Gertrude Bancroft McNally (December 23, 1908 – January 28, 1985) was an American economist who was chief of the economic statistics section of the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...

until 1951, later associated with the

Social Science Research Council The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is a US-based, independent, international nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research in the social sciences and related disciplines. Established in Manhattan in 1923, it today maintains a he ...

, and special assistant to the commissioner of the

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 ...

. Bancroft earned a master's degree in economics in 1934 from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

with a thesis on ''The effect of the War of 1812 on price relations in Philadelphia''. In 1958 she published the book ''The American Labor Force: Its Growth and Changing Composition'' (Wiley). This book, part of the ''Census Monograph Series'' produced by the Social Science Research Council in cooperation with the Census Bureau, analyzes the results of the

1950 United States Census The United States census of 1950, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States to be 150,697,361, an increase of 14.5 percent over the 131,669,275 persons enumerated during the 1940 census. This was ...

and associated data to measure the growth and makeup of workers and unemployed people within the US, and discover patterns of change in which kinds of people were working and what they did between 1940 and 1950. In 1962, she was honored by the American Statistical Association by election as one of their

Fellows Fellows may refer to Fellow, in plural form. Fellows or Fellowes may also refer to: Places * Fellows, California, USA * Fellows, Wisconsin, ghost town, USA Other uses * Fellows Auctioneers, established in 1876. *Fellowes, Inc., manufacturer of wo ...

for "distinguished service to the field of labor force statistics both in the development of objectively measurable concepts and in the promotion of public understanding of the uses and limitations of labor force data".

References

1908 births 1985 deaths 20th-century American economists American women economists University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences alumni Fellows of the American Statistical Association United States Census Bureau people American economics writers Place of birth missing Place of death missing 20th-century American women academics {{US-economist-stub