Tag: DuBois

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus, Henry Raymond Mussey. 1905

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-06-30

Time to meet another economics Ph.D. alumnus.

This post provides a chronology of the life and career of Henry R. Mussey who received his graduate economics (and sociology) training at Columbia University. His useful editing skills landed him jobs twice at The Nation where he served as managing editor for a number of years. A man of convictions sufficiently strong to quietly resign his Columbia/Barnard position in protest of the dismissal of psychology professor James McKeen Cattell and English/comparative literature assistant professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana in 1917 for allegedly disseminating “doctrines tending to encourage a spirit of disloyalty to the Government of the United States.” Historian Charles Beard’s resignation also in protest of these dismissals was both public and fiery. It is not clear why Mussey did not create more of a fuss, but I would guess his personality was the opposite of a fist-pounding, door-slamming alpha-academic.

_____________________

Henry Raymond Mussey
Timeline

1875. December 7. Born in Atkinson, Illinois to parents William Alvord Mussey (1839-1926) and Louise Nowers (1845-1928).

Began his collegiate studies at the Geneseo Collegiate Institute, Illinois.

1900. A.B. Beloit.

Fun fact. In 1899 H.R. Mussey (’00) played the role of Antigone. Performances of Greek dramas given in English were a staple of Beloit College life.
Source: Edward Dwight Eaton, Historical sketches of Beloit College, (Second edition, 1935), p. 234

1901-02. Presented a paper “The Theory of Monopolies” in John Bates Clark seminar in political economy and finance that met every other week.

1902. Fellow in the Columbia Department of Economics, appointed instructor in Economics to replace A.M. Day who had resigned to work for the new Tenement House Commission of New York City. “Mr. Mussey has already acquired much popularity and confidence among the students in his classes.” Columbia Daily Spectator, Vol. XLV, No. 42 (21 March 1902), p. 1.

1903. The “Fake” Instalment Business. New York: The University Settlement Society.

1903-05. Assistant Professor of Economics and Industry in New York University School of Commerce .
Source: Barnard College, Morterboard, 1912, p. 28.

1905. Ph.D., Columbia University. Thesis: Combination in the Mining Industry: A Study of Concentration in Lake Superior Iron Ore Production. (vol. XIX, No. 3) New York: Columbia University Press.

1905. Engaged to Miss Mabel Hay Barrows of New York. Ca. 1902 she directed a revival production of the Greek play The Ajax of Sophocles at the university. Winter 1904-05 Ajax performed in New York. Also given in different colleges (Manhattan, Chicago, University of California) travelling as far West as California. “Mr. Mussey accompanied the players as general director of stage manager. He is professor of economics and history in New York university.” The Minneapolis Journal (Jan 24, 1905, p. 11).

“The music for the occasion has been composed by Miss Constance Mills and the costumes worn by the actors and singers have been copied form Greek vase paintings. Preceding the idyls a chorus of maidens will sing the oldest piece of Greek music of which both words and notes are preserved—the Delphic Hymn to Apollo. The production will be rendered further interesting by three Greek dances, one of the religious type, one mimetic in character, and the other a reminiscence of the nymphs of sea and land, which will be given between the scenes from Theocritus.”
Source: Brooklyn Life (February 11, 1905, p. 32).

1905. June 28. Married Mabel Hay Barrows (1874-1931) in Georgeville, Quebec. One son.

1905-07. Associate Professor of Economics at Bryn Mawr College.
Source: Barnard College, Morterboard, 1912, p. 28.

1907-09. Assistant Professor of Sociology in the University of Pennsylvania.
Source: Barnard College, Morterboard, 1912, p. 28.

1908. Passport application (May 6). Permanent residence given as Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Occupation university professor. Passport to be sent to Loan Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

1909-1917. On the faculty of Barnard College.

1910. Economics in the College Course. Educational Review, Vol. XL (October, 1910), pp. 239-249.

1910. Drs. Agger and Mussey project. “Intersection debate” conducted by the Barnard Literary Association. Teams selected of four students from each class to debate, “Resolved that the common ownership of all the means of production will promote social welfare.”

1911. Adjunct Professor of Economics.
Source: Barnard College, Morterboard, 1911, p. 27.

1911. Henry Raymond Mussey, editor. The Reform of the Currency. In the Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York, vol. 1, no. 2, (January 1911).

1912. Assistant Professor of Economics, Barnard College.
Source: Barnard College, Morterboard, 1912, p. 28). Under his faculty portrait: “A smile that puts to flight all care and troubles, withal it teaches us of poverty and rents.”

1912. [identified as Associate Professor of Economics, Columbia University] Mussey, Henry Raymond. “Discussion of Investments on Instalments.” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York, vol. 2, no. 2, 1912, pp. 107–08.
JSTOR https://doi.org/10.2307/1171942

1916. Passport application (January 17). Permanent residence Croton-on-Hudson, New York. Plan to leave from the port of Seattle on the Awa Maru on March 7, 1916 to travel and study in Japan and China.

1916. Associate Professor of Economics in Columbia University, representing Beloit College at Vassar College Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration

1917. “took part in the arranging the program of a convention of the academy at Long Beach, L.I. in May, 1917, which caused comment because of alleged pacifist and pro-German speeches.” From Mussey’s New York Times obituary (February 11, 1940), p. 48

Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York, Vol. VII, Nos. 2,3 (July 1917). Edited by Henry Raymond Mussey and Stephen Pierce Duggan.

Part I. 1. The Democratic Ideal in World Organization; 2. Future Pan-American Relations.
Part II. 3. Future Relations with the Far East; 4. Investments and Concessions as Causes of International Conflict.

1917. Associate Professor of Economics on the Barnard College Foundation. Tendered resignation to be effective at the convenience of the University.
Columbia Daily Spectator, Vol. XLI, No. 47 (4 December 1917), p. 1

“Rumours that circulated about the University yesterday to the effect that Professor Henry Raymond Mussey, Associate Professor of Economics on the Barnard Foundation, had tendered his resignation because of his sympathy with Professor Beard’s recent similar action were thoroly dispelled by various authorities on the campus, including Professor Mussey himself.
Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Vol. XLI, No. 48 (5 December 1917), p. 1

“Although Dr. Mussey refused to comment at the time, it was reported that the resignation was designed as a protest against the dismissal by the university of two other faculty members [James McKeen Cattell and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana]”
From New York Times obituary (February 11, 1940), p. 48

1918. Edited National Conference on War Economy. Vol. VIII, No. 1 (July 1918) of the Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York.

1918-20. Managing editor of The Nation.

1922. Joins the Wellesley College faculty.

PROFESSOR HENRY R. MUSSEY TO TEACH HERE
Appointed to Position in Economics Department
The Wellesley News (January 26, 1922), p. 2.

                  Dr. Henry R. Mussey has recently been appointed a member of the Department of Economics and Sociology, and is to come to Wellesley at the beginning of the second semester.

                  Dr. Mussey has had a distinguished career as teacher in several of the colleges of highest standing. He has been at various times Assistant Professor of Economics and Industry in New York University School of Commerce, Assistant Professor of Sociology in the University of Pennsylvania, Associate Professor of Economics at Bryn Mawr College, and Associate Professor of Economics at Barnard and Columbia.

                  For the past four years Dr. Mussey has given his time to journalism and public affairs, serving successively as managing editor of the Nation and of the Searchlight, and as executive secretary of the People’s Legislative Service at Washington.

                  Wellesley is fortunate in having the first fruits of Dr. Mussey’s extra-academic experience.

“Through the studies which I have recently made in Washington of American shipping interests and the Merchant Marine,” said Mr. Mussey, new professor in the Department of Economics….[made] during the time he was conducting investigations for senators and congressmen at Washington, just before he joined the faculty of Wellesley College.”
Source: The Wellesley News (February 23, 1922), p. 5.

1922-1929. Joined Wellesley College February 1922, left in 1929 to serve as Managing Editor of The Nation. Returned to Wellesley in 1931. The Wellesley News (February 15, 1940)

1929-31. Returns to The Nation as managing editor.

1930. Mussey prepared survey “for the League for Independent Political Action in which need for the formation of a new political party to deal with unemployment was set forth.” From New York Times obituary (February 11, 1940), p. 48

THIRD PARTY PLANS ARE LAID BY GROUP
League for Independent Political Action, Headed by Columbia Professor, Is Formed.
By the Associated Press.

NEW, YORK, September 9. Formation of the League for Independent Political Action, to help in organizing a new national political party, was announced yesterday. Prof. John Dewey of Columbia University is chairman.

The announcement said a national committee of 100 had been formed to start the movement opposing the Republican and Democratic parties.

Among the league’s aims, according to the announcement, are public ownership of public utilities, unemployment and health Insurance, old age pensions, relief for the farmer on, virtually a free trade basis, high progressive taxes on incomes, inheritances and increases in land values; abolition of “yellow dog” contracts and injunctions in labor disputes, independence of the Philippines and non-restriction of Negro and immigrant labor suffrage.

Officers include James Maurer, president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Labor; Zona Gale, of Wisconsin, author; Paul H. Douglas, professor of industrial relations, University of Chicago, and W. E. B. Dubois of New York, Negro educator, vice presidents.
Source: Evening Star, Washigton, D.C. (September 9, 1929), p. 16

1931. Returns to Wellesley College. [The Wellesley News (February 15, 1940)]

1931. Mussey’s wife, Mabel Hay Barrows, died at Neubrandenburg, Mecklenburg-Strelitz. November 30.

“Doctor and Mrs Mussey were abroad for a year, and she was taken suddenly sick while travelling through Germany.” Boston Globe (December 7, 1931), p. 11.

Date of death from American Consular Service, Report of the Death of an American Citizen. Cause of death: Intestinal Ulcers and intestinal complications as certified by attending physician (Duodenal Ulcer). Cremated.

1934. July 15. Married Miss Sara Corbett.

1936. “helped organize in Boston the Massachusetts Society for Freedom in Teaching.” From New York Times obituary (February 11, 1940), p. 48

1940. February 10. Henry Raymond Mussey, A. Barton Hepburn professor of economics, died in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Image Source: Bryn Mawr College Yearbook, Class of 1907.

Tags Douglas, DuBois, Mussey

Economics Programs Economists Harvard Race

Harvard. Application for Ph.D. candidacy. W.E.B. Du Bois, 1895

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-12-04

The following “Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.” for William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, who was awarded his Ph.D. in 1895 and whose 1896 publication of his dissertation book is noted, appears to be a record filed ex post. His 1895 Ph.D. was only the 3rd awarded by Harvard’s Division of History and Political Science in political science and it appears to me that the creation of an explicit, real-time record of a candidate’s satisfaction of degree requirements only came later. Similar omissions and ex post inclusions can be found in the similar applications filed for/by Frank W. Taussig and J. Laurence Laughlin.

For the previous post I have transcribed Du Bois’ updates in the reports up through 1920 by the secretary of the Harvard Class of 1890.

