Ely, Richard T(heodore)

(born April 13, 1854, Ripley, N.Y., U.S.—died Oct. 4, 1943, Old Lyme, Conn.) U.S. economist. He studied at Columbia University and the University of Heidelberg. His career interests focused on labour unrest, agricultural economics, and the problems of rural poverty. He taught at Johns Hopkins University (1881–92) but resigned in the face of harsh opposition to his ideas on academic freedom and the labour movement. He was a founder of the American Economic Association (1885). At the University of Wisconsin (1892–1925), he helped create Wisconsin's progressive program of social reform legislation.

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