American economist, born, of English parentage, in Paterson, NJ, on the 30th of October 1840. He was brought up in Hartford, CT, graduated at Yale College in 1863, studied French and Hebrew in Geneva in 18631864 and divinity and history at Göttingen in 18641866, and in 18661869 was a tutor at Yale. He was ordained a priest of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1869, was assistant rector of Calvary Church, New York City, and in 18701872 was rector of the Church of the Redeemer, Morristown, NJ. From 1872 to 1909, when he became professor emeritus, he was professor of political and social science at Yale. In 1909 he was president of the American Sociological Society. He died at Englewood, NJ, on the 12th of April 1910.
He was notable especially as an opponent of protectionism, and was a great teacher. He wrote History of American Currency (1874); Lectures on the History of Protection in the United States (1875); Life of Andrew Jackson (1882), in the American Statesmen Series; What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883); Collected Essays in Political and Social Sciences (1885); Protectionism (1885); Alexander Hamilton (1891), and Robert Morris (1891), in the Makers of America Series; The Financier and Finances of the American Revolution (2 vols., 1891); A History of Banking in the United States (1896); and Folkways: a Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores and Morals (1907), a valuable sociological summary. (See authored article: Andrew Jackson.)