Carroll Davidson Wright (July 25, 1840 – February 20, 1909) was an American statistician. Wright is best known for his title as the first U.S. Commissioner of Labor, serving in that capacity from 1885 to 1905.

Biography

Wright was born at Dunbarton, New Hampshire. He attended schools in Washington, New Hampshire, from elementary through the Tubbs Union Academy. He began to study law in 1860, first in

Dedham, Massachusetts Dedham ( ) is a town in and the county seat of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 25,364 at the 2020 census. It is located on Boston's southwest border. On the northwest it is bordered by Needham, on the southwest b ...

and then in nearby Boston, but in 1862 enlisted as a private in the

14th New Hampshire Volunteer Regiment The 14th New Hampshire Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment that participated in the American Civil War. It was the last three-year regiment raised in New Hampshire, serving from September 24, 1862, to July 8, 1865. Carroll Davidson Wright w ...

to fight the American Civil War. He became colonel in 1864, and served as assistant-adjutant general of a brigade in the

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campaign under

General Philip Sheridan General of the Army Philip Henry Sheridan (March 6, 1831 – August 5, 1888) was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War. His career was noted for his rapid rise to major general and his clo ...

. After the war, he was admitted to the New Hampshire bar, and in 1867 became a member of the Massachusetts and United States' bars. From 1872 to 1873 he served in the Massachusetts Senate, where he secured the passage of a bill to provide for the establishment of trains for workers to Boston from the suburban districts. From 1873 to 1878 he was chief of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor. In 1880, he was appointed supervisor of the U. S. Census in Massachusetts, being also special agent of the census on the factory system. In 1885 he was commissioned by the governor to investigate the public records of the towns, parishes, counties, and courts of the state. He was the first U.S. Commissioner of Labor from 1885 to 1905, and in 1893 was placed in charge of the Eleventh Census. Wright was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1893. In 1894 he was chairman of the commission which investigated the Pullman Strike of Chicago, and in 1902 was a member of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission. He was honorary professor of social economics in the

Catholic University of America The Catholic University of America (CUA) is a private Roman Catholic research university in Washington, D.C. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by U.S. ...

from 1895 to 1904; in 1900, he became professor of statistics and social economics in Columbian University (now George Washington University). From 1900 to 1901, he was university lecturer on wage statistics at

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, and in 1903 he was a member of the

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to investigate and recommend a program of vocational education for Massachusetts. In 1902, he was chosen president of Clark College (the undergraduate school at Clark University), Worcester, Massachusetts, where he was also professor of statistics and social economics from 1904 until his death. Dr. Wright was President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1903, and in 1907 received the Cross of the Legion of Honor for his work in improving industrial conditions, a similar honor (Order of Saints Maurizio e Lazzaro) having been conferred upon him in 1906 by the Italian government. He was a member of the Institute of France and an honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Science of Russia. In 1907, he was elected the second president of the

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. He received honorary degrees from Tufts (1883), Wesleyan (1894),

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(1897), Clark University (1902), Tufts (1902), and Amherst (1905). He died on February 20, 1909.

Works

* ''Annual Reports of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor'' (15 vols., Boston, 1873–1888) * ''The Census of Massachusetts.'' In three volumes. Boston: Albert J. Wright, State Printer, 1877. Vol. 2: Manufactures and OccupationsVol. 3: Agricultural Products and Property
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''Statistics of Drunkenness and Liquor Selling Under Prohibitory and License Legislation.''
Boston: Rand, Aberg & Co., 1879. * ''The Statistics of Boston'' (1882) * ''The Relation of Political Economy to the Labor Question'' (1882) * ''The Factory System as an Element in Civilization'' (1882)
''Report on the Factory System of the United States.''
Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1884. * ''Scientific Basis of Tariff Legislation'' (1884) * ''History of Wages and Prices in Massachusetts'', 1752–1883 (1885)
''Industrial Depressions: The First Annual Report of the United States Commissioner of Labor.''
Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1886. * ''Convict Labor'' (1886) * ''Strikes and Lockouts'' (1887) * ''The Industrial Evolution of the United States'' (1887) * ''The Present Actual Condition of the Workingman'' (1887) * ''Hand Labor in Prisons'' (1887) * ''Historical Sketch of the Knights of Labor'' (1887) * ''The Study of Statistics in Colleges'' (1887) * ''The Census of Massachusetts'' (4 vols., Boston, 1887/8) * ''Problems of the Census'' (1887) * ''The Growth and Purposes of Bureaus of Statistics of Labor'' (1888) * ''Outline of Practical Sociology'' (1899) * ''Some Ethical Phases of the Labor Question.'' Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1902.
''The Battles of Labor: Being the William Levi Bull Lectures for 1906.''
Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1906. * ''The Apprenticeship System in its Relation to Industrial Education'' (1908)

References

* ''History of Washington, NH, 1768–1886'' * * * * American Statistical Association, New Series No. 86, June 1909, (Memorial by S.N.D. North) * Fourth Annual Report of the Statistics of Labor, Commonwealth of Mass.(1909) (Memorial by H.G. Wadlin) Attribution: *

External links

*
Carroll Wright page
including links to fully digitized copies of many of his books. From the ''Immigration to the United States, 1789–1930'' collection, Harvard University Library Open Collections Program

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Carroll D. American statisticians 1840 births 1909 deaths George Washington University faculty Harvard University staff Presidents of Clark University People of New Hampshire in the American Civil War Presidents of the American Statistical Association United States Census Bureau people Members of the American Antiquarian Society People from Dunbarton, New Hampshire Arthur administration personnel Cleveland administration personnel Benjamin Harrison administration personnel McKinley administration personnel Theodore Roosevelt administration personnel Massachusetts state senators

Biography

Works

See also

References

Further reading

References

External links