Ely was one of the early proponents in the U.S. of a new economics whose goal was not only growth, but also making people's lives better.

In 1892 the University of Wisconsin lured Ely from Johns Hopkins to direct its new School of Economics, Political Science, and History.

But the following year Wisconsin's Superintendent of Public Instruction Oliver Elwin Wells accused Ely of "believ[ing] in strikes and boycotts," and of being in "constant consultation" with the union organizer, and of asserting that "where a skilled workman was needed, a dirty, dissipated, unmarried, unreliable, and unskilled man should be employed in preference to an industrious, skillful, trustworthy, non-union man who is the head of family."

In the end, the Regents exonerated Ely, but beyond that they supported academic freedom in the statement from which "sifting and winnowing" comes: ...we could not for a moment think of recommending the dismissal or even the criticism of a teacher even if some of his opinions should, in some quarters, be regarded as visionary.

Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.

Frost designed a textbook Georgian Revival-style house, with a nearly symmetric façade, a hip-and-deck roof, and eaves decorated like a cornice with modillions.

The front entrance is surrounded by sidelights and fanlight beneath a portico supported by Ionic columns.

In 1925 Ely left the UW and the house in Madison, taking a position at Northwestern University.