Research Tip: W.E.B. Du Bois Papers in the Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Cf. the portrait included in above linked page which is dated 1907 with the 1900 portrait by Paul Nadar of Paris made in 1900. They are not identical, but close enough for me to suspect that they are both from the same Paris studio in 1900.

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

______________________

William Edward Burghardt DuBois 1895

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY
AND POLITICAL SCIENCE.

Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.

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

[Name left blank] Feb 23—1868

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

Fisk University 1888
Harvard College 1888-90
Harvard Graduate School 1890-92
Berlin University 1892-94?
Prof. Latin & Greek Wilberforce Univ (Ohio);
Prof. Econ. & Hist. Atlanta Univ (Georgia)

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

A.B. Fisk 1888
A.B. Harvard 1890 [cum laude]
A.M. Harvard 1891
Ph.D. Harvard 1895

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

1^st Boylston Prize 1890-91 2^nd Boylston Prize 1889-90

Matthews Scholarship 1890

Henry Bromfield Rogers Memorial Fellow [1890-91, first year studying Ethics in Relation to Sociology; second year studying history]

Foreign Fellowship on Slater Fund [1891-92, as non-resident at Harvard to study political science at the University of Berlin]

[Other Academic Distinctions not listed here: Honorable Mention in Philosophy awarded A.B.; Delivered the commencement disquisition “Jefferson Davis as a Representative of Civilization.”]

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

Political Science

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

1. [left blank]
2. [left blank]
3. [left blank]
4. [left blank]
5. [left blank]
6. [left blank]
7. [left blank]

VII. Special subject for the special examination.

[left blank]

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

The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in the United States of America.— ?illegible word? and published Harvard Historical Studies, I (1896).

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

[left blank]

* * * [Last page of application] * * *

[Not to be filled out by the applicant.]

Name: William Edward Burghardt DuBois
Date of reception: [left blank]
Approved: [left blank]
Date of general examination: [left blank]
Thesis received: [left blank]
Approved: [left blank]
Read by: [left blank]
Date of special examination: [left blank]
Recommended for the Doctorate: [left blank]
Voted by the Faculty: [left blank]
Degree conferred: 1895 (Pol Sci.)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Division of History, Government, and Economics, Box 1, Folder “Ph.D. degrees conferred, 1873-1901 (folder 1 of 2)”.

Image Source: W. E. B. Du Bois, identification card for Exposition Universelle, 1900. Nadar, Paul, 1856-1939 (photographer).

Tags DuBois

Economists Harvard

Harvard. Class of 1890 reports for W.E.B. Du Bois, 1897-1920

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-12-01

W. E. B. Du Bois joined the Harvard Class of 1890 in its junior year. He entered the Ph.D. division of History and Political Science to major in political science. At the end of the 19th century, political science was a synonym for “social science” and encompassed government, economics, and sociology. Economists have a rightful (partial) claim to Du Bois, much as they have to Thorstein Veblen.

This post provides transcriptions from five Harvard class of 1890 reports on the life and activities of W.E.B. Du Bois through 1820.

Other posts dealing with Du Bois:

Du Bois’ choice of textbooks at Atlanta University

Du Bois goes after Columbia’s Burgess for ‘Anti-Negro’ history

Dubois and Balch post on race and gender

________________________

1897 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois is at present teaching at Wilborforce University, Green County, Ohio, an institution for education of colored youth. Has lately published a monograph on the suppression of the slave trade from the press of Longmans, Green & Co. 1896-97, Fellow, University of Pennsylvania.

Source: Harvard College Class of 1890. Secretary’s Report, No. 3. Boston (1897), p. 38.

________________________

1903 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. “In the fall of 1897 I accepted a position at Atlanta University as professor of history and economics. Here I am still at work. During that time I have published the following works:—

“‘The Philadelphia Negro,’ 520 pp., Ginn & Co., 1899.

“‘The Negroes of Farmville, Va.,’ 38 pp., Bulletin U. S. Department of Labor, January, 1898.

“‘The Study of the Negro Problems,’ 21 pp., Publications of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, No. 219.

“‘Strivings of the Negro People,’ Atlantic Monthly, August, 1897.

“‘A Negro Schoolmaster in the New South,’ Atlantic Monthly, January, 1899.

“‘The Evolution of Negro Leadership,’ (a review of Washington’s “Up from Slavery,”) Dial, July 16, 1901.

“‘The Storm and Stress in the Black World,’ (a review of Thomas’s “American Negro,”) Dial, April 16, 1901.

“‘The Savings of Black Georgia,’ Outlook, September 14, 1901.

“‘The Relation of the Negroes to the Whites in the South,’ Publications of American Academy of Social and Political Science, No. 311. (Reprinted in ‘America’s Race Problems,’ McClure, Phillips & Co., 1901.)

“‘The Negro Land-holder in Georgia,’ 130 pp., Bulletin of U. S. Department of Labor, No. 35.

“‘The Negro as He Really Is,’ World’s Work, June, 1901.

“‘The Freedmen’s Bureau,’ Atlantic Monthly, March, 1901.

“‘The Religion of the American Negro,’ New World, December, 1900.

“‘The Black North,’ New York Times, 1901. [Series: (1^st) 17 Nov; (2^nd) 24 Nov; (3^rd) 1 Dec; (4^th) 8 Dec; (6^th, sic) 15 Dec]

“‘The Opening of the Library,’ Independent, April 3, 1902.

“I have also edited the following Atlanta University publications:—

“‘Some Efforts of American Negroes for Social Betterment,’ 66 pp., 1898.

“‘The Negro in Business,’ 77 pp., 1899.

“‘The College-Bred Negro,’ 115 pp., 1900.

“‘The Negro Common School,”120 pp., 1901.

“We have had one little boy, born October 3, 1897, died May 24, 1899; a daughter, Nina Yolande, was born October 4, 1900. Married, May 12, 1896, Nina Gomer.”

Address, Atlanta University, Atlanta, Ga.

Source: Harvard College Class of 1890. Secretary’s Report, No. 4. Boston (1903), pp. 42-43.

________________________

1909 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

PROF. WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DUBOIS. Son of Alfred Alexander DuBois and Mary Sylvina (Burghardt) DuBois.

Born at Great Barrington, Mass., Feb. 23, 1868.

Prepared for college at Great Barrington (Mass.) High School and Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn.

Writes: “I am still Professor of Economics and History in Atlanta University. Since the last report I have published: ‘Souls of Black Folk,’ A. C. McClurg, Chicago, Ill., 264 pp., 1903; ‘Negro in the South’ (by Washington & DuBois), J. W. Jacobs & Co., Philadelphia, 222 pp., 1907; ‘The Negro Church,’ Atlanta, 212 pp., 1903; ‘Negro Crime,’ Atlanta, 75 pp., 1904; ‘Bibliography of the Negro American,’ Atlanta, 72 pp., 1905; ‘Health and Physique of the Negro American,’ Atlanta, 112 pp., 1906; ‘Economic Coöperation among Negro Americans,’ Atlanta, 184 pp., 1907; ‘The Negro American Family,’ Atlanta, 152 pp., 1908; ‘John Brown,’Philadelphia, G. W. Jacobs & Co., 350 pp., 1909.

“I am General Secretary of the ‘Niagara Movement,’ and Editor-in-chief of the ‘Horizon,’ ‘A Journal of the Color Line.’”

He lectured in the Union on “The Transplanting of a Race 1442-1860.”

Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Source: Harvard College Class of 1890. Secretary’s Report, No. 5, 1903-1909. Boston (1909), pp. 42.

________________________

1915 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DU BOIS

BORN at Great Barrington, Mass., Feb. 23, 1868. Son of Alfred Alexander and Mary Sylvina (Burghardt) Du Bois. Prepared at Great Barrington High School, Great Barrington, Mass.

IN COLLEGE, 1888–90. Entered Fall of ’88, graduated ’90. DEGREES: A.B. 1890; A.M. 1891; Ph.D. 1895; A.B. (Fisk Univ.) 1888.

MARRIED to Nina Gomer at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, May 12, 1896. CHILDREN: Burghardt Gomer, born Oct. 3, 1897, died May 24, 1899; Nina Yolande, born Oct. 14, 1900.

OCCUPATION: Editor.

DURING the years 1897–1910 I was Professor of Economics and History at Atlanta University. I have been Editor of The Crisis Magazine from 1910 to date. I am also Director of Publicity and Research of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1911 I was Secretary for the United States Universal Races Congress.

ADDRESS: (home) 248 West 64th St., Apt. 45, New York, N. Y.; (business) 70 Fifth Ave., Room 521, New York, N. Y.

PUBLICATIONS: “Souls of Black Folk,” “Negro in the South,” (by Washington and DuBois), “The Negro Church,” “Negro Crime,” “Bibliography of the Negro American,” “Health and Physique of the Negro American,” “Economic Coöperation among Negro Americans,” “The Negro American Family,” “John Brown,” “Efforts for Social Betterment Among Negro Americans,” “The College Bred Negro American,” “The Common School and the Negro American,” “The Negro American Artisan,” “Morals and Manners Among Negro Americans,” “The Quest of the Silver Fleece,” “The Philadelphia Negro,” “The Negro, Home University Library,” “The Suppression of the Slave Trade.”

CLUBS AND SOCIETIES: Authors’ League of America, Liberal Club, New York; Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Royal Societies Club, London.

Source: Harvard College, Class of 1890. Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report, 1890-1915, Secretary’s Report, No. 6, pp. 94-95.

________________________

1920 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DU BOIS

BORN at Great Barrington, Mass., Feb. 23, 1868. Son of Alfred Alexander and Mary Sylvina (Burghardt) Du Bois. Prepared at Great Barrington High School, Great Barrington, Mass.

IN COLLEGE, 1888–90, DEGREES: A.B. 1890; A.M. 1891; Ph.D. 1895; A.B. (Fisk Univ.) 1888.

MARRIED to Nina Gomer at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, May 12, 1896. CHILDREN: Burghardt Gomer, born Oct. 3, 1897, died May 24, 1899; Nina Yolande, born Oct. 14, 1900.

OCCUPATION: Editor, New York.

Since 1915 I have continued my work as editor of “The Crisis” magazine, which has a circulation of one hundred thousand. I have also begun the publication of a magazine for colored children, known as “The Brownies’ Book.” I have published “The Negro” in The Home University Library , in 1915 , and “Darkwater,” a book of essays, in 1920. After the armistice, I was sent to France to represent the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People. While there, I assembled a Pan-African Conference with fifty delegates, representing sixteen different Negro groups. This conference made report to the Peace Conference, concerning the future of Africa and the treatment of colored peoples.

Source: Harvard College, Class of 1890.Thirtieth Anniversary, 1920, Secretary’s Report, No. 7, pp. 65-66.

Image Source: W. E. B. Du Bois in Philadelphia, 1896. National Archives/National Historical Publications & Record Commission/Papers of W.E.B. Du Bois (Microfilm Edition).

