ABSTRACT
Henry Rand Hatfield was one of the progenitors of modern academic accounting. Born in 1866, he had a long and distinguished academic career and was the first full-time professor of accounting in the US Hatfield is remembered mainly as an author and critic. His major work, Modern Accounting: Its Principles and Some of Its Problems, was one of the first US contributions to the modern accounting literature. The chief concerns of Hatfield’s writings were the balance sheet and asset valuation, making his work of great interest. Hatfield was also a founder of the American Accounting Association, but came to oppose other key members on several issues, most importantly the Association’s emphasis on research. During the war years, Hatfield was active in public service, as president of the Berkeley Commission of Charities from 1914 to 1918, director of the division of planning and statistics, War Industries Board, in 1918, and as an expert with the Advisory Tax Board.
