Sumner Slichter

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Sumner Huber Slichter

| image =

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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1892|01|08|mf=y}}

| birth_place = Madison, Wisconsin

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1959|09|27|1892|01|08|mf=y}}

| death_place = Cambridge, Massachusetts

| resting_place = Mount Auburn Cemetery

| residence =

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| fields = Labor economics

| workplaces = Harvard University

| alma_mater = University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Chicago

| doctoral_advisor = Harry A. Millis

| doctoral_students =

| known_for =

| Father =

}}

Sumner Huber Slichter (January 8, 1892 – September 27, 1959) was an American economist and the first Lamont University Professor at Harvard University. An expert on unions and economic forecasting, he was well known to the public through his popular writing, and was considered by many to be the pre-eminent labor economist of the 1940s and 1950s.[http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/UW/UW-idx?type=div&did=UW.V58I13.I0009&isize=text The University: Wisconsin alumnus (Volume 58, Number 13): Four brothers][https://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=L39CLsvn5vyKVClsjpP7QWlKkDzT97DbpKHVCHhqZv9T6HlXQ5mv!-1989033093?docId=5000453729 How Did Economics Get That Way and What Way Did It Get?][http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=hb4t1nb6tk&doc.view=content&chunk.id=div005&toc.depth=1&brand=calisphere&anchor.id=0 The Consequences of the Abrogation of Tenure: An Accounting of Costs, Feb. 1, 1951] He was an advocate of collective bargaining, but at times supported legislation limiting unions.{{cite thesis |last=Elrod |first=Andrew Y. |date=2021 |title=Stabilization Politics in the Twentieth-Century United States: Corporatism, Democracy, and Economic Planning, 1945-1980 |degree=PhD |publisher=University of California Santa Barbara}} He was also a critic of the New Deal.{{cite web| title = Sumner Huber Slichter, 1892-1959| publisher = History of Economic Thought| url = https://www.hetwebsite.net/het/profiles/slichter.htm| date = | accessdate = 16 August 2020}}{{cite web| title = Slichter, Sumner Huber| publisher = Great Soviet Encyclopedia| url = https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Sumner+Huber+Slichter| date = | accessdate = 16 August 2020}}

Background

Sumner Huber Slichter was born on January 8, 1892, in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of Charles Sumner Slichter, a mathematician and dean of the graduate school at the University of Wisconsin.[http://www.housing.wisc.edu/halls/history.html Division of University Housing – History of the Residence Halls] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080326213924/http://www.housing.wisc.edu/halls/history.html |date=2008-03-26 }} In 1913, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin and went on to earn a doctorate at the University of Chicago.

Career

In 1919, Slichter taught at Princeton University. In 1920, he began teaching at Cornell University. In 1930, he moved to Harvard. After Harvard president James Bryant Conant created university professorships, not tied to any particular department, in 1936, Slichter was named the inaugural Lamont University Professor. He remained at Harvard through the end of his career. Slichter received an honorary degree from Harvard in 1942.[http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hua04006#tar_S Harvard University. Photographs : portrait files : an inventory]

A regular lecturer and contributor to magazines such as Harper's,{{Cite web |url=http://www.publicagenda.com/forgiveusourdebts/pdfs/The_Big_Postwar_Story_final%20_Journalism_History_article.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2008-07-12 |archive-date=2016-03-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303175230/http://www.publicagenda.com/forgiveusourdebts/pdfs/The_Big_Postwar_Story_final%20_Journalism_History_article.pdf |url-status=dead }} Slichter was arguably the best-known economist in America at the peak of his career.Preface, {{cite book |title=Potentials of the American Economy: Selected Essays of Sumner Slichter |author=John T. Dunlap |year=1961 |publisher=Harvard University Press |asin=B000RKYUCW }} Slichter's textbook, Modern Economic Society, was a standard introductory economics textbook in America before 1950.

Slichter was president of the American Economic Association in 1941.[http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/schools/aea.htm American Economic Association] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516052658/http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/schools/aea.htm |date=2008-05-16 }} He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1946.{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Sumner+Slichter&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2023-03-21 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}

Though critical of substantial portions of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's economic policy, Slichter served as an informal economic adviser to Harry Truman.[http://www.empireclubfoundation.com/details.asp?SpeechID=718&FT=yes Johnson, Dr. Harry G., Should Gold be Scrapped?]

Views

Slichter was skeptical of the New Deal as a means to provide full employment, arguing that a government guarantee of full employment created perverse incentives for employees.[http://www.ssa.gov/history/biggeoral.html Social Security Online History Pages]

As World War II drew to a close, most economists predicted that with an end to government spending on the war, the economy would collapse again. Slichter correctly predicted that with soldiers coming home seeking a normal life and material pleasures, the economy would grow strongly after the end of the war and that inflation would be a greater cause for concern than depression.[http://129.3.20.41/eps/mhet/papers/0405/0405006.pdf MDY04003.dvi] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070706174938/http://129.3.20.41/eps/mhet/papers/0405/0405006.pdf |date=2007-07-06 }}