Tags DuBois

Economists Harvard

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

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2022-11-22

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

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

____________________

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

(* deceased)

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

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

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

Tags AndrewAP, Callender, Clow, DuBois, Laughlin, MixterCW, Sprague, Taussig, Virtue, Woods

Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exams for Political Economy Courses and Ethics of Social Questions, 1890-1891

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2021-06-24

With the academic year 1890-91, a new instructor joined the Harvard political economy team, William Morse Cole who co-taught Political Economy 1 with Frank Taussig and Political Economy 8, History of Financial Legislation in the United States. Cole went on to have a successful career as professor of accounting at Harvard Business School.

The previous year’s exams have been transcribed and posted earlier:

Harvard. Final exams in political economy and ethics of social reform, 1889-1890

_________________________

1890-1891. Philosophy 14.

Enrollment

[Philosophy] 11. Professor F. G. Peabody. — The Ethics of Social Questions. — The questions of Charity, Divorce, the Indians, Temperance, and the various phases of the Labor Question (Socialism, Communism, Arbitration, Cooperation, etc.), as questions of practical Ethics. — Lectures, essays, and practical observations. 3 hours.

Total 103: 4 Graduates, 53 Senior, 28 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 3 Freshmen, 11 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 57.

PHILOSOPHY 14.
THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS.
Mid-year examination (1890-91)

[Omit one question.]

The attitude of political economy toward the questions of social reform.
Consider the possible relations in which your own life may stand to the life of society, and their ethical significance.
Examine a special case of moral heroism and state what, in your opinion, was its motive.
What, according to Professor Sumner, are the duties toward others of “a free man in a free democracy”? Why? And with what result, in your opinion, to society?
Enumerate and illustrate some of the practical rules of good charity which issue from the philosophy of charity.
The relation of the labor question in France and England to the political history of those countries.
Compare the conditions of wealth and the possibilities of revolution in England and in this country.
Consider Carlyle’s doctrine of the “Captain of Industry” as a solution of the modern labor question.
What does Ruskin mean by: Roots of honor; veins of purple; non-competitive just exchange; ad valorem?
What is there in religion which encourages the Socialist and what is there which repels him, and what relation between socialism and religion is, in your judgment, likely to be the result?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. From bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-91.

PHILOSOPHY 14.
THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

[Omit one question.]

“All wealth is due to labor; therefore to labor all wealth is due.” What, in your opinion, is the economic importance, and the justice, of this proposition?
Compare the views of the Socialist, the Individualist and the “Opportunist” as to the tendency toward State interference. What is your own view of the merits of this kind of legislation?
“Well may Prince Bismarck display leanings toward State Socialism.” Why does Mr. Spencer make this remark, and with what justice?
On what principle would a Professor be paid, under the Socialist programme?
Consider the commercial advantages and hindrances of an establishment like the Hebden Bridge Fustian Mill.
Compare the principle of profit-sharing formerly used in the American Fisheries with that represented by the firm of Billon et Isaac.
Describe the general features and the main intention of the Dawes Indian Bill; and the supplementary legislation now proposed.
What is meant by the “Philosophy of the Family,” and what is its relation to the modern Divorce Question?
If you should enter the retail liquor business in Boston, what legal restrictions would you find hampering the freedom of your trade?
Apply the doctrine of the “Social Organism” to the question of Temperance.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3. Papers Set for Final examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1891) in bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1890-91.

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 1. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig and Mr. [William Morse] Cole. —

First half-year: —

Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. 3 hours

Second half-year: —

Division A (Theoretical): Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. 3 hours.

Division B (Descriptive): Lectures on Finance, Labor and Capital, Coöperation. — Hadley’s Railroad Transportation. — Laughlin’s Bimetallism. 3 hours.

Total 201:

A: 10 Seniors, 53 Juniors, 50 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 19 Others.
B: 12 Seniors, 31 Juniors, 15 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

Student notes available at the Harvard Archives

Kennedy, Frank Lowell, Notes on lectures by Frank W. Taussig and William M. Cole on Political Economy 1, 1890-1891. Harvard University Archives HUC 8890.371.1

1890-91.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Mid-year examination.

[Divide your time equally between the two parts of the paper.]

I.
[Omit two.]

“Whether men like it or not, the unproductive expenditure of individuals will pro tanto tend to impoverish the community, and only their productive expenditure will enrich it.”
“It would be a great error to regret the large proportion of the annual produce which in an opulent country goes to supply unproductive consumption.”
Can you reconcile these two statements of Mill’s?
“Hardly any two dealers in the same trade, even if their commodities are equally good and equally cheap, carry on their business at the same expense, or turn over their capital in the same time. That equal capitals give equal profits, as a general maxim of trade, would be as false as that equal age or size give equal bodily strength, or that equal reading or experience give equal knowledge.” Can you reconcile this statement of Mill’s with the doctrine of the tendency of profits to an equality?
How far is it true that a general rise or fall in wages would not affect values?
Suppose a country having a metallic currency to issue inconvertible paper to one-half the amount of the coin, and trace the effects on prices and on the circulating medium (1) in an isolated country, having no international trade; (2) in a country having international trade.
On the same supposition, trace the effects, in the country having international trade, on the foreign exchanges, on the course of international trade, and on the terms of international exchange.
“If consumers were to save and covert into capital more than a limited portion of their income, and were not to devote to unproductive consumption an amount of means bearing a certain ratio to the capital of the country, the extra accumulation would be merely so much waste, since there would be no market for the commodities which the capital so created would produce.” Is this true?

II.
[Answer all.]

“Capital is not the result of saving; it is not an accumulation. Its nature is that it should be consumed almost as fast as it is produced. … Saving or accumulation would necessarily defeat the end of its existence. How can materials or tools be saved?” Answer the question.
Explain why rent is not an element in the cost of production of the commodity which yields it.
Connect the law of the increase of labor with the law of production from land.
What is the effect of gratuitous education for a profession on the wages of those engaged in it?
Why does the durability of the precious metals give stability to their value?
What are the laws of value applicable to (1) iron ore, (2) watch-springs, (3) wool and mutton, (4) patented bicycles?
How does the rate of interest bear on the price of land and of securities?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. From bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-91.

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Year-end examination (June 1891)
Division A.

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

Wherein is the effect of a change in the demand for commodities on the wages-fund different (1) if competition among laborers is effective? (2) if it is not effective?
On what grounds does Cairnes reach the same conclusions, as to the possible effects of Trades Unions on general wages, for England and for the United States?
Examine Cairnes’s reasoning as to the possibility of maintaining the accumulation of capital in a socialist community.
Why are the wages of women, according to Mill, lower than the wages of men? Accepting Mill’s explanation, what would Cairnes say as to the laws of value applicable to the exchange of the products of women’s labor with the products of men’s labor?
What is the error in saying that high wages make high prices?
“Gold may be cheap, and prices at the same time be low.” Explain.
Is it true that the benefit of foreign trade lies in its affording an outlet for the surplus produce of the community?
Suppose the people of the United States to borrow annually large sums from Europe; and suppose them also to have large interest payments to make on loans contracted in previous years; would you expect our foreign trade to show an excess of imports or of exports?
Mill says that an emission of inconvertible paper money, equal in amount to the specie previously circulating, will drive out the whole of the metallic money; “that is, if paper be issued of as low a denomination as the lowest coin; if not, as much will remain as convenience requires for the smaller payments.” What light is thrown on this statement by the experience of the United States in 1862?
Why did the circumstance that an exceptionally large part of the country’s business was done for cash in the period immediately after the civil war make the time favorable for a speedy contraction of the currency?
Is payment for capital sunk in the soil, rent, or profit?

Division B.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]
[One question may be omitted.]

Why have pools and traffic agreements been more stable in England than in the United States?
Why does a railroad charge more per ton per mile on cotton goods than on coal?
“A government enterprise may be managed on any one of four principles: 1. as a tax; 2. for business profits; 3. to pay expenses; 4. for public service, without much regard to the question of expenses.” Explain, giving an example under each head.
Wherein is there a resemblance between the legislation of France as to railways and as to banking?
Arrange in proper order the following items of a bank account: Capital, 300; Loans, 1150; Bonds and Stocks, 50; Surplus, 85; Undivided Profits, 10; Cash, 110; Cash items, 90; Notes, 90; Real Estate, 25; Other Assets, 20; Deposits, 960.
Do you see any reason for believing this bank to be or not to be a national bank of the United States? To be a city or a country bank?
Suppose the national banks of the United States ceased to issue notes, their other operations remaining as now; how great would be the effect of the change on the circulating medium of the community? Compare the effect with that which would ensue in Germany if the note issue of the German banks were to cease.
Under the national bank act, how does the action of our banks, when their reserves are suddenly lowered, differ from that of the Bank of England in like case?
Wherein is the mode of dividing profits among members of the coöperative stores in England different from that of the coöperative building associations of the United States?
Wherein does bimetallism as now practiced in France differ from bimetallism as it was in France in 1850? Wherein does it differ from bimetallism as it is in the United States now?
Compare the legislation of Germany on coinage in 1873 with that of the United States in 1853.
Mill divides commodities into three classes, according to the laws of value applicable to them. In which class would you put silver bullion?
Describe carefully the act for the resumption of specie payments, stating when it was passed, when it went into effect, and how far it was successful in accomplishing the desired object.
Will a general rise in wages affect values? prices? profits?

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 2. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig and Mr. [John Graham] Brooks. — History of Economic Theory. — Examination of selections from Leading Writers. — Socialism. 3 hours.

Total 23: 4 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 8 Juniors, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

Previously Posted

https://www.irwincollier.com/harvard-history-of-economic-theory-final-exam-questions-taussig-1891-94/

Fun fact: W.E.B. Dubois was enrolled in Economics 2 in 1890/91 as a graduate student and was awarded a grade of A (one of six awarded to the twenty-two who received grades, as recorded in Taussig’s scrapbook).

1890-91.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Mid-year examination.

[Divide your time equally between the two parts of the paper.]
[Omit one question.]

