Tag: Hoyt

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Columbia Philosophy

Columbia. Ethical Issues in Economic Life. Rockefeller Foundation Sought Advice. J.M. Clark, 1948

This is a two-part post. It begins with four pages found in the papers of John Maurice Clark — a request for informal feedback regarding a new area for social science funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, “Ethical Issues in Economic Life”, followed by a two page informal response by the Columbia economics professor (son of John Bates Clark whose face appears in the rear-view mirror of our homepage).

Out of curiosity, I followed up to see what, if anything, followed this exchange of letters. The funding resulted in ten volumes published in a series “On the Ethics and Economics of Society” published by Harper & Brothers for the National Council of Churches (the National Council included the Federal Council of Churches that had received the first Rockefeller Foundation grant for the project in 1949). Participating economists included John Maurice Clark, Kenneth E. Boulding, William Vickrey, Frank H. Knight, Elizabeth E. Hoyt, Margaret G. Reid, Joseph L. McConnell, Janet M. Hooks, and Howard R. Bowen. Bowen’s notion of Corporate Social Responsibility captured the souls and minds of  many business leaders of the time — of course in the era of Charles and David Koch, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, et al. this sounds rather quaint, but it was indeed a thing! New Harmony was once a thing too.

____________________________

Brainstorming with John Maurice Clark

THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION
49 WEST 49th STREET, NEW YORK 20

THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

JOSEPH H. WILLITS, DIRECTOR
LELAND G. ALLBAUGH, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
NORMAN S. BUCHANAN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
LELAND C. DEVINNEY, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
ROGER F. EVANS, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
BRYCE WOOD, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

CABLE ADDRESS:
ROCKFOUND, NEW YORK

July 7, 1948

Dear Clark:

I turn to you on a problem which I would very much like to think out with you. The object of this letter is to begin that process. Perhaps it is presumptuous on my part to ask to share your considered reflection on a difficult subject; but such assaults on your time are the price you pay for possessing the kind of experience and insights that men respect.

The program of The Rockefeller Foundation has emphasized support to expand knowledge. I assume it will continue to do so, since the foundation provided by such work is basic in any effort to serve human welfare. But it grows steadily more evident that illumination in the moral issues of modern society is needed, not as a substitute for, but as a building upon, the best of scientific knowledge and the facts of experience.

Each division of the Foundation has to approach this problem in terms of its own area of responsibility. In the Social Sciences division we are trying to answer the question whether Rockefeller Foundation support can function effectively in this area by examining the questions involved in this subject: “Ethical Issues in Economic Life.” In is in this connection that I would very much value your judgment.

I don’t need to elaborate this subject to you. It is evident that the ethical issues of western civilization – those growing out of corporate organization, and the organization of labor, those of individuals acting in behalf of and under the direction of others, and all those involved in the great complexities of modern social relations that lead to conflict of loyalties – are subjects of the greatest confusion in men’s minds. Studies to define these issues more clearly have the possibility of being a fruitful supplement to efforts to expand knowledge. But, I repeat, that such studies should be built upon the best of human experience and scientific knowledge and should not attempt to detour the findings from these areas.

But I am getting ahead of myself. I am asking a few men whose judgment and insights I respect whether they would assist the Foundation in its consideration of possibilities of Foundation action in the field of “Ethical Issues in Economic Life.” You are one of these.

Specifically, I am writing to ask whether you would be willing to give us, as soon as convenient, your advice on such questions as the following:

(1) Do you think this field offers a constructive opportunity for The Rockefeller Foundation?

(2) What are the objectives that could be set up to guide studies in this field?

(3) From your own study and experience, what do you consider the aspects of the problem which may most fruitfully be given attention?

(4) Do you care to suggest the names of persons who would be competent or eligible to work on the problems you indicate as important?

(5) Any suggestions as to auspices, set-up, and procedure of attack which might occur to you would be appreciated.

This sounds as though I were asking for a formal document. I do not expect that. What I am asking for is an informal, conversational letter giving your first reactions to issues in policy we are facing. I would deeply appreciate it if you would give us your views.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Joseph H. Willits

Professor J. Maurice Clark
512 Fayerweather Hall
Columbia University
New York 27, New York

JHW:DAA
Dictated by Mr. Willits but signed in his absence.

