Francis Amasa Walker (July 2, 1840 – January 5, 1897) was an American economist, statistician, journalist, educator, academic administrator, and an officer in the Union Army. As a prolific author and the third president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) until his death in 1897, Walker was a leading political economist and advocate for a policy of bimetallism by international agreement. His scholarly contributions are widely recognized as having broadened, liberalized, and modernized economic and statistical theory with contributions to wages, wealth distribution, money, and social economics, and he is credited with developing the residual theory of wage distribution.
Walker was born into a prominent Boston family, the son of the economist and politician Amasa Walker, and he graduated from Amherst College at the age of 20. He received a commission to join the 15th Massachusetts Infantry and quickly rose through the ranks as an assistant adjutant general. Walker fought in the Peninsula, Bristoe, Overland, and Richmond-Petersburg Campaigns before being captured by Confederate forces and held at the infamous Libby Prison. In July 1866, he was awarded the honorary grade of brevet brigadier general United States Volunteers, to rank from March 13, 1865, when he was 24 years old.
Following the war, Walker served on the editorial staff of the Springfield Republican before using his family and military connections to gain appointment as the chief of the Bureau of Statistics from 1869 to 1870 and superintendent of the 1870 census where he published an award-winning Statistical Atlas visualizing the data for the first time. He joined Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School as a professor of political economy in 1872 and rose to international prominence serving as a chief member of the 1876 Philadelphia Exposition, American representative to the 1878 International Monetary Conference, President of the American Statistical Association in 1882, and inaugural president of the American Economic Association in 1886, and vice president of the National Academy of Sciences in 1890. Walker led the 1880 census which resulted in a twenty-two-volume census, cementing Walker's reputation as the nation's preeminent statistician.
As an economist, Walker debunked the wage-fund doctrine and engaged in a prominent scholarly debate with Henry George on land, rent, and taxes. Walker argued in support of bimetallism and although he was an opponent of the nascent socialist movement, he argued that obligations existed between the employer and the employed. He published his International Bimetallism at the height of the 1896 presidential election campaign in which economic issues were prominent. Walker was a prolific writer, authoring ten books on political economy and military history. In recognition of his contributions to economic theory, beginning in 1947, the American Economic Association recognized the lifetime achievement of an individual economist with a "Francis A. Walker Medal".
Walker accepted the presidency of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1881, a position he held for fifteen years until his death. During his tenure, he placed the institution on more stable financial footing by aggressively fund-raising and securing grants from the Massachusetts government, implemented many curricular reforms, oversaw the launch of new academic programs, and expanded the size of the Boston campus, faculty, and student enrollments. MIT's Walker Memorial Hall, a former students' clubhouse and one of the original buildings on the Charles River campus, was dedicated to him in 1916. Walker's reputation today is a subject of controversy due to his anti-immigration views, white supremacist views, and his brief association with the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Background Walker was born in Boston, Massachusetts on July 2, 1840, the youngest son of Hanna (née Ambrose) and Amasa Walker, a prominent economist and state politician who had been a candidate for mayor of Boston in 1837. The Walkers had three children, Emma (born 1835), Robert (born 1837), and Francis. Because the Walkers' next-door neighbor was Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., the junior Walker and junior Holmes were playmates as young children and renewed their friendship later in life. In 1843, the family moved from Boston to North Brookfield, Massachusetts and remained there.
Beginning his schooling at the age of seven, Walker studied Latin at various private and public schools in Brookfield before being sent to Leicester Academy when he was twelve. He completed his college preparation by the time he was fourteen, spent another year studying Greek and Latin under the future suffragist and abolitionist Lucy Stone, and entered Amherst College at the age of fifteen. Although he had planned to matriculate at Harvard after his first year at Amherst, Walker's father believed Francis was too young for the larger college and insisted he remain at Amherst. While he had entered with the class of 1859, Walker became ill during his first year there and fell back a year. He was a member of the Delta Kappa and Athenian societies as a freshman, joined and withdrew from Alpha Sigma Phi as a sophomore on account of "rowdyism", and finally joined Delta Kappa Epsilon. As a student, Walker was awarded the Sweetser Essay Prize and the Hardy Prize for extemporaneous speaking. He graduated in 1860 as Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in law. After graduation, he joined the law firm of Charles Devens and George Frisbie Hoar in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Military service
15th Massachusetts Infantry As tensions leading to the American Civil War increased over the winter of 1860–61, Walker equipped himself and began drilling with 3rd Battalion of Rifles in Worcester and in New York, led by his legal mentor Charles Devens. Amasa Walker objected to Francis mobilizing with the first wave of volunteers, although his older brother Robert served in the 34th Massachusetts Infantry. Walker returned to Worcester but began to lobby Governor John Albion Andrew and Adjutant General William Schouler to grant him a commission as a second lieutenant under Devens's command of the 15th Massachusetts Infantry.