It has been suggested that the real source from which wages are paid is not the product of the laborer, nor the capital of the employer, but the income of the consumer. What should you say?
To which of the following cases, if to any, is the reasoning of the wages fund theory applicable? (1) The farmer tilling his own land with his own capital; (2) the fisherman working for a share of the catch; (3) the independent artisan working on his own account with borrowed capital; (4) the employer who habitually sells his product before pay-day, and pays his laborers with the proceeds.
Wherein does President Walker’s view of the source from which wages are paid differ from George’s?
“The extra gains which any producer or dealer obtains through superior talent in business, or superior business arrangements, are very much of a similar kind [to rent.] If all his competitors had the same advantages, and used them, the benefit would be transferred to the consumers, through the diminished value of the article; he only retains it for himself because he is able to bring his commodity to market at a lower cost, while its value is determined by a higher…. Wages and profits represent the universal elements in production, while rent may be taken to represent the differential and peculiar; any difference in favor of certain producers, or in favor of production in certain circumstances, being the source of a gain, which, though not called rent, unless paid periodically by one person to another, is governed by laws entirely the same with it.”—Mill, Political Economy, book iii., ch. v., §4.
What has President Walker added to this in his discussion of business profits?
“It is true that money does not beget money; but capital does manifestly beget capital. If a man borrows a thousand ducats and ties them up in a bag, he will not find any little ducats in the bag at the end of the year; but if he purchases with the ducats a flock of sheep, he will, with proper attention, have lambs enough at the end of the year to make a handsome interest on the loan, and make a handsome profit for himself. If the turns the ducats into corn, he will find it bringing forth, some thirty, some sixty, some an hundred fold…Very seldom does a man borrow money to use it, as money, through the term of his loan. When he does so, as brokers for example sometimes do, he may to Antonio’s question, ‘Is your gold and silver rams and ewes?’ return Shylock’s answer, ‘I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast.’”
Discuss this explanation of interest. Whom do you suppose to be the writer of the extract?
“The natural history of the notion on which it [the wages-fund doctrine] rests, is not obscure. It grew out of the conditions which existed in England during and immediately subsequent to the Napoleonic wars. Two things were then noted. First, capital had become accumulated in the island to such an extent that employers found no (financial) difficulty in paying their laborers by the month, week, or day, instead of requiring them to await the fruition of their labor in the harvested or marketed product. Second, the wages were, in fact, generally so low that they furnished no more than a bare subsistence, while the employment offered was so restricted that an increase in the number of laborers had the effect to throw some out of employment or to reduce the wages for all. Out of these things the wages-fund theory was put together.”
Examine this account of the rise of the wages-fund doctrine.
Discuss the method of reasoning followed by Adam Smith, and illustrate by his treatment of two of the following topics: (1) the causes which bring about high wages; (2) the effects on domestic industry of restraints on importation; (3) the origin and effects of the division of labor.
Explain how Ricardo’s conception of wages bears on his conclusions as to the effects of taxes on wages, and as to the net income of society.
What can be said in justification of the views of the writers of the mercantile school?

Source: Harvard University Archives. In Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. From bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-91.

Second semester taught by John Graham Brooks.

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

From Rousseau to the Fabians, what have been the chief historic changes in the Philosophy of Socialism?
In detail, state the differences between the Marx type of Socialism and that of the Fabians.
With reference to the “three rents” what are the most important objections to Socialism?
What reasons can you give to show that Socialism is likely to have much further development in our society?

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 3. Mr. [John Graham] Brooks. Investigation and Discussion of Practical Economic Questions. — Social Questions. — Short theses. 1^st half-year. 3 hours.

Total 10: 1 Graduate, 7 Seniors, 1 Junior, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Mid-year examination

State the general objects of the German State Insurance, with reasons why it is likely, or not likely, to reach its objects.
State in detail the strong points and the weak points of Trades Unions.
What is the effect of Trades Unions upon their own wages, as distinguished from wages in general?
What advantages has Profit Sharing over the present forms of the wages system?
Are there reasons to believe that Profit Sharing will have much larger influence in the future?
With special reference to the work of the half year, what “social remedies” appear to you most promising?

Source: Harvard University Archives. In Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. From bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-91.

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 4. Professor [Charles Franklin] Dunbar. — Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. —Lectures and written work. 3 hours.

Total 103: 29 Seniors, 28 Juniors, 25 Sophomores, 4 Freshmen, 17 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

Other course material available at the Harvard Archives

Topics and references in political economy IV [1891?]. Student’s copy belonging to C. King Morrison, ’91. with manuscript notes. Harvard University Archives HUC 8890.371

Larrabee, Ralph Clinton (A.B. 1893). Notes in Political Economy 4: lectures by Prof. Dunbar, 1890-1891. Harvard University Archives HUC 8890.371.4.48

Principle text for Political Economy 4

From the prefatory note to Benjamin Rand’s (ed.) Selections illustrating economic history since the Seven Years’ War (Cambridge, MA: Waterman and Amee, 1889):

These selections have been made for use as a text-book of required reading to accompany a course of lectures on economic history given at Harvard College.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
Mid-year examination

Lay out your time carefully, reserving 15 minutes for review and correction.

A.
Give half of your time (say 80 minutes) to A, omitting one question.

Make a careful statement of the leading provisions of the English navigation and colonial system.
Adam Smith’s reasons for saying that the policy of Great Britain towards her colonies had, upon the whole, been less illiberal and oppressive than that of other countries towards theirs. [Rand, pp. 12-26.]
Contrast the effects of the French revolutionary period upon the holding and distribution of land, in France and Germany respectively.
Describe the current of opinion and the industrial conditions which made free trade inevitably the policy for England.
State the reasons for the logical and political importance of the corn laws in the English free trade movement.
The essential differences between the French and the Anglo-American methods of managing railway construction and ownership, and the effect and advantages of each.

B.
Give 80 minutes to B, omitting two questions.

The trade between the United States and the British West Indies, before our revolution, and after.
The inventions or improvements which made the development of the cotton States possible.
The condition of commerce and manufactures in the United States in the two periods, 1794-1808, and 1808-1815.
The successive enterprises for opening communication with the territory north of the Ohio, and their importance.
The English legislation respecting cotton goods in the last century and the reasons for it.
What was the effect of the Napoleonic wars upon the introduction of manufactures on the continent of Europe?
The comparative state of preparation of England, France, Germany, and the United States for undertaking the modern industries when the peace of 1815 came.
Give what account you can of the career and opinions of Turgot, with dates.
The contributions of Stein and Hardenberg respectively to the reform in the Prussian system of land-holding.
On what plan was the Zollverein organized?
What are the differences in industrial characteristics which make it natural for England and France to adopt different policies as to protection and free trade?

Source: Harvard University Archives. In Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. From bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-91.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

Lay out your time carefully, reserving 15 minutes for review and correction

A.
Give half of your time to A. omitting one question.

The establishment of the Zollverein is spoken of [Rand, page 138] as “the first step towards what is called the Germanization of the people” and to have “prepared the way for a political nationality.” Show how it had this effect.
Cairnes, in his discussion of the new gold, [Rand, page 197] shows that “a given addition to the metallic stock of Great Britain and the United States … will cause a greater expansion of the total circulation, and therefore will support a greater advance in general prices, that the same addition to the currency of … France … and that again, the effect in countries like France will be greater than in countries like India or China.” Why is this, and how much effect did this difference in sensitiveness produce in the years after 1850?
Cairnes lays down [Rand, page 209] that “every country is interested in raising as rapidly as possible the prices of its productions,–in other words, in the most rapid possible depreciation in the local value of its gold.” What are the grounds for this proposition?
The writer in Blackwood’s, [Rand, page 228] says that the most important point in the payment of the French indemnity is “How came it that £170,000,000 [4,250,000,000 francs] of bills could be got at all”? What is the explanation of this fact?
What are the reasons for looking upon Italy as a possible serious competitor in ocean navigation, and what are her great drawbacks in such competition?

B.

What are the marked differences between the great change in the production and value of the precious metals in the sixteenth century, and that in the nineteenth?
Why was an additional supply of gold especially important to the world in the years 1850-60?
How does the mere saving of time in transportation, or in the transmission of intelligence, produce an effect upon commerce?
How far was the civil war the cause of the decline of American shipping after 1860?
What reasons made the breaking out of a financial crisis in the United States in 1873 easier than usual?
Why did the payment of the French indemnity disturb the financial quiet of other countries than France and Germany?
What are the great cases of resumption of specie payment in the years 1875-85, and how were they brought about respectively?
Why is the trade between countries so often “triangular,” and why is England so generally one of the parties concerned?
How does the modern theory of the utility of colonies differ from that of a century or two ago?

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 6. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig. — History of Tariff Legislation in the United States. 2 hours. 2d half-year

Total 43: 1 Graduate, 28 Seniors, 12 Juniors, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

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

Explain wherein France and the United States were in similar positions, as regards customs policy, in 1814-15; and state briefly the legislation to which these situations led in the two countries.
What was the argument, discussed in Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures, which rested on the supposed exceptions productiveness of agriculture? What was Hamilton’s answer? What is the sound view?
How did Gallatin propose in 1831 to fix customs duties without regard to their protective effect? Walker in 1845?
Was there any ground in 1832 for saying that the duties on imports were equivalent to duties on exports? Is there now?
How did the general fall in prices after 1819 affect the growth of manufactures in the United States?
“The climate, soil, and conditions generally in the Northwest, are very favorable to the cultivation of flax fibre as well as of the seed. After a short experience as to the primary manipulation and handling of the flax fibre, our farmers would produce flax which would compare favorably with the best varieties of the fibre. It seems strange that a practical people like ourselves should for years have been satisfied to cultivate seed for flax at a value of about $15 per acre, and at the same time allow 600 pounds of flax fibre per acre to rot on the ground, this fibre having a value, after being manipulated, of $186 per ton.”
Can you explain the anomaly?
Describe the process by which the duties on woollen cloths, as they stand in the act of 1890, were arrived at.
What ground is there for saying that the protective movement in the United States is part of a general reaction towards protection which has appeared in most civilized countries in recent years?
It has been said that the tariff act of 1789 began the protective policy of the United States; that the act of 1816 was the first giving serious protection; that the act of 1824 was the first strictly protective act. Which statement, if any, do you think true?
Which of the important tariff acts between 1835 and 1859 were passed quite without regard to financial considerations?
What does the continued importation of clothing wool indicate as to the effect of the duty on the domestic price? of pig iron? of silks?

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 7. Professor [Charles Franklin] Dunbar. — Public Finance and Taxation. — Cohn’s Finanzwissenschaft. 3 hours.

Total 7: 2 Graduates, 4 Seniors, 1 Junior.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

It is recommended that at least a third of the time be given to B.

A.

Accepting the usual reasoning that a tax under some circumstances, by diminishing the income from property, diminishes its selling value, and so ceases to be felt by subsequent purchasers, should you say,—
1. That the French impôt foncier is a tax on present landholders?
2. That the English income-tax under Schedule A. is a tax on present landholders?
  The reason for the difference, if any exists.
What is your final conclusion as to the sale of bonds or annuities at a discount, — is it defensible or not, and on what grounds?
Explain the English method of using terminable annuities for the reduction of the public debt, as in 1867 and 1883, and discuss its advantages and drawbacks.
“The administrator of local finances is permitted to found a sinking-fund at the time of issuing bonds, a permission, it will be remembered, contrary to sound rules of national financiering.”
Does the distinction here made between local and national finances give solid ground for difference of treatment? Are the propositions as to the propriety of establishing sinking-funds in the two cases respectively tenable?
Say remarks that the French government, in providing for the indemnity, bought any kind of foreign bills of exchange, “prenant tous les changes qu’elle pouvait acquérir sur quelque pay que ce fût.” How did this purchase of a bill, say upon Russia, facilitate the payment of the indemnity any more than the purchase of a bill upon Marseilles would have done, seeing that in either case the government had to collect the proceeds in order to use them?

