Where did Fitzgerald get the idea of having Clay's Economics reside in Nick Carraway's library?

Ray C. Fair

English

Research Papers in Economics

159
Eastern Economic Journal, Vol. 29, No. 2, Spring 2003
Ray C. Fair: Cowles Foundation and International Center for Finance, Yale University,  New Haven,
CT 06520-8281. E-mail: ray.fair@yale.edu
 THE GREAT GATSBY:
YALE, PRINCETON, COLUMBIA, HARVARD, OXFORD
Ray C. Fair
Yale University
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is one of the classics of American litera-
ture. I, like many, first read it in high school. A recent re-read, however, with the
mature eyes of an economist, led me to the following passage, which I had somehow
overlooked in my earlier days. While Jay Gatsby nervously awaited the arrival of
Daisy in Nick Carraway’s house, he “looked with vacant eyes through a copy of Clay’s
Economics’’ [Fitzgerald, 1925, 89]. Clay’s Economics is an introductory economics
text, written by the British economist Henry Clay, and this bit of free advertising
piqued my interest as a textbook author. How did Fitzgerald happen to choose Clay’s
Economics to reside in Nick’s library?
In The Great Gatsby Nick is a Yale man, graduating in 1915. Since economic texts
are seldom purchased for leisure reading, one might conclude that Fitzgerald meant
Clay’s Economics to be the text that Nick used at Yale. Nick became a bond dealer
and thus probably took some economics courses. So is it likely that Nick could have
used Clay’s text at Yale?
According to Yale catalogs of the time, in the academic years 1913-1914, 1914-
1915, and 1915-1916 the head instructor of introductory economics at Yale was Irving
Fisher. Fisher wrote his own introductory text. The first published edition was in
1915, but in the preface to this edition Fisher mentions two experimental editions
that “gave opportunity for thorough trial for two years in classrooms at Yale, under
nearly a dozen different instructors’’ [Fisher, 1915, xv]. Fisher goes on to say that
prizes were awarded to undergraduates with the best criticisms, and he lists six stu-
dents who won prizes between 1912 and 1914. Nick was not listed as a prize winner,
possibly because he was not a real person.
One of the Yale introductory instructors along with Fisher was Fred Rogers
Fairchild. Beginning in the 1916-1917 academic year, Fisher no longer taught the
course but Fairchild stayed on. In 1924 Fairchild published a text with Edgar Stevenson
Furniss and Norman Sydney Buck, which was then used for many years at Yale.
Around Yale, “Fairchild, Furniss, and Buck’’ became famous. I even heard mention of
this book when I came to Yale in 1974. In the preface to the 1924 edition, dated
August 1924, the authors state that “For some years past, our principal texts in the
Elementary Economics course at Yale College have been Fisher’s Elementary Prin-
ciples of Economics, and Taussig’s Principles of Economics, and we wish to acknowl-
edge the profound influence which the writings of these two economists have had160 EASTERN ECONOMIC JOURNAL
upon our work’’ [Fairchild, Furniss, and Buck, 1924, vii]. F.W. Taussig was a profes-
sor at Harvard, and his text was first published in 1911 [Taussig, 1911].
There is no mention of Clay’s Economics in any of this material, and so it is quite
unlikely that it was used as a text at Yale and thus that Nick could have used it.
Perhaps a more compelling reason Nick could not have used Clay is that the book was
not even published until 1916 (the American edition in 1919), whereas Nick gradu-
ated Yale in 1915. Fitzgerald, however, was notoriously bad at dates, and if Clay had
been used at Yale in the early 1920s, one could pass Fitzgerald’s error off as a minor
timing problem. But, alas, the problem is more than one of timing. For as indicated
above, Yale moved seamlessly from Fisher and Taussig to the famous Fairchild,
Furniss, and Buck.
If Clay was not used as a text at Yale, what was Fitzgerald’s source? Fitzgerald,
unlike Nick, was a Princeton man, although he never graduated. Fitzgerald attended
Princeton from September 1913 until January 3, 1916, when he was forced to with-
draw. He reentered in September 1916 and withdrew in November 1917 for army
service. Fitzgerald’s Princeton course record shows that he took no economics courses,
and so he clearly did not use Clay himself. However, many of Fitzgerald’s classmates
undoubtedly took introductory economics, and if Clay were used at Princeton,
Fitzgerald may have heard about Clay in this way.
A search of the Princeton archives revealed that between 1914 and 1918 the head
of the introductory economics course was Frank Albert Fetter. Fetter had written an
economics text as early as 1905, Principles of Economics with Applications to Practi-
cal Problems, and his text Economics was published in 1915. Various versions of Fetter’s
text were undoubtedly used at Princeton while Fitzgerald was there, and there is no
evidence in the Princeton archives that Clay was ever used.
Having ruled out both Yale and Princeton as sources for the Clay citation, I moved
to the period in which Fitzgerald wrote the book. Fitzgerald lived in Great Neck, New
York, from mid-October 1922 to April 1924. He began writing The Great Gatsby in
June 1923. In May 1924 he sailed to France, where he completed the first draft in the
summer and fall of 1924. He heavily revised and rewrote the galleys in Rome in Janu-
ary and February 1925, particularly chapters VI, VII, and VIII [Tate, 1998, 100-101].
