Edward Preston Moxey Jr. (October 2, 1881 – April 6, 1943 ) was an American accountant, and the first Professor of Accounting at the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania. He is known for his early works on cost-keeping in factories, which describe the elementary principles of cost accounting.
Biography
Born in Philadelphia to Edward P. and Mary Ann, Moxey was named after his father. He was a banker, broker, businessman and accountant, had founded the Edward P. Moxey accountancy firm, and had published the 1881 book, entitled "Fluctuations of the New York stock market, 1870–1880." Moxey obtained his BS in economics in 1904, his MA in 1906, and his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in 1909. Subsequently, he obtained his Certified Public Accountants license in 1913 for the state of Pennsylvania.
After his graduation Moxey joined the accountancy firm Edward P. Moxey & Co, where he became a partner in 1911. After his father's death in 1915, he took over the prestigious accounting firm. The firm would eventually merge into Coopers & Lybrand in 1962. Moxey had started at the University of Pennsylvania as an Assistant Instructor in 1904, became an instructor in 1907, Assistant Professor in 1910, and Full Professor in 1915. At the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce he was the first to be appointed Professor of Accounting, and the first chairman of its Accounting department.
Moxey was co-founder of the National Association of Cost Accountants, board member and co-founder of its Philadelphia chapter and its president in 1929–31.
Moxey's son, Edward P. Moxey, III, graduated from Wharton in 1930 and followed his father's and grandfather's footsteps and became a third generation CPA. He worked for Philco-Ford Corporation, later Ford Aerospace, and taught at Temple University.
Work
Accounting at the Wharton School
Moxey had joined the Wharton School faculty in the early 1900s. A 1904 article in the Bulletin of the American Institute of Banking reports, that under Moxey Jr., a class in bookkeeping was organized for those without previous experience. The class completed the first set of books in the elementary work, and at the beginning of the second half would take up first year accounting, to be prepared to take advanced accounting in the second year.
The teaching in accounting had been organized within the Wharton School since its initiation. Joseph Wharton had agreed upon this in its initial plan, which had stated that "one professor or instructor of accounting or bookkeeping [should] teach the simplest and most practical forms of bookkeeping for housekeepers, for private individuals, for commercial and banking firms, for manufacturing establishments, and for banks; also, the modes of keeping accounts by executors, trustees, and assignees, by the officials of towns and cities, as well as by the several departments of a State or National Government; also, the routine of business between a bank and a customer."
In his second year at the Wharton School (1905–06) Moxey taught three regular accounting courses, entitled "Elementary Accounting", "Accounting Systems", and "C.P.A. Problems."
Accounting Systems (1911)
In 1911 Moxey's first book Accounting Systems was published by the Alexander Hamilton Institute. This work was part of a twelve-volume series on Modem Business, and was written for a particular clientele. The series is designed for home study, partly as the basis for correspondence work, but more generally used as a comprehensive treatment of business organization and methods for persons studying by themselves without personal intercourse with an instructor.
In a 1912 review by Henry Rand Hatfield in Journal of Political Economy, Hatfield explained, that "for such it would seem an almost indispensable feature that there be furnished a convenient, yet fairly comprehensive, list of collateral references. Even in the college classroom, where text can readily be amplified by suggestions or criticisms of the instructor, the use of collateral references is well-nigh universal. Much more important is it that the isolated student should be encouraged to compare other, perhaps conflicting, views. Furthermore, the interested student constantly desires to branch out and make a more intensive study of some topic, touched upon in a general treatise but in such a work necessarily given but scant attention."