Helen Bohen O'Bannon (1939 – October 19, 1988) was an
economist who served as the Secretary of
Public Welfare for the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania under Governor
Dick Thornburgh
Richard Lewis Thornburgh (July 16, 1932 – December 31, 2020) was an American lawyer, author, and Republican politician who served as the 41st governor of Pennsylvania from 1979 to 1987, and then as the United States attorney general fro ...
.
A women's rights activist, she became the first woman to be appointed to the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission, serving from 1975 to 1979. She was also the first woman to be appointed as a vice president at the
University of Pennsylvania.
Formative years
Helen O'Bannon was born in
Ridgewood, New Jersey in 1939. She majored in
economics at
Wellesley College
Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...
, graduating with honors. She later earned a
master's degree at
Stanford
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...
.
Academic and public service career
O'Bannon was an associate dean at the
Carnegie Institute between 1973 and 1976, where she strove to make the university more accessible to women.
In 1976 O'Bannon published an economics text titled ''Money and Banking: Theory, Policy, and Institutions (
Harper and Row
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City.
History
J. & J. Harper (1817–1833)
James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...
, ).
O'Bannon was Pennsylvania's Secretary of Public Welfare from 1979 until 1983, when she returned to
academia, becoming the first woman to hold the position of
vice president at the
University of Pennsylvania.
Death
She died from cancer at the University of Pennsylvania's hospital in Philadelphia on October 19, 1988, after a long illness.
[Collins, "Helen O'Bannon, 49; served state and Penn as a top administrator," ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'', October 20, 1988.]
References
External links
*
1975-1992: Timeline of Women at Penn, University of Pennsylvania Archives- Mark Frazier Lloyd, July 2001
- A complete transcript from the discussion panel from volume four of the 1980
Milton Friedman PBS documentary "
Free to Choose"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Obannon, Helen
1939 births
1988 deaths
American women economists
People from Ridgewood, New Jersey
Wellesley College alumni
Stanford University alumni
Women in Pennsylvania politics
20th-century American economists
20th-century American women scientists
20th-century American scientists
Economists from New Jersey