B.

In 1872 Herr Bamberger, in his pamphlet die Fünf Milliarden, regretted that Germany had not been allowed more time to absorb the indemnity, so as to avoid the risk of over-stimulated enterprise, rise of prices, and speculation.
Discuss the probably effects, in Germany or elsewhere, (1) of longer time allowed to France; (2) of more cautious introduction of the wealth into Germany, effected
1. By longer deposit (say) in London,
2. By payment in securities, to be sold by Germany by degrees.

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 8.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 8. Mr. [William Morse] Cole. — History of Financial Legislation in the United States. 2 hours. 1^st half-year.

Total 46: 1 Graduate, 29 Seniors, 13 Juniors, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 8.
Mid-year examination

I.

“That the public credit was much better during the Civil War than during the War of 1812 is proved by the fact that during the former war the bulk of the loans were sold at par, whereas during the latter the larger part were sold below par.”
Comment on this statement.
Under what authority does the Secretary of the Treasury purchase bonds in the market? Why does he not redeem them at par?
Explain: “Five-twenties”; “Seven-thirties”; and tell why they were made seven-thirties; “Deferred sixes,” “5% redemption fund.”
When were the first legal tenders under the present constitution authorized?
What have been the express legal exemptions of government obligations from taxation since the outbrake of the Civil War?
In what different capacities was each of the following men connected with the finances of the nation: Hugh McCulloch, Levi Woodbury, William Pitt Fessenden, John Tyler?

II.
(Omit two.)

1, 2. [Counts as two questions.] Compare the causes of the suspensions of 1814, 1837, and 1861.

3, 4. [Counts as two.] Mention the different systems which have been in vogue since 1789 for caring for public funds, and tell why each change was made.

It was said that the bill which finally became the act for resumption in 1875 really provided for nothing in particular, and therefore ought not to be put upon the statute book. Did the provisions of the bill warrant the remark? Did subsequent history justify the remark?
In what way were the French Spoliation Claims connected with the Second-Bank Struggle?
Hamilton wished to have a system of internal taxation in working order as a resource in case of emergency. Does history throw any light upon the wisdom or folly of such a policy?
What were the causes of Gallatin’s retirement from the Treasury?
What history would you cite as an argument upon a proposition to replace bonds exempt from all taxation by bonds taxed to a moderate extent, and to distribute the receipts from the tax among the States according to the federal ratio?
In a speech on the refunding bill it was said that the government made no threat, but merely promised certain privileges to those who presented bonds to be refunded at a lower rate. “No one proposes…the alternative adopted by our own Government under Hamilton’s plan of reducing the interest.”
Is this implication regarding Hamilton’s funding justified by the facts?

11, 12. [Counts as two.] Mention as many as possible of the kinds of obligations which have been contracted by the government; i.e. character of obligation (bond or what), length of time to run, and rate of interest. Give one example under each kind,—giving period of issue, but not necessarily the exact date.

Source: Harvard University Archives. In Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. From bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-91.

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 9.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 9. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig. — Railway Transportation. —Lectures and written work. 3 hours. 2d half-year

Total 20: 14 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

1890-91.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 9.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

[Answer all the questions, and arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

Can it be fairly said that the early experience of the States of the Union supplies strong arguments against State ownership of railways? Can it be fairly said of the experience of France since 1878?
State the salient events in the history of the federal land grants to railways.
How do you explain the rapidity with which the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads were completed?
Wherein did the so-called Granger legislation on railway rates resemble the “natural” system advocated in Germany after 1871? Wherein did it differ from it?
Sketch the history and machinery of the Southern Railway and Steamship Association.
Explain the difference in the working of the Trunk Line Association before and after the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act.
What ground is there for saying that the prohibition of pooling in the Interstate Commerce Act is inconsistent with its prohibition of discrimination between individuals?
Suppose a railway to be built and used exclusively for coal traffic; would its rates be arranged on a plan essentially different from that in use with ordinary railways, having a varied traffic?
It has been said that the principle of tolls, or rates based on cost of service, makes it necessary that each item of business should pay its share of the fixed charges. Why, or why not?
Sketch the history of government management of railways in Italy.
“Property has reached an ideal perfection. It is felt and treated as the national lifeblood. The rights of property nothing but felony and treason can override. The house is a castle which the King cannot enter. The Bank is a strong box to which the King has no key. Whatever surly sweetness possession can give is tasted in England to the dregs. Vested rights are awful things, and absolute possession gives the smallest freeholder identity of interest with the duke.”—Emerson, English Traits.
Wherein does the trait here described make the railroad situation in England different from that in the United States?

Tags BrooksJG, ColeWM, DuBois, Dunbar, Peabody, Taussig

Race Sociology Statistics

Atlanta University. W.E.B. Dubois’ choice of economics and sociology textbooks, 1897-98

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-02-04

This post follows up the previous one that reports the economics textbooks used at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn. at the time W. E. B. Du Bois was an undergraduate. Artifacts transcribed below highlight the “sociological turn” taken by Du Bois upon his appointment to a professorship in economics at history at Atlanta University after he obtained his Harvard Ph.D. in political science for a dissertation on the history of the slave trade.

As can be seen in the department descriptions for 1896-97 and 1897-98, the name of the department of instruction was changed from “Political Science and History” to “Sociology and History” in the first year that Du Bois was included among the faculty of Atlanta University. Du Bois’ research on “Negro problems” would have been unduly restricted if conducted within the methodology of economics of his time (or ours for that matter) which we can see must have been a factor that pushed him to the broader perspective offered by the sociology of his time with its emphasis on empirical material and statistical methods.

A relevant artifact here is the library card issued to W. E. B. Du Bois by the Royal Prussian Statistical Bureau in 1893 during his time as a student in Berlin.

Source: University of Massachusetts Amherst. Special Collections and University Archives. W. E. B. Du Bois papers, Series 1A. General Correspondence. Bücherzammlung [sic] des königlich preussischen statistischen Bureaus zu Berlin, Zulassungscarte.

__________________

VI. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HISTORY.
[1896-97, Du Bois not yet listed as a member of the faculty]

It is intended to develop this department more fully, especially along the line of Sociology. Interest has been awakened throughout the country in the annual conferences held at Atlanta University in May — the first in 1896 — concerning problems in city life among the colored population. The library will soon be rich in books pertaining to Sociology.

As it now stands, the work of this department is as follows:

Political Science. Dole’s American Citizen, studied during the first year of the Normal and Preparatory courses, gives to our younger students an excellent introduction to this department. Civil Government in the Senior Normal year, and Civil Liberty in the Junior College, enrich this department still more; while International Law in the Senior year introduces the student to the principles underlying many burning questions of the day.

Economics. During Senior year Walker’s Political Economy, and White’s Money and Banking, also introduce the student to important national questions.

History, General and United States, is studied in the second and third years of the Normal course; while the College students have Guizot’s History of Civilization. For Greek History in the College, see Greek.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Atlanta University, 1896-97, p. 31,

__________________

W. E. Burghardt DuBois, Ph.D., Professor of Economics and History

VII. SOCIOLOGY AND HISTORY.
[1897-98]

It is intended to develop this department not only for the sake of the mental discipline but also in order to familiarize our students with the history of nations and with the great economic and social problems of the world, so that they may be able to apply broad and careful knowledge to the solving of the many intricate social questions affecting their own people. The department aims therefore at training in good intelligent citizenship, at a thorough comprehension of the chief problems of wealth, work and wages; and at a fair knowledge of the objects and methods of social reform. The following courses are established:

Citizenship. In the Junior Preparatory and Junior Normal classes Dole’s American Citizen is studied as an introduction. The Normal classes follow this by Fiske’s Civil Government in the Senior year, while Political Science has an important place in the Junior College year.

Wealth, Work and Wages. Some simple questions in this field are treated in the Junior Preparatory year, and the science of Economics is taken up in the Junior College year.

Social Reforms. Three terms of the Senior year are given to Sociology; the first term to a general study of principles, the second term to a general survey of social conditions, and the third term to a study of the social and economic condition of the American Negro, and to methods of reform.

In addition to this, graduate study of the social problems in the South by the most approved scientific methods, is carried on by the Atlanta Conference, composed of graduates of Atlanta, Fisk, and other institutions. The aim is to make Atlanta University the centre of an intelligent and thorough-going study of the Negro problems. Two reports of the Conference have been published, and a third is in preparation.

History. General and United States History are studied in the second and third years of the Normal course. Ancient history is taken in connection with the Ancient Languages and Bible study. Modern European history is studied in the Sophomore year; and some historical work is done in connection with other courses.

The library contains a good working collection of treatises in History and Sociology.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Atlanta University, 1897-98, p. 4, 13.

__________________

Textbooks assigned in Economics and Sociology
[1898-99]

Junior year Economics. Fall term. Hadley. (Economics)

Senior year Sociology. Fall term. Mayo-Smith (Statistics and Sociology).

Source: Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Atlanta University, 1898-99.

Economics
[Fisk University, Junior Year College textbook]

Arthur Twining Hadley. Economics. An Account of the Relations Between Private Property and Public Welfare. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1896.

Economics I. A Summary of Hadley’s Economics. Copyright Edw. W. Wheeler. Cambridge, Mass.: E. W. Wheeler, Printer, 1898. 53 pages. “A convenient hand-book for preparing the weekly written questions and all examinations…with an appendix containing suggestive topics for review.” [included in this post as a study guide]

Sociology and Statistics
[Fisk University, Senior Year College textbook]

“The present volume is issued as Part I. of a systematic Science of Statistics, and is intended to cover what is ordinarily termed Population Statistics…”

Mayo-Smith, Richmond. Statistics and Sociology. New York: Macmillan, 1895.

[Note: Mayo-Smith later published the second part of his systematic Science of Statistics as…]

“Part II., Statistics and Economics [covers] the statistics of commerce, trade, finance, and economic social life generally.
Mayo-Smith, Richmond. Statistics and Economics. New York: Macmillan, 1899.

Image Source: “W.E.B. Du Bois Educational Series at Great Barrington” webpage at the Housatonic Heritage webpage.

Tags DuBois, Hadley, Mayo-Smith

Race Undergraduate

Fisk. Senior Year text in Political Economy was F.A. Walker’s Advanced Course, 1892-93

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-02-02

This post takes Economics in the Rear-View Mirror in a rather different direction. Instead of helping to establish the chronology of the economics curriculum at major universities in the United States, I was curious to see if I could find out something about the economics taught at one of the historical “schools for colored people”. As luck would have it, I was able to quickly find a catalogue of courses for Fisk University from the 1892-93 academic year at the hathitrust.org internet archive. This happened to be the first year of operation of the University of Chicago so I read through the catalogue where I was reminded that an 1888 graduate of Fisk University was none other than W. E. B. DuBois who went on to complete his Ph.D. at Harvard University on the history of the slave trade.