In July 1861, following his twenty-first birthday and the First Battle of Bull Run, Walker secured his father's consent to join the war effort, as well as assurances from Devens that he would receive a commission as lieutenant. However, the commission never materialized, and Devens instead offered an appointment as a sergeant major, which Walker assumed on August 1, 1861. By September 14, however, Walker had been recommended by Devens and reassigned as assistant adjutant general to brigadier general Darius N. Couch and promoted to captain. Walker remained in Washington, D.C., over the winter of 1861–62 and did not see combat until May 1862 at the Battle of Williamsburg. In the summer of 1862, Walker also served in the Army of the Potomac under major general George B. McClellan at the Battle of Seven Pines and the Seven Days Battles of the Peninsula Campaign.
Second Army Corps
Walker remained at Berkeley Plantation until August 11, 1862, when he was promoted to major and transferred with General Couch to the II Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Although the Corps saw action at Antietam on September 17 and Fredericksburg in December, Walker and the Corps did not join the Mud March offensive over the winter. On January 1, 1863, Walker was promoted to lieutenant colonel. At the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863, his left hand and wrist were shattered, and his neck was lacerated by an exploding shell. A record of the 1880 census indicated that Walker had "compound fracture of the metacarpal bones of the left hand resulting in permanent extension of his hand". Later in 1896, Walker received one of the first radiographs in the United States, which documented the extent of the damage to his hand.
Walker did not return to service until August 1863. He participated in the Bristoe campaign and narrowly escaped encirclement during the Battle of Bristoe Station on October 13, before withdrawing and encamping near Berry Hill Plantation for much of the winter and spending some leave in the North.
After extensive reorganization during the winter of 1863–64, Walker and the Army of the Potomac fought in the Overland Campaign in May and June 1864. The Battle of Cold Harbor in early June took a substantial toll on the ranks of the II Corps, and Walker's knee was injured during the battle. In the ensuing Richmond-Petersburg campaign, Walker was appointed a brevet colonel. On August 25, at the Second Battle of Ream's Station, Walker was surrounded and captured by the 11th Georgia Infantry Regiment. On August 27, Walker escaped a marching column but was recaptured by the 51st North Carolina Infantry after trying to swim across the Appomattox River and nearly drowning. After being held in Petersburg, he was transferred to the infamous Libby Prison in Richmond, where his older brother was also held. In October 1864, Walker was released with thirty other prisoners as a part of an exchange.
Walker returned to North Brookfield to recuperate and resigned his commission on January 8, 1865, as a result of his injuries and health. At the end of the war, major general Winfield Scott Hancock recommended that Walker be brevetted as a brigadier general of the United States Volunteers, in recognition of his meritorious services during the war and especially his gallant conduct at Chancellorsville. On July 9, 1866, President Andrew Johnson nominated Walker for appointment to the honorary grade of brevet brigadier general, U.S. Volunteers, to rank from March 13, 1865, for gallant conduct at the battle of Chancellorsville and meritorious services during the war. The United States Senate confirmed the appointment on July 23, 1866.
After the war, Walker became a companion of the Massachusetts Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (Loyal Legion). In 1883, Walker was elected Commander of the Massachusetts Loyal Legion and was also the president of the National Military Historical Association. Based upon his military experience, Walker published a biography of General Winfield Scott Hancock (1884) and a history of II Corps (1886).
Public service By late spring 1865, Walker had regained sufficient strength and began lecturing on political economy at Amherst and assisting his father in the preparation of his new book, The Science of Wealth. He also taught Latin, Greek, and mathematics at Williston Seminary until being offered an editorial position at the Springfield Republican by Samuel Bowles. At the Republican, Walker wrote on Reconstruction era politics, railroad regulation, and representation.
1870 census superintendent In January 1869, while his editorial career was moving forward, Walker secured an appointment as the chief of the United States Bureau of Statistics and deputy special commissioner of Internal Revenue. On January 29, Secretary of the Interior Jacob D. Cox notified Walker that he was being nominated as superintendent of the 1870 census. After he was confirmed by the Senate, Walker sought to strike a moderate, reformist position. However, proposed reform legislation was not passed, and the 1870 census proceeded under the rules governing previous collections, which Walker deemed inefficient and unscientific. Walker lacked authority to determine, enforce, or control the personnel, methods, or timing of the census, all of which were regularly manipulated by local political interests. The 1870 census also posed the challenges of post-war reconstruction and would be the first in which emancipated African Americans would be fully counted in the census.