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Brookings Archives - Economics in the Rear-View Mirror

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Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, Melvin Gardner de Chazeau. 1930

Melvin Gardner de Chazeau’s graduate school record at Harvard (Economics Ph.D. 1930) is documented fully in this post that also includes a fairly complete c.v. for him (visitors can hunt down his many book reviews at jstor.org). 

Research Tip: There are 2.3 cubic feet of personal papers of Melvin Gardner de Chazeau at the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

_______________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS

Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.

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

I. Full Name, with date and place of birth.

Melvin Gardner de Chazeau. Olympia, Wash.; March 20, 1900.

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

University of Washington 1921-25.
Teaching Fellow (Econ.) 1924-25.
Harvard University 1925-6. Instructor & Tutor (Econ. A) 1926-27.

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

A.B. U. of Washington. Dec. 1924.
M.A. U. of Washington. Aug. 1925.
A.M. Harvard. 1927.

IV. General Preparation. (Indicate briefly the range and character of your undergraduate studies in History, Economics, Government, and in such other fields as Ancient and Modern Languages, Philosophy, etc.)

Econ.: Courses in Standards of Living, History and Theory of Labor in U.S. and Europe, Marketing and Advertising, History of Econ. Thought, Econ. Theory. (Taught General Econ.)
Gov.: General course, American Gov’t., Readings in Political thought.
Phil.: Hist. of Phil., Social Ethics & Ethical Theory, Logic, Phil. of Religion, Modern Schools.
Languages: Spanish, French & Latin (High School).

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

Economics.

VI. Choice of Subjects for the General Examination. (State briefly the nature of your preparation in each subject, as by Harvard courses, courses taken elsewhere, private reading, teaching the subject, etc., etc.)

  1. Econ. Theory and its History. (Special emphasis since 1776).
    Econ. 11; Econ. 15 (audit); Econ. 33
    Grad. Seminars (U. of W.) in Price Determination, Theory, International Finance.
  2. Econ. History since 1750.
    Econ. 2.
  3. Statistics.
    Econ. 41; Econ. 1a.
  4. Money and Banking.
    Econ. 38. Also matter connected with Econ. 33.
  5. Ethics.
    Two undergraduate courses: Social Ethics and Ethical Theory (U. of W.) Extensive undergraduate and one year’s graduate work in Phil. Private reading.
  6. Regulation of Public Utilities.
    Grad. Seminar (U. of W.) in Rate Regulation.
    Econ. 36 (audit).

VII. Special Subject for the special examination.

Regulation of Public Utilities.

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

Details of subject not yet determined upon. F. W. Taussig.
[Insert written in pencil:] Some Chapters in the Regulation of the Electric Industry in Massachusetts

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

Closing weeks of first, or first few wseeks of second, semester
[Insert written in pencil:] 1926-27. February 21, 1927.

X. Remarks

[Left blank]

Signature of a member of the Division certifying approval of the above outline of subjects.

[signed] F. W. Taussig

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

[Not to be filled out by the applicant]

Name: Melvin Gardner de Chazeau

Approved: November 12, 1926

Ability to use French certified by Professor A. E. Monroe, October 21, 1926.

Ability to use German certified by Professor A. E. Monroe, October 21, 1926

Date of general examination February 21, 1927

Thesis received April 1, 1930

Read by [left blank]

Approved [left blank]

Date of special examination [left blank]

Recommended for the Doctorate [left blank]

Degree conferred  [left blank]

Remarks.  [left blank]

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Certification of reading knowledge
of French and German for Ph.D.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Cambridge, Massachusetts
Oct. 21, 1926

Mr. M. G. De Chazeau has this day passed a satisfactory examination in the reading of French and German, as required of candidates for the doctor’s degree.

[signed]
A.E. Monroe

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Passed General Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Cambridge, Massachusetts
February 24, 1927

To the Division of History,
Government, and Economics,

As chairman of the committee appointed to conduct the general examination in economics of Melvin Gardner de Chazeau, I have to report that the examination was accepted by the committee [Taussig, Crum, Young, Cole, Demos (Ethics)] as satisfactory. It was not as high in quality as the previous record of the candidate had led the committee to expect, and a more than respectable showing at the time of the candidate’s special examination is desirable. The committee had no doubt, however, about accepting the present examination as satisfactory.

