Tue Sep 19 20:26:25 EDT 2006
The folllowing are based on notes taken at the 2006 EHA teaching
breakfast this past Saturday in Pittsburgh. I did the best I could based
on my jottings but hardly claim this complete or fully accurate.
Notes on 2006 EHA Teaching Breakfast.
Prepared by David Mitch, Department of Economics, University of Maryland
Baltimore County. NOTE THESE ARE BASED ON NOTES TAKEN AT THE BREAKFAST.
I HAVE NOT ATTEMPTED TO GET CORRECTIONS FROM PARTICIPANTS. THIS IS NOT
BASED ON A RECORDED TRANSCRIPT OF WHAT WAS SAID.
The following describes the proceedings of the Teaching breakfast
conducted at the 2006 EHA meeting in Pittsburgh. Will Hausman, chair of
the EHA Teaching Committee called the breakfast to order at 6:50 a.m. on
Saturday, September 16. The following were in attendance: Price
Fishback, Michael Haines, William Hausman, Joshua Rosenbloom, Richard
Sutch, Susan Carter, Winifred Rothenberg, Joyce Burnette, Andrew
Mitchell, Gavin Wright, Alan Olmstead, and David Mitch
The breakfast focused on using the Millennial edition of the Historical
Statistics of the U.S. in teaching economic history.
In preliminary more informal discussion, mention was made of a website
at the University of Virginia entitled something like Gateway to the
Historical Census. This was recommended as a way of providing students
information on the methods that have been used to compile the census.
Will Hausman indicated that he typically assigned each student in his
class a given state to work on. Michael Haines commented on errors in
census data and issues having to do with how units of observation are
defined.
Susan Carter and Richard Sutch then proceeded to give an overview of the
Historical Statistics project. They noted that the 5 volumes weighed in
at a total of 29 pounds. They reviewed the history of previous editions
of the Historical Statistics. They mentioned that in 1990 a Cliometrics
Data Committee contacted census officials regarding coming out with a
new edition and how that led to a group of scholars with the imprimatur
of the Census Bureau to work on developing the Millennial edition of the
Historical Statistics.
They pointed to the 70 introductory essays included in the volume,
mentioning that these were aimed at a general audience. While these
essays were not specifically intended for undergraduate students, they
were meant to be comprehensible and accessible to them. They also
mentioned the decision to put notes on data sources adjacent to the
tables they referred to rather than at the back of chapters in order to
raise the likelihood these notes would be consulted.
Winifred Rothenberg asked why the Colonial period statistics were put
separately from other data series. Richard Sutch replied that scholars
compiling other data series were generally not experts in the Colonial
period . He said that Colonial data had its own distinctive sources and
problems, mentioning in particular issues related to currency units. He
also noted that this had been done in previous editions. He said similar
considerations were behind the decision to put Confederate statistics in
a separate section.
At this point, Gavin Wright made a presentation about a data analysis
assignment he gives to students in his undergraduate economic history
course. Until now, this assignment has been based on the 1976
Bicentennial edition of U.S. Historical Statistics. The assignment is:
To assemble historical data for the purpose of addressing some question
about the American economic past, and to use the data to generate at
least one original table and one original graph. The table and graph
should be accompanied by a brief statement of what you believe the data
show for American economic history.
The assignment to be turned in including table, graph, and text is not
to exceed 5 standard pages.
The assignment sheet he passed out included a list of 16 possible topics.
He said that he developed the assignment out of frustration with getting
term papers in which students cited numbers but had not gone to the
sources of the numbers or thought about how the numbers had been
constructed. The assignment did not entail archival work. But he found
that once he asked students to look into how numbers had been
constructed they typically got into data construction issues more fully.
He found that by requiring students to construct one original table and
one original graph that this forced them to think about the decisions
required to do this. This included issues such as the units to be used
to label axes and how to allow for inflation and price changes over
time. Although the assignment was only 5 pages, students had to give
some explanation for the choices they made in constructing their table
and graph.
He noted that knowledge of econometrics does not make one better at
finding or understanding data sources.
He was a bit dissatisfied that most of his current suggested topics and
issues were not historical. He wanted to use the assignment to get
students to go beyond thinking in terms of timeless generalities. He
would like to come up with more specific historical puzzles and
challenges with the assignment.
He also made some comments on how he has students go beyond what is in
the published historical statistics volume. He tells students they
should not just repeat the numbers straight out of the published
volumes. They should go to the sources notes for the numbers they use
and think about some way of changing the numbers and making some
possible revisions.
Turning to the on-line edition of the Millennial historical statistics,
Gavin Wright and Richard Sutch did not recommend using the on-line
graphing capability. They thought it was too limited. Instead they
recommended down-loading the numbers and working with a spreadsheet.
They thought the step of downloading was a good exercise and then using
the spreadsheet to develop graphs was a good set of tools for students
to master.
Richard Sutch mentioned that the decision was made to put raw data in
the historical statistics. That way students would have to do further
calculations to answer the questions they were using the numbers to
address. The calculations would generally be elementary but some
calculations were required. He also mentioned an assignment that Roger
Ransom assigned in which students were asked to do calculations to
construct a graph and write a paper on the story behind the graph.
Price Fishback mentioned asking students to write about what a graph means.
Josh Rosenbloom mentioned the issue that measurement generally requires
theory and discussed assignments involving union membership in which
students were asked to think about how the reason why one is trying to
measure union membership would influence how the measures were
constructed. He talked about how he urged students to read the source
notes behind union membership figures and to identify what the source
notes indicated about the choices that had to be made in compiling
statistics. He said he spent a full class period going through this.
Susan Carter mentioned that she had found topic selection was part of
the learning experience. She requires each student to pick a topic that
does not overlap with other students. Students post topics to avoid
overlap. She has found that even with as many as 100 students, each
student can find a topic that does not overlap with others.
Discussion then turned to the distinctive features of using the on-line
version of the Historical Statistics. Josh Rosenbloom mentioned that the
on-line search feature was helpful. It was mentioned that having on-line
access helped avoid the congestion issue with only one or a few hardcopy
versions available in the reference section of libraries. Some people
mentioned that one could do graphing on screen with the on-line version.
Some people mentioned difficulties in getting pricing information for
the on-line version from Cambridge. Susan Carter acknowledged that she
had heard of these difficulties and that they were working on them. She
encouraged people to email her if they are having problems getting
pricing information.
The point was also mentioned that it can take time for libraries to get
the on-line version up and running; there could be lags of a few months.
It was also mentioned that there could be lags in negotiating the price
of the on-line version. Finally it was mentioned that investments should
be made in training librarians to use this resource.
The meeting adjourned at 8 a.m. so participants could go to the first
morning session.