14 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



Among the manj^ departments of research estabhshed by the 



Institution the one devoted to economics and sociology is excep- 



, tional. All the other departments have been 



Discontinuance of . i «• • -i 



the Department of COnducted b}^ directors and staffs primarily con- 

 Economics and nected with and under salaries from the Insti- 

 ocio ogy. tution ; the Department of Economics and Soci- 

 ology, on the other hand, was conducted by a board of distin- 

 guished collaborators primarily connected in most instances with 

 other establishments and serving the Institution in most instances 

 without compensation. This Board was under the chairmanship 

 of a Trustee of the Institution, Dr. Carroll D. Wright, from the 

 date of authorization in January 1904 until his deaih in January- 

 1909. Thereafter the duties of this office were assumed by Pro- 

 fessor Henry W. Farnam, who had previously served as secretary 

 of the Board. The collaborators undertook the task, alike laud- 

 able and arduous, of disco veiy and exposition of the sources and 

 materials for an economic history of the United States. The 

 work was divided into twelve sections which v/ere assigned sev- 

 erally to as maii}^ investigators, and these were aided in turn 

 by numerous assistants drawn chiefly from graduate schools of 

 colleges and universities to which a majority of the collaborators 

 were primarily attached. 



Without going further into the details of the history of this 

 department, since most of them are already recorded in the Year 

 Books of the Institution, it msiy be said that the organization 

 proved to be administratively unsatisfactorj^ both to the Institu- 

 tion and to the board of collaborators. Hence, in conformitj^ 

 with mutual assent, the department was discontinued by resolu- 

 tion of the Trustees voted at their meeting of December 1916. 



In justice to this department it is proper to state in this his- 

 torical connection that three of the divisions have completed their 

 reports, in whole or in part, and that these have been issued by 

 the Institution during the past two years under the general title 

 "Contributions to American Economic History," as publications 

 Nos. 21 5a, 215b, and 215c. In addition to these more formal 

 reports, elaborate indexes of the economic material in the docu- 

 ments of several states of the United States have been prepared 

 for publication under the joint auspices of the department and 

 the New York Public Library. The preparation of the manu- 



