Alexander, Sadie Tanner Mossell (03 January 1898–01 November 1989), economist and lawyer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Aaron Mossell, an attorney and the first black graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and Mary Tanner. While a young girl her father abandoned the family, and she was raised by her mother with the assistance of relatives....
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Alexander, Sadie Tanner Mossell (1898-1989), economist and lawyer
Nancy Elizabeth Fitch
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Anderson, Benjamin McAlester (1886-1949), economist
Mark Thornton
Anderson, Benjamin McAlester (01 May 1886–19 January 1949), economist, was born in Columbia, Missouri, the son of Benjamin McLean Anderson, a businessman and politician, and Mary Frances Bowling. Anderson entered the University of Missouri in Columbia in 1902 and earned an A.B. in 1906. He was appointed professor of political economy and sociology at Missouri Valley College in Marshall in 1906 and was named as the head of the Department of History and Political Economy at the State Normal School at Springfield the following year. He married Margaret Louise Crenshaw in 1909; they had four children....
Article
Ayres, Clarence Edwin (1891-1972), economics professor
Wendell C. Gordon
Ayres, Clarence Edwin (06 May 1891–24 July 1972), economics professor, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the son of William S. Ayres, a minister, and Emma Young. He entered Brown University in 1908, obtaining a B.A. in 1912. He was at Harvard in 1913 and then returned to Brown, where he obtained an M.A. in 1914. Ayres married Anna Bryant in 1915; they had three children and were divorced in 1925. He attended the University of Chicago, from which he received a Ph.D. in 1917. His major field of study was philosophy. After graduating he served as an instructor in the Department of Philosophy at Chicago until 1920....
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Ayres, Leonard Porter (1879-1946), educator, statistician, and economist
Mary B. Stavish
Ayres, Leonard Porter (15 September 1879–29 October 1946), educator, statistician, and economist, was born in Niantic, Connecticut, the son of Milan Church Ayres and Georgiana Gall. His father, a clergyman, author, and journalist, was editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser. The family moved to Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, where Leonard received his early education in public schools. An avid bicycle racer, he participated in national matches as a young man. After receiving his Ph.B. degree from Boston University in 1902, he taught school in Puerto Rico, rising rapidly to become general superintendent of the island’s schools and chief of the Education Department’s Statistics Division in 1906. Returning to the states, he moved to New York City and joined the Russell Sage Foundation in 1908 to conduct investigations of the health and education of schoolchildren under the direction of ...
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Bissell, Richard Mervin, Jr. (1909-1994), economics professor and government administrator
Jacqueline McGlade
Bissell, Richard Mervin, Jr. (18 September 1909–07 February 1994), economics professor and government administrator, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Richard Bissell, a wealthy insurance executive, and Marie Truesdel. As a young man, Bissell studied at elite educational institutions, including Groton School; Yale University, where he received a B.A. in 1932; and the London School of Economics, where he began his postgraduate work. In 1933 he returned to Yale as an instructor and was promoted to assistant professor before earning his Ph.D. in economics in 1939. In 1940 he married Ann Cornelia Bushnell; they had five children. Described by one friend as “desperately shy,” Bissell seemed destined in 1941 to remain a university educator and scholar. However, the outbreak of World War II dramatically changed his life, as he left Yale to become a member of ...
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Black, John Donald (1883-1960), agricultural economist
Douglas E. Bowers
Black, John Donald (06 June 1883–12 April 1960), agricultural economist, was born in Cambridge, Wisconsin, the son of Robert Black, a homestead farmer, and Margaret Scott, a schoolteacher. The family was of recent Scottish extraction. The fourth of ten children, Black grew up in a home where education was valued. Three of his siblings became teachers, one became a chemist, and one became a life insurance executive. Black graduated from the normal school at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in 1905 and taught high school in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, from 1905 to 1907. As a high school teacher he handled diverse subjects such as geography and algebra while also coaching the athletic teams....
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Blodget, Samuel, Jr. (1757-1814), entrepreneur, architect, and economist
Kenneth Hafertepe
Blodget, Samuel, Jr. (28 August 1757–11 April 1814), entrepreneur, architect, and economist, was born in Goffstown, New Hampshire, the son of Samuel Blodget and Hannah White. The elder Blodget was a merchant, manufacturer, and canal builder, and also a visionary, having developed machinery for raising sunken ships. The son seems to have inherited the father’s versatility and visionary quality....