There is no record of what parts of the book were written in New York and what
parts in France. It seems likely, however, that the passage about Clay’s Economics
was written in New York, since it occurs about half way through the book (Chapter
V). Fitzgerald’s handwritten copy of the manuscript has survived, and there is no
sign of any hesitation (e.g., crossing out or adding words) in the writing of this pas-
sage [Bruccoli, 1973, 127]. Also, the passage was not revised from this handwritten
copy and not from any of the surviving galleys.
If Fitzgerald wrote of Clay’s Economics while in New York, it is possible that one
of his New York friends told him about Clay. Fitzgerald was notoriously social and
attended many parties. I first turned to Columbia. The American edition of Clay has
a copyright date of 1919, and it was prepared by Eugene E. Agger. In the preface to
this edition, dated May 1918, Agger notes that the British edition of Clay’s book had
been adopted by a number of college teachers of economics, and he discusses that his
primary contribution was to change many of the British examples to American ones.161 THE GREAT GATSBY
Agger’s affiliation is listed as Columbia University. The Columbia College catalogs
between 1916 and 1926 show that Agger was one of the teachers in the introductory
economics course except for the academic year 1919-1920. It thus seems likely that
from 1920 to 1926 the American edition of Clay’s book was used at Columbia by Agger.
Although many Columbia students may have been exposed to Clay’s Economics,
a search of Fitzgerald’s friends and neighbors at the time turned up no one who had
Columbia ties. (Some of Fitzergald’s more interesting Great Neck neighbors included
Ring Lardner, W.P. Chrysler, Basil Rathbone, George M. Cohan, and Groucho Marx.)
It is possible that at one of the many New York parties attended by Fitzgerald some
Columbia man told him about Clay, but how often do cocktail party topics turn to
economics texts?
The search of Fitzgerald’s friends came up with an interesting lead, Tommy
Hitchcock. Hitchcock was one of Fitzgerald’s closest friends in New York and later
became an investment banker with Lehman Brothers. Born into a wealthy family in
1900, Hitchcock was a military aviator hero in World War I and was one of America’s
greatest polo players. Fitzgerald listed the glamour of Hitchcock as one of the sources
for Chapter I of The Great Gatsby [Tate, 1998, 119]. Hitchcock attended Harvard
from 1919 to 1922. Perhaps Hitchcock used Clay at Harvard. Hitchcock’s Harvard
record, however, shows that he took no economics courses, despite his eventual ca-
reer as an investment banker. Also, there is no evidence in the Harvard archives that
Harvard ever used Clay. The archives indicate that Taussig’s text was used at Harvard
in this period.
But Hitchcock’s Harvard record also shows that he spent the 1920-21 academic
year at Oxford, where Clay was teaching at the time! Did Hitchcock have contact with
Clay at Oxford? Clay was a member of New College, and the Oxford archives indicate
that Clay taught a Special Subject (one of the three sections of the final examination
in Modern History) entitled “The Relations of Capital and Labour’’ during the first
two terms of the 1920-21 academic year. Hitchcock was a member of Brasenose,
where his father had been a member in 1880-84.1 His tutor is listed as Michael Holroyd,
an ancient historian. The only letter in his Oxford file is one of July 1921, where he
requests the return of his tuition money since he would not be returning. As exciting
as this lead is, there is no firm evidence that Hitchcock and Clay ever had contact
with each other.
Having found only a tenuous link between Hitchcock and Clay, I moved to a
closer look at Clay. Before coming to Oxford, Clay was a lecturer at the Workers’
Educational Tutorial Classes in England, which were night school classes for work-
ing men. This may have been the source of the idea of writing an economics text for
the general reader. In the summer of 1921 Bryn Mawr hosted a program called “Sum-
mer School for Women Workers in Industry.’’ This program was written about in the
May 18, 1921, issue of The New Republic, then, as now, a well-known New York
publication. The article reports that “[e]very student must study English composi-
tion in connection with work done in other courses. Hygiene and physiology, public
speaking, and the history of the earth are also required... The organizers of the school
have been fortunate in having in the establishment of their teaching policy and cur-
riculum, the help of Mr. Henry Clay of New College, Oxford, who has consented also162 EASTERN ECONOMIC JOURNAL
to teach in the school for several weeks. His experience in the workers’ education
classes in England—where adult education is far more advanced than in America—
will be invaluable to the Bryn Mawr school, as the most difficult problem any labor
school has to face is the actual teaching of a mixed industrial group with uneven
academic preparation’ [338, 1921]’
About a year later (June 28, 1922) Clay was again mentioned in The New Repub-
lic—in the context of a review by Ordway Tead of Lionel D. Edie’s, Principles of the
New Economics. Tead writes, “The growing dissatisfaction with the conventional treat-
ment of the abstractions—of value, marginal utility, supply and demand—without
relation to the facts of current business operation is well attested by the recent inter-