Very truly yours,
[signed]
F. W. Taussig

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Passed Special Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Cambridge, Massachusetts
May 20, 1930

Dear Professor Carver,

As chairman of the committee appointed to conduct the special examination in Economics of Mr. M. G. de Chazeau, I beg to report that Mr. De Chazeau passed the examination to the entire satisfaction of the committee.

Very sincerely yours,
[signed]
F. W. Taussig

Professor T. N. Carver
772 Widener Library
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Source: Harvard University Archives. Division of History, Government & Economics, Ph.D. Degrees Conferred 1929-30. (UA V 453.270), Box 10.

__________________________

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Record of
Melvin Gardner de Chazeau

Years: 1925-26, 1926-27, 1927-28, 1929-30.

[Previous] Degrees received.

A.B. Univ. of Washington, 1924,
A.M. Univ. of Washington, 1925.

First Registration: 24 September 1925

1925-26

Grades
First Year Course

Half-Course

Economics 1a1

A-

Economics 2

A

Economics 11

A

Economics 38

A

Economics 412

A+
Division: History, Government, & Economics
Scholarship, Fellowship: Ralph Sanger Scholar
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship:
Proctorship:
Degrees received: A.B. Univ. of Washington 1924, A.M. ibid. 1925

 

1926-27

Grades
Second Year Course

Half-Course

Economics 20 (F.W.T.) (2d. hf.)

A

Economics 331

A

Economics 392

A
Summer School 1927

Public Utilities S36 (GBA)

A

Division:
Scholarship, Fellowship:
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship: $700 in Economics. Tutor in Division of History, Government, and Economics, $900
Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year: A.M.
Accepted for Ph.D., except for French (H.S. only) and German . Oct-16, 1925.

 

1927-28

Grades
Third Year Course

Half-Course

Economics 20

 A

Division:
Scholarship, Fellowship:
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship: in Economics. Tutor in the Div. of H. G. + E. $2500
Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year: 

 

1929-30

Fourth Year

Economics 20 (F.W.T.) 1 co.

 A

Division:
Scholarship, Fellowship:
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship: in Economics. Tutor Hist, G. + Econ  $2700
Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year:  Ph.D.
Home Address: Nov. 1930. 27 University Circle, University, Virginia.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Record Cards of Students, 1895-1930, Cooke—Dyson (UAV 161.2722.5). Box 4, Record Card of Melvin Gardner de Chazeau [formerly, De Shazo].

__________________________

Course Names and Instructors

1925-26

Economics 1a. Principles of Economics. Prof. Taussig and other members of the department for lectures.

Economics 2. Economic History from the Industrial Revolution. Professor Gay.

Economics 11. Economic Theory. Professor Taussig.

Economics 38. Principles of Money and Banking. Professor Young.

Economics 412. Statistical Theory and Analysis. Asst. Professor Crum.

1926-27

Economics 20. Research in Economics (with Professor Frank William Taussig) (2d. hf.)

Economics 331. International Trade. Professor Taussig.

Economics 392. International Finance. Associate Professor Williams.

1927 (Summer)

S36 (GBA). Public Utilities. Professor Philip Cabot.

1927-28

Economics 20. Research in Economics.

1929-30

Economics 20. Research in Economics (with Frank William Taussig) 1 co.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College for 1925-26, 1926-27, 1927-28, 1929-30.

__________________________

Melvin Gardner
de Chazeau
Timeline of his life and career

1900. Born March 20 in Olympia, Washington.

1924. B.A. University of Washington. Summa cum laude. Phi Beta Kappa. [Chicago Tribune, 25 Aug 1946]

1925. M.A. University of Washington.

1927. M.A. in economics, Harvard University.

1930. Ph.D. in economics, Harvard.

1929. Married Eunice Storey (daughter Marian, born 1937).

1930-46. University of Virginia. Assistant professor 1930, associate professor 1931, professor, 1946.

1932-33. Study in England, Scotland, and South Wales of the rationalization of electricity supply in Great Britain as research fellow, Social Science Research Council.

1940-41. National Defense Advisory Commission and Office of Production Management. Steel expert.

1941-42. Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply. Consultant to Director.

1942. Production Board, Bureau of Planning and Statistics, Materials Division. Director.

1943-45. War Production Board, Program Bureau, Non-military Division. Director.

1945-47. Committee for Economic Development. Research staff.

1946-48. University of Chicago. School of Business. Professor of business economics and marketing.

