Francis Amasa Walker

Francis Amasa Walker

Francis Amasa Walker (born July 2, 1840 in Boston , Massachusetts , † January 5, 1897 ) was an American general, statistician and economist .

Life

Francis Amasa Walker, son of the politician Amasa Walker , graduated from Amherst College in 1860 and studied law . During the Civil War he was promoted from sergeant major to brigadier general at the instigation of General Winfield Scott Hancock . He was wounded in the Battle of Chancellorsville and was captured at Ream's Station, which he spent in the notorious Libby Prison .

After the end of the war he devoted himself to teaching. In 1869 he was appointed head of the Washington Statistics Bureau. As such, he conducted the census ( census ) in 1870, he published the results in a three-volume work and in the smaller "Compendium of the ninth census" (1873), on the basis of which he his big "Statistical Atlas of the United States" in Edited 54 maps (1874). He was also elected superintendent for the 1880 census. From 1875 he was professor of economics at Yale College (today: Yale University ) in New Haven , served as head of the judging committee at the Centennial Exhibition (exhibition for the 100th anniversary of the United States) in Philadelphia in 1876 and also held other offices, for example as a member of the Silver Commission. From 1881 to 1897 he was President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology .

In 1878 Walker was elected to the National Academy of Sciences , in 1882 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Walker was also the first president of the American Economic Association , which he led from 1886 to 1892.

Works (selection)

• "The Indian question" (1873)
• "The wages-question. Report of the judges of the centennial exhibition "(1876)
• "Money" (1878)
• "Money in its relations to trade and industry" (1879)
• "The Colored Race in the United States" (1881)
• "Land and its rent" (1884)
• "Political economy" (2nd edition 1888; extract 1886)
• "History of the Second Army Corps in Army of Potomac" (1886)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Members of the American Academy. Listed by election year, 1850–1899 ( PDF ). Retrieved September 24, 2015
2. ^ Past and Present Officers. aeaweb.org ( American Economic Association ), accessed October 31, 2015 .