Somers, Anne Ramsay

Anne Ramsay Somers, educator, author, and health consultant, was born in 1913. From 1937-1942 she served as educational director of the ILGW Union. Somers worked as a labor economist in the U.S. Department of Labor from 1943-1946, and was a research associate at Haverford College from 1957-1963. She was a faculty member at Princeton and a professor of community and family medicine at the College of Medicine and Dentistry of the New Jersey-Rutgers Medical School.

From the description of Anne Ramsay Somers papers, 1948-2006 (inclusive). (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702167419

Anne Ramsay Somers, educator, author, and health consultant, was born in 1913. From 1937-1942 she served as educational director of the ILGW Union. Somers worked as a labor economist in the U.S. Department of Labor from 1943-1946, and was a research associate at Haverford College from 1957-1963. She was a faculty member at Princeton and a professor of community and family medicine at the College of Medicine and Dentistry of the New Jersey-Rutgers Medical School.

Anne Ramsay Somers, educator, author, and consultant, has been an influential figure in American public health policy, hospital administration, prepaid health insurance plans, and consumer health education. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1913, she was educated at Vassar College (B.A., 1935) and the University of North Carolina (1939-1940). Her early interests were labor economics and industrial relations, and she served as educational director of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union from 1937 to 1942 and as a labor economist with the U.S. Department of Labor from 1943 to 1946.

In 1947, she married Herman Miles Somers, then an economist at the U.S. Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, and spent the next seven years studying and raising a family. In 1954 she and her husband published Workmen's Compensation, their first collaborative work. The study was the first to fully emphasize the importance of the health benefits provided under Workmen's Compensation. After 1954 the Somers became gradually more involved in the area of health economics and in 1957 Anne was appointed a research associate (1957-1963) at Haverford College, where her husband was professor and chairman of the Department of Political Science (1948-1963).

They published a second joint work on health care, Doctors, Patients, and Health Insurance, in 1961. As the first modern full-scale exposition of the organization and financing of health care in the United States, the monograph was widely acclaimed and brought them a great deal of recognition.

During the 1960s and 1970s Anne Somers published a succession of incisive and influential studies of American health care and health policy: Medicare and the Hospitals, 1967, with Herman Somers; Health Care in Transition, 1971; and Health and Health Care: Policies in Perspective, 1977, with Herman Somers. Anne Somers has also published in the field of hospital administration and has conducted studies exploring new areas of health policy such as geriatrics, health education, violence, and various aspects of preventive medicine.

Besides her extensive work as a consultant in the public and private sectors, Somers has served as a research associate in the Industrial Relations Section, Princeton University, since 1964 and as professor of community and family medicine, College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Rutgers Medical School since 1971. From 1972 to 1974 she was also director of the Office of Consumer Health Education, College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and she has participated in policy making and administration in a variety of other positions, including one term as a member of the Health Insurance Benefits Advisory Council (1972-1975).

From the guide to the Anne Ramsay Somers papers, 1955-2006, (Manuscripts and Archives)