Susan Myra Kingsbury

Susan Myra Kingsbury (October 18, 1870 – November 28, 1949) was an American professor of economics and a pioneer of social research.

Susan Myra Kingsbury
Born(1870-10-18)October 18, 1870[1]
San Pablo, California
DiedNovember 28, 1949(1949-11-28) (aged 79)
NationalityUnited States
EducationA.B., A.M., Ph.D.
Alma materCollege of the Pacific
Stanford University
Columbia University
Parent(s)William Belmont Kingsbury, M.D.
Helen Shuler DeLamater

Biography

Susan was born in San Pablo, California in 1870, the daughter of Willard Belmont Kingsbury, M.D., and Helen Shuler née DeLamater,[1] and was raised in Stockton, California.[2] Her father died when she was six, leaving Helen to raise Susan and her brother. Helen was dean of women at the College of the Pacific, where Susan would matriculate then graduate with honors in 1890.[3] From 1892–1900 she was a history teacher at Lowell High School in San Francisco, while tending to her ailing mother.[3] She graduated with an A.M. in sociology from Stanford University in 1899, Phi Beta Kappa.[1]

Following the death of her mother, she moved to New York to study colonial economic history at Columbia University. In 1904, she taught history for a year at Vassar College.[4] She graduated from Columbia with a Ph.D. in 1905,[1] with a dissertation titled An Introduction to the Records of the Virginian Company of London. During her stay in London (1903–04),[5] her readings inspired a personal interest in social reform.[3] In 1906 she published the first of what would become a four volume set titled Records of the Virginian Company of London, with the final volume being completed in 1933.[6]

Kingsbury became director of investigation for the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education[3] for a year beginning in 1905. The next year she accepted a position as instructor in history and economics at Simmons University, becoming head of the department. She gained the rank of associate professor in 1907.[1] The same year she was also named director of research for the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston. She served as president of the New England History Teachers Association in 1911.[1] From 1911–13, she directed a national study of the opportunities for women in social service.[5]

Her various publications, including Labor Laws and Their Enforcement (1911) and Economic Efficiency of College Women (1911) caught the attention of Martha Carey Thomas, president of Bryn Mawr College.[3] After listening to an address by Dr. Kingsbury in 1912, Thomas invited her to come to work at the College.[2] In 1915 Dr. Kingsbury became director of the Carola Woerishoffer Graduate Department of Social Economy and Social Research at the college.[5] This was the first graduate department in the country to train students for careers in social service.[2]

In 1919, she helped found the American Association of Schools of Social Work in 1919, and served as vice president of the American Economic Association and the American Sociological Society.[2] She and Thomas founded the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers in 1921.[2] Susan was chairman of Pennsylvania's first minimum wage board and for nearly a decade served as chairman for the American Association of University Women Committee on Economic and Legislative Status on Women.[7] During 1921–22 she toured China and India, then the Soviet Union in 1929–30, 1932, and 1936 to research conditions for women and children.[8] She published her results of the Russia visits as co-author in 1935.[7] She retired as professor emeritus of social economy at Bryn Mawr College in 1936.[5]

Bibliography

Her published works include:

  • Kingsbury, Susan Myra, ed. (1906), The records of the Virginia Company of London, 1, US Government Printing Office.
  • Kingsbury, Susan Myra (1908), A comparison of the Virginia company with the other English trading companies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, American Historical Association.
  • Department of Research; Perkins, Agnes Frances; Martin, Eleanor; Post, Margaret A.; Kingsbury, Susan Myra (1910), Vocations for the trained woman, Boston, Massachusetts: Women's Educational and Industrial Union.
  • Kingsbury, Susan (February 1910), "Economic Efficiency of College Women", Journal of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, 3 (20): 1–11.
  • Kingsbury, Susan Myra, ed. (1911), Labor Laws and Their Enforcement: with Special Reference to Massachusetts, Studies in economic relations of women, 1, Longmans, Green.
  • Kingsbury, Susan M.; Moses, Mabelle (1915), Licensed workers in industrial home work in Massachusetts : analysis of current records under the auspices of the Bureau of Research, Women's Educational and Industrial Union, Boston: Wright & Potter, state printers.
  • Kingsbury, Susan M.; et al. (October 1915), "The boot and shoe industry in Massachusetts as a vocation for women", Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Women in Industry Series, 180 (7): 105.
  • Francke, Marie (April 1917), under the direction of Susan Myra Kingsbury, "Opportunities for Women in Domestic Science", Monthly Review of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4 (4): 570–572, JSTOR 41823374.
  • Kingsbury, Susan Myra; et al. (1917), Industrial experience of trade-school girls in Massachusetts, Economic Relations of Women, 9, Women's Educational and Industrial Union.
  • Kingsbury, Susan Myra; Fairchild, Mildred (1932), Employment and unemployment in pre-war and Soviet Russia.
  • Kingsbury, Susan M.; Fairchild, Mildred (1935), Factory, Family and Women in the Soviet Union, AMS Press, Inc, ISBN 978-0404574673.
  • Kingsbury, Susan Myra; Hart, Hornell (1937), Newspapers and the news: an objective measurement of ethical and unethical behavior by representative newspapers, 1, GP Putnam's sons.
  • Kingsbury, Susan Myra (1939), "Economic status of university women in the USA", Report of the Committee on Economic and Legal Status of Women, American Association of University Women in cooperation with the Women's Bureau, United States Department of Labor, US Government Printing Office, 170.
  • Kingsbury, Susan Myra; Frances, Speek (1942), Women on governing boards: a cooperative study of women on governing boards and in administrative posts in local, state and national organizations, public and private, composed of both men and women., Branch, State, and National Committees on Economic and Legal Status of Women, American Association of University Women.

References
  1. Leonard, John William, ed. (1914), Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, Gerritsen collection of women's history, 1, American Commonwealth Company, p. 459.
  2. Ohles, Frederik; et al. (1997), Biographical Dictionary of Modern American Educators, Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 191, ISBN 978-0313291333.
  3. Dzuback, Mary Ann (1993), "Women and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College, 1915-1940", History of Education Quarterly, 33 (4): 579–608, doi:10.2307/369614, JSTOR 369614.
  4. Vassar College (1920), General Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, p. 12.
  5. Marchione, Mollie T. (June 2013), "Kingsbury, Susan Myra", Encyclopedia of Social Work, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.013.728.
  6. Gallup-Diaz, Ignacio, ed. (2017), The World of Colonial America: An Atlantic Handbook, Routledge Worlds, Taylor & Francis, p. 239, ISBN 978-1317662143.
  7. "In Memoriam – Susan Myra Kingsbury, 1870-1949", Social Service Review, 24: 107, March 1950, doi:10.1086/637738.
  8. Gale, Thomson (2007), "Kingsbury, Susan (1870–1949)", Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages, retrieved 2018-11-20.
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