So for W. E. B. DuBois fans out there, backcasting it is quite likely that his first course in political economy was taught by Erastus M. Cravath (see the personal sketch and early history of Fisk University below, also memorial addresses were published as a pamphlet). Furthermore his textbook for the course would likely have been the “advanced course” version of Francis A. Walker’s Political Economy (2nd edition, 1887).

However for the 1883-84 academic year one finds that political economy was confined to the second term of the senior year with the textbook: Elements of Political Economy by Francis Wayland (recast by Aaron L. Chapin, D.D.), 1878. Maybe this was what was still taught when DuBois was an undergraduate instead of two-terms with Walker’s “advanced course”. We’ll see if someone can find a catalogue for 1887-88.

_________________

Senior year course at Fisk University, 1892-93

Rev. Erastus M. Cravath, D. D.
President, and Professor of Mental and Moral Science, Logic, and Political Economy.

College Department. Classical Course, Senior year (Fall and Spring terms).

Political Economy. Advanced Course (Walker).

Source: Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Fisk University, Nashville Tennessee, for the Scholastic Year 1892-93.

_________________

PERSONAL SKETCH.
REV. ERASTUS MILO CRAVATH, D.D.
PRESIDENT OF FISK UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TENN.

Born July 1st, 1833, in Homer, N. Y., of Huguenot ancestry on the father’s side. His father, Orin Cravath, was one of three men to form the Abolition party in Homer, his home was a station of the “underground railroad,” and the son learned the first lessons concerning slavery from the lips of runaway slaves.

His father was a farmer, and the son received the usual common school education, and at seventeen entered the Homer Academy. As his father had been one of the earliest supporters of Oberlin College, the son went to Oberlin in the fall of 1851 where he remained nine years, graduating from college in 1857, and from the theological seminary in 1860.

He taught school during the winters, and largely supported himself through college and theology; was married to Ruth Anna Jackson, a Quakeress in unbroken line (from the time of George Fox) of Kennett Square, Pa., in September, 1860, and settled at Berlin Heights, Ohio, as pastor of the Congregational Church. He entered the Union army in December, 1863, and served with his regiment in the army of the Cumberland during the Atlanta campaign and in the battles of Franklin and Nashville, and was mustered out with the regiment at Nashville in June, 1865. He returned to Nashville, October 3d, 1865, as Field Agent of the American Missionary Association.

The first work done was in connection with the purchase of the land for the Fisk school, which became headquarters for his field work, starting schools at Macon, Milledgeville and Atlanta, Ga., and at various points in Tennessee. He became District Secretary of the American Missionary Association at Cincinnati, September, 1866, and in 1870 Field Secretary at the office in New York City; in 1875 he became president of Fisk University spending three years abroad with the Jubilee Singers, returning to the University in 1878; since which time he has remained at Nashville in the discharge of the duties of the presidency.

Source: The American Missionary (February 1894), Vol. XVIII. No. 2, p. 76.

_________________

EARLY HISTORY OF FISK UNIVERSITY

Fisk University was founded by the American Missionary Association, of New York City, and is still under its fostering care.

In October, 1865, Rev. E. P. Smith and Rev. E. M. Cravath were sent, under its auspices, to Nashville, Tenn., for the purpose of opening a school for colored people. In searching for a location, their attention was called to the United States Hospital, west of the Chattanooga depot, which was about to be sold, as no longer needed for the use of the army. After due consultation, the ground on which the buildings stood was purchased for $16,000.

Gen. Clinton B. Fisk, who was then in command of the Freedman’s Bureau, entered heartily into the work of helping to establish the school, hence the name, Fisk University. The school opened with interesting exercises January 9, 1866, under the auspices of the American Missionary Association and the Western Freedman’s Aid Commission, which was then represented in Nashville by Prof. John Ogden.

The Jubilee Singers.

At the founding of the school, Mr. George L. White, who was on the staff of General Fisk, volunteered to give instruction in vocal music. Gradually a few select voices were developed and a choir formed. When the time came that a new site and permanent buildings for the University must be secured, a variety of circumstances pointed to Mr. White and his little company of singers as the best means of securing one building, which was at the time all that was hoped for. Mr. White had been for more than three years the Treasurer and Business Manager of the University.

With much hesitation and many doubts, they went out October 6, 1871, having little money and no experience. After struggles for many months, which cannot here be detailed, they won success, resulting in the purchase of the present site of the University and the erection of Jubilee Hall from the proceeds of concerts given in this country and in Europe during seven years of nearly continuous labor. They have also, by solicitation, obtained books, apparatus, works of art, and collections for the museum.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Fisk University, Nashville Tennessee, for the Scholastic Year 1892-93, p. 71.

Image Source: Rev. Erastus Milo Cravath from from Graham Moore’s webpage “Cast of Characters for The Last Days of Night “.

Tags Cravath, DuBois, WalkerFrancis

Columbia Economic History Race

Columbia. John W. Burgess charged with “anti-Negro thought” by W.E.B. Du Bois, 1935

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2018-10-22

Preparing for class tomorrow, I was reading the concluding chapter of W.E.B. Du Bois‘s book, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880, that includes the following unflattering portrait of the founder of Columbia University’s School of Political Science, John W. Burgess. Since Burgess’s School of Political Science was the home of graduate economics education at Columbia University and the boundaries between the disciplines of law, history, political science, economics, and sociology were much less well-defined then than today, I think it is worth including W.E.B. Du Bois’s observations here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Image Source: W.E.B. Du Bois (ca. 1919 by C. M. Battey) in Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

_____________________

Excerpt from
Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880
by W.E.B. Du Bois.

The real frontal attack on Reconstruction, as interpreted by the leaders of national thought in 1870 and for some time thereafter, came from the universities and particularly from Columbia and Johns Hopkins.

The movement began with Columbia University and with the advent of John W. Burgess of Tennessee and William A. Dunning of New Jersey as professors of political science and history.

Burgess was an ex-Confederate soldier who started to a little Southern college with a box of books, a box of tallow candles and a Negro boy; and his attitude toward the Negro race in after years was subtly colored by this early conception of Negroes as essentially property like books and candles. Dunning was a kindly and impressive professor who was deeply influenced by a growing group of young Southern students and began with them to re-write the history of the nation from 1860 to 1880, in more or less conscious opposition to the classic interpretations of New England.

Burgess was frank and determined in his anti-Negro thought. He expounded his theory of Nordic supremacy which colored all his political theories:

“The claim that there is nothing in the color of the skin from the point of view of political ethics is a great sophism. A black skin means membership in a race of men which has never of itself succeeded in subjecting passion to reason, has never, therefore, created any civilization of any kind. To put such a race of men in possession of a ‘state’ government in a system of federal government is to trust them with the development of political and legal civilization upon the most important subjects of human life, and to do this in communities with a large white population is simply to establish barbarism in power over civilization.” [Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, p.133 ]

Burgess is a Tory and open apostle of reaction. He tells us that the nation now believes “that it is the white man’s mission, his duty and his right, to hold the reins of political power in his own hands for the civilization of the world and the welfare of mankind.”⁴

⁴Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, pp. viii, ix.

For this reason America is following “the European idea of the duty of civilized races to impose their political sovereignty upon civilized, or half civilized, or not fully civilized, races anywhere and everywhere in the world.”⁵

⁵Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, p. 218.

He complacently believes that “There is something natural in the subordination of an inferior race to a superior race, even to the point of the enslavement of the inferior race, but there is nothing natural in the opposite.”⁶He therefore denominates Reconstruction as the rule “of the uncivilized Negroes over the whites of the South.”⁷This has been the teaching of one of our greatest universities for nearly fifty years.

⁶Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, pp. 244-245.
⁷Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, p. 218.

Dunning was less dogmatic as a writer, and his own statements are often judicious. But even Dunning can declare that “all the forces [in the South] that made for civilization were dominated by a mass of barbarous freedmen”; and that “the antithesis and antipathy of race and color were crucial and ineradicable.”^7aThe work of most of the students whom he taught and encouraged has been one-sided and partisan to the last degree. Johns Hopkins University has issued a series of studies similar to Columbia’s; Southern teachers have been welcomed to many Northern universities, where often Negro students have been systematically discouraged, and thus a nation-wide university attitude has arisen by which propaganda against the Negro has been carried on unquestioned.

^7aDunning, Reconstruction, Political and Economic, pp. 212, 213.

The Columbia school of historians and social investigators have issued between 1895 and the present time sixteen studies of Reconstruction in the Southern States, all based on the same thesis and all done according to the same method: first, endless sympathy with the white South; second, ridicule, contempt or silence for the Negro; third, a judicial attitude towards the North, which concludes that the North under great misapprehension did a grievous wrong, but eventually saw its mistake and retreated.

These studies vary, of course, in their methods. Dunning’s own work is usually silent so far as the Negro is concerned. Burgess is more than fair in law but reactionary in matters of race and property, regarding the treatment of a Negro as a man as nothing less than a crime, and admitting that “the mainstay of property is the courts.”

In the books on Reconstruction written by graduates of these universities and others, the studies of Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia and Louisiana are thoroughly bad, giving no complete picture of what happened during Reconstruction, written for the most part by men and women without broad historical or social background, and all designed not to seek the truth but to prove a thesis. Hamilton reaches the climax of this school when he characterizes the black codes, which even Burgess condemned, as “not only … on the whole reasonable, temperate and kindly, but, in the main, necessary.”⁸

⁸Hamilton, “Southern Legislation in Respect to Freedmen” in Studies in Southern History and Politics, p. 156.

Source: W.E. Burghardt Du Bois, Black Reconstruction. An Essay Toward a History of the Part which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880, pp. 718-720.

Image Source: John W. Burgess in Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2. Boston: R. Herndon Company, 1899, p. 481.

Tags Burgess, DuBois, Dunning

Courses Curriculum Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania. Economics Course Offerings, 1897-98

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2018-04-25

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania in 1897/98 corresponded to what today is generally called the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The subjects of economics, politics, sociology, and statistics constituted the tenth group of the sixteen groups making up the Department of Philosophy. A Ph.D. candidate would select a major subject from the group and two minor subjects (recommended that “at least one minor be taken outside the group in which the major lies”). The course offerings and their short descriptions for group X have been transcribed below.

___________________

Departments of the University of Pennsylvania
as of 1897/98
and the year they were established.

(1740. Charitable School; out of which grew, in)
1751. The College.
1765. The Department of Medicine.
1 790-1850. The Department of Law.
1865. The Auxiliary Department of Medicine.
1874. The University Hospital.
1878. The Department of Dentistry.
1883. The Department of Philosophy.
1884. The Department of Veterinary Medicine.
1885. The Veterinary Hospital.
1885. The Department of Physical Education.
1889. The Museum of Archaeology and Paleontology.
1891. The University Library. (Building erected)
1892. The Laboratory of Hygiene.
1892. The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology.