{{cite news

| url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,791589,00.html

| publisher = Time

| title=The Prospects

| date=1944-07-24

| access-date=2021-07-23}}

{{cite news

| url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,799279,00.html

| publisher=Time

| title=The Old Question

| date=1948-10-04 | access-date=2021-07-23}}

Slichter was the first major economist to recognize that the pool of labor from comparably skilled workers was not unified across the economy but rather segmented by industry, with supply and demand curves varying as a function of the industry's profitability.[http://www.aimlesslychasing.com/?p=307.html AimlesslyChasingAmy » Blog Archive » Math: Sebok vs. Haxton and Poker’s Rose]

Personal life

Slichter was the brother of geophysicist Louis B. Slichter,{{cite news|title=Four Slichters Honored |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/42070426/sumner_slichter_18921959/ |newspaper=Wisconsin State Journal |date=May 4, 1957 |page=1 |via = Newspapers.com |accessdate=January 11, 2020}} {{Open access}} father of physicist Charles Pence Slichter, and the grandfather of musician Jacob Slichter.

Slichter died in 1959 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.{{cite news |title=Sumner H. Slichter of Harvard Dies |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57500202/sumner-slichter-1892-1959/ |work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |date=September 28, 1959 |location=St. Louis, MO |page=19 |accessdate=August 17, 2020 |via=Newspapers.com}} {{Open access}}{{cite news |title=Sumner H. Slichter, 67, Dies; Famed Economist, Local Native |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57500445/sumner-slichter-1892-1959/ |work=The Capital Times |date=September 28, 1959 |location=Madison, WI |page=1 |accessdate=August 17, 2020 |via=Newspapers.com}} {{Open access}}

Works

Books: His books include:

Turnover of factory labor (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1919)
Modern economic society, a survey of the existing economic order with particular reference to the United States (Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards brothers, 1926)
Modern economic society (New York: IBAA, 1941)
The outlook for private enterprise in America (New York: H. Holt, 1931){{cite book|first=Sumner Huber |last=Slichter|author-link=Sumner Slichter|title=The outlook for private enterprise in America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oE_OAAAAMAAJ|year=1941|publisher=Investment Bankers Association of America}}
Union Policies and Industrial Management (Washington, DC : Brookings Institution, 1941)
Union Policies and Industrial Management (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968)
Union Policies and Industrial Management (New York: Arno, 1969)
Present savings and postwar markets (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1943)
American economic and business foundation: Summary view of American economic policies with Robert D. Calkins, J. Franklin Ebersole (New Wilmington, PA: Economic and Business Foundation, 1943)
New pattern of labor relations with Sam A. Lewisohn, Robert J. Watt (New York: American Management Association, 1944)
Challenge of Industrial Relations (1946)
Basic Criteria Used in Wage Determination (1947)
Trade Unions in a Free Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1947, 1948)
American Economy: Its Problems and Prospects (1948)
American Economy: Its Problems and Prospects (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1979)
What's Ahead for American Business (Boston: Little, Brown, 1951)
Productivity: Still Going Up (New York: New York Public Library, 1952)
Impact of Collective Bargaining on Management with James J. Healy, E. Robert Livernash (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1960)
Potentials of the American economy; selected essays edited by John T. Dunlop (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961)
Economic Growth in the United States: Its History, Problems, and Prospects edited by John T. Dunlop (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1961)
Economic Growth in the United States: Its History, Problems, and Prospects edited by John T. Dunlop (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1981)
Union Policies and Industrial Management (1968)

Articles: Slichter's scholarly articles include:

"The Worker in Modern Economic Society" (review), Journal of Political Economy (1926)

{{cite journal

| first = Sumner H.

| last = Slichter

| author-link = Sumner Slichter

| title = The Worker in Modern Economic Society

| journal = Journal of Political Economy

| publisher = University of Chicago

| url = https://doi.org/10.1086/253740

| date = 1926

| volume = 34

| pages = 100–124

| doi = 10.1086/253740

| s2cid = 153574589

| accessdate = 16 August 2020| url-access = subscription

}}

"The Current Labor Policies of American Industries," Quarterly Journal of Economics (1929)

{{cite journal

| first = Sumner H.

| last = Slichter

| author-link = Sumner Slichter

| title = The Current Labor Policies of American Industries

| journal = Quarterly Journal of Economics

| publisher = Oxford University Press

| url = https://doi.org/10.1086/253740

| pages = 393–435

| date = May 1929

| volume = 34

| issue = 1

| doi = 10.1086/253740

| s2cid = 153574589

| accessdate = 31 December 2020| url-access = subscription

}}

"Should the Budget be Balanced?" The New Republic (1932)

{{cite magazine

| first = Sumner H.

| last = Slichter

| author-link = Sumner Slichter

| title = Should the Budget be Balanced?

| magazine = The New Republic

| url = https://newrepublic.com/article/83824/slichter-budgets-depression-1932

| date = 1926

| accessdate = 16 August 2020}}

"New Wisdom for a New Age: Review of Keynes's Essays in Persuasion," The New Republic (1932)
"The Changing Character of American Industrial Relations," American Economic Review (1939)
"What do the Strikes Teach Us?" The Atlantic Monthly (1946)

{{cite journal

| first = Sumner H.

| last = Slichter

| author-link = Sumner Slichter

| title = What do the Strikes Teach Us?

| journal = The Atlantic Monthly

| url = https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/46may/slichter.htm

| date = 1926

| accessdate = 16 August 2020}}