Richard T. Ely, 1854-1943.
Considered by some as a German Historicist in
American clothing, Richard T. Ely was one of the prominent proponents of the
historical method in America and thus a leading forerunner of the American Institutionalist School.
He was the teacher and mentor
of both John R. Commons and Wesley C. Mitchell.
Ely was educated at Columbia and spent three years at Heidelberg, obtaining
his doctorate in 1879. Upon his return to America, he joined the faculty
of the Johns Hopkins University, then the
first American university to give "serious" graduate degrees. Ely's efforts to transplant
German Historicism
into American academia led to a bitter methodological battle in the 1880s with
his conservative colleague, Simon Newcomb -- who,
it is said, eventually engineered Ely's dismissal from Hopkins in
1892.
In an attempt to emulate Schmoller's Verein für
Sozialpolitik on American soil, Richard Ely was, with Seligman
and Adams,
the organizer and founder of the American Economic
Association (AEA) in 1885. The AEA became quickly embroiled in the raging
methodological controversy between old school conservatives and new school
historicists. The AEA eventually abandoned Ely's vision as a normative
body for social progress to become a more staid professional organization.
The AEA still attaches Ely's name to its yearly distinguished
lecture.
In 1892, Ely migrated to the "progressive" University of Wisconsin with his pupil John R. Commons.
It was under Ely that the empirical and labor bent long
since associated with the University of Wisconsin
was initiated. It quickly became the primary breeding ground for the new
generation which was to become the American Institutionalist
school.
Ely's position on labor movements and Christian socialism eventually got him in trouble again.
The University of Wisconsin's controversial " trial" of Ely in 1894 led
to a rallying of American scholars in defense of academic
freedom in the U.S.. Ely's work on labor movements abated slowly as Ely grew increasingly conservative and
concentrated on land economics. However,
Major works of Richard T. Ely
- "American Colleges and German Universities",
1880, Harper's
- "German Cooperative Credit Unions",
1881, Atlantic Monthly
- French and German Socialism in Modern Time, 1883.
- "The Past and the Present of Political Economy",
1883, Overland Monthly.
- "The
Prussian Civil Service", 1883, Overland Monthly
- The Past and the Present of Political Economy, 1884
- "Pullman: A Social Study",
1885, Harper's
- "Ethics and Economics", 1886, Science.
- "Arbitration",
1886, North American Review
- The Labor Movement in America, 1886.
- "Social Studies.
I. The Nature of the Railway Problem", 1886, Harper's
- "Social
Studies - II. The Economic Evils in American Railway Methods",
1886, Harper's
- "Social
Studies - III. The Reform of Railway Abuses", 1886, Harper's
- "Socialism
in America", 1886, North American Rev.
- "Political Economy in America",
1887, North American Rev.
- "Social Studies. - I. The Nature and Significance of Corporations",
1887, Harper's
- "Social Studies. -
II. The Growth of Corporations", 1887, Harper's
- "Social Studies. -
III. The Future of Corporations", 1887, Harper's
- Taxation in American States and Cities, 1888.
- An Introduction to Political Economy, 1889.
- "The
Telegraph Monopoly", 1889, North American Rev.
- "A Programme for Labor Reform",
1890, Century
- "Pauperism in the United States",
1891, North American Rev.
- "The
Inheritance of Property", 1891, North American Rev.
- Outlines of Economics, 1893.
- "Natural Monopolies and the Workingman. A Programme of Social Reform",
1894, North American Review
- "Fraternalism vs. Paternalism in Government",
1898, Century
- Monopolies and Trusts, 1900.
- Studies in the Evolution of Industrial Society, 1903.
- "Review
of Taussig's Principles of Economics", 1912, AER
- Property and Contract in their Relation to the Distribution of Wealth, 1914.
- "Review
of Property: Its duties and rights", 1914, AER
- "Russian
Land Reform", 1916, AER
- "Landed Property as an Economic Concept and as a Field of Research",
1917, AER - commentary
- "Private Colonization of the Land",
1918, AER
- "Tenancy in an Ideal System of
Landownership" with C.J. Galpin, 1919, AER
- Ground Under Our Feet: An autobiography, 1938.
- Natural Monopolies and the Workingman. A Programme of Social Reform
Resources on Richard T. Ely