____________________________

John Maurice Clark’s Response

3-Corner Pond, R.D.6, Augusta, Maine, July 13, ’48

Dr. Joseph H. Willits;
Rockefeller Foundation;
49 West 49 St.;
New York 20, N.Y.;

Dear Joe:

Needless to say, your question about ethical issues in economic life interests me hugely. It’s a tremendous set of problems, and can be approached in a variety of ways which might make useful contributions, including some that might be superficially inconsistent with one another. It might be approached by separate studies, or merely by broadening the perspective of the ordinary kinds of studies so as to admit ethical questions. It might attempt to formulate ethical standards and apply them, or to preserve “scientific” objectivity and impartiality and merely report what judgments and standards of an ethical sort enter into the motivation of actual behavior. Or it may describe actual processes, and the alternatives involved in policy decisions, in terms of the values that enter into ethical judgments. In such cases the verdict may be fairly self-evident, or it may not. It may reveal a conflict of values which existing ethical generalizations do not resolve – for example, different kinds of “freedom” in conflict with one another. I am enough of a Dewey disciple to feel that one of the great services of the “social sciences” is to increase the detail and specific content of our knowledge of the nature of the alternatives that face us, thereby leading to inevitable modifications of the judgments we have made in the past, thereby causing ethical standards to evolve. In some cases, the verdict is plain enough so that the “social scientist” is warranted in recording it for himself, without fear of doing violence to accepted and prevailing standards; in other cases, it may constitute a problem needing to be submitted to whatever is the proper tribunal or symposium.

One form of approach would try to make a connection between two kinds of ethical standard, either of which might be taken as the initial starting-point. One is the kinds and degrees of consideration for the “rights” of others that are necessary to make our system work; the other is the existing conceptions of “rights” and obligations which people have to start with, on which to build toward the further developments that have been revealed as necessary. The result may be to put new content into the existing standards.

I tend to accept the prevailing set of standards of western or American society – the underlying ones, as I conceive them – as given data for most of our studies. I have been looking at a little book called “Advanced Economic Theory” by an Indian, J.K. Mehta, which undertakes the interesting job of tying together the neo-classical standard of maximizing utility with the Indian standard of attaining happiness through elimination of all wants, which he accepts as the highest standard, but attainable by only a select few. I don’t see that he succeeds very well – after all, even the select few have to eat, though he appears explicitly to disregard this necessity. For us, the expansion of wants seems to be dictated by the requirement of jobs, in our system; also by the requirement of economic power available for defense, as long as there is threat of war, and as long as we are incapable of living up to the ethic of non-resistance.

All of this may not be getting very close to the specific problems of Foundation studies. I think the field is tremendously important; but I have reservations about the advantage of setting it up as a distinct field, with the “ethical” label. There are undoubtedly some studies that could be set up in that way; but they make up only a part, and perhaps a relatively small part, of the whole area involved.

In the field of actual loyalties and conceptions of rights, the work that Bakke is doing at Yale seems significant, from what little I know about it. And you might get good leads from Ordway Tead and Beardsley Ruml. From the more distinctively ethical angle, I have a nephew, John Alden Clark, who is professor of philosophy at Colby College, who is trying to relate the development of ethical standards to the kind of findings as to facts and relations which the social sciences deal with; and you might be interested in getting in touch with him and finding out more than I can tell you offhand about what he is doing and whether it would fit in. There seems to be an important, and tremendously difficult job, in the field of actual motivation of business in its price and production policies, including the elements of responsibility for long-run good social policy, insofar as it may enter in. I’m thinking of the doing of a bigger and better job of the sort Hall and Hitch did in their Oxford study. The abstract theorists have given unconscious testimony to the significance of that job by the fervor with which they have attacked it. It seems to have gotten to them where they live – got under their skins. I am casually wondering whether Joel Dean would be useful in that connection.

Well, I have taken you at your word, and been thinking out loud, not too formally or systematically, and seem to have run out of constructive suggestions. There’s a lot there.

Sincerely yours;

J.M.Clark.

