 1892.

Occupation: Investments.

Address: (home) 28 Westville Ave., Danbury, Conn.; (business) 37 Wall St., New York, N.Y

FROM 1892 to 1894 I was a graduate student in history and economics at Harvard, and during 1893-94 I was assistant in history at Harvard. From 1894 to 1902 I was successively assistant, lecturer, and instructor in economics at Columbia and Barnard colleges; also assistant editor of the Political Science Quarterly and the Columbia University Quarterly. In March, 1902, I resigned from Columbia to become registrar of the Tenement House Department of New York City for Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond. I held this position until May, 1903, when I resigned to become assistant to the president of the Manhattan Trust Company. In July, 1903, I was made secretary and treasurer of the Casualty Company of America; and in January, 1905, I entered publicity business. I was employed by the United Gas Improvement Company of Philadelphia in June, 1906, but a serious attack of typhoid fever in August of that year caused a long absence from business. In June, 1908, I was with Blair & Co., bankers, in New York, and in April, 1910, I began independent work as financial agent for various clients. In January, 1912, I entered the bond department of the Prudential Insurance Company at Newark, and since December 1, 1915, I have been with Wood, Struthers & Co., bankers, 37 Wall St., N. Y.

Publications: Syllabi of lectures on “Money” and “Economic History,” signed reviews in the Political Science Quarterly and elsewhere, and editorials in a New York daily. Assisted in the preparation of Seligman’s “Essays in Taxation” and “Incidence of Taxation,” Giddings’ “Democracy and Empire,” Clark’s “Distribution of Wealth,” and the second edition (rewritten) of White’s “Money and Banking.”

Clubs and Societies: Harvard Club of New York.

Source:  Secretary’s Report for the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary. Harvard College Class of 1892, Number VI, (1917), pp. 68-69. Includes Graduation picture.

*  *  *  *  *

Arthur Morgan Day (1922)

Born at Danbury, Conn., April 12, 1867. Son of Josiah Lyon and Ellen Louisa (Baldwin) Day. Prepared for College at Danbury High School, Danbury, Conn.

Attended Harvard: 1888-92; Graduate School, 1892-94.
Degrees: A.B. and A.M. 1892.

Occupation: Investments.
Address: (home) 152 Deer Hill Ave., Danbury, Conn.; (business) 5 Nassau St., New York, N.Y.

Since December 1, 1915, I have been with Wood, Struthers & Co., bankers, 5 Nassau Street, New York.

Clubs and Societies: Harvard Club of New York.

Source:  Harvard College Class of 1892, Thirtieth Anniversary Report, Number VIII, (1922), p. 70.
[note: Number IX, June 19-22, 1922 is the Supplementary Report of the Thirtieth Anniversary Celebration]

_______________

From the State of Connecticut, Military Census of 1917

State of Connecticut

By direction of an act of the Legislature of Connecticut, approved February 7th, 1917, I am required to procure certain information relative to the resources of the state. I therefore call upon you to answer the following questions.

MARCUS H. HOLCOMB, Governor.

TOWN or CITY: Danbury
DATE: March 4, 1917
POST OFFICE ADDRESS: 28 Westville Ave.

  1. What is your present Trade, Occupation or Profession ? Banking and Brokerage
  2. Have you experience in any other Trade, Occupation or Profession? College Professor
  3. What is your Age? 49
    Height? 5 ft 8 in
    Weight? 165
  4. Are your Married? Single? or Widower? Single
  5. How many persons are dependent on you for support? None wholly
  6. Are you a citizen of the United States? Yes
  7. If not a citizen of the United States have you taken out your first papers? [not applicable]
  8. If not a citizen of the United States, what is your nationality? [not applicable]
  9. Have you ever done any Military or Naval Service in this or any other Country? No
    Where? [not applicable]
    How Long? [not applicable]
    What Branch? [not applicable]
    Rank? [not applicable]
  10. Have you any serious physical disability? Yes
    If so, name it. Near sighted
  11. Can you do any of the following:
    Ride a horse? [No]
    Handle a team? [No]
    Drive an automobile? [No]
    Ride a motorcycle? [No]
    Understand telegraphy? [No]
    Operate a wireless? [No]
    Any experience with a steam engine? [No]
    Any experience with electrical machinery? [No]
    Handle a boat, power or sail? [No]
    Any experience in simple coastwise navigation? [No]
    Any experience with High Speed Marine Gasoline Engines? ? [No]
    Are you a good swimmer? [Yes]

I hereby certify that I have personally interviewed the above mentioned person and that the answers to the questions enumerated are as he gave them to me.