1949-50. Brookings Institution. economic research.

1948-1967. Cornell University. School of Business and Public Administration. Founding member and Professor of economics and business policy. Retired 1967.

1954-55. Fulbright lecturer at the Copenhagen Graduate School of Business, Denmark.

Represented Cornell at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) for more than a decade (1950s)

1967-70. Taught at Dartmouth College and Cornell.

1985. Died November 28 in Arlington, Virginia.

Consultant (various dates): Treasury Department, Department of Justice, War Production Board, Housing Administration, Council of Economic Advisers (1953), Department of Commerce, Economic Cooperation Administration.

Selected Publications:

1934. “The Rationalization of Electricity Supply in Great Britain,”  J. Land & Pub. Util. Econ. (Part I. August; Part II, November).

1937. (with C. R. Daugherty and S. S. Stratton) Economics of the Iron and Steel Industry.

1937. “The Nature of the Rate Base in the Regulation of Public Utilities,” Quarterly J. Econ.

1938. “Public Policy and Discriminatory Prices of Steel : A Reply to Prof. Fetter,”  J. Polit. Econ.

1938. “Revision of Railroad Rate Structures,” Southern Econ. J.

1939. (with S. S. Stratton) Price Research in the Steel and Petroleum Industries.

1941. “Electric Power as a Regional Problem,” Southern Econ. J.

1945. “Employment Policy and Organization of Industry after the War,” Am. Econ. Rev.

1946. (with others) Jobs and Markets.

1954. (editor). Regularization of Business Investment.

1956. “Some Gains from Unit Size in Industry,” Social Science.

1973. (with Alfred E. Kahn). Integration and Competition in the Petroleum Industry.

Source: Fellows of the Social Science Research Council, 1925-1951. pp. 87-88. Also see the Cornell University Faculty Memorial Statement.

Image Source: Cornell University Library. Portrait credited to Otis A. Arnst appeared in The Ithaca Journal (29 January 1952; 8 December 1953).

Categories
Brookings Bryn Mawr Economists Gender Radcliffe Wisconsin

Brookings. Economics PhD Alumna, Helen Everett, 1924

 

Today we rejoin our series, “Get to Know an Economics PhD Alumna.”

Helen Meiklejohn née Everett (1891-1982) was the daughter of a Brown University philosophy professor, Walter Goodnow Everett. Helen received her A.B. from Bryn Mawr (1915), A.M. from Radcliffe (1918), and was among the first (!) PhDs awarded at Brookings (1924).

Helen Everett’s personal academic ambitions appear to have immediately taken a back seat to those of her husband, Alexander Meikeljohn, who had been a professor of philosophy and former colleague of Helen’s father at Brown. He actually knew her as a child. Before Helen and Alexander married in 1926, he had already served as Dean of Brown University (1901-1912) and as President of Amherst College (1912-1924). He was professor of philosophy at Wisconsin (1926-1938). He established the Experimental College of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1927-32). The Experimental College is considered “the forebearer of the Integrated Liberal Studies program at Wisconsin“. Alexander Meikeljohn had made a name for himself as a dynamic and passionate educational reformer and his picture was even on the cover of Time magazine (October 1, 1928). After Wisconsin’s Experimental College was closed in 1932 in no small part because of the fiscal austerity induced by the great depression, in 1938 Helen and Alexander switched full-time to his next big project for adult education, the San Francisco School of Social Studies that ended with WWII. Besides his legacy as an educational reformer, an even greater fame was achieved through his unconditional advocacy of free speech during the McCarthy era. He was selected for the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy–the award was presented by President Lyndon B. Johnson after Kennedy’s assassination.

Joseph Tussman (center) with Alec and Helen Meiklejohn, Berkeley 1961. Photo by David Tussman.

Since this is a post about Helen Everett, we move on to some details of her life and career. A casual newspaper search turned up numerous instances of Helen Meiklejohn speaking at a wide variety of progressive social and economic policy events after her marriage but the only post-marriage publication to have received any note was her chapter on pricing policy in the dress industry (see below).

_____________________

Born in Providence, R.I. on December 8, 1891 to Walter G. Everett and Harriet Mansfield Cleveland.

Died in Berkeley, CA on August 3, 1982.