Source: Columbia University Libraries. Manuscript Collections. John M. Clark Collection. Box 28 (Economic Theory and Methodology). Folder “Welfare Economics”.

____________________________

MORAL AND ETHICAL PROBLEMS
IN MODERN SOCIETY
EXPLORATORY STUDIES

Thanks to grants from the Rockefeller Foundation program, the Study Committee of the Federal Council of Churches published the  multi-volume series The Ethics and Economics of Society (Harper & Brothers). The first Rockefeller Foundation grant was for 1949-51, the second grant for 1952-[ca. 1955/56].

The Department of the Church and Economic Life of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America began the study of Christian Ethics and Economic Life in 1949.  At the beginning of 1951 the Federal Council merged with other interdenominational organizations to form the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.

The Rockefeller Foundation in 1948 appropriated a fund of $25,000 to be used by officers of the Social Sciences in exploring opportunities for research on the moral and ethical problems in modern society.
It is planned to make a few grants to other agencies and to invite memoranda from men of affairs who have significant ideas to contribute.

Source: The Rockefeller Foundation. Annual Report 1948, p. 250.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Project Publications
  • Goals of Economic Life (1953) edited by A. Dudley Ward (Director of the Project, staff member of the National Council of Churches)

Editorial Committee: John Maurice Clark (economist); Theodore M. Greene (philosopher); Reinhold Niebuhr (theologian); William Vickrey (economist).

Other contributors: Kenneth E. Boulding (economist); Clarence H. Danhof (economist); Eduard Heimann (economist); Robert Morrison MacIver (sociologist/political scientist); Frank H. Knight (economist); Clark C. Bloom (economist); Walton Hamilton (jurist); Alfred E. Emerson (zoologist); Ralph Linton (anthropologist); Donald Snygg (psychologist); John C. Bennett (theologian).

  • The Organizational Revolution. A Study in the Ethics of Economic Organization (1953) by Kenneth E. Boulding (economist).
  • Social Responsibilities of the Businessman (1953) by Howard R. Bowen (economist). – Considered to be the origin of the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility.
  • American Income and Its Use (1954) by Elizabeth E. Hoyt (economist), Margaret G. Reid (economist), Joseph L. McConnell (economist), and Janet Montgomery Hooks (economist).
  • The American Economy—Attitudes and Opinions (1955) by A. Dudley Ward.
  • Christian Values and Economic Life (1954) by John Coleman Bennett (theologian), Howard R. Bowen (economist), William Adams Brown, Jr. (economist) and G. Bromley Oxnam (president of World Council of Churches, 1948-54).
  • Ethics in a Business Society (1954) by Marquis W. Childs (journalist) and Douglass Cater (journalist, later special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson).  “Our volume was originally stimulated by the series itself. During our writing we have had access to both the published volumes and the manuscripts wstill to be published and other sources. What we have written, therefore, is not a part of the study series itself but rather our interpretaion and reflection on all the materials we have used.”
  • Social Responsibility in Farm Leadership (1956) by Walter W. Wilcox (agricultural economist).
  • Social Responsibilities of Organized Labor (1957) by John A. Fitch (industrial relations)
  • Responsibility in Mass Communication (1957) by Wilbur Schramm

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Christian Principles and Assumptions for Economic Life. Adopted by the General Board of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (September 15, 1954).

“Ten Books on Ethics and Economics” article in Christianity Today (22 June 1959). Full access requires subscription.

 

Categories
Chicago Economists Gender Iowa

Iowa State. Economics PhD alumna, Alison Comish Thorne, 1939

 

This post is the result of some rummaging in the Iowa State University economics department website, hoping to find material on Albert Gailord Hart for the previous post. While it appears that Hart came and went with hardly a footprint in the Iowa State (web-)sand, I did discover a very nice historical timeline for the Iowa State economics department. Moseying down that timeline, I made the acquaintance of the first economics Ph.D. at Iowa State College, Alison Comish Thorne. Obviously she has meet the membership requirement to be included in our series “Meet an economics Ph.D. alumna”, so I left the Iowa State economics website to search for more about Alison Comish Thorne’s life and career.

