Sarah Wambaugh

Who was Sarah Wambaugh?

Sarah Wambaugh was an American political scientist. She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of legal scholar Eugene Wambaugh. She earned an A.B. in 1902 and an A.M. in 1917 from Radcliffe College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she also later taught. She also carried out studies in England; in London and Oxford.

Wambaugh eventually became recognised as the world's leading authority on plebiscites. She was an advisor to the Peruvian government for the Tacna-Arica Plebiscite, to the Saar Plebiscite Commission, to the American observers of the Greek national elections and to the U.N. Plebiscite Commission to Jammu and Kashmir. During World War II she was a consultant to the director of the enemy branch of the Foreign Economic Administration. She died in Cambridge, Massachusetts on November 12, 1955.