Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Abram Lincoln Harris
Summary
Abram Lincoln Harris, Jr. (January 17, 1899 – November 6, 1963) was an American economist, academic, anthropologist and a social critic of the condition of blacks in the United States. Considered by many as the first African American to achieve prominence in the field of economics, Harris was also known for his heavy influence on black radical and neo-conservative thought in the United States. As an economist, Harris is most famous for his 1931 collaboration with political scientist Sterling Spero to produce a study on African-American labor history titled The Black Worker and his 1936 work The Negro as Capitalist, in which he criticized black businessmen for not promoting interracial trade. He headed the economics department at Howard University from 1936 to 1945, and was a professor at the University of Chicago from 1945 until his death. As a social critic, Harris took an active radical stance on racial relations by examining historical black involvement in the workplace, and suggested that African Americans needed to take more action in race relations.
Harris was born into a middle-class African-American family on January 17, 1899, in Richmond, Virginia. His father was a butcher at a German American-owned meat shop, and his mother was a schoolteacher. As a result of his frequent contact with the meat shop's owner, Harris learned German and became a fluent speaker of the language. Harris's mastery of the language would help him later in life, when he examined the writings of German economists and social reformers like Karl Marx.
He served in World War I and then finished his degree at Virginia Union University, graduating in 1922 with a Bachelor of Science. Harris went on to earn an MA in economics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1924. It was his masters' thesis, The Negro Laborer in Pittsburgh, that started his lifelong examination on the African-American labor forces.
He later published two articles in the National Urban League's journal, Opportunity, that discussed the difficulties faced by African-American mineworkers.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.