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{{short description|American economist (1936–2023)}}
 
{{Infobox scientist
|name = Stanley Engerman
|birth_date = {{birth date|1936|3|14}}
|image =
|birth_place = New York City, U.S.▼
|caption =
|birth_datedeath_date = {{Birthdeath date and age|2023|5|11|1936|3|14|mf=y}}
|death_place = [[Watertown, Massachusetts]], U.S.
▲|birth_place =
|field = [[Economics]], [[Economic history]]▼
|nationality = [[United States]]
▲|field = [[Economics]], [[Economic history]]
|work_institution = [[University of Rochester]]
|alma_mater = {{ubl|[[New York University]] ([[Bachelor of Science|BS]], [[Master of Science|MS]])|[[Johns Hopkins University]] ([[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]])}}
|doctoral_advisor =
|doctoral_students =
|known_for =
|prizes = [[Bancroft Prize]] (1975)
|spouse = Judith Rader
|religion =
|footnoteschildren = 3
}}
 
'''Stanley Lewis Engerman''' (born March 14, 1936 – May 11, 2023) iswas an [[American economist]] and economic historian. at the [[University of Rochester]]. He received his [[Ph.D.]] in economics in 1962 from [[Johns Hopkins University]]. Engerman iswas known for his quantitative historical work along with [[Nobel Prize]]–winning-winning economist [[Robert Fogel]]. His first major book, co-authored with Robert Fogel in 1974, was ''[[Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery]].'' This significant work, winner of the [[Bancroft Prize]] in American history, challenged readers to think critically about the economics of [[slavery]]. Engerman has also published over 100 articles and has authored, co-authored or edited 16 book-length studies.
 
Engerman served as president of the [[Social Science History Association]] as well as president of the [[Economic History Association]]. He iswas professor of Economics and Professor of History at the [[University of Rochester]], where he teachestaught classes in economic history and the economics of sports and entertainment. From 2009 to 2012 he was a visiting professor in the [[Harvard University]] Economics Department, where he taught the economics of sports and entertainment.
 
Engerman's students included [[Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham]], [[Gary Gorton]], [[Art Laffer]], [[Jeremy Lin]]{{citation needed|date=August 2023}}, and [[Robert L. Paquette]].
Professor Engerman has graduated many influential individuals, with many, such as the former [[National Economic Council (United States)|National Economic Council]] executive for the Trump administration, [[Larry Kudlow]], who have Engerman as the most impactful educator in their studies.
 
==''TimeEarly onlife theand Cross''education==
Engerman was born in [[Brooklyn]] in 1936. His father, Irving Engerman, was a wholesale furniture salesman while his mother, Edith (Kaplan) Engerman, was a homemaker.<ref name="Sandomir" /> He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in accounting from [[New York University]] in 1956 and 1958 before earning a PhD in economics in 1962 from [[Johns Hopkins University]].<ref name="Sandomir" />
The critical reception of Engerman's most widely read work, ''[[Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery]]'' (co-authored with [[Robert Fogel]]) was unique in its public visibility. Reminiscent of [[Charles A. Beard]]'s economic analysis of the Constitution in its longevity, ''Time on the Cross'' made a variety of politically-charged claims based on cliometric quantitative methods. Fogel and Engerman claimed that slavery remained an economically viable institution and slave ownership was generally a profitable investment, slave agriculture was very efficient, and the material conditions of the lives of slaves "compared favorably with those of free industrial workers."<ref>Fogel and Engerman, ''Time on the Cross''(New York: Little Brown, 1974), 5.</ref>▼
 
