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Heath Pearson writes: 
 
>My notes from _Breaking the Academic Mould: Economists and American Higher 
>Learning in the 19th Century_ (ed. William Barber) tell me that the first 
>chair in Political Economy in the US was established in 1871, at Harvard.   
>I didn't note the chairholder, but I think it may have been Charles 
>F. Dunbar. 
 
Joseph Schumpeter, in _Ten Great Economists_ (1952), in the chapter on 
Frank Taussig, mentions that Taussig's teacher Charles Dunbar was persuaded 
out of retirement by President Eliot of Harvard "to become Professor of 
Political Economy, which up to that time had been taught by Professor 
Francis (Fanny) Bowen as a branch of moral philosophy". Schumpeter notes 
that "in that respect, Francis Bowen (1911-90), therefore, enjoys the 
distinction of having been in a boat with Adam Smith" (i.e., they were both 
professors of moral philosophy rather than "political economy"). Bowen's 
_Principles_ was published in 1856, and a new edition was published in 1870 
with the title _American Political Economy_.  
 
- Roger Sandilands 
 
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