Long-time Professor William N. Parker,
A Scholar of U.S. and European Economic History, Dies
William N. Parker, the Phillip G. Bartlett Professor Emeritus of Economics and
professor emeritus of American Studies at Yale, died on April 29. A memorial service was
held at Battell Chapel on May 5.
During his long career as a scholar, writer and teacher of economic history, Professor
Parker served as president of both the Economic History Association and the Agricultural
History Association. His many awards and honors include election to the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences in 1986 and the Economic History Association's Jonathan Hughes Prize
for Excellence in Teaching in 1995. He retired from Yale in 1989, but remained active in
his field.
Professor Parker's work in economic history spans the emergence and development of modern
capitalist institutions in Europe and the United States. He wrote about agrarian
transformation, changes in the technology and organization of manufacturing, the
geographical extension of markets and patterns of regional development.
Among the first in his field to make systematic use of quantitative data and statistical
methods, Professor Parker compiled and analyzed data from 19th-century census manuscripts
into a landmark study of inter-regional trade. As editor of the Journal of Economic
History in the 1960s, he presided over the flowering of quantitative research in economic
history. He also emphasized the importance of the social, political and cultural context
of economic research.
When a group of his former students published a festschrift in his honor in 1984
("Technique, Spirit and Form in the Making of the Modern Economies," edited by
Gary Saxonhouse and Gavin Wright), they noted, "No other economic historian has so
many admirers and well-wishers."
"Bill's grasp of the particular, rather than his quest for the general, made him not
only a great historian, but also a storyteller, a writer, a poet and an astute observer of
people," said President Richard C. Levin at the memorial service. "It is well
known that Bill was the most productive of mentors. His students occupy chairs in economic
history at Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley and Northwestern. But his influence as a teacher
and counselor extends far beyond economic history. In his 13 years as director of graduate
studies in economics at Yale, he touched hundreds of lives, exuding warmth and extending
kindness to every student while privately relishing their idiosyncrasies."
"He was a beloved teacher, respected and loved by students and colleagues," said
Merton Peck, the Thomas Dewitt Cuyler Professor of Economics at Yale. "He was noted
for his kindness, and also for the breadth and depth of his learning."
Mr. Parker was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1919. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1939
from Harvard College with a major in English. A National Scholar, he graduated magna cum
laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He then began graduate studies in economics at
Harvard, earning a master's degree in 1941.
World War II interrupted his studies. He left for Washington in the summer of 1941 to
serve in the mobilization effort with the Office of Production Management. He then served
in the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps from 1941 to 1943. From 1943 to 1945, he was an economic
analyst in the Office of Strategic Services in Europe, rising to the rank of major. He and
his college classmate, Richard Ruggles, were responsible for estimating the German
production of tanks and trucks based on an analysis of the serial numbers of captured
German equipment. (Years later, both he and Ruggles came to Yale, where they taught in the
same department for 27 years.)
When the war ended, Professor Parker worked as an economist for the U.S. Senate Committee
on Atomic Energy, and then as an economist in the State Department's Division of Research
for Europe. After two years of research in France and Germany, he was awarded a Ph.D. in
1951 from Harvard. He taught at Williams College and the University of North Carolina
before joining the Yale faculty in 1963.
Professor Parker is survived by his wife, Yvonne; a son, Jarrett; a daughter, Victoria;
and several grandchildren.
Yale and the Parker family have established the William N. Parker Scholarship Fund for a
graduate student in economics. Contributions can be sent to:
The William N. Parker Scholarship Fund
c/o Office of the President
Yale University
P.O. Box 208229
New Haven, CT, 06520 |
