I don’t know why the department of economics felt a need to merge two semester courses into a single two semester sequence, but in 1911-12 Edmund Ezra Day’s two distinct courses were joined into a single sequence covering money, banking and crises. Maybe it was really a desire to reduce three semester courses (1) money (2) banking and foreign exchange (3) and commercial crises into two semesters.
The mid-year exam for the first term of the two-semester course on money, banking, and crises was not found with the other exams of the 1911-12 academic year in the Harvard archives. One has to make do with what one’s got.
Professor Edmund Ezra Day’s biographical timeline was posted earlier.
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Banking, Foreign Exchange and Crises pre-1911/12
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Meet the Course Teaching Assistant
Thomas York (1883–1941)
Dec. 22, 1883 — Born, Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, son of Walenty (“Valentine”) and Anna York, Polish immigrants.
1900 — Graduates Mount Carmel High School.
1903 — Enters Phillips Exeter Academy in preparation for Harvard; matriculates at Harvard College, 1903.
1903–06 — In residence at Harvard College.
1907 — Receives A.B., summa cum laude, with the Class of 1907 (having completed the course in three years).
1907–1910 (c.) — Teaches Latin and Greek at the Morristown School, a boys’ boarding school in Morristown, N.J.
1910 — Returns to Harvard, entering the Graduate School to study economics.
1911 — Receives A.M.
1911–1913 — Serves as Assistant in Economics, Harvard University, under Professor Day, including work on Economics 8 (Money, Banking and Crises).
1913 (c.) — Leaves Harvard without pursuing the Ph.D.; joins the staff of the Wall Street Journal.
Sept. 4, 1918 — Marries Isabel Smith of Mount Carmel, in New York City (Mount Carmel Item, Sept. 6, 1918).
Sept. 12, 1918 — WWI draft registration; listed as reporter, Wall Street Journal; residence 609 West 127th Street, New York, with wife Isabel.
1920 — Publishes Foreign Exchange: Theory and Practice.
1920 (c.) — Leaves the Wall Street Journal after seven years on its staff (having risen to Foreign Exchange Editor); joins the Ronald Press Company, New York, publishers of business and financial books.
1920–1922 — Prepares an enlarged edition of his foreign-exchange book.
1923 — Publishes International Exchange, Normal and Abnormal; favorably reviewed in the New York Times (Apr. 8, 1923) and celebrated in his hometown paper, the Mount Carmel Item (Apr. 9, 1923).
1920–1941 — Serves twenty years on the editorial board of the Ronald Press Company, supervising numerous finance and business titles; contributes to financial periodicals and lectures at financial conventions; frequently consulted by banking and brokerage houses.
(undated, pre-1941) — Works on an unpublished manuscript on banking, accounting, and corporation law, left incomplete at his death.
Jan. 12, 1941 — Dies suddenly of a heart attack at his home, 5 West 65th Street, New York City, age 57.
Jan. 13–14, 1941 — Death reported in the Mount Carmel Item and the New York Times.
(after 1941) — Widow Isabel Smith York donates his unpublished manuscript to Baker Library Special Collections and Archives, Harvard Business School.
Sources: Harvard College Class of 1907, Secretary’s First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth (Quindecennial) Reports; Cambridge, Mass. city directories (1912–13); Mount Carmel Item (Sept. 6, 1918; Apr. 9, 1923; Jan. 13, 1941); New York Times (Apr. 8, 1923; Jan. 14, 1941); WWI draft registration card (Sept. 12, 1918); Baker Library Special Collections and Archives, Harvard Business School, finding aid (bak01111).
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THOMAS YORK [as of 1922]
BORN at Mt. Carmel, Pa., Dec. 22, 1883.
SON OF: Walter, Anna York.
PREPARED AT: Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N.H.
YEARS IN COLLEGE: 1903-06.
DEGREES: A.B. 1907, Α.Μ. 1911.
MARRIED: Isabel Smith, September 1918, Mt. Carmel, Pa.
OCCUPATION: Publisher.
ADDRESS: c/o Ronald Press Co., 20 Vesey St., New York, N.Y.
I HAVE been engaged in sundry occupations since leaving College. For three years I taught Latin and Greek at the Morristown School, a private institution for boys at Morristown, N.J. The classics, however, offered little opportunity for my rising ambition, and I, therefore, decided to turn to matters of more up-to-date interest. So in the fourth year of graduation I came back to Harvard to enter the Graduate School, and there I spent three diligent years delving into the dismal science, otherwise known as economics. I still had teaching in view, but at the close of my graduate course I definitely abandoned the idea. I hasten to add, lest there be some misunderstanding, that I am not the possessor of the Ph.D. A constitutional dislike of the grind that is the condition precedent of obtaining that degree turned me away from pursuit of it.
