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Concept
Alexander Gerschenkron
Summary
Alexander Gerschenkron (Александр Гершенкрон; 1 October 1904 – 26 October 1978) was an American economic historian and professor at Harvard University, trained in the Austrian School of economics.
Born into a Jewish family in Odessa, then part of the Russian Empire, now in Ukraine, Gerschenkron fled the country during the Russian Civil War in 1920 to Austria, where he attended the University of Vienna, earning a doctorate in 1928. After the Anschluss in 1938, he emigrated to the United States.
Gerschenkron was born in Odessa, Russian Empire (now Odesa, Ukraine), into an elite Jewish family of the Russian intelligentsia. When he was 16, he and his father left Russia during the period of the Bolshevik Revolution. They eventually settled in Vienna, Austria. There he taught himself languages including, German and Latin. In 1924, he enrolled in the University of Vienna's school of economics, graduating in 1928.
After graduation, Gerschenkron got married and had a child. He found work in Vienna as a representative for a Belgian motorcycle firm. He worked for the firm for three years, but then decided to commit himself to politics, in particular the Social Democrats. However, in 1934 the party ceased to exist after the Austrian Civil War.
In 1938, Gerschenkron and his family emigrated to the United States after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich. Charles Gulick, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, invited Gerschenkron to be his research assistant. Gerschenkron spent twelve months researching and writing to help produce Gulick's book, Austria: From Habsburg to Hitler. He researched at the University of California, Berkeley, for five years and then in 1943 he moved to Washington, D. C., to join the Federal Reserve Board.
In 1944 he worked with the Federal Reserve in the Research and Statistics department. During his time on the Federal Reserve Board, Gerschenkron established himself as an expert on the Soviet economy.
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