est in a new economics that business men, no less than the required student, will be
attracted to read. Marshall and Lyon’s Our Economic Organizationis a decidedly
significant straw showing the current drift. So also in a less degree is Clay’s Econom-
ics for the General Reader. And so also is Professor Edie’s book’’ [142, 1922]. Tead was
one of the original faculty members of The New School of Social Research, founded in
1919.
As it happens, one of Fitzgerald’s closest friends and advisors was Edmund Wil-
son, also a Princeton man. Wilson began writing for The New Republic in 1921 and
was named associate editor in 1926. For example, in the April 20, 1921, issue, pages
240-41, about a month before the Bryn Mawr article, Wilson wrote an article entitled
“Books and Things.’’ It is likely that, at least from 1921 on, Wilson read The New
Republic carefully and had thus come across Clay’s name. In this period Wilson had
strong socialist leanings, and for this reason Clay might have been appealing. Clay
was concerned with the education of workers and had written a text aimed at least
somewhat at a more general audience than the usual textbook audience. It is also
clear that Clay was known at the New School through Tead, and it is possible that
Wilson had contacts at the New School.
It thus appears that the most likely answer to the puzzle is that Fitzgerald asked
Wilson for the name of a business or economics book that Nick might or should have
had in his library and Wilson mentioned Clay’s Economics.2 I began this search with
the view that Clay’s Economics was solely an economics text, but what has emerged is
that the book is somewhat broader than this. It is thus not clear whether Fitzgerald
meant the book to be the introductory economics text that Nick used at Yale or simply
an economics book for a general reader (for example, bond dealer) like Nick. As a
textbook author, I like the first interpretation, but the second interpretation is clearly
possible.
Although West [2000] does not discuss where Fitzgerald might have gotten knowl-
edge of Clay’s book, he argues that it might be significant that Fitzgerald had Gatsby
look through Clay’s book with “vacant eyes,’’ since Clay “was concerned chiefly with
the redistribution of wealth for the public good’’ [ibid., 174]. Another possibility in
light of the Tead review in The New Republic is that Fitzgerald picked Clay to make
a point about economics becoming too concerned with abstractions. This is my second
favorite interpretation after the textbook one.3163 THE GREAT GATSBY
NOTES
I would like to thank Sharon Oster for many helpful comments, Jennifer Nou and Emily Oster
for superb research assistance, Billy Hitchcock for permission to examine his father’s record at Harvard,
and many helpful librarians at the colleges listed in the paper’s title. It was Jennifer Nou’s idea to
pursue the Tommy Hitchcock link, which alas led to no smoking gun.
1. The Hitchcock family ties to Oxford may have been the inspiration for Fitzgerald having Jay Gatsby
claim that he and his ancestors were educated at Oxford.
2. Fitzgerald often asked about specific facts for his writings. Good examples are in his letters to Max-
well Perkins, his editor at Scribner [Bryer and Kuehl, 1971]. I could not find in Wilson’s writings any
direct reference to Clay’s Economics.
3.  Long [1979, 213] argues that Fitzgerald might have chosen Clay as a play on the name of the Ameri-
can Henry Clay, who is historically relevant to the theme of The Great Gatsby. Long writes: “[The
American] Clay thus stood for both the optimistic dream of the West and the interests of great
corporate wealth that stood to gain by this Western dream;... Gatsby’s glancing absently at a book on
economics by Henry Clay, just before the appearance of Daisy Fay, would reinforce an impression
that Gatsby will see the ‘vision’ but not the realities that underlie it.’’ This is my least favorite
interpretation. (Long also does not discuss where Fitzgerald might have gotten knowledge of the
British Henry Clay.)
REFERENCES
Aldrich, N. Jr. Tommy Hitchcock: An American Hero. Privately printed, 1984.
Bruccoli, M. J., ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby A Facsimile of the Manuscript. Washington
D.C.: Microcard Editions Books, 1973.
Bryer, J. R. and Kuehl, J., eds. Dear Scott/Dear Max. N Y: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971.
Clay, H. Economics. London: The MacMillan Company, 1916.
____________. Economics. NY: The MacMillan Company, (American edition), 1919.
Fairchild, F. R., Furniss, E. S., and Buck, N. S. Elementary Economics. New Haven, CT: Yale Univer-
sity, 1924.
Fisher, I. Elementary Principles of Economics. N Y: The MacMillian Company, 1915.
Fitzgerald, F. S. The Great Gatsby. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1925, First Scribner Paperback Fiction
Edition 1995.
Long, R. E. The Achieving of The Great Gatsby. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Presses, 1979.
The New Republic, 18 May, 1921.
The New Republic, 28 June, 1922.
Tate, M. J. F. Scott Fitzgerald A to Z. N Y: Checkmark Books, 1998.
Taussig, F.W. Principles of Economics. N Y: The MacMillan Company, 1911.
West, J. L. W., III., ed. Trimalchio An Early Version of The Great Gatsby, Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2000.
Wilson, E. Books and Things. The New Republic, 20 April 1921.

The Great Gatsby: Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, Oxford

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Research Papers in Economics