Having accumulated a modicum of knowledge about banking and finance during my Graduate School days, I decided to try my fortune in financial journalism. So I am next found on the staff of the Wall Street Journal. Here I had a varied experience, marketwise and otherwise. I made valiant attempts during my first years in the Street to find the proverbial pot of gold. Not meeting with success I turned to less distracted, though more laborious, pursuits, visible evidence of which is furnished by a book on foreign exchange. Not satisfied with this maiden effort at authorship, I undertook to get out an enlarged edition of the book, and this has engaged my spare time for the last two years. I have in the meantime also been contributing to some financial periodicals.
I left the Wall Street Journal two years ago, after serving seven years on its staff. Since then I have been associated with the Ronald Press Company, 20 Vesey Street, New York, publishers of business and financial books.
In September of 1918 I joined the ranks of the benedicts. My wife was Miss Isabel Smith of my home town, Mt. Carmel, Pa.
Source: Secretary’s Fifth Report. Harvard College Class of 1907 (June, 1922), pp. 596-597.
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Course Description
1911-12
[Economics] 8. Money, Banking, and Crises. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 1.30. Dr. Day.
This course aims to analyze the principal problems of money and credit. An examination is first made of the more important existing monetary systems. This is followed by a careful review of the more instructive chapters in the monetary history of England, Germany, France, the United States, Austria, British India, Mexico, and the Philippines.
The nature, origin, and early growth of commercial banking are considered. A thorough investigation of present banking practice in England, France, Germany, and Canada is followed by a study of banking history and present banking problems in the United States. In this connection foreign exchange and the money markets of London, Paris, Berlin, and New York are examined.
Finally attention is turned to those problems of money and credit which appear most prominently in connection with economic crises. Though emphasis is thrown upon the financial aspects of the trade cycle, the investigation covers the more fundamental factors causing commercial and industrial fluctuations.
Short papers upon assigned topics will be required of all students. The course is open to those only who have passed in Economics 1.
Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), p. 64.
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Course Enrollment
1911-12
Economics 8. Dr. E. E. Day, assisted by Mr. York. — Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.
Total 120: 7 Graduates, 16 Seniors, 70 Juniors, 22 Sophomores, 4 Freshmen, 1 Others.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 64.
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ECONOMICS 8
Year-end Final Examination
1911-12
- Give (in not more than 100 words, using tabular form if you wish) the history of the silver dollar in the United States. What is its present position? Is it a source of weakness in our monetary system? If so, why? If not, why not?
- Describe the monetary experience of India from 1893 to 1901. What were the immediate and ultimate standards of value in India in (1) 1895, (2) 1899, (3) 1901?
- Compare the bank note issues of Germany and Canada with reference to (1) elasticity; (2) limitations upon the aggregate circulation; (3) ultimate security. Which system seems to you preferable for the United States? Why?
- Define discount market. Describe the English discount market. How has the absence of such a market affected banking in the United States? What provisions of the Aldrich Bill are designed to establish a discount market in this country?
- To what degree does the rate of discount vary in different parts of (1) Canada, (2) the United States? How in each case is the absence of perfect uniformity to be accounted for? If the Aldrich Plan were adopted, could the Reserve Association probably control the rate of discount in the United States? If so, how? If not, why not?
- Describe briefly the following phenomena in the crisis of 1907: (a) currency premium; (b) hoarding; (c) the domestic exchanges; (d) substitutes for cash.
- State concisely the theory of crises advanced by Professor Fisher in “The Purchasing Power of Money.” Discuss the theory critically.
- Indicate fully the significance of the following “indices” in an analysis of general business conditions:
(1) Value of the corn crop;
(2) Railway net earnings;
(3) Business failures;
(4) Gold exports.
In each case explain why the “index” has or has not significance.
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], pp. 54-55.
Exams from earlier years
1902/03-1907/08. Commercial Crises and Trade Cycles (A.P. Andrew)
1906/07. Banking and Foreign Exchange (A.P. Andrew)
1907/08. Banking and Foreign Exchange (A.P. Andrew)
1908/09. Commercial Crises and Trade Cycles (Wesley Clair Mitchell)
1908/09. Banking and Foreign Exchange (W.C. Mitchell)
1909/10. Commercial Crises and Trade Cycles [Not offered].
1909/10. Banking and Foreign Exchange (O.M.W. Sprague)
1910/11. Commercial Crises and Cycles of Trade (E.E. Day)
1910/11. Banking and Foreign Exchange (E.E. Day)
Source: Edmund Ezra Day (colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror) in the Harvard Class Album 1915.