How did Baldy Harper slip down the memory hole?
Floyd Arthur "Baldy" Harper (1905-1973) was a Cornell University professor and member of the Mont Pelerin Society. He helped start up the Foundation for Economic Education, codirected the William Volker Fund, and founded the Institute for Humane Studies.
At Harper's death, Murray Rothbard wrote,
Ever since he came to the Foundation for Economic Education in 1946 as its chief economist and theoretician, Baldy Harper, in a very real sense, has been the libertarian movement. For all these years, this gentle and lovable man, this wise and Socratic teacher, has been the heart and soul and nerve center of the libertarian cause.
So why is it so hard to find any information about him online?
He founded the Institute for Humane Studies, but their website says almost nothing about him.
Wikipedia mentions him in relation to the Volker Fund, the IHS, and Sir Antony Fisher, but on each of those pages his name is a red link.
Comments (3)
Ohhh Henry
You can paste this exact article into Wikipedia as the first draft of his bio entry. It will take the same amount of time as it took to add this to the LvMI blog, plus a bit of time to add a bibliography (if any) plus cross links with articles on Cornell, Mont Pelerin, FEE, etc. and add him to one or two categories like "Economists of the Austrian School" (or whatever).
If LvMI has a few bucks, it would be worthwhile to hire one of your summer-school graduates as a part-time job or internship, to thoroughly update Wikipedia with more and better information derived from LvMI. I'll bet that there are hundreds and hundreds of Wiki articles which could be improved by adding more info/references based on LvMI sources.
Published: September 29, 2009 1:49 PM
Adam Martin
Baldy is under-appreciated. However, I have seen an IHS Baldy shirt, and GMU econ. has an endowed Baldy chair, so he is not completely forgotten.
Published: September 29, 2009 2:08 PM
Christoph Kohring
Time for the LvMI to put F.A. Harper's two-volume collected works online, sez I... ;o)
Floyd Arthur Harper, "The Writings of F.A. Harper (Volume 1: The Major Works; Volume 2: Shorter Essays)", Menlo Park, CA: Institute for Humane Studies, 1978 ISBN 0-89617-000-4 (Set) ISBN 0-89617-001-2 (Volume 1) ISBN 0-89617-002-0 (Volume 2)
Unfortunately & strangely not available at the LvMI's Ward Massey Library... :o(
Christoph, bibliomaniac at the foot of the Mont-Pèlerin
Published: September 30, 2009 2:40 PM