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
Shenandoah Valley
The Shenandoah Valley () is a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the eastern front of the Ridge- ...
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
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, and in 1903 he was a member of the
Douglas Commission
Douglas may refer to:
People
* Douglas (given name)
* Douglas (surname)
Animals
*Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking
*Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil W ...
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
National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, ce ...
. He received honorary degrees from
Tufts (1883),
Wesleyan (1894),
Dartmouth Dartmouth may refer to:
Places
* Dartmouth, Devon, England
** Dartmouth Harbour
* Dartmouth, Massachusetts, United States
* Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
* Dartmouth, Victoria, Australia
Institutions
* Dartmouth College, Ivy League university i ...
(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 Occupations
Vol. 3: Agricultural Products and Property
/small>
''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)
See also
* Bureau of Labor Statistics
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics and serves as a principal agency of t ...
* 1872 Massachusetts legislature
The 93rd Massachusetts General Court, consisting of the Massachusetts Senate and the Massachusetts House of Representatives, met in 1872 during the governorship of Republican William B. Washburn. Horace H. Coolidge served as president of the ...
* 1873 Massachusetts legislature
The 94th Massachusetts General Court, consisting of the Massachusetts Senate and the Massachusetts House of Representatives, met in 1873 during the governorship of Republican William B. Washburn. George B. Loring served as president of the Senate ...
References
Further reading
* Gary L. Bailey, "The Commissioner of Labor's ''Strikes & Lockouts:'' A Cautionary Note," ''Labor History,'' vol. 32, no. 3, (1991), pp. 432–440.
* Joseph P. Goldberg and William T. Moye
''The First 100 Years of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.''
Bulletin No. 2235. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985.
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