Economics

Economics is a textbook by Henry Rogers Seager, the American economist who lived from 1870 to 1930 and who taught at Columbia University from 1902 until his death. Seager was one of the leading American economists of his generation and was substantially involved in the broader American Progressive economic and social reform movement of the early twentieth century.

The textbook belongs to the substantial body of early twentieth century American introductory economics textbooks that supported the rapid expansion of American college economics teaching during the period. Economics had been establishing itself as a substantial American academic discipline across the late nineteenth century, with the American Economic Association founded in 1885 and substantial growth in college economics departments across the following decades. The introductory textbook became one of the central genres of American economics teaching during the period, with various competing texts presenting the basic principles of economic analysis to undergraduate audiences.

Seager’s textbook covered the standard topics of early twentieth century introductory economics including the basic principles of supply and demand, the theory of value and price, the analysis of monetary and banking systems, the theory of capital and interest, the theory of distribution among the various factors of production, and the various applied subjects that the period required, including labour economics, public finance, international trade, and economic policy. The treatment generally reflected the developing American institutionalist and Progressive influence that distinguished American economics from the more strictly classical European traditions of the period.

Seager was particularly interested in labour economics and in the substantial social reform movements of the Progressive era. His work on workmen’s compensation, on industrial accident insurance, on the regulation of monopolies, and on various other Progressive era reform questions was substantially influential in American policy debate during the years before and after the First World War. The textbook reflects these reformist interests in its treatment of the various applied economic subjects, presenting the case for active government intervention in the economy alongside the more orthodox economic theory that the textbook genre required.

The book is of interest now to historians of American economics education, of the Progressive era reform movement, and of the development of American institutionalist economics in the early twentieth century. It pairs naturally with the work of John Bates Clark, Richard Ely, and the other leading American Progressive economists of the period.