Joseph J. Spengler
The economics department did not become effectively organized until the very late 1920's and the early 1930's. At this time it still remained the Department of Economics and Political Science and included courses in economic geography and accounting as well as in business administration. As early as 1899-1900, however, several Economics courses were offered in Trinity College which became an undergraduate college in Duke University upon the funding and founding of the university in 1924. The university's first catalog was issued in 1924-25 representing the Department of Economics and Political Science as consisting of two branches, Political Science and a combination of "Economics and Business Administration." In 1934 Political Science became an independent department. Not until 1967 was the combination of Economics and Business Administration divided into two separate departments, in response to increase in enrollment and in specialization within both economics and business administration inclusive of accounting.
The major role in the development of the Department was played by William Henry Glasson of Columbia University who joined the Duke faculty in 1902 as Professor of Political Economy and Social Science. In 1908 he became head of a Department of Economics and Political Science; in 1926, Dean of the Graduate School and was succeeded as chairman by Professor Calvin B. Hoover in 1926 and as Dean in 1939.
Meanwhile the number of courses offered grew, soon to ten, among them four graduate courses, and by 1924 to 13. Undergraduate enrollment also grew. In the spring of 1934-35 enrollment in Economics and Business Administration, 1646, was exceeded only by that in English.
The number of teachers in the department of economics grew slowly at first, from one in 1899 to two in 1902 and three in 1923. Soon thereafter the men who played a major role in developing the economics branch of the department were added, Calvin B. Hoover in 1925, Charles E. Landon in 1926, and Earl J. Hamilton in 1927, and in 1925 Robert Wilson who developed what was later to become the Department of Political Science.
Among the early graduates who played an important role in developing the department were Benjamin U. Ratchford and Robert S. Smith, along with Martin Black who together with John Shields expanded the initial offerings in accounting. The work in commercial geography was developed by Ben Lemert with the assistance of Charles Landon who devoted major attention to economics and business administration.
Richard Harvill, who acquired his M.A. in 1927 along with Ben Ratchford, returned to Duke after acquiring his doctorate at Northwestern University only to move to the University of Arizona where he became president and for 20 years played the major role in the building of that university.
Several faculty were added in the early 1930's. Joseph J. Spengler, visiting professor in 1932-3 while Professor Hoover was in Germany studying the Nazi movement, joined the faculty a year later. Frank T. deVyver came the following year to carry on the work in labor economics. Herbert Von Beckerath, from Germany and a friend of Joseph Schumpeter, preceded DeVyver by nearly a year. Among the faculty were Ben Ratchford and Robert S. Smith who were awarded their doctorates in 1932, the first awarded by the Department of Economics, and Walter Delaplane who was awarded his doctorate in 1934.
Despite considerable turnover the department grew appreciably between 1930 and World War II, numbering at least 19 members by 1938. Among those other than graduate student assistants who were associated with the department at least part of the time between 1930 and the outbreak of World War II were A. J. Nichol, Christopher Roberts, M. Farioletti, J. M. Keech, Jack Troxel, Tom Berry, Wilfred Eiteman, Weldon Welfling, Murray Havens, Dick Lester, Bert Wallace, John Springer, Don Humphrey, Benjamin Ratchford, Robert Smith, and Walter Delaplane who later became Dean at Texas A & M and Southern Methodist and in 1962 Vice-President at the University of Arizona.
The advent of World War II greatly reduced enrollment and the current size of the department. Hoover, Humphrey, Black, and others were called into government service, others became associated with the Office of Price Administration, among them Spengler as Regional Price Executive, for the eight Southeastern states, Ratchford and Wallace, as North Carolina and Mississippi price executives, and Clark Allen, Tom Berry, Murray Havens, and William Miller as regional price economists. In 1942-43 Earl Hamilton organized a program in international finance for army officers and called Spengler back to assist.
Upon the close of the war university and departmental enrollment greatly expanded, making necessary augmentation of the staff. Among those joining the department by 1952 were Clark Allen, Fred Joerg, James O'Leary, Lionel McKenzie, W. J. J. Smith, William Wesson, Paul Gregory, R. Van Voorhis, Arthur Ashbrook, Fred Joerg, Ed Simmons, Frank Hanna, Lionel McKenzie, Lloyd Saville, Carl Clamp, William Ross, Don Dewey, Robert Dickens, and James Walter among others. Not all of these devoted full time to economics.
Between commencement in 1932 and August 1979, Professor DeVyver reported in his excellent pamphlet, "Graduate Study in Economics" at Duke in 1921-1979, the Department awarded over 450 graduate degrees, 241 at the doctoral level. Toward the close of this period the teaching load was reduced. In the early 1930's the typical teaching load was four or five classes.
Of greater interest than a statistical account of the department's growth is one of its outlook and spirit and its careful use of its resources.
A very scholarly spirit pervaded the department in the 1930's and for at least several decades thereafter. Great importance was attached to research despite the fact that a full-time department member was usually counted upon to teach four or five classes, usually a combination of undergraduate and graduate courses, instead of two or three as in recent years.
Great importance was attached also to the university's library holdings. Several times before the 1950's a special department committee was set up to canvas the library holdings of concern to economic scholars and to discover weaknesses in their holdings. Steps were then taken to fill gaps and promote the acquisition of new items.
Emphasis was put upon empirical inquiry and the role of institutions albeit not to the neglect of mathematics and statistics. Much more importance was attached to historical and institutional inquiry formerly than at present. Researchers were alert to potentially misleading attributes of essentially mathematical or similar non-empirical models. In short a spirit of realism pervaded research.
For a few years, however, there was a close relation between the economics department and the law school, assuring that a member of the department would join a member of the law school faculty in offering a course dealing with anti-trust and related legal areas, a course in which economics graduate students as well as legal students participated. Usually an economist served on the editorial board of Law and Contemporary Problems.
It was the aim of the department to cover all important areas of economics, an objective realizable only if the content of the main components of economics as a science were not unduly subdivided. For then the content of the science could be dealt with, though not to the exclusion of highly specialized inquiry if resources remained for this purpose. As a rule the members of the department were widely enough trained to assume responsibility for a number of courses.
Occasionally members of the department introduced new courses to deal with developing areas of concern and inquiry. The first was Professor Hoover's course in "economic systems", an area of inquiry developed by him to study diverse economies as such and thereby overcome omissions peculiar to economics. Somewhat parallel approaches were made by DeVyver in the field of "labor problems", by Ratchford in the field of public finance, by Spengler in the areas of demography and economic development, and by Von Beckerath in the area of institutionalism. Somewhat parallel was the approach of Earl Hamilton in economic history. Also parallel was our recourse to psychology or philosophy courses suited to acquaint young economists with conceptions of theory and its role outside economics.
Friendly relations with the students as well as with neighboring faculty, especially U.N.C. and N.C. State, were encouraged, sometimes through occasional entertainment and sports, especially volleyball and softball, and sometimes through joint research and through course programs that drew on faculty complementary to our own. These close bonds lasted through the years.
There were also close bonds with the students who came to our homes for family-style meals and for visits and sometimes for evening seminars. These bonds of friendship lasted over the years, sustained by correspondence and close touch with the students' careers.
There were also close bonds between the older faculty and the younger incoming faculty, supported by exchange of visits in the homes and of ideas. Among the younger faculty there were dancing parties in the homes as well as at the Washington Duke Hotel with its live orchestras and restaurant.
There was close interdepartmental visiting back and forth both on campus and in the homes. Departments knew one another and exchanged ideas. There was an esprit de corps, a sense of growing up with and being a part of a new thriving institution. Given these relations minor fields complementary to advanced degrees in economics could be well planned.