Lowe, Adolf; Papers Ger022
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Lowe, Adolf; Papers This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on September 28, 2021. M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives Lowe, Adolf; Papers Table of Contents Summary Information .................................................................................................................................... 3 Biographical Sketch ....................................................................................................................................... 3 Scope and Contents ........................................................................................................................................ 5 Arrangement of the Collection ...................................................................................................................... 6 Administrative Information ............................................................................................................................ 6 Related Materials ........................................................................................................................................... 7 Controlled Access Headings .......................................................................................................................... 7 Collection Inventory ....................................................................................................................................... 8 Personal Papers ............................................................................................................................................ 8 Correspondence ............................................................................................................................................ 9 Scholarly Writings ..................................................................................................................................... 18 Subseries 1: Articles, Reviews, and Books ............................................................................................ 18 Subseries 2: Lectures .............................................................................................................................. 21 Notes .......................................................................................................................................................... 23 Lectures and Other Course Materials ....................................................................................................... 25 Research Materials .................................................................................................................................... 30 Miscellaneous Professional Documents .................................................................................................... 34 - Page 2 - Lowe, Adolf; Papers Summary Information Repository: M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives Title: Adolph Lowe Papers ID: ger022 Date [inclusive]: 1915-1996 Physical Description: 5 cubic ft. Physical Location: The materials are located onsite in the department. Language of the English , German . Material: Abstract: Biographical material includes biographies; personal papers from teaching at the University of Kiel, 1926–31 and University of Manchester, 1933–40; papers from Lowe's 80th birthday (1973); Veblen–Commons Award, 1979; interview with Die Zeit, 1988; correspondence, 1928–91; writings by Lowe, including lectures, speeches, published and unpublished works. Lowe was one of the founders of the New School for Social Research comprised mostly of the German intellectual Émigrés to the USA prior to WWII. Preferred Citation Preferred citation for this material is as follows: Identification of specific item, series, box, folder, Adolph Lowe Papers, 1915-1996. M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University at Albany, State University of New York (hereafter referred to as the Lowe Papers). ^ Return to Table of Contents Biographical Sketch Adolph Lowe was born in Stuttgart, Germany on March 4, 1893 to a middle-class Jewish family. His father, Alexander Löwe, was a merchant, and his mother, Ottilie Mayer Löwe, was a homemaker. After graduating from a gymnasium in Stuttgart, he studied at universities in Munich, Berlin, and Tübingen between 1911 and 1915. In 1914-15, he served in the German Army. In 1919, he married Beatrice Loewenstein. The couple had two daughters, Rachel Lowe Aubrey and Hanna Lowe Lustig. - Page 3- Lowe, Adolf; Papers Löwe received his Dr. Jur. degree from the University of Tübingen in 1918, but his contacts with noted economic historian Lujo Brentano led him to become an economist. He served as an economic advisor to the Weimar government (1918-24), taking posts in the ministries of Demobilization, Labor, and Economic Affairs. While working for the Bureau of Statistics (1924-26), he began his academic career. He joined the faculty of the University of Kiel (1925-31) and established the Institute for Business Cycle Research (1925). He then served as director of research and educational studies (1926-30) and associate professor of economics (1930-31) at the Institute of World Economics. Between 1931 and 1933, he taught political economy at the University of Frankfurt. In Spring 1933, Löwe was dismissed from his teaching post in accordance with the provisions of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. He was the first professor of social sciences to be dismissed by the Nazi government. A few months later, he and his wife decided to emigrate after their daughters were dismissed from school because of their "race". The family left for Britain just before the German government revoked the passports of those it defined as Jewish. Lowe, who anglicized the spelling of his name soon after his arrival in Britain, became a Rockefeller Foundation fellow (1933-38) and Manchester University lecturer. While at Manchester, Lowe had the opportunity to pursue a wide range of intellectual interests. He held a dual appointment in economics and sociology, and his lecture notes reveal that Romantic literature and German history were among the topics covered in his courses. In his first book, Economics and Sociology: A Plea for Co-Operation in the Social Sciences (1935), he encouraged fellow economists to incorporate the insights of other social scientists into their analyses. Lowe became a naturalized British subject in September 1939 and yearned to contribute to the war effort. However, the British government refused to place former German citizens in war-related government posts. Frustrated at being denied the opportunity to serve his new nation and fearful that he would lose his Manchester University lectureship, he began seeking employment in the United States. After receiving an offer from the New School for Social Research, Lowe and his family moved to New York City. Lowe was a professor of economics at the New School until his retirement in 1978, leaving only to take a one-year appointment at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (1953). While at the New School, Lowe continued to cultivate a broad range of intellectual interests and criticized what he saw as the parochialism of his colleagues. According to former student and close friend Robert Heilbroner, he was convinced that the general rise in affluence, the emergence of mammoth corporate entities benefitting from economies of scale, and increasing government regulation had stripped economists of the ability to predict accurately future developments. Convinced that comprehensive economic planning was essential to the public good, he concluded that the academic study of economics would regain its predictive ability only if it became an instrument of public policy. These arguments were outlined in On Economic Knowledge (1965) and expanded upon in Has Freedom A Future? (1989), in which he criticized what he saw as the hedonism of contemporary society and asserted that only a combination of collective consciousness and economic planning would safeguard individual freedom and social stability. After Beatrice Lowe's death in 1982, Lowe returned to Germany to live with his daughter Hannah, who had settled in her country of birth several years before. He remained an active reader and writer of scholarly materials and established friendships with a number of young German economists. In 1988, he was the subject of a lengthy interview that appeared in Die Zeit, one of Germany's most highly - Page 4- Lowe, Adolf; Papers regarded newspapers. Determined to remain intellectually active, he gave considerable assistance to his biographer, Klaus-Dieter Krohn. He ceased reading and writing shortly before his death on June 4, 1995, in Wolfenbüttel, Germany. This collection consists chiefly of the published and unpublished personal and professional writings of economist Adolph Lowe. It documents his broad intellectual interests, chronicles the evolution of his economic theories, and sheds light upon his broader beliefs about the role of economic theory and economic planning in creating stable and egalitarian societies. ^ Return to Table of Contents Scope and Contents The collection contains relatively little information about Lowe's education and early career, but Lowe was able to take a modest number of documents concerning his schooling and work when he left Germany. This small body of materials was subsequently augmented by scholars who studied Lowe's early work and sent him copies of German government documents and other records that detailed