Edwin Griswold Nourse was born in Lockport, New York on May 20, 1883, and grew up near Chicago, Illinois. He received undergraduate training at Lewis Institute (now the Illinois Institute of Technology) and Cornell University, and received his Ph.D. in Economics and Sociology from the University of Chicago in 1915; his dissertation was published as a Hart, Schaffner and Marx prize essay under the title THE CHICAGO PRODUCE MARKET. He was an instructor in economics and sociology before joining the Institute of Economics to direct its agricultural studies. When the Institute became part of the newly formed Brookings Institution in 1927, he became Director of the Institute, and from 1942-1946 he also served as Vice President of the Brookings Institution. In 1946 President Truman named him the first Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers which was created by the Employment Act of 1946. He later became Vice Chairman of the Joint Council on Economic Education. A leader in the economics profession, he was President of the American Farm Economic Association (1924) and the American Economic Association (1942). From 1925-1946 he was active in the Social Science Research Council and was its Chairman from 1942-1945. He wrote many reports, pamphlets, articles, and reviews, and his books include AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS (1916); THE LEGAL STATUS OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATION (1927); AMERICA'S CAPACITY TO PRODUCE (1934); PRICE MAKING IN A DEMOCRACY (1944);
ECONOMICS IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE (1953); and THE 1950s COME FIRST.
From the guide to the Edwin Griswold Nourse papers, 1908-1970., (Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library)
