Gerschenkron, Economist And Scholar, Dies at 74

Alexander Gerschenkron, Barker Professor of Economics Emeritus, died Thursday in Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He was 74 years old.

A Russian-born economist and economic historian, Gerschenkron came to the United States in 1938 and taught at the University of California, Berkeley until 1942. He joined the Faculty in 1948 and taught here until his retirement in 1975.

Gerschenkron is best known for applying the methods of statistical economic analysis to the study of history, and for his work on European industrialization. Among his many published works is the influential "Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective."

He was also "truly a founding father of the Social Studies program, helping to give it an intellectual base when it was started in 1959," Richard M. Hunt, senior lecturer in Social Studies, said yesterday.

Dean Rosovsky, a former student and Gerschenkron's successor as Barker Professor, said yesterday that Gerschenkron was "one of the last cultivated European intellectuals, a great scholarly model."

"For a long time, he was probably the most effective, stimulating, challenging and inspiring teacher we had at Harvard," Thomas C. Schelling '48, Littauer Professor of Political Economy, said yesterday. Students and colleagues acclaimed Gerschenkronfor his personal style of teaching as well as his scholarship. "He was responsible for starting the careers of a great many of the economic historians in this country," James S. Duesenberry, Maier Professor of Money and Banking, said yesterday.

"He trained as much of the new generation of economic historians as all the others put together," Otto Eckstein, Warburg Professor of Economics and another former student of Gerschenkron, added yesterday.

During World War II, Gerschenkron worked as a flanger--a type of steelworker--in a California shipyard and said several years later, "I seriously considered staying in the shipyard. The work didn't follow you home at night into your leisure and your dreams."

Gershenkron is survived by his wife Erica, of Cambridge, and a daughter, Maria-Renate Davidoff of New Haven, Conn.

Funeral services were private. A memorial service will be held in a few weeks at the Harvard Chapel