Alexander Gerschenkron was for many years a Professor of
Economic History at Harvard. I knew him
because he was a member of the faculty committee that created the Social
Studies undergraduate concentration, of which I served as the first Head Tutor
in 1960-61. One day, when I was meeting
with him about Social Studies business, I mentioned that on a recent train trip
from New York to Boston I had gone to a nearly deserted bar car for a cup of
coffee and there, at the other end of the car, had been sitting none other than
the immortal Ted Williams. I thought
this would puzzle Gershenkron, a deadly serious scholar with a heavy European
accent. “Oh yes,” he replied, “Ted is a
good friend of mine.”
I just typed "Alexander Gerschenkron" into the JSTOR search box (for a couple of reasons, both somewhat whimsical, for lack of a better word).
ReplyDeleteThe third item that came up in that search is a 6-page reminiscence of Gerschenkron as teacher (published in The American Scholar, 1992) by Donald McCloskey (now Deirdre McCloskey), who encountered Gerschenkron as an economics grad student.
I skimmed through the piece quickly and there is an entire paragraph about Gerschenkron and Ted Williams -- amusing -- a bit too cumbersome (or more precisely I don't want to bother) to reproduce here. (The paragraph is based on a story about this that D. McCloskey was told by his father, who apparently was the Harvard govt prof Robert McCloskey.)
Anyway you might find The American Scholar piece of interest if you have access to JSTOR (which I assume you do, and on the off-chance you don't I can tell you how to get such access).
Sorry -- guess I should have written "that D. McCloskey was told by her father" -- except that she was still "he" when The American Scholar piece was written.
ReplyDeleteMy God! I knew Robert McCloskey. I have several nice stories about my time at Harvard that involve him. It was through Bob McCloskey that I met Zbigniew Bzrezinski. It is indeed a small world.
ReplyDelete