Profile Major Works Resources

Sidney Sherwood, 1860-1901.

Early American Neoclassical economist at the Johns Hopkins University.

Sidney Sherwood originated from Ballston, near Saratoga, New York. He received his BA at Princeton in 1879.  After a year teaching at Newton Collegiate Institute in New Jersey, Sherwood went abroad for two years.  Returning in 1883, Sherwood studied law at  Columbia.in 1884-85, initially out of mere intellectual curiosity.  Sherwood ended up passing the New York State bar and went on to practice for three years in a New York law firm. Sherwood eventually decided to return to academia and pursue his growing interest in economics.  Sherwood enrolled at the Johns Hopkins University in 1888, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1891.  He was promptly appointed an instructor in finance at the University of Pennsylvania.

Although a student of the historicist Richard T. Ely while at Hopkins, Sidney Sherwood was one of the earliest American converts to the Marginalist Revolution and thus much favored by Ely's nemesis, Simon Newcomb.  After Ely's abrupt departure from Hopkins in 1892, the young Sidney Sherwood was immediately "called back" to Hopkins from Pennsylvania after serving there only a year. Sherwood was promptly appointed the head of the political economy program at the Johns Hopkins University.  Sherwood was largely responsible for the subsequent "Neoclassicization" of that department.

Although relatively little known to modern economists, Sidney Sherwood ought to be noted for his contributions to the "credit theory" of money.  He died an untimely death in 1901, while still in his early forties.  He was replaced by Jacob H. Hollander. 

 

  

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Major Works of Sidney Sherwood

  • Syllabus of a Course of Twelve Lectures on the History and Theory of Money, 1892 (Penn extension) [repr]
  • "The Rates Question in Recent Railroad Literature", 1892, AAPSS (Jul) p.102 [js]
  • "Review of Bastable's Public Finance", 1892, AAPSS (Sep),  p.115 [js]
  • "Review of E.A. Ross's Sinking Funds", 1892, AAPSS (Nov), p.128 [js]
  • "Review of Thorold Rogers' Industrial and Commercial History",  1893, AAPSS (Sep),  p.130 [js]
  • The History and Theory of Money,  1893 [bk]
  • "The American Bankers' Association: Its origin, its work and its prospects", 1893/94, Proceedings of the ABA, p.69
  •  "The Nature and Mechanism of Credit", 1894, QJE (Jan) p.149-67 [js]
  • "University Extension as a Method of Research", 1894, University Extension, p.357
  • "Review of Shirres' Analysis of the Ideas of Economics",  1894, AAPSS (Jul), p.138 [js]
  • "Review of Smart's Studies in Economics", 1896, AAPSS (Mar), p.149 [js]
  • "An Alliance with England the Basis of a Rational Foreign Policy", 1896, The Forum (Mar), p.89
  • "Money in Legislation", 1896, The Chautauquan (Jan), p.407
  • "The Formulation of the Normal Laws with Especial Reference to the Theory of Utility", 1896, AEA Pub
  • "Review of Taussig's Wages and Capital", 1896, AAPSS (Nov), p.109 [js]
  • "The Principles of Banking Reform", 1897, Review of Reviews, (Jan) p.50
  • "The Function of the Undertaker", 1897, Yale Review, (Nov), p.233
  • "The Philosophical Basis of Economics: A Word to the Sociologists", 1897, AAPSS (Sep) p.58 [js]
  • Tendencies in American Economic Thought, 1897 [bk]
  • "Review of John Davidson's Bargain Theory of Wages", 1898, AAPSS (May), p.103 [js]
  • "Review of Pantaloni's Pure Economics", 1898, JPE.
  • "Over-sea Expansion from an Economic Point of View", 1899, JHU News-Letter (Feb 8)
  • "Influence of the Trust in the Development of Undertaking Genius", 1900, Yale Review (Feb) p.362
  • "The New German Bank Law", 1900, QJE (Feb),
  • The University of the State of New York: A history of higher education in the state of New York. 1900 [bk]
  • "Review of Masayoshi's Gold Standard in Japan", 1901, PSQ (Mar).

 
HET

 
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Resources on  Sidney Sherwood

  • Personal note on Sherwood at Hopkins, 1892, AAPSS (May), p.111,
  • "Review of Sherwood's History and Theory of Money", 1893, Popular Science Monthly, p.270
  • Note on Sherwood's "Tendencies", 1898, AAPSS, (May) p.95
  • Note on death of Sherwood 1901, AAPSS, (Nov), p.105
  • Note on death of Sherwood, obituary in 1901 JHU Circular.
  • "Sidney Sherwood, a much loved professor of other days", by Bernard C. Steiner, 1916, The Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine p.32

 

 
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