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Bourneuf, Alice Elizabeth (1912-1980), economist
Susan Williamson
Bourneuf, Alice Elizabeth (02 October 1912–07 December 1980), economist, was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, the daughter of Volusien M. Bourneuf, a businessman, and Jessie d’Entremont. Bourneuf belonged to a large, affluent, and devout family. After the death of her father in 1914, the Bourneuf family moved from Haverhill to Brookline, Massachusetts. In the mid-1920s they moved to the Chestnut Hill section of Newton, Massachusetts, and Bourneuf graduated from Newton High School in 1929....
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Brown, Harry Gunnison (1880-1975), economist
Christopher K. Ryan
Brown, Harry Gunnison (07 May 1880–18 March 1975), economist, was born in Troy, New York, the son of Milton Peers Brown, an accountant, and Elizabeth H. Gunnison. Brown suffered from tuberculosis as a youth, which ended a career in factory work and led him to attend Williams College (1900–1904), from which he received a B.A. He next attended Ohio State University (1905–1906) and then enrolled at Yale University, where he was awarded a Ph.D. in economics in 1909. His dissertation, “Some Phases of Railroad Combination,” was supervised by ...
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Burns, Arthur Frank (1904-1987), economist and government official
Wyatt C. Wells
Burns, Arthur Frank (27 April 1904–26 June 1987), economist and government official, was born in the Jewish ghetto of Stanislau, Austria, the son of Nathan Burns, a housepainter, and Sarah Juran. Burns immigrated to the United States with his family in 1914, settling in Bayonne, New Jersey. He worked his way through Columbia University, earning an A.B. and an A.M. in 1925 and a Ph.D. in economics in 1934....
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Burns, Eveline M. (16 March 1900–2 Sept. 1985), economist and Social Security expert
Sherry Davis Kasper
Burns, Eveline M. (16 March 1900–2 Sept. 1985), economist and Social Security expert, was born Eveline Mabel Richardson in London, the daughter of Frederick Haig Richardson and Eveline Faulkner. Her mother died of complications from her birth, and her father, who administered an office in London that sold silver flatware, remarried the next year. She characterized her father as a very conservative man who aimed to control his household. He did not encourage secondary education; he did not think women should work; he did not approve of government provision of services. Viewing her subsequent life choices, it is clear that Eveline did not let her father control her or her political views....
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Callender, Guy Stevens (1865-1915), economist and historian
Roland M. Baumann
Callender, Guy Stevens (09 November 1865–08 August 1915), economist and historian, was born in Hartsgrove, Ohio, the son of Robert Foster Callender and Lois Winslow. The family moved to the Western Reserve (in present-day northeastern Ohio) when Callender was a child. At an early age he demonstrated that he had an active mind, intellectual curiosity, and a strong physical constitution; these attributes, along with his being an avid reader of books, led him at the age of fifteen to teach in the district schools of Ashtabula County. Using his savings from several winters of teaching and his summer earnings made working on the family farm, Callender succeeded in paying for college preparatory courses at New Lyme Institute, South New Lyme, Ohio....
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Campbell, Persia Crawford (1898-1974), economist and consumer leader
Paul C. Taylor
Campbell, Persia Crawford (15 March 1898–02 March 1974), economist and consumer leader, was born in Nerrigundah, Australia, the daughter of Rodolph Campbell and Beatrice Harriet Hunt, schoolteachers. She was the first of two children. Her parents were strong Presbyterians and instilled in her at an early age a love of learning. Before she entered high school her father died, leaving her mother as the sole breadwinner. Persia tried to help by making and selling dolls’ clothes. With her excellent grades she was able to enter a state scholarship high school for girls from families of modest incomes....
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Cardozo, Jacob Newton (1786-1873), economist and journalist
William J. Barber
Cardozo, Jacob Newton (17 June 1786–30 August 1873), economist and journalist, was born in Savannah, Georgia, the son of David N. Cardozo, a member of the Sephardic Jewish mercantile community who had served in the South Carolina militia during the American Revolution (the identity of his mother is unknown). Cardozo had a modest formal education; he left school at the age of twelve and subsequently became a lumber clerk. From an early age he displayed a remarkable intellectual curiosity and a talent for writing. His career in journalism began in 1816 when he joined the staff of the ...