Of particular interest for Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is the account of her graduate student experience, especially pp. 24-42 of her autobiography (jstor access required) Leave the Dishes in the Sink (2002). A copy of Alison Comish Thorne’s c.v. is available at a special Utah State University library webpage memorializing her contributions.

_____________________

Selected Early and Late Publications

Thorne, Alison Comish. Capacity to Consume, American Economic Review vol. 26, no. 2 (June, 1936), pp. 292-5.

__________________. Evaluations of Consumption in Modern Thought. Economics Ph.D. thesis, Iowa State College, 1938.

__________________. Evaluations of Consumption in Scale-of-Living Studies, Social Forces vol. 19, no. 4 (May, 1941), 510-518.

__________________. Women mentoring women in economics in the 1930s, in Mary Ann Dimand, Robert W. Dimand, and Evelyn L. Forget, eds. Women of Value: Feminist Essays in the History of Women in Economics (Brookfield: Edward Elgar, 1995), pp. 60-70.

__________________. Leave the Dishes in the Sink—Adventures of an Activist in Conservative Utah. (University Press of Colorado and Utah State University Press, 2002).

_____________________

From the Economics Department Timeline, Iowa State University

Alison Comish Thorne received first PhD

The Doctor of Philosophy in general economics was first offered in 1937; the first PhD was granted to Alison Comish Thorne in 1939. She was the first woman student in the Iowa State economics department to attempt a PhD.

Thorne’s dissertation entitled “Evaluations of Consumption in Modern Thought” was written under Elizabeth Hoyt and Margaret Reid. In the process of working on her PhD, Thorne had an interim year at the University of Chicago, where she studied under Hazel Kyrk.

Thorne’s father, himself an economics PhD, authored a pioneer book in consumer economics and had been a doctoral candidate with Theodore Schultz at the University of Wisconsin.

Alison Comish had married Wynne Thorne in 1937. After earning her PhD at Iowa State, her academic career was delayed not only by the arrival of their five children, but also by anti-nepotism rules at Utah State University, where her husband had become head of agronomy and then director of the ag experiment station and vice president for university research. In addition to being a full-time wife and mother of five, she held state and local elected and appointed positions, served on the Governor’s Committee on the Status of Women, and wrote on employment of women and on poverty. These contributions have been recognized by distinguished service awards from several of these boards and councils and from Utah State University, the American Association of University Women, Business and Professional Women, and Soroptomists. She also received the Governor’s Award for Community Service.

Because administrators’ spouses were not allowed on the faculty, she did not join the USU faculty until 1965, aided in part by the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. She began teaching after an invitation from a professor in the College of Family Life.

After playing a key role in organizing the newly created federal war on poverty programs in Utah, Thorne was invited to teach classes in the USU Sociology Department, as well. Thus, she became a lecturer in sociology, home economics, and consumer education at Utah State University at age 51, 28 years after earning her PhD. She was ineligible for tenure because she insisted on keeping her teaching just under half time in order to give time to her family and to community work.

After joining the staff of USU, she helped initiate the Status of Women Committee and the introductory course in women’s studies, which she taught for more than ten years. She organized and became the first coordinator of Women in International Development (WID).

She continued teaching and doing community work and in 1985, after a university-wide blue-ribbon committee reviewed her credentials, she was promoted to full professor. Because of her age she became “professor emeritus.” With a twinkle in her eye she remarked that she is the only person in the history of Utah State University to leap from lecturer to full professor in one fell swoop.

Of her five children, none became economists, although three became professors. Two of these professors are mothers with husbands in academia, something that would have been impossible in the 1930s.

Source:  Iowa State University, Department of Economics. Compiled by D. Gruca from official university publications and departmental files as well as

I. W. Arthur, “Development of the Field of Economics at Iowa State.”
Nancy Wolff and Jim Hayward, “The Historical Development of the Department of Economics at Iowa State, 1929 to 1985.”
G. Shepherd,“History of Economics at ISU.”

[Also Note: Jim Hayward and Nancy Wolff. The Historical Development of the Department at Iowa State University, 1869-1928.]