_____________________

Education

1915. A.B., Bryn Mawr

1918. A. M. Radcliffe

1924. Ph.D. Robert Brookings Graduate School  of Poitics and Economics

_____________________

Employment

  • Vassar College. [1918/19(?)-1920] Instructor of Economics.
  • American Association for Labor Legislation in New York.
  • “Helen Everett left Vassar last June, worked a month as a factory worker in Cleveland in order to make reports to the Consumers’ League, and sailed in September for England, where she is studying at the London School of Economics.”
    Source: Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin, 1921, p. 27.
  • Institute of Economics (Washington, D.C.) [ca. 1924-26]
  • “Helen Everett Meiklejohn, wife of Alexander Meiklejohn of the University of Wisconsin, has been added to the staff of associate editors responsible for books on economics and political science, published by W. W. Norton & Co. “
    Source: July 1, 1928. Wisconsin State Journal p. 1.
  • San Francisco School of Social Studies

“Tussman: … Now, Meiklejohn had started before the war, he had started the San Francisco school of social studies. He was a great believer in adult education. It was a free-wheeling enterprise which had classes for working people, mostly, not devoted to career stuff, just general social theory and philosophy. We read things like Veblen, a good deal. And at one point, although I was still a graduate student, he asked me to teach a couple of classes. So I would drive out with Helen, his wife, who was a PhD in economics, and very bright, and another two guys, to Santa Rosa, where once a week we taught a class in Santa Rosa, and then drove back here to Berkeley, and once a week I met a class in San Francisco. I was doing that until the war. During the war the enterprise came to an end, but it was a rather interesting quixotic venture.”
Source: Lisa Rubens, Interviews from 2004 conducted with Joseph Tussman: Philosopher, Professor, Educator. University of California. The Bancroft Library, Regional Oral History Office. Berkeley, 2012.

  • Research Economist, Consumer Needs Unit, Office of Price Administration.
    Source: The Boston Globe, 26 February 1945, p. 11.

_____________________

Foreign Travel

I.

Arrived from Plymouth on S.S. Nieuw Amsterdam in Port of New York City on November 17, 1920.

[Her passport application was dated August 24, 1920 to leave New York on the S.S. Olympic on September 18, 1920 for the purpose of study in Great Britain, France, and Italy.]

II.

[From passport application filed June 1, 1922 in Berlin, Germany]

England. July 1921 to December 1921.
France. December 1921 to May 1922.
Germany (Berlin). May 1922 to September 1922.

Return September 23, 1922 Port of N.Y.C. [travelling with her parents]

“The Class Editor [1913] had news of Helen Everett indirectly the other day. She (the c.e.) sat next to two Vassar Seniors at luncheon, who, on finding that their neighbor was a Bryn Mawr alumna, immediately asked if she knew “Miss Everett.” On replying in the affirmative a most enthusiastic account of Helen’s career as an instructor at Vassar followed, ending with an expression of deep regret that she was no longer there. Helen is studying economics in London this winter, according to these same Vassar Seniors.”
Source: Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin, 1922, p. 27.

III.

Return from England (via Southampton to port of N.Y.C.) on October 23, 1925 S.S. Berengaria. [Alexander Meiklejohn travelled with her according to the ship manifest. They were married Wednesday, June 9, 1926 in Boston. (pre-honeymoon?)]

_____________________

Publications identified (to date)

Everett, Helen. 1924. The Reorganization of the British Coal Industry. Ph.D. thesis, Robert Brookings.

——. 1925. Book Review of “The Women’s Garment Workers: A History of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union.” American Economic Review 15(3) (September): 524–5.

——, with Isador Lubin [Lubin had been a student of Veblen’s at Missouri, had worked with Veblen at the wartime Food Administration, and with Mitchell in the Prices Section of the WIB.”]. The British Coal Dilemma. (New York, Macmillan, 1927).

——. Book Review of “A Theory of the Labor Movement” by Selig Perlman. New York: Macmillan, 1928. Social Service Review Vol. 3, No. 3 (Sept. 1929), pp. 523-525.

——. Book Review of “British Industry Today” by Ben M. Selekman and Sylvia Kopald Selekman. New York: Harper & Bros., 1929.

—— (Chapter on the dress industry), in Walton Hamilton (principal author, Gasoline industry.), Mark Adams (automobile industry), Albert Abrahamson (automobile tires), Irene Till, George Marshall (cottonseed industry) and Helen Meiklejohn. Price and Price Policies. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1938.  Vol. 7 of Reports prepared for the President’s Cabinet Committee on Price Policy.   [industries covered by other authors: whiskey and milk].

