Isador Lubin (9 June 1896 – 6 July 1978) was the head of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics from 1933 to 1946, and president of the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...

in 1946.

Career

During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, at the U.S. Food Administration, Lubin analyzed labor and price policy related to food production for the Allied Nations. Later at the

War Industries Board The War Industries Board (WIB) was a United States government agency established on July 28, 1917, during World War I, to coordinate the purchase of war supplies between the War Department (Department of the Army) and the Navy Department. Because ...

’s Price Section, he studied the effect of price shifts on the output of the petroleum and rubber industries. He was as an instructor at the Institute of Economics and earned a Ph.D. there in 1926. It became part of the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in ec ...

in 1927. Lubin's book ''Miners' Wages and the Cost of Coal'' was accepted as a dissertation. "In 1932, as adviser to Senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., he pioneered the notion of government responsibility for the

national accounts National accounts or national account systems (NAS) are the implementation of complete and consistent accounting techniques for measuring the economic activity of a nation. These include detailed underlying measures that rely on double-entry ...

." Lubin was appointed head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) by

Frances Perkins Frances Perkins (born Fannie Coralie Perkins; April 10, 1880 – May 14, 1965) was an American workers-rights advocate who served as the 4th United States secretary of labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position. A member of th ...

in July 1933 and stayed in the position until January 1946.BLS history, Commissioners Isador Lubin
at bls.gov For much of this time, Lubin had an office in the White House's

West Wing The West Wing of the White House houses the offices of the president of the United States. The West Wing contains the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, the Situation Room, and the Roosevelt Room. The West Wing's four floors contain offices for ...

"and served as special statistical adviser to President

Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

." Lubin was sometimes described as a member of President Roosevelt's "

brain trust Brain trust was a term that originally described a group of close advisers to a political candidate or incumbent; these were often academics who were prized for their expertise in particular fields. The term is most associated with the group of ad ...

." In 1944 he was elected as a

Fellow of the American Statistical Association Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The number of new fellows per year is limited ...

. In 1941 Lubin authorized BLS to start a research group at

Harvard University 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 ...

directed by

Wassily Leontief Wassily Wassilyevich Leontief (russian: Васи́лий Васи́льевич Лео́нтьев; August 5, 1905 – February 5, 1999), was a Soviet-American economist known for his research on input–output analysis and how changes in one ec ...

which constructed the first official table of U.S. industry inputs and outputs." In 1945, Roosevelt appointed Lubin as Minister to the Allied Reparations Commission. "In his presidential address to the American Statistical Society in January

947 Year 947 ( CMXLVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Summer – A Hungarian army led by Grand Prince Taksony campaigns in Italy, heading ...

Lubin emphasized

he role He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

of statistics in modern economic society and the value to the free world of pertinent data." Lubin was appointed the Industrial Commissioner of

New York state New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...

from 1955 to 1958 by Governor W. Averell Harriman.

Personal and legacy

In 1952 Lubin married the former Carol Riegelman (1909-2005), a longtime consultant to the UN/

ILO The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and ol ...

. He had two daughters by a previous marriage to Ann Shumaker Lubin, the editor of "Progressive Education" and co-author of the book, "The Child-Centered School" (1928): Alice Lubin Everitt an
Ann Lubin Buttenwieser
Fellowships named for Dr. Lubin were established at

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

and

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

References

Further information

* Lewis Lansky. 1976
Isador Lubin: The Ideas and Career of a New Deal Labor Economist
Case Western Reserve University. Dissertation. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lubin, Isador American civil servants 20th-century American economists Bureau of Labor Statistics Fellows of the American Statistical Association Presidents of the American Statistical Association 1896 births 1978 deaths Franklin D. Roosevelt administration personnel Truman administration personnel