[signed]
Chas A Stallock[?]
Military Census Agent

Source: Connecticut Military Census of 1917. Hartford, Connecticut: Connecticut State Library. [available as database on-line at Ancestry.com]

 

Image Source: Class portrait and current portrait (ca 1917) of Arthur Morgan Day from Secretary’s Report for the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary. Harvard College Class of 1892, Number VI, (1917), pp. 68-69.

 

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Readings and Examination Questions for Economic History Since 1860. Cole, 1936-37

 

The economic historian, Arthur Harrison Cole, is best known as having been the Librarian of the Business School’s Baker Library and also the executive director of the Research Center in Entrepreneurial History at the Business School. This post provides the reading list and examination questions for the undergraduate economic history course he taught at Harvard in the first semester of the 1936-37 academic year. The post begins with the biographical note provided at the Harvard Business School Archives where Arthur H. Cole’s papers are located.

Arthur Harrison Cole’s doctoral examination fields can be found at this post. His dissertation is included in this list of Harvard economics Ph.D.’s through 1926.

His obituary in the Harvard President’s annual report has also been previously posted.

___________________________

Arthur Harrison Cole (1889-1974)
Biographical Note

Arthur Harrison Cole was born November 21, 1889 in Haverhill, MA. He attended Governor Dummer Academy (1904-1907) and graduated from Bowdin College with a BA (1911). He received his MA (1913) and PhD (1916) in economics from Harvard University. After completing his dissertation, Cole tutored and taught economics at Harvard. He rose from instructor (1916-1917, 1920-1923) to assistant professor (1923-1928) to associate professor (1928-1933). In addition to his academic work, Professor Cole worked in the War Department and the U. S. Tariff Commission from 1917-1920. In 1933, he became Professor of Business Economics at Harvard Business School.

In 1929, Arthur Cole was appointed financial supervisor of the International Scientific Committee on Price History. Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, which supported the study of social and economic problems, the Committee researched commodity prices of leading European countries and the United States prior to 1861. The Rockefeller Foundation eventually spent $325,000 for this study and allowed Cole the administrative freedom to dispense the funds to Committee members.

Under the presidency of Sir [later Lord] William Beveridge, the Committee reached a consensus on methodology in 1931 after meeting in London (1930), Frankfort (1930), and Amsterdam (1931). Thereafter, economists on the Committee from England, Germany, France, Austria, Poland, Spain, and the United States proceeded to investigate prices in their respective countries. Meetings in Aix-en-Provence (1932), Vienna (1932) and Locarno (1933) allowed the members to gather periodically to discuss various problems of investigation and methods.

In addition to serving in an administrative capacity for the International Scientific Committee on Price History, Arthur Cole wrote one of the volumes of price history for the United States, Wholesale Commodity Prices in the United States, 1700-1860 (1938). The other two volumes of price history for the United States were Prices in Colonial Pennsylvania by Bezanson, Gray and Hussey (1935) and Wholesale Prices for 213 Years, 1720-1932 by Warren, Pearson and Stoker (1932). Publication of the price histories were suspended during World War II, but resumed after the end of hostilities.

Arthur Cole assumed the dual role of economic historian and library administrator throughout his long professional career. As Administrative Curator of Baker Library (1929-1932) and later, Librarian of Baker Library (1932-1956), Cole’s pioneering efforts in collecting and preserving historically significant business records led to the accumulation of one of the finest collections on the subject in the world. In addition, his influence as an economic historian continued long after he left the classroom. Cole remained an integral part of the scholarly community as Managing Editor of the Review of Economic Statistics (1935-1937), Chairman of Inter-University Research Commission on Economic History (1941-1958), Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic History (1943-1946), and Executive Director, Research Center in Entrepreneurial History (1948-1958). He retired to emeritus status from Harvard Business School in 1956.

Arthur Cole married the former Anne Steckel of Pennsylvania on August 5, 1913 and they had two children: Barbara and Jonathan. He died November 10, 1974.

 

Source: Arthur Harrison Cole Papers. Harvard Business School Archives. Baker Library Historical Collections. Harvard Business School. Accessed July 22, 2018.

___________________________

Course Enrollment

34 1hf. (formerly 2a). Professor A. H. Cole.—Economic History Since 1860.

Total, 20: 7  Seniors, 5 Juniors, 7 Sophomores, 1 Other.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1936-37, p. 92.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 34
Reading Assignments—1936-37

Industrial Development

  1. Usher, A. P., Industrial History of England, pp. 1-23, 247-366.
  2. Clark, V. C., History of Manufactures in the United States, pp. 233-314, 335-63.
  3. Roe, J. W., English and American Tool Builders, pp. 109-72.

