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ISADOR LUBIN, 1896-1978
Isador
Lubin was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, June 9,
1896, the son of Harris and Hinda Francke Lubin. Lubin
grew up in Worcester, where his father owned a clothing
store, attending local public schools and Clark
University where he majored in economics receiving his
B.A. in 1916. He was a graduate student at the
University of Missouri, 1916-1918, where he worked under
Thorstein Veblen. Lubin became an instructor at Missouri
in 1917.
In
1918 Lubin interrupted his academic career to become a
statistician with the U.S. Food Administration. While he
was with the Food Administration he made a survey with
Veblen of farm production in the midwest. In June 1918
Lubin was appointed a Special Expert with the U.S. War
Industries Board.
In
September 1919 he left government for a year of study at
the University of Michigan where he became an assistant
professor of economics, 1920-1922. In 1922 Lubin became
a member of the staff of the Institute of Economics and
a member of the teaching staff of the Robert Brookings
Graduate School of Economics and Government where he
received his Ph.D. in 1926. These institutions
amalgamated in 1928 to become the Brookings Institution.
Lubin's association with Brookings continued until 1933.
He was
an associate professor of economics at the University of
Missouri in 1924. He was an economic adviser to the U.S.
Senate Committee on Education and Labor, 1928-1929, and
the Senate Committee on Manufactures, 1932. In 1929 Lubin
spent about eight months abroad studying government
control of the radio industry. He visited Britain,
France, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, Palestine
and the Soviet Union.
Lubin
was appointed U.S. Commissioner of Labor Statistics in
1933. He held this post until 1946, although he was on
leave of absence, 1941-1945. Concurrently he held a
number of other positions. He was Secretary,
International Association of Government Labor Officials,
1933-1946; Chairman, Labor Advisory Board of the Federal
Emergency Relief Administration, 1933-1935;
Vice-chairman, U.S. Central Statistical Board,
1933-1935; member, Advisory Committee to the Federal
Coordinator of Railroads, 1933-1936; member, Technical
Board of the President's Economic Security Committee,
1934-1935; U.S. Representative on the governing body of
the International Labor Organization, 1935, 1937, 1941,
1945; member, Cabinet Subcommittee on the Economic
Status of the Cotton Textile Industry, 1935; member,
Industrial Resources Committee of the National Resources
Board, 1937-1943; member, Temporary National Economic
Committee, 1938-1941; member, Executive Committee on
Commercial Policy, 1940-1942; Deputy Director, Labor
Division of the Office of Production Management,
1940-1941.
In
1941 Lubin went to the west coast to formulate an
agreement between west coast shipbuilders and unions to
prevent strikes. In 1941 he became Special Statistical
Assistant to the President with an office in the White
House where he assembled and interpreted statistics on
American and British production, In 1942 he became
Director, Statistical Analysis Branch, Munitions
Assignments Board, Combined Chiefs of Staff. In December
1942 President Roosevelt sent Lubin to London to confer
with Lord Cherwell and work out an agreement with the
British relative to nomenclature and classifications for
the statistical data that he and Cherwell were
exchanging.
The
President sent Lubin to Europe in January 1945 to study
economic conditions. While there he visited the small
part of Germany then occupied by American forces and
reported his observations on conditions there to General
Walter Bedell Smith and General Eisenhower. In March
1945 Lubin was appointed U.S. Representative on the
Allied Reparations Commission. As such he went to Moscow
in June 1945. President Truman asked Lubin to go to
Japan as a member of the Reparations Commission but he
declined for reasons of health.
In
January 1946 Lubin resigned his government posts. He
returned to private life to become President and
Chairman of the Board of Confidential Reports, Inc. a
theatre auditing organization owned by Universal, Warner
Brothers, Columbia Pictures, United Artists, RKO,
Selznick Studios, Republic, Eagle Lion and 20th Century
Fox. He also became a member of the board of directors
of Decca Records. He headed Confidential Reports from
1946-1951.
Lubin's absence from government was brief. He served as
an economic advisor to the Department of Commerce,
1946-1947; consultant, Office of Statistical Standards
of the Bureau of the Budget, 1946-1954; U.S.
Representative, Commission on Devastated Areas, 1946;
U.S. Representative, U.N. Economic and Employment
Commission, 1946-1950; Economic Adviser to the U.S.
Delegation to the U.N. General Assembly, 1950-1951;
member, Advisory Committee, Korean Relief and
Reconstruction Agency, 1951-1953; Alternate U.S.
Delegate, 7th Session, U.N. General Assembly, 1952; U.S.
Representative (with rank of Minister) on the U.N.
Economic and Social Council, 1950-1953.
Lubin
next entered government service when Governor Averell
Harriman appointed him New York State Industrial
Commissioner. He served in this post from 1955 to 1958.
As Industrial Commissioner he was not only
administrative head of New York State's Department of
Labor but also ex-officio member of the State Youth
Commission, State Veterans Affairs Commission, State
Civil Defense Commission and the Interdepartmental
Health Committee. He was also Chairman, New York State
Committee on Refugees and a trustee of the School of
Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.
Dr.
Lubin had been a trustee of Brandeis University and a
director of the New School for Social Research since the
1940's. He was Arthur T. Vanderbilt Professor of Public
Affairs at Rutgers University, 1959-1961. He was a
member of the American Economic Association and the
American Statistical Association serving as Vice
President of the latter association in 1937 and
President in 1946. He was a Fellow of the International
Institute of Statistics. He was a member of the American
Arbitration Association, Chairman of the Board of
National Child Research Center, 1930-1935; an economic
consultant to the Twentieth Century Fund, 1960-1976; a
member of the National Commission in Money and Credit,
1959-1963; a member of the Council of Foreign Relations,
1949-1978; a member of the Board of the United World
Federalists; a director of the Eastern Life Insurance
Company, 1960-1972; a member of the National Planning
Association; Chairman of the Amalgamated Shirt Industry
Pension Fund and Chairman of the President's Railroad
and Marine Workers Commission, 1963.
He was
a trustee of the Weizmann Institute of Science, a member
of the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee, Chairman of the Committee on
Overseas Programs of United HIAS Service, a member of
the Board of Governors of the American Jewish Committee
and a consultant to the PEC Israel Economic Corporation
and the United Jewish Appeal on Programs in Palestine.
Dr. Lubin was married three times. In 1932 he married
Ann Shumaker editor of PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION and
co-author of the book, THE CHILD CENTERED SCHOOL (1928).
His widow, Carol Reigelman Lubin, whom he married in
1952, had been associated with the International Labor
Organization. Isador Lubin died in July 6, 1978, at
Annapolis, Maryland. He had maintained a summer home
near Annapolis for many years.
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