University of Massachusetts
Department of Economics
Fall 2009
Instructor: Daniel MacDonald
Office: Thompson 838
Econ 362: American Economic History
Lecture: MWF 10:10-11
Office Hours: MW 11-12 (and by appointment) macdondb@gmail.com
Books available (recommended) for purchase
Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, Time on the Cross (ISBN 978-0393312188)
Alice Kessler-Harris, Out to Work (978-0195157093)
David Von Drehle, Triangle: The Fire that Changed America (978-0877734055)
David Montgomery, Citizen Worker (978-0521483803)
Nelson Lichtenstein, State of the Union: A Century of American Labor (978-0691116549)
All books can be found at Amherst Books in town (at the corner of Main St. and N. Pleasant St.)
These books, along with the other required readings for the course, are either on 2-hour reserve at the library or they can be found on the course website ( http://courses.umass.edu/econ362/ ) under “Readings” (user name: econ362, password: Fall2009 … please note the fields are casesensitive). It is recommended that you bookmark the course website as it will be updated on a regular basis. If you forget or misplace the url, the site can be found by going to the department homepage and clicking on “Courses”, then clicking on “Econ 362.”
Overview
“
The master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts. He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher–in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man’s nature or his institutions must lie entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood; as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet sometimes as near the earth as a politician.”
-John Maynard Keynes
Economic history is history studied in the perspective of the economist: that means the history of the (product, labor, capital) market, the history of fiscal and monetary policy, of workers (in and out of the home), capitalists and entrepreneurs, of variables such as GDP and productivity, and of other concepts relating to the social relationships produced by an economy. Following the quote above, we assume the role of “master-economist” by studying these concepts using tools from a variety of fields: statistical analysis (from simple statistics to regressions), political science (the influence of politics and power on economy), philosophy (different methodologies in political economy), and (of course) historical method.

Given the wide range of topics covered by the readings, you may at some point find an issue or approach unclear, in which case I encourage you to ask questions during class or come to office hours if you still need help. It is most probable that if you have a question, others are thinking the same as you and we will all benefit from reviewing it in class. That being said, I will post my own weekly lecture notes and some other aides to assist you in your studies.
While this class is focused on the history of the U.S. economy, you may be surprised by the connections you find between many contemporary issues and the topics we cover in class. That being said, you should keep up with the news and reference contemporary issues in your work where you find it appropriate. Some good beginning resources are listed for your convenience below:
Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/public/us
New York Times (Op-Eds and Business Section in particular): http://www.nytimes.com/
Dollars and Sense: http://www.dollarsandsense.org/
Monthly Review: http://monthlyreview.org/
Blogs by economists, such as: Marginal Revolution, Paul Krugman, and Greg Mankiw
Course Requirements
Participation (which includes daily attendance) is absolutely essential in this course to clarify issues and to keep the pace of the lectures moving briskly. While participation will not be directly graded, notable participation may positively affect your final grade if you are on the borderline between an A/A-, A-/B+, etc.
Quizzes: 40 points. Over the course of the semester, 10 quizzes each worth 5 points will be given randomly at the beginning of class with questions on that day’s readings. Of these 10 quizzes, the
2 lowest grades will be dropped at the end of the semester to make the total possible points equal to 40.
Review papers: 60 points. Based on a particular unit’s readings, 4 review papers of 4-6 pages will be completed with each being worth 15 points.
Important: these review papers should accomplish 3 main goals. First, they should have structure, with an introduction, body, and conclusion, with correct grammar and spelling, doublespaced with 12-point font and 1-inch margins. Second, they should demonstrate to me that you understand the main issues and debates within a unit’s readings. Third, they should demonstrate your ability to critically analyze these issues: this means offering your own opinion on some issue (you may agree or disagree with the text, usually the latter is more fun), well-supported with evidence from the texts and by your own economic reasoning. Students need to demonstrate proficiency in all three of these dimensions (loosely defined as “mechanics”, “understanding”, and “critical analysis”) to have a chance of earning maximum credit.
Furthermore, I take academic dishonesty very seriously . You can use the texts and any notes given to you to write your papers but please work individually and use consistent and correct citation format (for example, if you use Chicago format, use it throughout your paper and do not change to MLA for your works cited page). See the final page of this syllabus for information on

academic dishonesty. I take this very seriously and you will receive a zero for your paper or quiz if I discover evidence of cheating.
Policy regarding late work
Your work loses 20% of its maximum possible score each day it is late. Exceptions will be given based on medical reasons or other university-related responsibilities.
Outline of the major units and the readings associated with them
Key for journal shorthand below
AER= American Economic Review
JEL= Journal of Economic Literature
EEH= Explorations in Economic History
JEH= Journal of Economic History
ILWCH: International Labor and Working Class History
Introduction: What is Economic History? Methodology and the “New Economic History”
September 9
Karl Marx, “11 Theses on Feuerbach” found here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm
Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto (Part I) found here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers , “Adam Smith” (under “Readings” on website)
September 11
Paul David, “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY”
AER 75:2 (May 1985), pp. 332-7
McCloskey, “Does the Past Have Useful Economics?”
JEL 14:2 (June 1976), pp. 434-61
Unit 1: The Colonial Economy, Institutions and the Moral Economy Debate
September 14
Sidney Ratner, James H. Soltow, and Richard Sylla, The Evolution of the American Economy:
Growth, Welfare, and Decision Making (New York: Basic Books, 1979), ch. 2 (under
“Readings” on website)
September 16