== Academic career ==
Charles Crowe offered a summary of the work: "The cliometricians announced the scientific discovery of a vastly different South led by confident and effective slaveowning entrepreneurs firmly wedded to handsome profits from a booming economy with high per capita incomes and an efficiency ratio 35 per- cent greater than that of free Northern agriculture. In the new dispensation the efficient, often highly skilled, and very productive slaves embraced the [[Protestant work ethic]] and prudish Victorian morals, avoided both promiscuity and substantial sexual exploitation by planters, lived in father-headed and stable nuclear families, kept 90 percent of the fruits of their labor, and enjoyed one of the best sets of material conditions in the world for working class people."<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Crowe | first1 = Charles | year = 1976 | title = Time on the Cross: The Historical Monograph as a Pop Event | journal = The History Teacher | volume = 9 | issue = 4 | pages = 588–630 | doi = 10.2307/492099 | jstor = 492099 }}</ref>▼
After the completition of his PhD, he taught at Yale University for a year.<ref name="Sandomir" /> He started working at the University of Rochester in 1963 where he was a professor of economics until his retirement in 2017.<ref name="Sandomir" />
 
=== ''Time on the Cross'' ===
==Research with Kenneth L. Sokoloff==▼
{{expand section|date=May 2023}}
Engerman co-authored an article entitled "History Lessons: Institutions, Factor Endowments, and Paths of Development in the New World" with [[Kenneth Sokoloff]], which can be found in ''[[The Journal of Economic Perspectives]].'' Sokoloff and Engerman go in-depth and argue that the economic trajectory of former New World colonies over the past 300 years was largely determined by various facets of their natural environments. Sokoloff and Engerman focus mainly on the effects of the colonies' soil qualities. Sokoloff and Engerman claim that in areas such as Cuba which possessed land suitable for sugar and coffee, the soil quality led to economies of scale and plantation agriculture and slave labor. This in turn led to a guarded franchise, high tax rates, and limits on education. In areas such as the United States which possessed land suitable for wheat, the soil quality led to small scale farming and relatively equal distributions of wealth. This in turn led to an open franchise and broad public education. Sokoloff and Engerman conclude that areas such as the United States, which emphasized equality and access to public education, were able to progress faster economically than areas such as Cuba which did not allow such opportunities to its residents.▼
▲The critical reception of Engerman's most widely read work, ''[[Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery]]'' (co-authored with [[Robert Fogel]]) was unique in its public visibility. Reminiscent of [[Charles A. Beard]]'s economic analysis of the Constitution in its longevity, ''Time on the Cross'' made a variety of politically- charged claims based on [[cliometrics|cliometric]] quantitative methods. Fogel and Engerman claimed that slavery remained an economically viable institution and slave ownership was generally a profitable investment, slave agriculture was very efficient, and the material conditions of the lives of slaves "compared favorably with those of free industrial workers."<ref>Fogel and Engerman, ''Time on the Cross''(New York: Little Brown, 1974), 5.</ref>{{primary inline|date=May 2023}}
 
▲Charles Crowe offered a summary of the work: "The cliometricians announced the scientific discovery of a vastly different South led by confident and effective slaveowning entrepreneurs firmly wedded to handsome profits from a booming economy with high per capita incomes and an efficiency ratio 35 per- cent greater than that of free Northern agriculture. In the new dispensation the efficient, often highly skilled, and very productive slaves embraced the [[Protestant work ethic]] and prudish Victorian morals, avoided both promiscuity and substantial sexual exploitation by planters, lived in father-headed and stable nuclear families, kept 90 percent of the fruits of their labor, and enjoyed one of the best sets of material conditions in the world for working class people."<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Crowe | first1 = Charles | year = 1976 | title = Time on the Cross: The Historical Monograph as a Pop Event | journal = The History Teacher | volume = 9 | issue = 4 | pages = 588–630 | doi = 10.2307/492099 | jstor = 492099 }}</ref>
 
The book was controversial, with critics saying that it presented a "relatively benign" depiction of slavery.<ref name = Sandomir>{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/27/us/stanley-engerman-dead.html|title = Stanley Engerman, Revisionist Scholar of Slavery, Dies at 87|newspaper = [[The New York Times]]|date = May 27, 2023|accessdate = May 27, 2023|last = Sandomir|first = Richard|url-access = limited}}</ref> According to ''[[The New York Times]]'', a panel about the book hosted by Engerman and Fogel at Rochester, and attended by about 100 academics, turned so contentious that it the local press termed it "scholarly warfare".<ref name = Sandomir/>
 
