Morris Garnsey papers

Born in Missouri, Morris E. Garnsey (1906-1992) received his undergraduate degree in economics from Drury College in Springfield in 1928, after which he completed a master’s degree at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1929. He then went on to teach at Brown University from 1931-35, moving on to Harvard University (Ph.D. 1937) where he completed his dissertation on the devaluation of the Belgian Franc in 1937. He also studied at the Universities of Paris and Louvain.

Garnsey joined the University of Colorado faculty in 1937, when the university consisted of approximately 3,500 students. His academic career lasted 34 years at the university, as a member of the economics department. His tenure extended from economics as a social sciences department branch until economics became a separate department and from the first economics Ph.D. to the hundredth doctoral hood. He retired in 1971, with the title of Professor Emeritus. Garnsey was an active scholar and educator in economics, as well as a defender and promoter of academic freedom. He received fellowships from the American Field Services, the Belgian-American Educational Foundation, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Consulting work in economics for a number of different organizations also occupied a portion of Garnsey’s time. He worked for the National Defense Advisory Commission, the National Resources Planning Board, the Regional Water Stabilization Board, of which he was vice chairman and public member, the Colorado State Department of Natural Resources, and other private agencies. He also helped found the Regional Science Association.

Professor Garnsey’s research focused largely on the economic and environmental aspects of resource management in Colorado and the West. He authored America’s New Frontier: the Mountain West in 1950, as well as having published over 40 articles in such journals as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, and the Western Political Quarterly. Some of his research has focused on environmentally sound usage of Colorado’s oil shale resources, earning him the enmity of some oil companies. He also worked on water and other mineral management issues in his career. His views on the relationships between environmental stewardship and resource use led him to be an economic consultant to Democrats Adlai Stevenson and John F. Kennedy, as well as Colorado Governors Lee Knous and Stephen L.R. McNichols.

In 1988, due to the gift of a former student, Lawrence Foraker, Dean of the Harvard Business School, the Morris E. Garnsey Fellowship for graduate students in economics was established in his honor. Professor Garnsey passed away on March 13, 1992, at the age of 85.