Economic history has had both a distinguished and a discontinuous presence at MIT, as a teaching subject and as a research field. For the first full century of MIT’s existence, economics did not enjoy departmental status, but did contribute significantly to what was known as the Course of General Studies. In this guise, the study of economic history and political economy were built into the curriculum under the visionary leadership of Davis Rich Dewey and a cohort of Marshall Plan veterans who embarked on scholarly careers at MIT after the Second World War. Departmental status and the hire of Peter Temin in the 1950s secured economic history as one of three legs on which the graduate programme was built, but did not outlast his retirement. Although not a prominent part of departmental culture or curriculum at the present time, issues in economic history continue to thrive in adjacent programmes at MIT, from the Sloan School, to History, and even to science studies.