Wall Street lacked prestige in elite business schools during the early 1950s

Evidence

A chance conversation with a broker pointed Markowitz toward the stock market as the subject for his Ph.D. thesis (Markowitz interview). Nowadays, this might seem a natural topic for an ambitious young graduate student, but that was not the case at the start of the 1950s. For example, the elite students of the Harvard Business School shunned Wall Street: in the early 1950s, only 3 percent of them took jobs there. “The new generation considered it unglamorous. Outside its gargoyled stone fortresses, black limousines waited for men with weary memories. Inside, it was masculine, aging, and unchanged by technology.” — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 200

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts sharply with finance’s later prestige and the rise of financialization; connects to a wider literature on how Wall Street gained elite status over the subsequent decades. — connects to: American business schools were academically weak until the late 1950s — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 321; In mid-century US academia, the stock market was a low-prestige research topic. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 201; Markowitz’s math-heavy paper was alien to 1950s academic finance culture — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 217

Broader Connections

• In mid-century US academia, the stock market was a low-prestige research topic. #corroborates (0.80) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 201
• American business schools were academically weak until the late 1950s #corroborates (0.75) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 321