Abram Lincoln Harris facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Abram Lincoln Harris, Jr.
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| Born | January 17, 1899 |
| Died | November 6, 1963 (aged 64) |
| Occupation | Economist, academic, anthropologist |
| Spouse(s) | 2 |
| Children | 1 |
Abram Lincoln Harris, Jr. (January 17, 1899 – November 6, 1963) was an important American economist and academic. He was also a social critic who thought deeply about the lives of Black people in the United States. Many people see him as the first African American to become famous in the field of economics.
Harris also greatly influenced ideas about Black radical and conservative thought in the U.S. As an economist, he is well-known for his 1931 book, The Black Worker, which he wrote with Sterling Spero. This book studied the history of African-American labor. His 1936 book, The Negro as Capitalist, criticized Black business owners for not working more with people of all races. He led the economics department at Howard University from 1936 to 1945. Later, he was a professor at the University of Chicago until he passed away.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Abram Harris was born on January 17, 1899, in Richmond, Virginia. His family was middle-class. His father worked as a butcher, and his mother was a schoolteacher. Harris learned German from the owner of his father's meat shop. This skill helped him later when he studied the ideas of German economists like Karl Marx.
After serving in World War I, Harris finished his degree. He graduated from Virginia Union University in 1922 with a Bachelor of Science. He then earned a master's degree in economics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1924. His master's paper, The Negro Laborer in Pittsburgh, began his lifelong study of African-American workers.
Career Highlights
Harris wrote articles for the National Urban League's journal, Opportunity. These articles talked about the challenges faced by African-American mineworkers. He also wrote about how white workers treated Black workers.
While teaching at West Virginia State University, Harris became friends with V. F. Calverton. After a year, he became the director of the Minneapolis Urban League. There, he wrote a detailed report called The Negro Population in Minneapolis. This report looked at the living conditions of African Americans in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1926. He used facts and surveys to show the divide between Black and white workers.
Harris then started his PhD in economics at Columbia University. In 1927, he joined the faculty at Howard University. At Howard, he worked with Ralph Bunche and E. Franklin Frazier. Together, they challenged older ideas about race.
Studies on Labor and Race
Harris wrote his PhD paper about the divide between African-American and white workers. In 1930, he became the second African American to get a doctorate in Economics in the U.S. The first was Sadie Mossell Alexander.
In 1931, he worked with political scientist Sterling Spero. They turned his PhD paper into a famous book, The Black Worker, the Negro & the Labor Movement. Harris believed that African Americans should help create a political party for working-class people. He did not like other ideas like rebellion or the Back-to-Africa movements. He called these movements "Negro Zionism."
In The Black Worker, Spero and Harris argued that African Americans could end racial conflict in the working class. They wrote about how racial problems between white and Black people started during slavery. They explained that many African Americans had recently moved to cities. They were not always aware of trade unions and their benefits. They also said that groups like the National Urban League had anti-union views. These views added to the racial division in the working class.
Changing Views and Criticisms
Harris, along with Frazier and Bunche, challenged older leaders at the NAACP conference in 1933. In 1935, Harris wrote a report called the Harris Report. It suggested that the NAACP should take a stronger stand on race relations.
As the Great Depression continued, Harris's radical ideas changed. He later wrote that he was "emerging from a state of social rebellion." He still had some socialist ideas in the late 1920s.
In 1936, he published his most famous economics book, The Negro as Capitalist: A Study of Banking and Business. In this book, Harris wrote about the growing dislike for businesses during the Great Depression. He argued that Black business owners wrongly believed in racial unity between Black and white people. He felt that Black Americans needed to join trade unions with white business owners. He believed that Black businesses would not grow without working with people of all races. He said that Black business owners sometimes focused only on Black customers. This limited their growth and prevented them from seeing bigger opportunities.
Despite his strong criticisms, Harris's book became well-known in economics during the Great Depression. In 1937, Harris started the Social Science Division at Howard University. He led this group through the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Later Career and Legacy
In 1945, Harris left Howard and moved to the University of Chicago. He became one of the first African-American professors in a high position at a historically white university. This move was helped by economist Frank Knight. Knight was a founder of the famous Chicago School of economics. Knight had been publishing Harris's papers since the late 1920s.
At Chicago, Harris's economic ideas also changed. His writings became more focused on traditional economics. His earlier support for Karl Marx and other radical economists turned into critical studies of their work.
Harris also worried about the Soviet Union's strict government under Joseph Stalin. He wrote about this in works like Black Communist in Dixie. However, Harris stopped writing about race for the rest of his career. He stayed at the University of Chicago until he passed away on November 18, 1963.
Legacy
Harris is best known for his work as an economist and a critic of African-American business. He greatly influenced both radical and conservative Black thought. He received the Guggenheim Fellowship for Economics multiple times. Harris was a leader in Black economics in the early and mid-20th century.
His early books, like The Negro as Capitalist, set the stage for modern African-American radical ideas. His many works on race relations, such as The Black Worker, served as a guide for future African-American studies. His essays in The Journal of Political Economy were important for economists who study the history of economic ideas. He is still seen as one of the first African Americans to become famous in academics in the early 1900s. He was also a very influential person on many topics important to African Americans.
Texts online
- 1942 "Sombart and German (National) Socialism", Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 50, No. 6 (Dec., 1942), pp. 805–835
