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Preface and acknowledgments to this edition

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Dec, 2002

THIS STUDY WAS originally a 1985 Ph.D. dissertation prepared for the Department of Economics at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. In 1987 Westview Press of Boulder, Colorado published a thoroughly edited version of the study with its original title, Harry Gunnison Brown: Economist. This title was chosen to bring Brown's contributions as an economist into contemporary focus. Brown will be best remembered as one of the very few academic economists of roughly the first half of the twentieth century to champion what he saw as Henry George's greatest legacy: his land value taxation proposal. Yet it is a contention of this book that Brown's other work merits reconsideration as well.

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The nature of the study has a biographical dimension that has limitations: Brown left no personal papers, diaries or correspondence. In addition, almost all the people with whom I conversed or corresponded knew him only during or after his late fifties. I did not personally know Dr. Brown. The correspondence that I reference in the study is located at the Yale University Library (Irving Fisher and James Harvey Rogers Papers) and at the University of Missouri Library in the University of Missouri Western Historical Manuscripts Collection. (Letters to and from Brown are preserved as departmental correspondence.) All other related correspondence that I have listed as "Personal Files" in the Endnotes and Bibliography will be transferred to the above collection in Columbia, Missouri.

The 1987 edition and, perhaps more so, this revision is from beginning to end a sympathetic study of Brown. I began my research with only a vague recollection of a 1939 JPE article by him and a skeptical reading of George's Progress and Poverty in a graduate course. I was influenced not only by my readings but also by the opinions of others, many of whom did not know Brown personally, either.

In retrospect my acknowledgements in the first version of this study were overly terse. I would now like to extend my list of those who aided in this work either by help or encouragement. Bobbie Horn of Tulsa University suggested the topic to me. I found that Pinkney C. Walker of Missouri University had compiled a list of Brown's publications from 1907-1951. William Spellman of Coe College shared with me an independently derived, updated bibliography, and Elizabeth Read Brown (Brown's second wife) aided the Special Collections Department of the University of Missouri library in collecting copies of Brown's articles and pamphlets. In 1980, Paul Junk of the University of Minnesota-Duluth wrote a compelling biographical sketch of Brown in his "Preface" to Selected Articles by Harry Gunnison Brown: The Case for land Value Taxation. Alfred Kahn replied to a letter of inquiry about Brown with an astoundingly acute appreciation of him. Professors Dudley Luckett and Charles Meyer of Iowa State University were sympat hetic and helpful in the realization of the original version. Elizabeth Read Brown and Phillips Hamlin Brown (Brown's son) were helpful readers. Will Lissner was, I suspect, instrumental in the Westview publication, and Spencer Carr was a particularly enthusiastic editor. Mason Gaffney has been a very highly valued commentator over many years. Although I have had little or no connection with Georgist groups, I found the late Robert Clancy's review article to be a welcome source of encouragement. There remains a substantial number of economists who recognized or came to recognize Brown's worth as an economist, many of whom I have communicated with, and I once again extend my thanks for their help.

For the present edition of this study, I have attempted to expand and correct the original version and incorporate, although in limited fashion, new developments as they relate to Brown's contributions. Some of the added material was originally published in a 1997 AJES article titled "Harry Gunnison Brown's Advocacy: The Case He Made for Land Value Taxation 1917-1975." My principal acknowledgement for this opportunity, which I value very highly, is to the Board of Directors of the AJES and in particular to its editor, Laurence S. Moss. My final and most important acknowledgement is to one whom George Stigler called an "indulgent spouse." I would venture to change his adjective to "intelligent" and add her name, Helen.

Business Services Industry

Preface and acknowledgments to this edition

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Dec, 2002

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