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Collection Overview

Creator:
Hirschman, Albert O.
Title:
Albert O. Hirschman Papers
Repository:
Public Policy Papers
Permanent URL:
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/8w32r5629
Dates:
1900-2008 (mostly 1950-2000)
Size:
84 boxes
Storage Note:
  • Mudd Manuscript Library (scamudd): Box 1-84

Abstract

Albert O. Hirschman (1915- ) was a leading scholar in the field of economic development whose work focused on Latin America but encompassed the globe. He was a professor at Yale, Columbia, Harvard, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Hirschman's papers document his scholarship on economic development and his academic career and include his correspondence written while he was at the Institute for Advanced Study, his writings, and his research notes and materials, especially related to his work in Latin America and for the World Bank.

Collection Description & Creator Information

Scope and Contents

Hirschman's papers document his scholarship on economic development and his academic career and include his correspondence written while he was at the Institute for Advanced Study, his writings, and his research notes and materials, especially related to his work in Latin America and for the World Bank. The papers also include biographical materials and papers related to his travels for conferences, to give lectures, and to conduct research.

Please see the series descriptions in the contents list for additional information about individual series.

Arrangement

The Papers have been arranged in seven series:

Collection Creator Biography:

Hirschman, Albert O.

Albert O. Hirschman (1915- ) was a leading scholar in the field of economic development whose work focused on Latin America but encompassed the globe. He was a professor at Yale, Columbia, Harvard, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. His work made important contributions to economics, the history of ideas, and the social sciences, and also provided insight into discussions of the economic reasons for changes in Latin American governments from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Albert Otto Hirschman was born in Berlin, Germany on April 7, 1915 to Carl and Hedwig Hirschmann. He lived and studied in Berlin, including at the University of Berlin from 1932 to 1933, until he moved to France in 1933. He studied at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales and Institut de Statistique, Sorbonne in Paris from 1933 to 1935, where he earned diplomas. He then studied at the London School of Economics from 1935 to 1936 as an International Student Service Fellow. He attended the University of Trieste from 1936 to 1938, where he earned his doctorate in economics in 1938. Hirschman was an economist at the Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales and Institut International de Cooperation Intellectuelle in Paris from 1938 to 1939.

While completing his education, Hirschman became increasingly involved in the fight against fascism in Europe. He fought in the French Army against Nazi occupation in 1940 and in 1941 emigrated to the United States, where he would become a naturalized citizen, to avoid arrest. Hirschman married Sarah Chapiro on June 22, 1941 and they had two daughters, Catherine Jane and Elisabeth Nicole. In the United States, Hirschman was a Rockefeller fellow in international economics at the University of California, Berkeley from 1941 to 1943 before joining the United States Army. He served in the Army from 1943 to 1945, and then served as economist for the Federal Reserve Board from 1946 to 1952.

Hirschman next traveled to Colombia to serve as financial advisor to the National Planning Board of Colombia from 1952 to 1954, and then worked as a private economic advisor with George Kalmanoff in Bogotá, Colombia from 1954 to 1956. Hirschman returned to the United States in 1956, accepting a position at Yale as Irving Fisher Research Professor from 1956 to 1957 and continuing as a visiting research professor of economics until 1958. He was also a consultant for the Rockefeller Foundation from 1957 to 1958. He moved to Columbia University in 1958, where he was professor of international economic relations until 1964. During this time, he was also director of the Latin America Project of the Twentieth Century Fund from 1960 to 1963 and a member of the Board of Editors of the American Economic Review from 1961 to 1964.

Hirschman spent the next ten years of his academic career at Harvard University, where he was professor of political economy from 1964 to 1967 and the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Political Economy from 1967 to 1974. He was also a Ford Foundation Faculty Research Fellow from 1964 to 1965 and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavior Sciences in Stanford, California from 1968 to 1969. In addition, he was the study director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institute from 1964 to 1966 and chairman of the SSRC-ACLS Joint Committee on Latin American Studies from 1973 to 1976.

Hirschman's last career move was to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He was a visiting member from 1972 to 1973, and in 1974 accepted a position as a professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute. Hirschman transferred to emeritus status in 1985, a position he still retained as of May 2007. While at the Institute, he was also active in other pursuits, serving as a consultant and as a member of several executive committees. Hirschman was also a fellow at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin from 1990 to 1991 and visiting fellow there from 1991 to 1994 and in 2000. In honor of his achievements, the Institute for Advanced Study established the Albert O. Hirschman Chair in Economics on May 1, 2000.

During his career, Hirschman authored numerous books and articles, which have been translated into many languages. Among his important works are The Strategy of Economic Development (1958), Exit, Voice and Loyalty (1970), A Bias for Hope: Essays on Development and Latin America (1971), The Passions and the Interests (1977), and Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action (1982). The Strategy of Economic Development outlines the beginnings of Hirschman's economic development theories, which challenged the uniform doctrinal prescriptions of the time and advocated for considering each case individually, offering economic development strategies that worked with the local resources and structures.