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Women of Caliber, Women of Cache Valley: Alison Comish Thorne

A Woman of Quality

Alison Comish Thorne challenged established perceptions of “womanhood” in order to instigate social change, and admonished other women of her generation to do the same. In a speech she gave in 1949, Alison encouraged women to “let the dishes wait.” She did not want women to lose their sense of personal identity as they fulfilled their roles as wives and mothers. She argued that women should not judge themselves or other women based on the tidiness of their homes. Alison demonstrated for women of Cache Valley that achieving an education and pursuing a career while being a wife and mother could be a reality. She balanced her professional responsibilities with her family duties and received personal fulfilment from both.

Alison was a trailblazer in the world of female higher education. Her pursuit for higher education began at a young age. In 1930, at sixteen years old, Alison attended Brigham Young University. In 1934, she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Education. Then, in 1935, she earned a Master’s degree in Consumption Economics from Iowa State University. In 1938, Alison became the first woman to receive a Ph. D. in Consumption Economics from Iowa State University.

Second Wave Feminism and the Equal Rights Amendment

Ahead of her time, Alison brought second wave feminism to Cache Valley. Along with many other women during the mid-twentieth century, Alison took upon herself the legacy of Alice Paul, an early-twentieth century suffragette and author of the original Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). When first introduced in 1923, the original ERA championed for both men’s and women’s rights, but took into consideration “women’s distinct needs.” The amendment’s objective was to establish men and women as equal under the law and focused on the right of women to compete equally with men in “all aspects of social and economic life.” Alice Paul opposed “protective legislation”—gender based laws written with the intention of “protecting” women from exploitation that, in reality, prevented women from pursuing work in particular professions, limited the number of hours they were allowed to work, and restricted pay rates. Despite Alice Paul’s valiant effort, the amendment did not pass.[1]

“Equality does not mean sameness.”

The ERA Alison promoted offered an updated version of Paul’s original amendment. Alison’s version of the ERA raised the issues of access to higher education, participation in the draft, and sexual discrimination within the Social Security program. In a draft for a pamphlet designed to promote the ERA in Utah to ratify, Alison explained, “The Amendment supports the constitutional equality for women and the extension of legal rights, privileges, and responsibilities regardless of sex.”

Similar to the movement in the Progressive Era, the ERA movement of the 1970s faced fierce competition from conservative groups such as “Humanitarians Opposed to Degrading Our Girls” (HOTDOG), “International Women’s Year” (IWY), and “Women for Maintaining the Difference between the Sexes and Against the Equal Rights Amendment.” In a pamphlet for the 1977 IWY Convention, the association announced that it opposed the ERA because the amendment “would provide undefined limits of governmental power over the lives of its citizens.” The IWY supported the idea that a government should have limited power over its citizens. The LDS church also aggressively campaigned against the ERA, a stance that divided LDS women. By opposing the ERA, many LDS women “outwardly revealed to each other their internal acceptance of the church’s teaching about proper gender roles.” Those who supported the ERA seemingly questioned church doctrine and ignored the counsel of church leadership.[2] Alison tried diligently to reassure members of the church that their religious rights would not be impinged. Equality did not mean that men and women became “the same.” From Alison’s point of view, the ERA provided women equality under the law, protected “traditional” roles of women, and simultaneously offered women more way to navigate life as established definitions of “womanhood” were being challenged.

[1] Amy E. Butler, Two Paths to Equality: Alice Paul and Ethel M. Smith in the ERA Debate, 1921-1929 (New York: University of New York Press, 2002), 1-2.

[2] Neil J. Young, “’The ERA Is a Moral Issue’: The Mormon Church, LDS Women, and the Defeat of the Equal Rights Movement,” American Quarterly 59, 3 (September 2007): 625; O. Kendall White, Jr., “Mormonism and the Equal Rights Amendment,” Journal of Church and State 31.2 J (1989): 249-268.

Source: Utah State University, University Libraries. Digital Exhibit, Women of Caliber, Women of Cache Valley: Alison Comish Thorne.

