Community hub
Recent from talks
Contribute something to knowledge base
Content stats: 0 posts, 0 articles, 0 media, 0 notes
Members stats: 0 subscribers, 0 contributors, 0 moderators, 0 supporters
Subscribers
Supporters
Contributors
Moderators
Hub AI
Philip Taft AI simulator
(@Philip Taft_simulator)
Hub AI
Philip Taft AI simulator
(@Philip Taft_simulator)
Philip Taft
Philip Taft (March 22, 1902 – November 17, 1976) was an American labor historian whose research focused on the labor history of the United States and the American Federation of Labor.
Taft was born on March 22, 1902, in Syracuse, New York. His father died when he was still a young boy. His mother moved the family to New York City, where she took up work as a house cleaner.
Living in youth hostels and traveling the country by hopping trains, he took a long series of odd and day-laborer jobs: errand boy, factory worker, stable boy, power plant worker, ore freighter coalman, farm hand, oil field worker, mule skinner, and many more. Taft joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and, while working in the northern Great Plains as a harvest hand, became an organizer. Later he assisted with legal defense of IWW members in New York City where he was befriended by Roger Baldwin, a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Taft attended night school in New York City and obtained a high school diploma in 1928. At the age of 26, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and graduated in 1932 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He then entered the doctoral program in economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In graduate school, he took a job conducting research for one of his professors, Selig Perlman. Taft's contribution to the work was so significant that Perlman made him a co-author on volume four of History of Labor in the United States in 1935. In the same year he earned his doctorate.
Taft worked for the Wisconsin Industrial Commission and the federal Resettlement Administration before taking a job as an associate economist at the Social Security Administration in 1936. He was appointed an assistant professor of economics at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1937. He was chairman of the Economics Department from 1949 to 1953.
Throughout his tenure at Brown, Taft sought to use the university's expertise to improve society. In 1950, President Harry S. Truman appointed Taft to a committee of experts on the New England economy under the aegis of the President's Council of Economic Advisors. In 1952, Taft pushed Brown University to join with a newly formed Rhode Island businessmen's committee to study the economic problems of the state. In 1963, Taft won a grant from the Ford Foundation to study the financial difficulties confronting, and the economic impact of, an aging populace.
Taft was appointed in 1961 to a committee on labor-management reports established by the US Department of Labor, where he helped advise the department and draft rules implementing the Landrum–Griffin Act.
Taft retired from teaching in 1968. He maintained an office at Brown, however, and continued to conduct research. In 1975, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study the history of the labor movement in Alabama.
Philip Taft
Philip Taft (March 22, 1902 – November 17, 1976) was an American labor historian whose research focused on the labor history of the United States and the American Federation of Labor.
Taft was born on March 22, 1902, in Syracuse, New York. His father died when he was still a young boy. His mother moved the family to New York City, where she took up work as a house cleaner.
Living in youth hostels and traveling the country by hopping trains, he took a long series of odd and day-laborer jobs: errand boy, factory worker, stable boy, power plant worker, ore freighter coalman, farm hand, oil field worker, mule skinner, and many more. Taft joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and, while working in the northern Great Plains as a harvest hand, became an organizer. Later he assisted with legal defense of IWW members in New York City where he was befriended by Roger Baldwin, a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Taft attended night school in New York City and obtained a high school diploma in 1928. At the age of 26, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and graduated in 1932 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He then entered the doctoral program in economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In graduate school, he took a job conducting research for one of his professors, Selig Perlman. Taft's contribution to the work was so significant that Perlman made him a co-author on volume four of History of Labor in the United States in 1935. In the same year he earned his doctorate.
Taft worked for the Wisconsin Industrial Commission and the federal Resettlement Administration before taking a job as an associate economist at the Social Security Administration in 1936. He was appointed an assistant professor of economics at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1937. He was chairman of the Economics Department from 1949 to 1953.
Throughout his tenure at Brown, Taft sought to use the university's expertise to improve society. In 1950, President Harry S. Truman appointed Taft to a committee of experts on the New England economy under the aegis of the President's Council of Economic Advisors. In 1952, Taft pushed Brown University to join with a newly formed Rhode Island businessmen's committee to study the economic problems of the state. In 1963, Taft won a grant from the Ford Foundation to study the financial difficulties confronting, and the economic impact of, an aging populace.
Taft was appointed in 1961 to a committee on labor-management reports established by the US Department of Labor, where he helped advise the department and draft rules implementing the Landrum–Griffin Act.
Taft retired from teaching in 1968. He maintained an office at Brown, however, and continued to conduct research. In 1975, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study the history of the labor movement in Alabama.