Background
Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman was born on April 25, 1861, in New York. He was the son of Joseph Seligman, founder and head of private international banking house, and Babette (Steinhardt) Seligman.
111 Jesse Hall, Columbia, MO 65211
Seligman attended Columbia University.
United States, State of New York, New York County, New York, 93rd West Street
Edwin studied at Columbia Grammar School.
Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman was born on April 25, 1861, in New York. He was the son of Joseph Seligman, founder and head of private international banking house, and Babette (Steinhardt) Seligman.
Edwin, the eighth of nine children, was educated at home until he turned eleven, at which time he entered Columbia Grammar School.
Seligman attended Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1879 with a Bachelor of Arts. He continued his studies in Europe, attending courses for three years at the universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, Geneva, and Paris. He earned his Master of Arts and Bachelor of Laws degrees in 1885 and successfully defended a Ph.D. in 1885. He later was awarded a Doctor of Laws in 1904.
After his graduation, Seligman began his teaching career, first as a prize lecturer, then adjunct professor of political economy, and finally as a full professor of political economy and finance in 1891. Seligman’s most famous course at Columbia was the history of economic thought. He became the chairman of the Department of Economics and Social Science in 1901 and was made the first McVickar Professor of Political Economy three years after that. Seligman also founded the Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law in 1891. The studies published student dissertations, and Seligman edited the series for twenty-nine years.
In 1906 Seligman published his textbook, Principles of Economics: With Special Reference to American Conditions, which espoused the marginalist views introduced to Seligman by Columbia colleague John Bates Clark. In 1902, he helped found Greenwich House, a social settlement, and served as chairman of the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes (renamed the National Urban League) from 1911-1914. His support of the Educational Alliance helped Eastern European Jewish immigrants in New York.
Edwin founded the American Association of University Professors and led an American Economic Association investigation of the dismissal of reform advocate Edward A. Ross by Stanford University; in 1901 the Association issued a condemnation of Ross’s dismissal.
Throughout his career, Seligman operated in a moderate zone between socialism and laissez-faire capitalism. As treasurer and then president (1902-1903) of the American Economic Association, Seligman steered the organization away from its socialist leanings and convinced it to drop its statement of principles. This opened the Association to more professionals from a broader base of theoretical and ideological perspectives. Among the first Americans to thoroughly study Karl Marx’s work, Seligman approved of Marx’s economic interpretation of history but disagreed with his economic theorizing and his connection between socialism and an economic perspective on history. On the other ideological side, Seligman defended the government’s role in a healthy economy and supported policies regarding child labor, minimum wages, maximum hours, and social insurance.
Seligman’s economic ideas were informed as much by his ethics as by his sense of history and context. He engaged himself in a number of humanitarian causes, co-founding a company that built low-rent tenements, financing a tailor cooperative in New York, and defending unionists’ rights. Seligman was also a staunch defender of academic freedom.
Seligman’s idea of the social sciences reflected his broad, Catholic interests and his belief in the interconnectedness of all facets of society.
Through his moderate views, he helped develop the discipline economic history by advocating the importance of economics in history, and the importance of context in economics. As the son of a German Jewish immigrant, Seligman also brought a new perspective to the previous New England Anglo-Saxon views in academics. He was scornful of the notion that Puritan character had determined American strength, health and achievements, insisting that economic conditions had a great deal more to do with the development of this country. Seligman had great faith in American progress, believing that science and technology could bring peace, harmony, independence, justice and prosperity to the world.
Edwin Seligman was a member of the Society for Ethical Culture, American Economic Association, Committee of Fifteen, New York Bureau of Municipal Research, National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes, American Association of University Professors and City Club.
Seligman was well-versed in the classics. He could read German, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Dutch, and his wide range of interests informed his ideas about economics and history.
On July 18, 1939, Seligman died of coronary thrombosis in his Lake Placid, New York, summer home. Though not considered a significant economic scholar, he made a great impression on popular opinion as a public intellectual.
In 1888, Seligman married Caroline Beer. They had four children: Eustace, Mabel, Violet and Hazel.