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Carey, Henry Charles (1793-1879), economist, publisher, and social scientist
Francesco L. Nepa
Carey, Henry Charles (15 December 1793–13 October 1879), economist, publisher, and social scientist, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Mathew Carey, an economist and publisher, and Bridget Flavahan. His father, an Irish patriot and political exile, also worked periodically in social science. Carey never received any formal education and instead was taught by his father. In addition, he read many of the books that made their way through his father’s publishing house, Carey & Lea (later known as Carey, Lea & Carey). In 1802 he went to work for his father, eventually becoming a partner and head of the firm, which was at the time the largest publishing and bookselling house in the country. Carey became the American publisher for Thomas Carlyle, Sir Walter Scott, and ...
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Carey, Mathew (1760-1839), publisher and economist
James N. Green
Carey, Mathew (28 January 1760–16 September 1839), publisher and economist, was born in Dublin, Ireland, the son of Christopher Carey, a prosperous baker, and Mary Sherridan, both Catholics. He was an avid reader but not a good student. He was taunted at school because of his lameness (the result of having been dropped by a nurse) and his small stature; for the rest of his life he was quick to take offense at any imagined slight to his dignity. In 1775 he was apprenticed to a bookseller who was also copublisher of the ...
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Chamberlain, Mariam K. (24 April 1918–02 April 2013)
Clare Bond Potter
Chamberlain, Mariam K. (24 April 1918–02 April 2013), feminist economist, foundation officer, and women’s studies advocate, was born Mariam Kenosian in Chelsea, Massachusetts, the second child and only daughter of Avack Kenosian, a factory worker, and Zabel Kenosian, a homemaker. Her parents immigrated to the United States in 1912 and 1913 in the midst of ongoing Turkish violence against the Armenian community. Despite her parents’ poverty and lack of support for women’s higher education, Mariam was the valedictorian of her class at Chelsea High School. She was accepted to Radcliffe College in 1936, paying her deposit with a $50 prize she had won as the first girl marbles champion of Chelsea. Living at home, Mariam won scholarships, borrowed, and worked as a secretary, completing a B.A. in economics in June 1940. In 1941 she was accepted for the Ph.D. program in economics at Harvard University....
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Chase, Stuart (1888-1985), social theorist and writer
Norman Silber
Chase, Stuart (08 March 1888–16 November 1985), social theorist and writer, was born in Somersworth, New Hampshire, the son of Harvey Stuart Chase, a public accountant, and Aaronette Rowe. Chase was born into a family that had lived in New England since the seventeenth century. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1907–1908 and then completed his college education at Harvard University. Upon graduating cum laude in 1910, he became a certified public accountant and entered his father’s accounting firm in Boston. In 1914 he married Margaret Hatfield; they had two children. The marriage ended in divorce in 1929. One year later, he married Marian Tyler....
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Clague, Ewan (1896-1987), economist and civil servant
Melvyn Dubofsky
Clague, Ewan (27 December 1896–12 April 1987), economist and civil servant, was born in Prescott, Washington, the son of John Clague and Eleanor Christian Cooper, farmers and immigrants from the Isle of Man, Great Britain. Clague attended the University of Washington, earning an A.B. in economics in 1917. After two years in the U.S. Army, 1917–1919, he returned to the University of Washington, where he earned an A.M. in economics in 1921. He went on to study for his doctorate in economics at what was then perhaps the nation’s leading institution of higher education in the fields of labor economics and industrial relations, the University of Wisconsin....
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Clark, John Bates (1847-1938), economist
Donald Dewey
Clark, John Bates (26 January 1847–21 March 1938), economist, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of John Hezekiah Clark, a merchant of modest prosperity, and Charlotte Huntington. In his early youth his family moved to Minneapolis. Clark returned east in 1865 to attend Brown University and later Amherst College. In 1868 his father’s failing health required him to interrupt his studies to take over the family business (farm machinery) in Minnesota. Following his father’s death, the business was sold and Clark returned to Amherst, from which he graduated in 1872....
