Earl J. Hamilton Collection in the History of Economics
The Earl J. Hamilton Collection contains more than 3,000 titles in the history of economics, with special strengths in the history of the Spanish economy, the life of John Law of Lauriston and Law's involvement in the Mississippi Bubble, and the works of the principal European economic theorists. Earl J. Hamilton was a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, and he also held academic appointments at Duke University, Northwestern University, and the State University of New York at Binghamton. The Hamilton Collection was received as a bequest in 1989.The Hamilton Collection reflects the particular interests and achievements of a lengthy and distinguished scholarly career. Earl J. Hamilton and his wife Gladys Dallas Hamilton conducted research on the system of money, prices, and wages in Valencia, Aragon, and Navarre in the 14th and 15th centuries, and on the relationship between war and prices in Spain in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Hamilton collection thus includes discourses on social and economic conditions in South America and Spain, treatises on commerce between Spain and her colonies, and works by earlier economists, historians, and observers.
Hamilton was also well-known for his work on John Law of Lauriston and Law's Mississippi Bubble speculative scheme. Hamilton's investigation of this historical episode focused on wages and prices in France under John Law's system and the lingering controversy over Law's motivations and methods. Within the Hamilton Collection, this research is reflected in more than 100 books by and about Law and the Bubble.
More broadly, Hamilton also collected notable works bearing on the general history of economics. The Hamilton Collection contains many works on the British economy, including taxation, agriculture, lotteries, animal husbandry, banks and banking, legislation, colonialism, debt, interest, employment, finance, labor, navigation, lotteries, and usury. The collection also includes biographies of bankers, economists, and statesmen; treatises on money, weights, and measures; discourses on capital appreciation, debt reduction, poverty, and slavery; studies of various commodities such as coal, cotton, corn, and wool; histories of American banks and banking; descriptions of travel in England and the Continent; and works by philosophers and economists from Condorcet and Voltaire to Malthus and Ricardo.
For further information on the Earl J. Hamilton Collection in the History of Economics, please contact:
Special Collections Research Center
University of Chicago Library
1100 E. 57th Street
Chicago, Illinois 60637
SpecialCollections@lib.uchicago.edu.