Preliminary Inventory of the Sidney Weintraub Papers, 1938-1984 and undated

These files document much of Sidney Weintraub's career as an economist; material dates from the early part of his professional career, 1938, until his death in 1983; it also includes some post-humous material from 1984. The collection is arranged into seven series: Correspondence, Subject Files, Writings, Miscellany, Clippings, Photographs, and Printed Material. There are also descriptions of additions and oversize materials following the main collection description. Weintraub is best known for his work on inflation, wages and prices, unemployment, economic growth, and post-Keynesian monetary theory. Other significant topics in the papers include Weintraub's work with the U.S. government on economic policies, and his travels in England during and after World War II.

The Correspondence Series contains letters between 1939 and 1983. Weintraub, who did much of his own typing, scrupulously preserved carbon-copies of the letters that he sent to others which are included in the files, along with original letters sent to him by others. The bulk of the correspondence is dated between 1970 and 1983, a time when Weintraub was at the University of Pennsylvania and Waterloo in Canada (see Accession 2009-0178 for earlier correspondence). Weintraub regularly corresponded with a number of economists, including: Joan Robinson, Martin Brofenbrenner, Nicholas Kaldor, Abba Lerner, Henry Wallich, John K. Galbraith, Roy Harrod, Francis Seton, E. Roy Weintraub, Alice Vandermeulen, G.C. Harcourt, and many others. He also corresponded with many non-economists, including: Senators Barry Goldwater, William Proxmire, Gary Hart, and Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. An addition from 2009 consists largely of Weintraub's personal correspondence to his wife, Sheila Ellen Weintraub, during World War II and his post-war travels. It has been added to the end of the collection.

One problem arises when using the material in the Correspondence Series of Weintraub's papers, since this section is indexed and stored by year or portion of a year and not by author or receiver of the correspondence. Therefore, for the years 1970 through 1983, it is difficult to find particular letters for particular individuals if the date for the correspondence is unknown. For earlier years this is not such a problem given the smaller number of letters in the files prior to 1970.

The Subject Files Series is the largest, comprising nearly one-fourth of the initial collection. The material grows out of research undertaken by Weintraub primarily during the period 1970 to 1983 when he was attempting to influence government policy by promoting the merits of a Taxed-Based Incomes Policy (TIP). Of particular interest here is the early work on the publication of Capitalism's Inflation and Unemployment Crisis. Also of interest is the work that Weintraub did for the Canadian Institute for Economic Policy. In this series the material concerning the founding of the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics is included. This includes correspondence with co-editor Paul Davidson and publisher M.E. Sharpe, Inc. There is also some preliminary correspondence having to do with the publication and writing of Keynes and the Monetarists. These files contain material dealing with Weintraub's extensive national and international lecturing tours, with materials from trips to Europe, Asia, Puerto Rico, and much of the United States. Finally, material on the writing of Modern Economic Thought, editorials for the New York Times, and the Puerto Rico Economic Quarterly is included in this category.

The Writings Series includes work both by Weintraub himself and by others, both published and unpublished. Of Weintraub's own work, there are early versions and drafts of works later published. For example, one finds early work on the published piece Keynes and the Monetarists and Other Essays, by Sidney Weintraub along with Hamid Habibagahi, Henry Wallich, and E. Roy Weintraub (1973). Also included is some early work on the 1981 book Our Stagflation Malaise. Several unpublished drafts can also be found here including portions of the uncompleted work Economic Thought: 1945-1965, which also had the title Recent Developments in Economic Theory. Other uncompleted works are Economics of Capitalism and Keynesian Evolution: A Theory of Employment, Growth, Income Distribution, Inflation and Money, with Policy Implications. This rather lengthy title was the second revised title of a proposed book that assessed both the microeconomic and macroeconomic components of Post Keynesian monetary theory. Finally in this section are the completed, yet unpublished, works Pricing Interstate Telephone Services: Some Aspects of FCC Regulations of the Bell System Pricing Policies and The Theory of the Structure of Interest Rates.

The Miscellany Series contains other writings by Weintraub at different times in his professional career. Of particular interest is Weintraub's testimony to various congressional committees and federal regulatory bodies. Also included are Weintraub's handwritten notes on several of the graduate and undergraduate classes that he taught, including The History of Economic Thought, Recent Developments of Economic Theory, Theories of Business Cycles, Theory of Value and Distribution, an Introduction to Mathematical Economics, Price and Distribution Theory, Seminar in Selected Problems of Economic Theory, Public Finance and Modern Economic Theory, Keynesian Economics, Topics in Macroeconomics, and partial notes on other courses and subjects as well.

The Clippings Series contains newspaper and magazine articles by Weintraub or about his economic theories. They are written pieces from the popular press. Included in the clippings are letters to the editor from publications throughout the United States and Canada. For the most part, these articles by Weintraub or mentioning Weintraub deal with aspects of Taxed-Based Incomes Policy (TIP). Though not all of these clippings related to economics, the majority of them do.

Both the Photographs and the Printed Material series of the files are limited. The former contains only a few black and white publicity pictures from one or more of Weintraub's speaking tours. The latter houses only a few journal reprints. Of special interest in the volumes series is an unpublished manuscript sent to Henry Wallich at the time of their first collaboration on Taxed-Based Incomes Policy. It outlines, in detail, Weintraub's ideas on the subject from Professor Wallich.

The group of materials added to the main collection at a later date deals with research that Weintraub was considering at the time of his death. This includes an early draft of a book, titled Post Keynesian Evolution. In these files are also condolence letters received by Mrs. Weintraub at the time of her husband's death, along with various obituaries and eulogies.

Accession (2009-0178) (1.2 lin. ft.; 900 items; dated 1937-1971) consists largely of Weintraub's personal correspondence to his wife, Sheila Ellen Weintraub, during World War II and his post-war travels. Other correspondents include his brother and his son. These letters offer excellent insight into Weintraub's activities during the war, as well as descriptions of London and India in the pre-war and post-war period. This accession has been added to the end of the collection; see below for box numbers.

• Bronfenbrenner, Martin, 1914-1997.
• Economics--History--20th century.
• Economists--Correspondence.
• Economics--Study and teaching (higher)--United States.
• Economists--United States.
• Galbraith, John Kenneth, 1908-2006.
• India, 1940-1950.
• Inflation (Finance).
• Keynesian economics.
• London (England), 1940-1950.
• Photographs.
• Unemployment -- Effect of inflation on.
• United States Information Service.
• Vandermeulen, Alice John, 1918-
• Wage-price policy.
• Weintraub, E. Roy.
• Weintraub, Sidney, 1914-
• World War, 1939-1945.

[Identification of item], Sidney Weintraub Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library

The Sidney Weintraub Papers were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library as a gift in 1984, in the 1990s and in 2009.

Processed by Meghan Lyon, August 2009

Preliminary finding aid written by David J. Haas, January 1985

Encoded and updated by Meghan Lyon, August 2009

Addition and oversize material added by Ted Holt, November 2009

This collection is minimally processed: materials may not have been ordered and described beyond their original condition.

Descriptive sources and standards used to create this inventory: DACS, EAD, NCEAD guidelines, and local Style Guide.

This finding aid is NCEAD compliant.