Department of Philosophy

Semitic Languages
American Archaeology and Languages
Indo-European Philology
Classical Languages
Germanic Languages
Romanic Languages
English
Philosophy, Ethics, Psychology and Pedagogy
History
Economics, Politics, Sociology and Statistics
Mathematics
Astronomy
Physics
Chemistry
Botany and Zoölogy
Geology and Mineralogy

The degrees conferred in the Faculty of Philosophy are Doctor of Philosophy, (Ph. D. ), Master of Arts, (A. M.), and Master of Science, (M.S.).

___________________

Faculty: 10. Economics, Politics, Sociology and Statistics

Simon N. Patten, Ph.D., Professor of Political Economy
Roland P. Falkner, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Statistics
John Quincy Adams, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science
Emory R. Johnson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Transportation and Commerce.
Samuel McCune Lindsay, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Sociology
Leo S. Rowe, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science
Henry R. Seager, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Economy
James T. Young, Ph.D., Lecturer, Administration

___________________

X. ECONOMICS, POLITICS, SOCIOLOGY AND STATISTICS.

Professor Patten, Chairman; Associate Professor Falkner; Assistant Professors Adams, E. R. Johnson, Lindsay, Rowe and Seager; Dr. Young.

Majors —

Political Science, Economics, Transportation and Commerce, Statistics, Sociology.

Minors —

1. Political Science; A 1, 4; B 10.
2. Public Finance; A 3, and B 1, 2, or C 1, 2.
3. Administration; A 8, 6, 3, or A 9, 2, 4b; and C 5d.
4. Economic Theory; B 1, 2, and, B 10, or Mill’s Political Economy(2 hours a week).
5. History of Economic Thought; B 1, 2, 3, 4.
6. Economic History; B 10, and Group IX. C 2, 4.
7. Transportation and Commerce; B 11, 12, and A 4, or B 1, 2, or C 1, 2.
8. Statistics; C 1, 2, 3, 4, or C 1, 2, 3, and A3 (one term), or B 11.
9. Sociology; C 5c, 6, B 1, or C 5b, 6, 1, or C 5c 5d, A 4.

A.—POLITICAL SCIENCE, FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION.

Assistant Professor Adams.

History of Modern Political Ideas (2 hours per week)

Lectures covering the period from Bodin to the present, supplemented by prescribed reading. Relation between political thought and economic and social conditions will be studied, with special reference to the recent political development of England.

Readings in Political Science (1 hour per week)

Reading and discussion of a few recent works on special phases of political problems.

Public Finance (2 hours per week)

Taxation; the classification, incidence and effect of the several taxes. Methods of raising federal revenue in the United States; the revenue systems of the leading States (Second Term).

Assistant Professor Rowe.

The Individual and the State (2 hours per week)

(a) (First Term.) The concept of individual liberty at different periods of political development. Relation to law and government. Distinction between civil and political liberty. Guarantees, legal and political. The idea of social liberty in democratic communities.

(b) (Second Term.) Relation of the State to industrial action. Socialism and Individualism. Influence of economic and social changes on the sphere of activity of the State. Growth of free contract. Effect of recognition by the State of new forms of association.

History and Theory of the State (2 hours per week)

(a) (First Term.) The general principles of political science. Its province and problems. Relation to the social sciences. Nature of political association; origin of the State; source and function of law. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

(b) (Second Term.) The concept of the State at different epochs. Growth of the distinction between State and government. Ends of the State; sphere of its authority; forms of the State and of government. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

Municipal Government and Institutions (2 hours per week)

(a) (First Term.) The city and conditions of city life in the ancient, mediaeval and modern world. The relation between city and State in Europe and the United States.

(b) (Second Term.) Problems of modern city life. Relation to quasi-public works. Social problems.

The Analytical School of Jurisprudence in its Relation to Political Science. (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

Selected readings from Bentham, Austin, Holland, Maine and Pollock. Relation of this school of thought to the doctrine of natural law and natural rights. Contrast between the historical and analytical concepts in political science.

Dr. Young.

Administration (1 hour per week)

Local rural administration. A comparison of the organization and methods of local administration in Europe and America. Provinz, Bezirk, Kreis; Department, Arrondissement ; County, Township, etc. Modern growth and tendencies.

Practical Problems in Administration (1 hour per week)

Studies in special questions, such as the formation and growth of systems of Civil Service; the development of boards and commissions of administrative control; the administration of factory legislation.

B. — ECONOMIC THEORY, ECONOMIC HISTORY, AND TRANSPORTATION AND COMMERCE.

Professor Patten.

History of Political Economy (First Term) (2 hours per week)

The rise and development of the classical school of economists. Adam Smith and Ricardo form the natural centre of the study. Especial attention is given to the sources on which Smith’s Wealth of Nationsis based; and, in the latter part of the course, to the interpretation of Ricardo’s writings.

Recent Development of Political Economy (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

The American economists are carefully studied. Prominence is given to the recent development of the theory of rent, to the theory of marginal utility, to the new aspects of the science resulting from an emphasis of the dynamic causes of social progress, to recent attempts to substitute consumption for production as the starting point of investigation and the basis of theory.

The Relation of English Philosophy to Economics in the Eighteenth Century (First Term) (2 hours per week)

Philosophy and economics have in England been intimately related. The purpose of this course is to bring out the facts, character and extent of this relation and its results on both sides.

Scope and Method of Political Economy (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

Limitations of scope in economic investigation; its causes as deducible from the history of the science. The method of this science will be compared with that of others. The processes by which the great writers established their characteristic doctrines will be particularly considered. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

Practical Applications of Economic Theory (First Term) (2 hours per week)

The object is to show the practical importance of the new theories, and the changes they will work in public opinion. Among the topics considered will be: taxation, wages, money, retail prices, population, the causes of poverty, the standard of life, co-operation, trades unions, the dependent classes. The distribution of the surplus will be specially considered, along with its proper weight as a factor in practical problems. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

The Problems of Sociology (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

The possibility of a science of sociology; the attempts to found such a science, and the obstacles encountered; the relation of economics to sociology.

Investigation of Special Topics (2 hours per week)

To promote original work and aid in the preparation of theses, special hours are assigned for the discussion of these investigations. Each student must select a topic, and give three hours a week to it throughout the year.

Assistant Professor Seager.

Economic Conference (2 hours per week)

Assigned portions of the following works will be read and discussed: Böhm-Bawerk, Positive Theory of Capital; Hadley, Economics; Smart, Studies in Economics. Reports will be made on cognate topics of special interest.

Advanced Reading in German and French Economics (2 hours per week)

Roscher, Grundlagen der Nationalökonomieand Philippovich, Allgemeine Volkswirthschaftslehre.
Leroy-Beaulieu, Traité théorique et pratique d’économie politique.

The Industrial History of England and the Development of Economic Theory from 1750 to 1870 (2 hours per week)

The main features of the industrial revolution will be described, and the effects of the growth of the factory system on the position of the wage-earner, on legislation and on economic thought, will be considered. Then attention will be directed to the Corn-Law agitation, growing out of the Napoleonic war period; and the results of the Free Trade policy, inaugurated in 1846, will be discussed. Topics will be assigned for special reports. Lectures and assigned reading.

Assistant Professor E. R. Johnson.

Theory of Transportation (1 hour per week)

General Theory of Transportation. The economic functions and the ideal organization of transportation. Competition and co-operation in railway management. The past and present functions of traffic associations. Relation of the State to transportation. Theories underlying governmental regulation in the United States and other countries. The theory of rates. Lectures accompanied by an outline of assigned readings.

American Railway Transportation (2 hours per week)

Seminary, based mainly upon documentary sources. The work comprises (1) an examination of the salient features of the organization and management of railway transportation in the United States; and (2) a special study of railway regulation by the States and by the Federal government.

Transportation Systems of the United Kingdom and Germany (1 hour per week)

Organization, relation to the government, results of regulation of railways in the United Kingdom, and of State ownership in Germany. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

History of Commerce since 1500 (1 hour per week)

Lectures, assigned readings and investigations. Special attention will be given to the causes that have given the United Kingdom the commercial supremacy of the world. (Omitted in 1897-98.)

C. — SOCIOLOGY AND STATISTICS.

Associate Professor Faulkner.

Introduction to Statistics (First Term) (2 hours per week)

A study of the statistics of population will serve to develop the general aspects of the science, the organization of statistical work, and the possibilities and limitations of statistical argument. Familiarity with the literature and the sources of statistical information will be the chief aim.

Statistics of Economic Problems (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

This course supplements course 1: foreign commerce, railroads, banks, coinage, prices, strikes, wages, cost of living, will be studied from a statistical point of view. The literature will be reviewed and criticised.

History and Theory of Statistics (First Term) (2 hours per week)

Summary of statistical efforts and statistical theory, culminating in the elaboration of statistical methods. Consideration of statistics as a science of method; the basis and form of statistical judgments. (Open to students who have taken courses 1 and 2.)

Statistical Organization (Second Term) (2 hours per week)

The history, organization and function of statistical agencies at home and abroad will be surveyed. The factors that contribute to the efficiency of census departments, labor bureaus, etc., will be studied. The statistical offices of the United States will be studied and their methods criticised. (Open to students who have taken courses 1 and 2.)

Assistant Professor Lindsay.

Theory of Sociology (Two Years) (2 hours per week)

A systematic course in four parts; each part requiring two hours per week for half a year, and constituting an independent course.

(a) Methodology of the social sciences; their relations to economics. The problems of sociology. Brief review of the leading attempts to construct sociology as a science — Aristotle, Montesquieu, Comte, Spencer, Ward and Giddings.

(b) Primitive Society. Evolution of social organization and social control among primitive men. Special study of the forms of the family, and of the psychology of primitive society. Particular attention is given to the records of the American Indians.

(c) Structure of Modern Society. A study of the forms of social organization and social control resulting from modern demogenic association. The basis and relative strength of educational, political, religious and philanthropic factors.

(d) Social Movements of Modern Times. A discussion of the leading practical social problems of to-day, with a view to establishing a consistent theoretical point of view, and a method as a guide to the study of temporary and changing social conditions.

Note. — 5 d is open only to students who have had parts a, bor c, or an equivalent.

Social-Debtor Classes (2 hours per week)

This course deals with those groups and individuals in modern society who contribute nothing to the social surplus, but who participate in it, and hence are social debtors. They are considered under the heads of (1) the reclaimable class; (2) the naturally dependent class; (3) the pauper class; (4) the criminal classes. The methods of dealing with these groups are likewise classified and discussed.

Sociological Field Work (2 hours per week)

For special investigation of local social conditions and institutions. Opportunities for visiting industrial, educational and philanthropic institutions are afforded. Each student is expected to select a topic and make a careful study of some concrete social problem, with special reference to conditions in Philadelphia. Meetings for private conference and discussion are assigned.

Note. — In the academic year 1896-97, a special sociological investigation of the condition of the Negroes in the Seventh Ward of Philadelphia, is being carried on under the direction of William E. Burkhardt Du Bois, A. B., Ph. D., who was appointed for the year Assistant in Sociology for this purpose. The College Settlement of Philadelphia is co-operating in this investigation, and has appointed Miss Isabel Eaton, B. L., Fellow in charge of its work.