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Biographical Note from Archives

Alison Comish Thorne was born May 9, 1914 in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Newel H. and Louise Larson Comish. Her scholarly pursuits began at the age of sixteen when she entered Brigham Young University where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Education in 1934. Thorne received a Master’s degree in Consumption Economics at Iowa State University in 1935. She then pursued doctoral studies at the University of Chicago during 1935-36, before receiving her Ph.D. in 1938 from Iowa State University in the field of Consumption Economics. Her mentors, Elizabeth Ellis Hoyt and Margaret G. Reid, worked with Thorne to help her become the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in this field from ISU. Thorne married D. Wynne Thorne on August 3, 1937 in Salt Lake City.

After the completion of her graduate work, Thorne filled various instructor positions at Colorado State University, Iowa State University, and finally Utah State University. At USU she was given the title of lecturer from 1964 through the 1980s by both USU’s Department of Sociology and the Department of Home Economics and Consumer Education. Due to anti-nepotism laws, Thorne was not allowed to secure a faculty position since her husband was already a faculty member. (Wynne Thorne served as USU’s Head of Agronomy, Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station, and the Vice President of University Research.) This setback did not keep Thorne from establishing a solid reputation as a scholar. Thorne played a key role in the founding of the Women’s Studies Program at USU and served as a chair in the Women’s Studies Committee from 1977-1989. In addition, Thorne’s devotion to increasing the opportunity for women can be seen in her involvement in the Women’s Center, the Committee on the Status of Women, as well as the Women and International Development committee.

Moreover, Thorne gave many early feminist speeches, including “Let the Dishes Wait” (1949) and “Leave the Dishes in the Sink” (1973). These speeches encouraged women to focus more on personal hobbies, interests, education, and family rather than maintaining a “perfect” home. As result of her influential work, Thorne has been the recipient of many awards, such as Utah State University’s Distinguished Service Award (1982), Woman of the Year for the Utah Chapter of the American Association of University Women (1967), and Utah Governor’s Award for Volunteer Service (1980). She was also the author of numerous articles and books, including Women in the History of Utah’s Land-grant College (1985), Visible and Invisible Women in Land-grant Colleges (1986), Vision and Rhetoric in Shakespeare: Looking Through Language (2000), Leave the Dishes in the Sink: Adventures of an Activist in Conservative Utah (2002), and Shakespeare’s Romances (2003).

Thorne was active in many organizations during her retirement, such as the Utah State Historical Society, the Utah State Women’s History Association, and the National Women’s Studies Association. Thorne died in 2005 in Logan, Utah.

Source: See Archives West: Utah State University, Papers of Alison Comish Thorne, 1925-2003.

Image Source: Detail from the cover of Alison Comish Thorne’s Leave the Dishes in the Sink (2002).

Categories
Chicago Economists

Chicago. Talent-Scouting for New Faculty, Joint Appointments and Visiting Faculty, 1945

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On April 10, 1945, the chairman of the University of Chicago’s economics department, Professor Simeon E. Leland, submitted a 77 page (!) memorandum to President Robert M. Hutchins entitled “Postwar Plans of the Department of Economics–A Wide Variety of Observations and Suggestions All Intended To Be Helpful in Improving the State of the University”.

In his cover letter Leland wrote “…in the preparation of the memorandum, I learned much that was new about the past history of the Department. Some of this, incorporated in the memorandum, looks like filler stuck in, but I thought it ought to be included for historical reasons and to furnish some background for a few of the suggestions.” 

In recent posts I have provided a list of visiting professors who taught economics at the University of Chicago up through 1944 (excluding those visitors who were to receive permanent appointments) and supporting tables with enrollment trends and faculty data (ages and educational backgrounds).

In this post we have three lists of names for economists who in 1945 could be taken into consideration for either permanent economics, joint appointments with other department or visiting appointments at the University of Chicago. Many names are immediately recognisable, others less so, and other known names left unnamed. Instead of observing the actual choices of the department, we have, so to speak, an observation of the “choice set” as perceived by the department.

