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Arthur Prinz Collection - Dickinson College

 Collection
Identifier: AR 25473

Scope and Content Note

This collection consists mainly of notes, research materials, and manuscripts for a book that Arthur Prinz was writing during his time as an economics professor at Dickinson College (Carlisle, Pennsylvania) from the 1950s through the 1970s. The book is a translation and further refinement of Prinz’s unpublished dissertation, Das Marxsche System in psychologischer Betrachtung, which examines the psychological aspects of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. The materials in this collection related to the book include handwritten and typed manuscripts, shorthand notes, clippings, and articles written by others. Many of the notes are undated and may date back as far as the 1920s and 1930s when Prinz began revising his manuscript for publication after the conferral of his doctorate in 1923. Some of the manuscript materials were taped or stapled together during revisions and are now slightly damaged as a result. Also included are handwritten lecture notes on the history of economics, foreign trade, international economics, and the economic theories of Marx and Keynes. One folder of professional correspondence and Prinz’s doctoral diploma make up the rest of the collection.

Throughout the collection, Prinz’s papers are interleaved with pages with very short descriptive notes about the materials. These notes may have been written by archivists at Dickinson College, where these records were originally processed and held until their donation to the Leo Baeck Institute in 2011. It is not clear whether these notes or the arrangement of the folders reflects any original order of the papers.

Dates

  • circa 1920s-1980

Language of Materials

The collection is in English with a few documents in German.

Access Restrictions

This collection is open to researchers.

Due to copyright restrictions, the published articles and clippings have not been digitized.

Access Information

Collection is digitized. Follow the links in the Container List to access the digitized materials.

Biographical Note

Arthur Prinz was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala on December 3, 1898 to Hermann Prinz, a German-born U.S. citizen who owned a plantation in Guatamala, and his wife Clara née Gutmann, a teacher. Hermann Prinz died while visiting family in Berlin, Germany in 1904, and Clara remained in Berlin to raise her children. Arthur Prinz studied economics, history, and philosophy in Berlin, graduating in 1923 with his dissertation Das Marxsche System in psychologischer Betrachtung, which was never published. Prinz taught economics at the Humboldt University in Berlin until he was forced to resign in 1933. He worked for the Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland from 1933-1939. In 1939, he visited his sister in Palestine and decided not to return to Germany. In 1948, he immigrated to the United States and became a professor of economics at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Arthur Prinz died in San Diego in August of 1981.

Extent

2.5 Linear Feet

Abstract

The economics professor Arthur Prinz (1898-1981) was born in Guatemala, educated in Berlin, and emigrated first to Palestine and then to the United States, where he became a professor of economics at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. This collection consists mainly of notes and manuscripts written by Prinz for a book on the psychological aspects of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. Also included are several folders of lecture notes, clippings, research materials, and some correspondence.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged by document type or chapter number according to the arrangement created at the Dickinson College archives.

Related Material

The LBI Archives also holds the Papers of Arthur Prinz (AR 5103/MF 681), a collection which contains personal papers, correspondence, manuscripts, research materials, and writings of Arthur Prinz.

Photographs from this collection have also been digitized and can be viewed online: Photographs from the Papers of Arthur Prinz.

Materials related to Prinz can also be found in the Dickinson College Archives.

Processing Information

This collection was processed at the Dickinson College archives and donated to LBI in 2011. It is unclear if the folder arrangement reflects any kind of original order that the materials may have had. The arrangement and folders from Dickinson were retained during processing in 2013 with a few exceptions of dividing particularly overstuffed folders into smaller portions, as was the case for the last three folders in box 3 and the materials and texts for chapters IV and V. Materials were flattened where necessary.

Title
Guide to the Arthur Prinz Dickinson College Collection circa 1920s-1980 AR 25473
Status
Completed
Author
Processed by Leanora Lange
Date
© 2013
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
Description is in English.
Sponsor
Made possible by the Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives Grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources through The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support "Illuminating Hidden Collections at the Center for Jewish History."

Revision Statements

  • May 2016:: dao links added by Emily Andresini.

Repository Details

Part of the Leo Baeck Institute Repository

Contact:
15 West 16th Street
New York NY 10011 United States