SEMINARY.

Seminary in Political Science, Economics and Sociology (2 hours per week)

The seminary meets each Monday evening during the academic year, for the presentation and discussion of papers prepared by the members under the direction of the professors in charge of the several topics in Group IX.

Source: Catalogue of the University of Pennsylvania. Fasciculus of the Department of Philosophy. Announcements for Session 1897-98, pp. 44-50.

Tags DuBois, Falkner, JohnsonER, Lindsay, Patten, Seager

Economists Harvard

“Books that the perfect Marxian must know.” W.E.B. Dubois asks Abram Harris, 1933

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-11-28

W.E.B. Dubois’ papers are digitized and online at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Dubois received his Ph.D. at Harvard in economic history in 1895 and in 1892-94 he studied in Berlin. In 1933 apparently Dubois returned to Marxian economics and asked Abram Lincoln Harris, a leading scholar of Marxian economics in the United States, for some reading suggestions. Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has posted earlier a proposed for an undergraduate course description submitted to the department of economics at the University of Chicago by Harris in 1961 that did not amuse George Stigler. I have read somewhere that Frank Knight liked Harris’ work, which is consistent with Harris having published the articles linked below in the Journal of Political Economy.

Anyhow, there is more interesting material in Dubois’ papers that are easily accessible and well-organized at the above link.

____________________

Carbon copy
Letter from W.E.B. Dubois to Abram Harris

January 6, 1933.

Mr. Abram Harris,
Howard University,
Washington, D.C.

My dear Mr. Harris:

From bits which I gather from publishers and friends, I take it that you are still alive. Ben Stolberg told me that you had lost your father. I am very sorry indeed. Also, I have heard of your scholarship which is about one-fifth as large as it should be but I presume it is to be regarded as a great concession on the part of scientists.

You have perhaps seen my tentative program for a re-examination of the Negro problem which I published in January and I shall publish a revised one in February. I have been re-reading Marx recently as everyone must these days. I have the three volumes of “Capital” and the small Vanguard book by Max Eastman [I am guessing Dubois is referring to: Marx and Lenin: The Science of Revolution. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1927.]. I write to ask if you will send me a list of four or five best books which the perfect Marxian must know. Please rush these.

I am coming down Sunday, January 22, on my way to Atlanta. If the spare room is vacant, I should be glad to stop.

Very sincerely yours,

WEBD/DW

Source: Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963. Letter from W. E. B. Du Bois to Abram Harris, January 6, 1933. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

____________________

Letter from Abram Harris to W.E.B. Dubois

HOWARD UNIVERSITY
Washington, D.C.

January Seventh
1933

Department of Economics

Dear Dr. Du Bois:

We will be very glad to have you stay with us when you pass through the city on your way to Atlanta. Let me know how long you plan to be here, so that I can arrange a little gathering. I read your program for re-examining the Negro problem and I want to talk with you about it.

A good Marxian ought to know the intellectual and social background of Marx’s works. This I should think is best gotten from any of the standard works on economic doctrine and the history of political thought. I would suggest your brousing [sic] through Gide and Rist, History of Economic Doctrines; Halévy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism; [Part I The Youth of Bentham; ] and, Dunning, Political Thought from Rousseau to Spencer. The following by Marx and Engels should be read: Marx, The Gotha Program; Wage Labor and Capital, and Value, Price and Profit (in The Essentials of Marx, Algernon Lee, Vanguard Press); The Critique of Political Economy (if Capital has not been read); and Engels Feuerbach: The Roots of Socialist Philosophy; Socialism from Utopia to Science, and The Land Marks of Scientific Socialism. After you finish with these I suggest that you look into Marx’s Revolution and Counter-Revolution; and, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

I have just completed what I consider a new interpretation of Marx. [“Economic Evolution: Dialectical and Darwinian” Journal of Political Economy (Feb. 1934, pp. 34-79)] If I had an extra copy of the manuscript I would send it along to you. At any rate the reprint [“Types of Institutionalism“, Journal of Political Economy (December, 1932), pp. 721-749] which I am enclosing will give you some idea of what is contained in this new interpretation.

Sincerely,
[signed]
Abram Harris

Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois
69 Fifth Avenue
New York, N.Y.

Source: Harris, Abram Lincoln, 1899-1963. Letter from Abram Harris to W. E. B. Du Bois, January 7, 1933. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

____________________

Copy of Telegram from W.E.B. Dubois to Abram Harris

January 20, 1933

Mr. Abram Harris,
Howard University,
Washington, D.C.

Shall arrive Sunday afternoon about four or five Stop Must leave Monday morning before day Stop No breakfast Stop Please find a safe garage nearby for my car

W. E. B. Du Bois.

Source: Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963. Telegram from W. E. B. Du Bois to Abram Harris, January 20, 1933. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

____________________

Carbon copy
Letter from W.E.B. Dubois to Abram Harris

Rockefeller Hall
Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia.

February 2, 1933.

Mr. Abram Harris,
Department of Economics,
Howard University,
Washington, D.C.

My dear Mr. Harris:

I have just got hold of my secretary so that I can really answer letters. I want to thank you and Mrs. Harris so much for your kind hospitality. I think I made a good getaway from your house, except that I forgot to set the alarm clock for seven and leave it for you. I hope you did not oversleep.

I spent Sunday night in Durham, Tuesday night at Spartenburg, and arrived here Wednesday.

I have read and re-read with a great deal of interest your article on Marx, Feblem [sic, dictated[?], clearly “Veblen” intended] and Mitchell. Send me anything else you have on the subject.

Very sincerely yours,

WEBD/DW

Source: Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963. Letter from W. E. B. Du Bois to Abram Harris, February 2, 1933. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

Image Source: Abram Lincoln Harris (ca 1935). Guggenheim fellow. https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/abram-lincoln-harris/

Tags DuBois, HarrisAL

Other posts with Henry R. Mussey related content

Henry Raymond Mussey Timeline

HARVARD UNIVERSITY DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE.

Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.

1897 Report of the Harvard Class of 1890

1903 Report of the Harvard Class of 1890

1909 Report of the Harvard Class of 1890

1915 Report of the Harvard Class of 1890

WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DU BOIS

1920 Report of the Harvard Class of 1890

WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DU BOIS

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

1890-1891. Philosophy 14.

Enrollment

PHILOSOPHY 14. THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS. Mid-year examination (1890-91)

[Omit one question.]

PHILOSOPHY 14. THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS. Year-end examination (June 1891)

[Omit one question.]

1890-91 POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.

Enrollment.

Student notes available at the Harvard Archives

1890-91. POLITICAL ECONOMY 1. Mid-year examination.

[Divide your time equally between the two parts of the paper.]

I. [Omit two.]

II. [Answer all.]

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1. Year-end examination (June 1891) Division A.

Division B.

1890-91 POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.

Enrollment.

Previously Posted

1890-91. POLITICAL ECONOMY 2. Mid-year examination.

[Divide your time equally between the two parts of the paper.] [Omit one question.]

Second semester taught by John Graham Brooks.

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2. Year-end examination (June 1891)

From Rousseau to the Fabians, what have been the chief historic changes in the Philosophy of Socialism?

1890-91 POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.

Enrollment.

1890-91 POLITICAL ECONOMY 3. Mid-year examination

1890-91 POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.

Enrollment.

Other course material available at the Harvard Archives

Principle text for Political Economy 4

1890-91 POLITICAL ECONOMY 4. Mid-year examination

A. Give half of your time (say 80 minutes) to A, omitting one question.

B. Give 80 minutes to B, omitting two questions.

1890-91 POLITICAL ECONOMY 4. Year-end examination (June 1891)

Lay out your time carefully, reserving 15 minutes for review and correction

A. Give half of your time to A. omitting one question.

B.

1890-91 POLITICAL ECONOMY 6.

Enrollment.

1890-91 POLITICAL ECONOMY 6. Year-end examination (June 1891)

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

1890-91 POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.

Enrollment.

1890-91 POLITICAL ECONOMY 7. Year-end examination (June 1891)

It is recommended that at least a third of the time be given to B.

A.

B.

1890-91 POLITICAL ECONOMY 8.

Enrollment.

1890-91 POLITICAL ECONOMY 8. Mid-year examination

I.

II. (Omit two.)

1890-91 POLITICAL ECONOMY 9.

Enrollment.

1890-91. POLITICAL ECONOMY 9. Year-end examination (June 1891)

[Answer all the questions, and arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

VI. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HISTORY. [1896-97, Du Bois not yet listed as a member of the faculty]

W. E. Burghardt DuBois, Ph.D., Professor of Economics and History

VII. SOCIOLOGY AND HISTORY. [1897-98]

Textbooks assigned in Economics and Sociology [1898-99]

Economics [Fisk University, Junior Year College textbook]

Sociology and Statistics [Fisk University, Senior Year College textbook]

Senior year course at Fisk University, 1892-93

PERSONAL SKETCH. REV. ERASTUS MILO CRAVATH, D.D. PRESIDENT OF FISK UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TENN.

EARLY HISTORY OF FISK UNIVERSITY

The Jubilee Singers.

Excerpt from Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 by W.E.B. Du Bois.

Departments of the University of Pennsylvania as of 1897/98 and the year they were established.

Henry Raymond Mussey
Timeline

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY
AND POLITICAL SCIENCE.

1897 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

1903 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

1909 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

1915 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

1920 Report
of the Harvard Class of 1890

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

PHILOSOPHY 14.
THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS.
Mid-year examination (1890-91)

PHILOSOPHY 14.
THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.

1890-91.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Mid-year examination.

I.
[Omit two.]

II.
[Answer all.]

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Year-end examination (June 1891)
Division A.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.

1890-91.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Mid-year examination.

[Divide your time equally between the two parts of the paper.]
[Omit one question.]

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Mid-year examination

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
Mid-year examination

A.
Give half of your time (say 80 minutes) to A, omitting one question.

B.
Give 80 minutes to B, omitting two questions.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

A.
Give half of your time to A. omitting one question.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 8.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 8.
Mid-year examination

II.
(Omit two.)

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 9.

1890-91.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 9.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

VI. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HISTORY.
[1896-97, Du Bois not yet listed as a member of the faculty]

VII. SOCIOLOGY AND HISTORY.
[1897-98]

Textbooks assigned in Economics and Sociology
[1898-99]

Economics
[Fisk University, Junior Year College textbook]

Sociology and Statistics
[Fisk University, Senior Year College textbook]

PERSONAL SKETCH.
REV. ERASTUS MILO CRAVATH, D.D.
PRESIDENT OF FISK UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TENN.

Excerpt from
Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880
by W.E.B. Du Bois.

Departments of the University of Pennsylvania
as of 1897/98
and the year they were established.

Carbon copy
Letter from W.E.B. Dubois to Abram Harris

HOWARD UNIVERSITY
Washington, D.C.

Carbon copy
Letter from W.E.B. Dubois to Abram Harris