In a 1989 edition of the book, Engerman and Fogel acknowledge that they could have done more to emphasize the evils of slavery.<ref name="Sandomir" />
 
▲=== Research with Kenneth L. Sokoloff ===
▲Engerman co-authored an article entitled "History Lessons: Institutions, Factor Endowments, and Paths of Development in the New World" with [[Kenneth Sokoloff]], which can be found in ''[[The Journal of Economic Perspectives]].'' Sokoloff and Engerman go in-depth and argue that the economic trajectory of former New World colonies over the past 300 years was largely determined by various facets of their natural environments. Sokoloff and Engerman focus mainly on the effects of the colonies' soil qualities. Sokoloff and Engerman claim that in areas such as Cuba which possessed land suitable for sugar and coffee, the [[soil quality]] led to economies of scale and plantation agriculture and slave labor. This in turn led to a guarded franchise, high tax rates, and limits on education. In areas such as the United States which possessed land suitable for wheat, the soil quality led to small scale farming and relatively equal distributions of wealth. This in turn led to an open franchise and broad public education. Sokoloff and Engerman conclude that areas such as the United States, which emphasized equality and access to public education, were able to progress faster economically than areas such as Cuba which did not allow such opportunities to its residents.
 
==Personal life==
He was married to Judith Rader Engerman until she died in 2019.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=2023 |title=Remembering Stanley Lewis Engerman |url=https://brightonmc.com/obituaries/stanley-lewis-engerman/2632/ |access-date=2023-05-12 |website=Brighton Memorial Chapel |language=en-US}}</ref> They had three sons.<ref name=":0" />
 
Engerman died from [[myelodysplastic syndrome]] at his home in [[Watertown, Massachusetts]], on May 11, 2023, at the age of 87.<ref name = Sandomir/><ref name=":0"/>
 
==Works==
* ''Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery'' (with Robert Fogel), 1974.
* ''Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative Studies'' by Eugene D. Genovese and Stanley L. Engerman, 1975
* ''A Historical Guide to World Slavery'' by [[Seymour Drescher]] and Stanley L. Engerman (1998)
* ''Slavery, Emancipation, and Freedom: Comparative Perspectives'' (Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History) by Stanley L. Engerman (2007)
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* The Evolution of Suffrage Institutions in the New World SL ENGERMAN, KL SOKOLOFF - The Journal of Economic History, 2005 - Cambridge Univ Press
* Institutional and Non-Institutional Explanations of Economic Differences SL ENGERMAN, KL SOKOLOFF - NBER Working Paper, 2003
* ''Economic Development in the Americas since 1500: Endowments and Institutions'' by Stanley L. Engerman and Kenneth L. Sokoloff, 2011
 
==Notes==
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Engerman, Stanley}}
[[Category:Economic historians]]▼
[[Category:1936 births]]
[[Category:Living2023 peopledeaths]]
[[Category:Historians of the Southern United States]]▼
[[Category:University of Rochester faculty]]▼
[[Category:20th-century American economists]]
[[Category:21st-century American economists]]
[[Category:Johns Hopkins University alumni]]▼
[[Category:Academics of the University of Cambridge]]
[[Category:Harvard University faculty]]▼
[[Category:Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association]]▼
[[Category:Bancroft Prize winners]]
[[Category:Deaths from cancer in Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Deaths from myelodysplastic syndrome]]
▲[[Category:Distinguished Fellowsfellows of the American Economic Association]]
[[Category:American economic historians]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences]]
▲[[Category:Harvard University faculty]]
▲[[Category:Historians of the Southern United States]]
▲[[Category:EconomicJewish American historians]]
▲[[Category:Johns Hopkins University alumni]]
[[Category:Presidents of the Economic History Association]]
[[Category:Professors of the University of Cambridge]]
▲[[Category:University of Rochester faculty]]
[[Category:Academics from New York (state)]]
[[Category:New York University alumni]]
[[Category:Writers from Brooklyn]]
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