Beardsley Ruml

Who was Beardsley Ruml?

Beardsley Ruml, was an American statistician, economist, philanthropist, planner, businessman and man of affairs in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. He was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His father, Wentzle Ruml, was a country doctor. His mother, Salome Beardsley Ruml, was a hospital superintendent. He received a BA from Dartmouth College in 1915 and a Ph.D. in psychology and education from the University of Chicago in 1917. On August 28, 1917 he married Lois Treadwell; they had three children. A pioneer statistician, in 1918 he helped design aptitude and intelligence tests for the U.S. Army. Ruml viewed society as composed of groups whose traits could be measured and ranked on a scale of normality and deviance.

From 1922-29 he directed the fellowship program of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund, focusing on support for quantitative social and behavioral science. He was an advisor to President Herbert Hoover especially on farm issues. In 1931 he became dean of the Division of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago—a center for quantitative research. He was not popular with the faculty and in 1934 Ruml became an executive of R. H. Macy & Company, parent company of the department store, rising to chairman in 1945. He also served as a director of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and was its chairman from 1941 until 1946; he was active at the Bretton Woods Conference that established the international monetary system. He was active in New Deal planning agencies but their plans never saw fruition.