Hirschman was the recipient of numerous awards and honors from institutions worldwide for his scholarly accomplishments. He received nineteen honorary degrees and was awarded the Order of San Carlos from the government of Colombia in 1995 and the Order of the Southern Cross from the Presidency of Brazil in 2000. For his contributions to political economy and social science, he was awarded the Frank E. Seidman award in 1980, the Talcott Parsons prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1983, and the Thomas Jefferson Medal from the American Philosophical Society and the Toynbee prize in 1998. In 2003, he won the Benjamin E. Lippincott Award from the American Political Science Association for The Passions and The Interests, an award given for a work by a political theorist that is still significant at least fifteen years after its publication. Hirschman was also a member of several learned societies, including the Academy of Sciences Berlin-Brandenburg, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Economic Association (fellow), the American Philosophical Society, the Berliner Wissenschaftlich Gesellschaft (Scientific Society of Berlin), the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Academy of Sciences, the British Academy (corresponding fellow), and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (foreign member).

Collection History

Acquisition:

This collection was donated by Albert O. Hirschman in 1988 , with additions in 2003 [ML.2003.003] and December 2005 [ML.2005.020]. An addition was received from Sarah Hirschman, wife of Albert O. Hirschman, in May 2007 [ML.2007.013]. Jeremy Adelman, Professor of History at Princeton University, also contributed materials in 2009 [ML.2009.020], 2010 [ML.2010.032], 2012 [ML.2012.032], and 2018 [ML.2018.001]. The manuscript in Box 84 was donated by Suzanne Jaworski Rhodenbaugh in 2018 [ML.2018.006].

Appraisal

In 2007, duplicate materials and letters of recommendation written by Hirschman were separated from this collection and destroyed. Publications were removed to be cataloged separately at the Pliny Fisk Library of Economics and Finance at Princeton University. A file of information about Luis E. Nieto Arteta was separated from the October 2009 accession and destroyed.

Twenty-five diskettes were removed from the materials received in the July 2012 accession. These diskettes duplicated material in Hirschman's paper collections and in at least one case contained viruses. No materials were removed from the 2018 donation.

Sponsorship:

These papers were processed with the generous support of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the John Foster and Janet Avery Dulles Fund.

Processing Information

This collection was processed by Adriane Hanson, Christopher Shannon, and Karen Okigbo in 2006-2007. Finding aid written by Adriane Hanson in April 2006. Finding aid revised by Adriane Hanson in October 2007. The January 2008 and January 2010 accessions were integrated into the collection and the finding aid was updated accordingly. The July 2012 accession was added to the collection as Series 6: July 2012 Accession. A folder list was created for this series and the finding aid was updated at this time. Materials in the 2018 donations were added by Rachel Van Unen.

Access & Use

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research use.

Conditions Governing Use

Single copies may be made for research purposes. To cite or publish quotations that fall within Fair Use, as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission is required. For instances beyond Fair Use, any copyright vested in the donor has passed to The Trustees of Princeton University and researchers do not need to obtain permission, complete any forms, or receive a letter to move forward with use of donor-created materials within the collection. For materials in the collection not created by the donor, or where the material is not an original, the copyright is likely not held by the University. In these instances, it is the responsibility of the researcher to determine whether any permissions related to copyright, privacy, publicity, or any other rights are necessary for their intended use of the Library's materials, and to obtain all required permissions from any existing rights holders, if they have not already done so. Princeton University Library's Special Collections does not charge any permission or use fees for the publication of images of materials from our collections. The department does request that its collections be properly cited and images credited. More detailed information can be found on the Copyright, Credit and Citations Guidelines page on our website. If you have a question about who owns the copyright for an item, you may request clarification by contacting us through the Ask Us! form.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.

Credit this material:

Albert O. Hirschman Papers; Public Policy Papers, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library

Permanent URL:
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/8w32r5629
Location:
Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library
65 Olden Street
Princeton, NJ 08540, USA
(609) 258-6345
Storage Note:
  • Mudd Manuscript Library (scamudd): Box 1-84

Find More

Related Materials

This collection is part of a group of 28 Mudd Manuscript Library collections related to 20th century economic thought and development which were processed as part of a National Historical Publications and Records Commission funded project. Researchers wishing to access these collections should search for the subject "Economics--20th century" or related terms in the Princeton University Library Main Catalog. Collections at the Mudd Manuscript Library of particular relevance to the Albert O. Hirschman Papers are the papers of W. Arthur Lewis, another scholar prominent in the field of economic development, and the papers of Edwin W. Kemmerer, who advised several Latin American countries during the 1920s.

Bibliography

The following materials were consulted during preparation of biographical note: "Albert O. Hirschman, 1915-" in the History of Economic Thought. http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/ Accessed April 25, 2006. Albert Otto Hirschman Profile, Marquis Who's Who on the Web. http://search.marquiswhoswho.com Accessed April 15, 2006. "Amherst College Commencement Honorands 1994, Albert O. Hirschman," Amherst College website. http://www.amherst.edu/ Accessed April 25, 2006. "Hirschman, Albert Otto" in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, edited by John Eatwell, Murray Milgate, and Peter Newman: Macmillian Reference LTD, 1998. Institute for Advanced Study School of Social Science website. http://www.sss.ias.edu/ Accessed April 25, 2006.

Subject Terms:
Economic development projects -- Developing countries -- Evaluation.
Economic development projects -- Latin America -- Evaluation.
Economic development.
Economics -- 20th century.
Economists -- United States.
Genre Terms:
Articles.
Correspondence
Field notes.
Reports.
Writings.
Names:
World Bank.
Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, N.J.). School of Social Science
Hirschman, Albert O.
Places:
Developing countries -- Economic conditions -- 20th century.
Latin America -- Economic conditions -- 20th century.