John R. Commons papers, 1890-1943

Author / Creator

Commons, John R. (John Rogers), 1862-1945

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Summary

John Rogers Commons was born in Hollandsburg, Ohio on 13 October 1862 and died at Raleigh, North Carolina, on 11 May 1945. He studied at Oberlin College and Johns Hopkins University, and taught at ...

John Rogers Commons was born in Hollandsburg, Ohio on 13 October 1862 and died at Raleigh, North Carolina, on 11 May 1945. He studied at Oberlin College and Johns Hopkins University, and taught at Wesleyan University, Oberlin College, the University of Indiana, Syracuse University and the University of Wisconsin. An enumeration of the fields in Economics in which he did original work reads like the table of contents of a comprehensive text-book: value and distribution, history of economic thought, public utilities, immigration, housing, labor legislation, social insurance, trade unionism and industrial government, labor history, monopoly price, index numbers, business cycles and stabilzation, and tariff. Commons was the creator of American labor history, although in this he had been preceded by his teacher and original inspirer, Richard T. Ely. Ely brought him to the University of Wisconsin in 1904 to prepare the Documentary History of American Industrial Society, as well as to teach.The history was published during 1909-1911 in eleven volumes. Commons retired after thirty years of teaching at Wisconsin. This collection includes scattered correspondence, grade books and scrapbooks of Common's publications.

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