Richard Theodore Ely, Ph. D., LL.D. (born April 13, 1854 in Ripley, New York; died October 4, 1943 in Old Lyme, Connecticut) was an American economist. He was born as the eldest of three children of Ezra Sterling and Harriet Gardner (Mason) Ely. Ely received his undergraduate degree from Columbia, later receiving his doctorate in economics from the University of Heidelberg, where he studied under Karl Knies. He held the professorship of economics at Johns Hopkins University from 1881 to 1892, and was subsequently professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1894 an unsuccessful attempt was made to depose him from his chair at Wisconsin for teaching socialistic doctrines: an effort met by the state Board of Regents with a ringing proclamation of the necessity for freely "sifting and winnowing" among claims of truth [1]. Professor Ely took an active part in the formation of the American Economic Association, was secretary from 1885 to 1892 and president from 1899 to 1901. He also edited Macmillan's Citizen's Library of Economics, Politics, and Sociology. Throughout his teaching career he was a frequent contributor to periodical literature, both scientific and popular.
Works
- French and German Socialism (1883)
- Labor Movement in America (1886)
- Taxation in American States and Cities (1888)
- Introduction to Political Economy (1889)
- Outlines of Economics (1893)
- The Labor Movement in America (1883)
- Problems of To-day (1888)
- Social Aspects of Christianity (1889)
- Socialism and Social Reform (1894)
- Monopolies and Trusts (1900; new edition, 1912)
- The Coming City (1902)
- Studies in the Evolution of Industrial Society (1903; new edition, 1913)
- Property and Contract in their Relation to the Distribution of Wealth (1914)
In collaboration with Prof. G. R. Wicker he wrote Elementary Principles of Economics (1907); and in collaboration with T. S. Adams, M. O. Lorenz, and A. A. Young, Outlines of Economics (1908; several subsequent editions).
References
- Fine, Sidney. "Richard T. Ely, Forerunner of Progressivism, 1880-1901." The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 37:4 (March 1951).
- Rader, Benjamin G. "Richard T. Ely: Lay Spokesman for the Social Gospel." Journal of American History. 53:1 (June 1966).
External links
- Private colonization of land (1918), Ely, Richard Theodore, 1854-1943. Present by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Digital Collections Center.
- Profile at History of Economic Thought website
- Profile at University of Wisconsin-Madison website
- Academic Freedom on Trial: on Ely's 1894 trial
- Extract from The Social Law of Service
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.
