ABSTRACT
For a decade or so, defining the role that a new breed of professionally trained social scientists would play in American life had been largely a matter for debate within their infant guild. Among economists, discussions of method, content, and competence first sharpened and then gradually began to resolve the most significant generational and ideological differences. By the mid-1880s, however, an alarming new factor intruded upon the professionalization process. Clashes with formidable opponents were stylized in the rhetoric of the emerging profession as academic freedom cases. Thus the concept of academic freedom which each economist held became a decisive factor in determining both that individual's role and the eventual shape of the entire profession. As Henry Carter Adams became a member of the professional elite, his attitudes toward advocacy undergirded decisions that continued to influence the development of the profession.