______________________________

          The following list of possible additions to the staff of the Department of Economics represents an enumeration of suggestions made by various members of the Department. It, of course, does not include all of those whom the Department would like to invite as permanent members of the University staff. Many of those whom we would most like to have, it is well-known, are not available; nor can the Department be sure that those listed below would favorably consider an invitation to join our staff. Likewise, this list must not be construed as nominations for membership in the Department. Some members of the staff are known to object to the inclusion of some of the names listed below. But if unanimous consent were required before suggestions could be made, little progress in building a Department would be possible. In its present state, the list is only an enumeration of suggestions warranting further inquiry. The fields of interest of many of the potential candidates overlap and the appointment of some individuals would make it undesirable, or at least uneconomic, to appoint others. Nevertheless, the list does given an idea of some persons who might be considered for future appointments. This list, like any other enumeration, is subject to constant revision, both in the addition or subtraction of names.

Name

 Present Location

Field of Interest or Specialization
Abraham (sic) Bergson University of Texas Wages and Wage Theory
Robert Bryce Ottawa, Canada
Norman Buchanan University of California Public Utilities, Corporation Finance, Business Cycles (also possible interest in United States Economic History)
Earl Hamilton Northwestern University Economic History
Albert G. Hart C.E.D., Chicago Theory, Finance, etc.
J. R. Hicks University of Manchester, England Economic Theory
Harold A. Innis University of Toronto Economic History
Maurice Kelso University of Wisconsin Land Economics
Tjalling Koopmans Cowles Commission Statistics; Mathematical Economics; Business Cycles; Shipping
Simon Kuznets University of Pennsylvania National Income; Historical Statistics
Sanford Mosk University of California Economic History
Charles A. Myers Massachusetts Institute of Technology Labor; Industrial Relations
Walter Rostow Columbia University Economic History (XIX Century)
Leonard Salter University of Wisconsin Land Economics
T. Scitovszky London School of Economics; U.S. Army Theory of Capital and Interest; Theory of Tariffs
Arthur Smithies University of Michigan; Bureau of the Budget, Washington, D. C. Fiscal Policy; Theory; Money and Banking
Eugene Staley School of Advanced International Studies (Washington, D.C.) International Economics; Foreign Trade
George Stigler University of Minnesota Theory and Foreign Trade
R. H. Tawney London School of Economics Economic History
Allen Wallis Stanford University Statistics

______________________________

Joint Appointments

The Department of Economics shares an interest in many fields with other departments, schools and divisions of the University. It recognizes that most problems of the Social Sciences have economic aspects, and other aspects as well. Many of the fields embraced within particular disciplines are explained by accident or tradition, not always by logic. No one department can, therefore, assert a valid claim for the exclusive staffing of fields of interest held in common with other branches of knowledge. It seems wisest to develop these common grounds through joint appointments. Not only does this enable us to attract to the University more outstanding scholars than the fellowship of one department might provide, but it should also place at the disposition of those interested in promoting joint fields, perhaps, larger resources than either acting alone could command.

Joint appointments, too, will tend to integrate the Social Sciences with the other schools and departments affected, as well as contribute to the unity of the University as a whole. The Department of Economics, therefore, ventures to suggest joint appointments in the following fields:

Fields Units Affected
Trusts and Monopolies Business, Law, Economics
Railroads and Transportation Business, Economics
Public Utilities Economics, Political Science, Law
Social Control of Business Business, Law, Political Science, Economics
Advanced Applied Mathematics and Statistics Economics, Mathematics, Business, Institute of Statistics, other departments interested in statistics
Urban Planning (or the Utilization of Land) Geography, Political Science, Economics, Law, Business, Sociology
Social Legislation, particularly affecting Labor Business, Sociology, Social Service Administration, Law, Political Science, Economics

[…]

Among those who might be proposed for joint appointments are the following:

Name Present Location Field of Interest Appropriate Appointment
Charles L. Dearing Brookings Institution and U.S. Government Transportation Economics, Business
Corwin D. Edwards Northwestern University Trusts, Monopolies, Control of Business Political Science, Law, Economics
Milton Friedman Columbia University Economic Theory, Public Finance, Monetary Policy Economics, Institute of Statistics
Homer Hoyt Regional Plan Association, Inc., New York, N.Y. Land Planning Economic Geography, Political Science
David E. Lilienthal T. V. A. Public Utilities Political Science, Law, Economics
Abraham Wald Columbia University Applied Mathematics, Statistics Mathematics, Economics
Allen Wallis Columbia University Applied Mathematics, Statistics Mathematics, Economics
Samuel S. Wilks Princeton University Applied Mathematics, Statistics Mathematics, Economics

Visiting Professorships

Each department needs to diversify its courses. Too frequently the attempt at diversification is made by adding permanent members to the regular staff. The need can best be met by the appointment of visiting professors.

