After graduating from Princeton, Merton K. Cameron taught high-school Latin, Greek and History before going on for graduate work in economic history at Harvard University where he co-taught courses in the economics of transportation and the economics corporations with Professor William Z. Ripley in 1915-16.
From his obituary in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (23 May 1952, p. 5) we learn that he retired from the University of Hawaii in August, 1949 because of ill health and then moved with his family to California. It was reported that Cameron was “a member of the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce, Phi Gamma Delta, American Association of University Professors, Phi Kappa Phi, Pi Gamma Mu, National Association of Cost Accountanats and the American Economics Association.”
Merton Kirk Cameron was born 7 January 1886 in Cecil County, Maryland and died 22 May 1952 in San Gabriel, California.
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Harvard Economics Ph.D., 1921
Merton Kirk Cameron, A.B. (Princeton Univ.) 1908, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1914.
Subject, Economics. Special Field, Economic History. Thesis, “The History of Tobacco-Growing in the Ohio Valley.”
Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Oregon.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1920-21, p. 60.
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Summer School, Berkeley 1932
Merton Kirk Cameron, Ph.D., Professor of Economics and Head of the Department of Economics and Business, University of Hawaii.
A.B., Princeton University, 1908; M.A., 1914, Ph.D., 1921, Harvard University. Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Oregon, 1920-23, Associate Professor, 1923-28; Professor of Economics, University of Hawaii, since 1928.
Author: Experience of Oregon with Popular Election and Recall of Public Service Commissioners; Some Neglected Aspects of the Problem of Poverty; The Political Pressure on the State Commissioners; Some Economic Causes of the Backward Condition in the Ante-Bellum Ohio Valley Tobacco District.
Source: University of California, Intersession and Summer Session, 1932 at Berkeley. (Officers of Administration and Instruction, Visiting Instructors), p. 4.
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From the Princeton Alumni Weekly (1952)
Memorial
Merton Cameron, Ph.D., educator and author of many scientific books and articles on sociological and economic studies, died on May 22, 1952 at his home in San Gabriel, Calif. For the past 30 years prior to his retirement in 1950 he was professor of Economics and chairman of the Dept. of Economics and Business at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu. During World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor he was active in defense work in Honolulu, both in directing the construction of bomb shelters and as an expert on finger prints. At that time his wife, Margaret, served in the Honolulu Office of Censorship.
Froggy, as he was affectionately known in college, elected teaching as a career, having served on the faculties of several U.S. schools including the Lanier High School in Maryland, the Donald Fraser School of Decatur, Ga. [ca. 1908], and the Riverside Military Academy at Gainesville, Ga. [ca. 1911], before accepting an offer from the University of Hawaii. He was one of those rare teachers who was not only a master of his subject but able to arouse enthusiastic response and admiration from his pupils.
Surviving in addition to his wife, Mrs. Margaret Elizabeth Sullivan Cameron, are a son, Merton K. Jr.; a daughter Edith, wife of Col. Kenneth R. Kenerick and two grandchildren, Karen J. Kenerick and Kaye Elizabeth Kenerick.
To the members of his family who survive the Class extends its sincere sympathy.
For the Class of 1908
Robert C. Clothier, President
Courtland N. Smith, Secretary
Source: Princeton Alumni Weekly, July 4, 1952, p. 34.
Image Source: University of Hawaii Yearbook, 1936.