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| HENRY HARNEY: CPA PIONEER1
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By Stephen E. Loeb
Ernst & Young Alumni Professor of Auditing,
University of Maryland, College Park
and historian, Maryland Association of CPAs
In the accompanying article entitled "CPA Centennial Series: The
First Law," Professors Dale L. Flesher, Gary J. Previts and Tonya
K. Flesher point out that 1996 is the centennial of the New York
CPA law and the establishment of the concept of Certified Public
Accounting as is practiced in the United States. Those authors
indicate that Maryland became the third state to establish
a CPA law.
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Henry Harney. This photograph was copied from the Library of Congress' Collection, taken from the Oct. 15, 1897 issue of the Financial Record.
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However, what is most relevant to Maryland is that, as
noted below, one of the key individuals involved in establishing the
1896 New York law was Henry Harney, who at the time of the
enactment of the New York law was apparently working in New York, but whose early years appear to have been spent in Baltimore.
In fact, there is a view that Harney, in addition to being
involved in the political process relating to the New York law,
actually may have devised the concept of what became the New York
1896 CPA law. A 1953 article on the history of the New York State
Society of CPAs provides some insight on Henry Harney's Baltimore
background.2 He "was born in Baltimore [around] 1835."3 Harney's
father was "head of [the] Franklin Square Female Seminary."4 The
article also notes that Henry Harney was educated "by his father,"
"private schools," and by "[attending] Baltimore College, University
of Maryland."5
A search of old Baltimore City directories as well as census records
seems to confirm Henry Harney's Baltimore connection.6 However, a
confirmation of his schooling has not yet been found. The 1953
article suggests that shortly after his education in Maryland, Henry
Harney left the State of Maryland to pursue a career and military
service elsewhere and he seems eventually to have gone to the State
of New York to work.7 However, Maryland can take pride in the fact
that one of its sons likely was a key developer of the concept of the
CPA certificate in the United States.
As we move toward our own centennial, the MACPA History
Committee is working to provide our members and the accounting
profession in general with information about the unique and lasting
contribution that individuals from the State of Maryland have made
to the founding and development of the accounting profession in the
United States.
Footnotes
1. George Wilkinson, "The Genesis of the CPA Movement," in S.A. Zeff, Ed., The U.S. Accounting Profession in the 1890s and Early 1900s, Garland Publishing, Inc., New York, 1998, pp. 132 - 134; first published in The Certified Public Accountant, (September 1928), see pp. 264-266. I am grateful to Gary Previts for reminding me about Wilkinson's comments. See also Committee on History, "The Incorporators of The New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants," The New York Certified Accountant, (March 1953), p. 221.
2. Committee on History, p. 221
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. My thanks to Augustine Duru for his assistance with this research.
7. Committe on History, p. 221.
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