Elizabeth Ellis Hoyt collection, 1973

Full finding aid (pdf)

Collection Scope and Content

This collection includes 7 boxes of shells. A note included in the collection reads: “Collection of sea shells from all parts of the world.”

Biographical/Historical Note

Elizabeth Ellis Hoyt was born January 27, 1893 in Augusta, Maine. She received her B.A. from Boston University in 1913, her M.A. in 1924 and her PhD. in 1925 from Harvard University (Radcliffe Graduate School). She was a professor of Economics at Iowa State University from 1925 to 1963, and a pioneer in the field of consumptive economics. She received a Fulbright award in 1950 to do research on social conditions in Africa.

Dr. Hoyt was the author of five books, one of which, Primitive Trade: Its Psychology and Economics, published in 1926, was republished in 1968 as an economics classic. In her will, she created the Elizabeth E. Hoyt Fellowship Fund at Iowa State to support seminars and scholarship. She is buried at Ocean Hill Cemetery at Long Cove in Bristol, Maine.