Dorothy Brady

Born in Elk River, Minnesota, she grew up in Portland, Oregon, attending Lincoln High School and later Reed College studying mathematics and physics. She was married to fellow Reed student Robert A. Brady from 1924 to 1936, they had a son in 1933.[2]

Brady earned a master’s degree in mathematics from Cornell University in 1926, then worked as an instructor at Vassar College, as a research assistant at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a studied and taught at New York University. She went on to complete a Ph.D. in mathematics from University of California, Berkeley in 1933, and was the 6th woman ever to do so.[2]

Brady went on to a long career in government working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Labor where she was the chief of the cost of living division from 1944 to 1948, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics where she was the chief of division of prices and cost of living in 1953.

She returned to academia as a professor in 1956 at the University of Chicago, was chairman of the graduate group in economic history from 1964-1970 at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She continued to consult to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Social Security Administration during her academic tenure.[2]

She received the National Women’s Press Club Award in Economics, became a fellow of the Econometric Association, and was book review editor of the Journal of Economic History from 1969-1974.[2] Brady became a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1949.[3]