Winifred Rothenberg, From Market-Places to a Market Economy (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1992), chs. 1, 2 (on reserve and under “Readings” on website)
September 18
Michael Merrill, “Cash is Good to Eat: Self-Sufficiency and Exchange in the Rural Economy of the U.S.” Radical History Review 2 (Winter 1976), pp. 42-71 (under “Readings” on website)
Unit 2: The Revolution and its Effects on the American Political Economy
September 21
Marc Egnal and Joseph A. Ernst, “Economic Interpretation of the American Revolution”
William and Mary Quarterly 29:1 (January 1972), pp. 4-32
September 23
Gordon S. Wood, “The Enemy is Us: Democratic Capitalism in the Early Republic”
Journal of the Early Republic 16:2 (Summer 1996), pp. 293-308
September 25
Robert J. Steinfeld, The Invention of Free Labor (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1991), chs. 5 and 6 (on reserve and under “Readings” on website)
Unit 3: Economics of the Early Republic: the Home, the Market, Property, and Economic
Growth
September 28
Winifred Rothenberg, From Market-Places to a Market Economy chs. 4-6 (on reserve and under
“Readings” on website)
September 30
Morton J. Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1977), chs. 1 and 2 (on reserve)
October 2
Morton J. Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law chapter 3 (on reserve)
October 5
Alice Kessler-Harris, Out to Work chs. 1-3
Unit 4: Proletarianization and Industrialization in the North
October 7

Alexander James Field, “Sectoral Shifts in Antebellum Massachusetts: A Reconsideration”
EEH
15 (1978), pp. 146-71 (under “Readings” on website)
October 9
David Montgomery, Citizen Worker , ch. 1
October 12
Columbus Day – Note class is held on a Tuesday (October 13)
October 13
David Von Drehle, Triangle , chs. 1, 2, 4
October 14
Sokoloff and Goldin, “Women, Children, and Industrialization in the Early American Republic,”
JEH 42 (1982), pp. 741-74
October 16
Kessler-Harris, Out to Work , chs. 4-6
Unit 5: Slavery and the Effects of Emancipation on the Political Economy of the Postbellum U.S.
October 18
Fogel and Engerman, Time on the Cross , prologue, chs. 1, 2
October 21
Time on the Cross , chs. 3, 4, 5
October 23
Time on the Cross , ch. 6 and epilogue
October 25
W. E. B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction , chs. 1, 2, 4 (on reserve)
October 28
W. E. B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction , chs. 5, 9 (on reserve)
October 30
NO CLASS
Unit 6: Issues in the mid-to-late Nineteenth Century (1): The Rise of Big Business

November 4
Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., “The Emergence of Managerial Capitalism,”
Business History Review
58 (Winter 1984), pp. 473-503
November 6
Charles W. McCurdy, “American Law and the Marketing Structure of the Large Corporation,
1875-1890,” JEH 38 (3), pp. 631-649
November 8
NO CLASS – Veteran’s Day
November 11
Jeremy Atack, “Industrial Structure and the Size Distribution of Firms in American Industry in the Nineteenth Century,”
JEH 46 (1986), pp. 463-76
Unit 7: Issues in the mid-to-late Nineteenth Century (2): Class, Socialism and American
Exceptionalism
November 13
David Von Drehle, Triangle Chapters 3, 5-6
November 16
Sean Wilentz, “Against Exceptionalism: Class Consciousness and the American Labor
Movement,” ILWCH (Fall 1984), pp. 1-37
November 18
Gerald Friedman, “Success and Failure in Third Party Politics: The Knights of Labor and the
Union Labor Coalition in Massachusetts, 1884-88," ILWCH 62 (Fall 2002), pp. 169-89
November 20
Montgomery, Citizen Worker , ch. 3
Unit 8: Government Regulation of Business and Labor
November 23
Von Drehle, Triangle , chs. 7-9
November 25
Montgomery, Citizen Worker , ch. 2
Kessler-Harris, Out to Work , chs. 7-11
November 27

Thanksgiving Recess
Unit 9: The Great Depression: Causes and the Impact of Reform
November 30
Eugene N. White, “The Stock Market Boom and the Crash of 1929 Revisited,”
Journal of
Economic Perspectives (Spring 1990), pp. 67-83
December 2
Charles Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929-1939, 2 nd
ed. (Berkley: University of
California Press, 1986), ch. 7 “1931” (on reserve)
December 4
Kindleberger, World in Depression, ch. 8 “More Deflation” (on reserve)
December 7
Lichtenstein, State of the Union
December 9
Lichtenstein, State of the Union
December 11
Lichtenstein, State of the Union