[…]

A list of some who might be invited to the University as Visiting Professors is as follows:

Name Present Location Fields of Interest
John D. Black Harvard Agricultural Economics
(J.) Roy Blough U. S. Treasury Public Finance
Kenneth Boulding Iowa State College Economic Analysis; Theory of Capital
Karl Brandt Food Institute, Stanford U. Agricultural Economics
Harry G. Brown University of Missouri Economic Theory, Public Finance
J. Douglas Brown Princeton University Industrial Relations
Edward H. Chamberlain(sic) Harvard Economic Theory; Monopolistic Competition
J. M. Clark Columbia University Economic theory
J. B. Condliffe California International Trade; International Commercial Policy
Joseph S. Davis Food Institute, Stanford U. Agricultural Economics
Milton Gilbert Office of Price Administration, Washington, D.C. Economic Theory; Price Control
T. Haavelmo Norwegian Shipping Administration, New York, N.Y. Econometrics
Alvin Hansen Harvard Economic Theory; Fiscal Policy
F. A. Hayek London School of Economics and Political Science History of Social Thought; Economic Theory; Monetary Policy
J. R. Hicks University of Manchester Economic Theory
George Jaszy U. S. Dept. of Commerce National Income; Business Analysis
O. B. Jesness University of Minnesota Agricultural Economics
Nicholas Kaldor London School of Economics Theory of the Firm; Imperfect Competition; Money; Business Cycles
M. Kalecki Institute of Statistics of University of Oxford, England Economic Fluctuations; Expenditure Rationing
M. Slade Kendrick Cornell University Public Finance; Farm Taxation
Arthur Kent San Francisco Attorney-at-Law Taxation
J. M. Keynes Cambridge University Fiscal and Monetary Policy
Simon S. Kuznets National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Pennsylvania Statistics; National Income and Its Problem
A. P. Lerner New School for Social Research Economic Theory; Fiscal Policy; Public Finance
Edward S. Mason Harvard University Economic Theory; International Trade and Trade Practices
Wesley C. Mitchell Columbia University Money and Prices
Jacob Mosak Office of Price Administration, Washington, D.C. Economic Theory; Statistics; Control of Prices
R. A. Musgrave Federal Reserve Board, Washington, D. C. Public Finance
Randolph Paul Lord, Day and Lord, Attorneys-at-Law Taxation
Paul A. Samuelson Massachusetts Institute of Technology Economic Theory; Money and Banking; Fiscal Policy
Lawrence H. Seltzer Wayne University Money and Banking; Public Debts; Fiscal Policy
Carl S. Shoup Columbia University Public Finance
Sumner H. Slichter Harvard University Business Economics
Richard Stone England Statistics; National Income
R. H. Tawney London School of Economics Economic History
Abraham Wald Columbia University Mathematics and Statistics
John H. Williams Harvard University Money and Banking

In the past, the Department has supplemented its staff by the appointment of visiting professors, but the invitations have ordinarily been restricted to the Summer Quarter in order (1) to relieve the regular staff from summer teaching and (2) to provide “window-dressing” to make the Summer Quarters more attractive to new students. The potentialities of the visiting professorship can hardly be realized when the practice is applied only to the Summer Quarter. That it has made that Quarter more attractive would seem to be indicated by the outstanding economists who have been guests of the University of Chicago.

[…]

The practice of inviting outstanding men to the University of Chicago seems to have been more prevalent in the early years of the University than it is today. Visiting appointments also declined with the strained finances of the University during the late depression. The Department is anxious to develop a program of instruction and research based upon the policy of the regular employment of visitors. A sum, equal to the stipend of a full professor, if used to finance a program of regular visitors, would add greater content and prestige to the Department than could be secured in any other way.

Source: University of Chicago Library, Department of Special Collections. Office of the President. Hutchins Administration Records. Box 73, Folder “Economics Dept., “Post-War Plans” Simeon E. Leland, 1945″.