_____________________

Survived the Derailment of the Streamliner “City of San Francisco”
August 12, 1939 in Carlin, Nevada

…Mrs. Helen C. Meiklejohn, of 1525 LaLoma Avenue, Berkeley, told the same story as she smiled through bandages on her nose. Mrs. Meiklejohn, whose husband, Alexander, is connected with the University of Wisconsin, was in her berth but not asleep when the crash came.
She was thrown into the aisles, banging her nose and eyes, and then remained pinned for hours while volunteer workers tried to release her.
“I never was so glad to see anyone as I was the cowboy who finally climbed in and freed me. I had been bleeding all the while, though it wasn’t serious and I never was unconscious. The cowboys helped me climb out of the train and up to a girder to land.”

Source: Oakland Tribune, August 14, 1939, p. 3

_____________________

Helen Meiklejohn, Obituary

BERKELEY — A private family memorial service is pending for Helen Everett Meiklejohn, prominent professional economist and educator who had been a Berkeley resident since 1934.

A native of Providence R.I., Mrs. Meiklejohn died Aug. 3 [1982] in a Berkeley hospital. She was 89.

Mrs. Meiklejohn was the widow of Alexander Meiklejohn, noted educator and civil libertarian, and the youngest daughter of Walter Goodrow Everett, professor of philosophy at Brown University.

She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1915 and held advanced degrees in Economics from Radcliffe and Washington University of St Louis [Note: the Brookings PhD program was originally part of the Washington University Program]. She taught at Vassar College and worked on the staff of the Brooking Institution in Washington D.C.

She was co-author, with Isador Lubin, of “The British Coal Dilemma” and published articles in a number of professional journals.

She married Mr. Meiklejohn in 1926 and lived in Madison, Wis., for a number of years before moving to Berkeley, where she and her husband founded and taught in the San Francisco School of Social Studies. She was a member of the Council on the National Institution of Mental Health and was for many years an active participant in Planned Parenthood.

She is survived by four stepchildren, Ann Stout, of Richmond, Kenneth Meiklejohn, of Alexandria, Va., Donald Meiklejohn, of Syracuse, N.Y., and Gordon Meiklejohn, of Denver Colo., a niece, Mrs. John Nason, of Keene, N.Y., and two nephews, George and Douglas Mercer.

Source: Obituary. Helen Meiklejohn. The Berkeley Gazette (August 11, 1982), p. 2.

Categories
Brookings Chicago Economists Gender Social Work

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumna. Helen Russell Wright, 1922

 

From the days when economics still had room for policies of social work, Helen Russell Wright, economics Ph.D. alumna of the University of Chicago (1922). 

_______________________

Helen Russell Wright.

1891, February 26. Born in Glenwood, Iowa.
1912. A.B. Smith College.
Studied economics and social work in the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy (CSCP) under Sophonisba Breckenridge and Edith Abbott
1912-13. Appointed research student in the Department of Social Investigation. (CSCP)
1913. Certificate of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy.
1913-14. Senior Research Studentship (honorary). Department of Social Investigation (CSCP)
1914-15. Senior Research Studentship (honorary). Department of Social Investigation (CSCP)
1917-18.  Research assistant at Department of Social Investigation (CSCP)
1918-19. Assistant in Social Investigation (CSCP).
1919-1920. Assistant in Social Investigation (CSCP).
1920-21. Fellow in Political Economy, University of Chicago.
1922. Ph.D. University of Chicago. Thesis: The political labour movement in Great Britain, 1880-1914.
1922. Children of Wage-Earning Mothers: A Study of a Selected Group in Chicago. U.S. Department of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Publication No. 102. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1922.
1922-24. Senior Staff member, Brookings Graduate Institution of Economics, Washington, D.C.
1924-28. Member of the faculty of the Brookings Graduate Institution of Economics, Washington, D.C.
1926. Co-authored with Walton Hale Hamilton, The Case of Bituminous Coal. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926.
1928. Co-authored with Walton Hale Hamilton, A Way of Order for Bituminous Coal. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1928.
1928. Joins University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration.
1931. Associate Professor of Social Economy, Graduate School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
1938. Professor and Assistant Dean of the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
1944. Social Service in Wartime. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
1942-1956. Succeeded Edith Abbott as Dean of the Social Service Administration, University of Chicago.
1950-56. Editor of the Social Service Review.
1954. Received the University of Chicago’s alumni medal.
1955. Illinois Welfare association’s annual award for outstanding service in 1955.
1956. Retired from the University of Chicago
1957-58. Chief of a technical assistance team of the Council on Social Work Education to assist the development of the schools of social work in India.
Part-time teaching at the University of Southern California.
1969, August 14. Died in Pasadena, Los Angeles, California.

