- Waddill Catchings
Waddill Catchings (
September 6 ,1879 -December 31 ,1967 ), was an Americaneconomist who collaborated with hisHarvard classmateWilliam Trufant Foster in a series of economics books that were highly influential in the United States in the 1920s. His influential books, written with Foster, were "Money" (1923), "Profits" (1925), "Business Without a Buyer" (1927), "The Road to Plenty" (1928), and "Progress and Plenty" (1930). The books influenced many policy makers, includingHerbert Hoover andMarriner Eccles .He was a leading banker and financier in the 1910s and 1920s, making (and losing) a fortune of over $250 million. He was a director of major corporations in diverse fields, including leather, motion pictures (
Warner Brothers ), radio, television, recorded music (Muzak Holdings ), tin cans, dry goods, rubber, pharmaceuticals, automobiles (Studebaker andChrysler ), typewriters, breakfast cereals, lumber, mail-order merchandising, music publishing, and electric power.A superb phrase maker and popularizer, he had a major impact on
Franklin D. Roosevelt . For example, FDR's talk of a nation "one-third ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed" used one of Catchings' expressions.References
* William J. Barber. "Herbert Hoover, the Economists, and American Economic Policy, 1921-1933" (1985)
* Joseph Dorfman, "The Economic Mind in American Civilization" (1959) vol 4 pp 339-351
* Alan H. Gleason, "Foster and Catchings: A Reappraisal," "Joural of Political Economy" (Apr. 1959). 67:156+
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