Transportation Improvement

  1. Kirkaldy, A. W., British Shipping: its History, Organization, and Importance, pp. 3-92, 151-73, 307-47.
  2. (a)

Usher, A. P., Industrial History of England, pp. 431-67.
Clapham, J. H., Economic History of Modern Britain, I, pp. 75-97, 381-412.
Clapham, J. H., Economic Development of France and Germany, pp. 104-13, 140-55, 339-54.

or

  1. (b)

Kirkland, E. C., History of American Economic Life, pp. 257-301, 370-419.
Schmidt, L. B. and E. D. Ross, Readings in the Economic History of American Agriculture, pp. 127-30, 173-270.

Commercial Policy

  1. (a)

Barnes, D. G., History of the English Corn Laws, pp. 239-84.
Ashley, P., Modern Tariff History, pp. 3-63, 323-87.

or

  1. (b)

Hill, W., First Stages of the Tariff Policy of the United States, pp. 38-93.
Taussig, F. W., Tariff History of the United States, pp. 68-154.

Banking and Credit

  1. (a)

Andreades, A., History of the Bank of England, pp. 248-94.
King, W.T.C., History of the London Discount Market, pp. 1-169.
Bagehot, W., Lombard Street, Chaps. VII and IX. (1910 ed., pp. 162-209, 283-302.)

or

  1. (b)

Conant, C. A., History of Modern Banks of Issue, pp. 334-95.
Myers, M.G., The New York Money Market, pp. 3-9, 43-209.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950, Box 23, Folder “Course Outlines 1935-37-38-42”.

___________________________

Reading Period (January 4-20, 1937) Assignment
Economics 34:

Read 200 pages in one of the following books:

Ernle, Lord, English Farming, Past and Present, Chs. 7-19 (inclusive).

Levy, H., Monopolies, Cartels, and Trusts in British Industry, Chs. 5-8, 9.

Webb, S. and B., History of Trade Unionism.

Phillips, U. B., American Negro Slavery, Chs. 8-19 (inclusive).

Hibbard, B. H., History of the Public Land Policies.

Seager, H. R., and Gulick, C. A., Jr., Trust and Corporation Problems, Chs. 5, 7-16, 24-26.

Sprague, O. M. W., Crises under the National Banking System.

Commons, J. R., and associates, History of Labour in the United States.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003(HUC 8522.2.1), Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1936-1937”.

___________________________

FINAL EXAMINATION, 1936-37
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 341

I
(About one hour)

  1. Write an essay upon some subject suggested by your reading-period assignment, or upon the changes in ocean shipping, 1760-1870.

 

II.
(About two hours)

Answer four questions

  1. “Those who would set apart certain decades in the economic development of a country as the period of that country’s ‘industrial revolution’ and who conceive the changes therein contained in terms of inventions, commit two grievous errors. The setting-apart of these periods is spurious, while, in so far as there were developments of note, those in industrial technique were not the decisive ones for segregation.” Do you agree? If so, why? If not, why not?
  2. Take one of the following:

(a) Trace the course of tariff change in England in the period 1815-60. What forces were chiefly responsible for the reformation of the tariff accomplished in these decades?

(b) Trace briefly the development of protectionist thought in the United States in the pre-Civil-War period.

  1. What phases of railroad development on the continent of Europe before 1880 contrast most sharply with the roughly contemporaneous experiences of England and the United States in the same field? Illustrate your points.
  2. What were the outstanding characteristics of the London or New York money market at approximately 1860? How do you account for the emergence of this city as the financial center of England or the United States? (Consider one country only.)
  3. Identify and indicate the significance in economic history of five of the following: (a) Eli Whitney; (b) Brunel; (c) Chevalier; (d) Friedrich List; (e) the Scholfields; (f) Sir Henry Bessemer; (g) Nicholas Biddle.
  4. “Economic independence did not accompany political independence for the United States. The one unifying thread in American economic history for the greater part of the nineteenth century—in commerce, finance, opening the continent, etc.—is action relative to Europe, especially England, and dependence upon these foreign areas.” Do you agree? Why or why not? If on the whole you agree, you should support your views by enlargement of the above contentions (though you may also indicate limitations to the validity of these statements, if you care to); while if on the whole you disagree, you may develop another “unifying thread”—although that course is not essential.

Final. 1937.

 

Source:Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, Finals (HUC 700028, vol. 79). Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History, History of Religions, …, Economics,…Military Science, Naval Science. January—June, 1937.

Image Source: Harvard Business School Yearbook 1930-1931, p. 39.