 

Image Source: Helen Russell Wright’s senior year portrait in Smith College, The 1912 Class-Book, p. 56.

Categories
Brookings Chicago Economists

Chicago. Harold Moulton (Ph.D. 1915) leaves for the Institute of Economics in Washington, D.C., 1922

 

 

After leaving the University of Chicago in 1922, Harold Glen Moulton (1883-1965) went on to head the Brookings Institution for 30 years.  The following report comes from the University of Chicago Magazine that provided a biographical sketch along with the announcement of Moulton’s moving on to Washington, D.C.

_________________

Prominent Alumni
Harold G. Moulton, ’07, Ph.D. ’15

This biographical sketch, as may be noted, is in the nature of a farewell. Although but recently elected full professor in political economy, Harold G. Moulton, ’07, Ph.D. ’15, will leave the University in September, to become the head of The Institute of Economics now being created by the Carnegie Corporation and to be established at Washington, D. C. We feel it most fitting, therefore, that, on the “eve of his departure,” we pass on to our readers some details about the life of H. G.

He was born at LeRoy, Michigan, November 7, 1883. After the usual home-town preliminaries, he attended Albion College, Michigan, for two years, distinguishing himself in debating and baseball, and then entered the University of Chicago. At Chicago he continued his debating activity with pronounced success, and, in his senior year, won his “C,” playing left field on the 1907 baseball team. He was a member of Washington House and of Delta Sigma Rho honorary fraternity. Harold Moulton stood out as one of the real leaders of his class and was always popular throughout his college career.

For several years after graduation he taught at University High School and at Evanston Academy, also coaching the high school baseball, football and track teams. He once boasted, “My football team went through an entire season and never once crossed anybody’s goal line.” However plus nevertheless, he always maintained keenest interest in athletics, and today is known as “Dope” Moulton, because nobody, outside of the Old Man, knows as much “dope” about Chicago athletics and athletes. In fact, but recently Tom Eck said, “He can tell the time to within one-fifth of a second simply by feeling his pulse.” He has dispensed interesting information to our alumni clubs on a number of occasions.

In 1911 Harold returned to the University, to complete his graduate work, and obtained his Ph.D. in economics in 1915. During this period he was the debating coach—a task in which he won notable victories for Chicago. On June 17, 1912, he married Frances C. Rawlins. The Moultons have two children, Jack, aged 9, and Barbara, aged 7.

He began teaching political economy at Chicago in 1911, as an instructor, and because of his brilliant lectures and writings rose rapidly in his profession. In 1912 he won the Hart, Schaffner & Marx economic essay prize with a volume on Waterways Versus Railways. He is joint-author of Readings in the Economies of War, author of Principles of Money and Banking, of The Financial Organization of Society, and, this year, co-author with John F. Bass of America and the Balance Sheet of Europe. He has also written numerous pamphlets on economic subjects and articles in scientific, business and literary magazines. He writes the Weekly Analysis of general business conditions for the Chicago Association of Commerce. Moulton represented the Chicago Association at the London Conference last year, is on finance committees of both the Chicago and the United States Chamber of Commerce, and has lectured at Columbia and other universities.

The new Institute of Economics, which he has been appointed to organize and direct, has two aims: (1) Seek the truth; (2) present it so that a layman can understand it. It is not a government bureau, but will cooperate with various departments of the government and with the United States Chamber of Commerce. Its library will accommodate 100,000 volumes, and students, while working there as assistants, will have an opportunity to write and publish pamphlets, monographs and special reports. The University and the alumni regret to see H. G. Moulton leave, but a great honor, a great opportunity has been extended to him, and he leaves with our heartiest best wishes for fullest success; indeed, with our complete confidence that it will require but a very brief time to prove that the right man has been selected.

Source: The University of Chicago Magazine, Vol. XIV, No. 8 (June, 1922),  p. 297.

Image Source: The University of Chicago Magazine, Volume V, No. 4 (February 1913), p. 115