Looking for examination artifacts to transcribe, I went through my files for the Johns Hopkins University Department of Political Economy and decided (arbitrarily) to sample from the 1941-42 academic year’s graduate examinations. The exams in the folder were tailored as exit exams for those candidates for the PhD who had completed dissertations. The name of the PhD candidate for two of the exams (transcribed in the next post) was Helen Potter. I figured this was serendipity begging for an addition to the Meet-an-economics-PhD-alumna/us gallery. And so the hunt was on to find out what ever became of Helen Potter.
While I have not been able to double-check every academic claim listed in the materials included below, in particular confirmation of degrees from New York University and Purdue (perhaps honorary), the main stations of Helen Potter’s professional career can indeed be verified. One may presume her 1969 AEA biographical listing would have included an assistant professorship at Johns Hopkins, if she ever had one (It doesn’t! But her Lafayette obituary does.).
Helen Potter, a 1933 Vassar graduate, almost immediately became active in the newly founded Catholic Economists’ Association (later re-named Association for Social Economics) upon receiving her PhD from Johns Hopkins in 1942. Her service included decades of editorial work for the Association’s journal as well as the establishment of the Helen Potter award in 1975 which turns out to harvest most of the Google-hits found when conducting a search on her name. The Association for Social Economics can be fairly characterised as one of the older heterodox bins of economics. Ultimately Helen Potter was able to return home to Lafayette, Indiana for a professorship in Home Management and Family Economics at Purdue University.
Helen Potter’s papers at Purdue: included in the collection of her father’s (Andrey A. Potter) papers: Personal Papers of Dr. Helen C. Potter, ca. 1920’s-1986
Fun-fact: Helen Potter’s parents were personal friends of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth of Cheaper by the Dozen fame. Frank Gilbreth, a scientific management guru, was a colleague of Helen’s father on the faculty at Purdue University.
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AEA Biographical Listing 1969
POTTER, Helen Catherine, academic; b. Manhattan, Kan., 1911; A.B., Vassar Coll., 1933; Ph.D., Johns Hopkins U., 1942. DOC. DIS. Federal Protection for the Consumer, an Economic Analysis, 1942; History of Life Insurance Companies in the U.S., 1934 [published in volume 8 of the Vassar Journal of Undergraduate Studies]. FIELDS 10b, 4a, 6b. PUB. “Consumption,” Chapt. 27, Modern Econs., 1952; Money Management and Mental Health, Jour. of Psychiatric Therapy, 1969; Guidelines for Consumer Education-one of authors of this curriculum guide line for high schools of Illinois, 1969. RES. Evaluation of Consumer Education Today—Purdue Grant from U.S. Office of Ed.; Family Financial Management—Grant Purdue Experiment Station. Asso. prof. econs., Seton Hill Coll., 1943-51; asso. specialist family econs., U. Calif., Davis, 1951-53; asso. prof. fin., Loyola U., 1953-68; prof. family econs., Purdue U. since 1968. ADDRESS 517 Russell St., W. Lafayette, IN 47906.
Source: Biographical Listings of Members, The American Economic Review, Vol. 59, No. 6, 1969 Handbook of the American Economic Association (Jan., 1970), p. 349.
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PURDUE STUDENT KILLED IN WRECK NEAR LAFAYETTE
(September 1933)
Raymond H. Hilb, 21, of Chicago, a Senior in the mechanical engineering school at Purdue, was instantly killed, and Miss Helen Potter, 18, student at the Lafayette Business College was severely injured last Friday night on the new Delphi-Lafayette paved road, 25, when an automobile in which they were riding with two other persons, was struck by another car driven by George Weckerly, of Delphi, and occupied by Glen Clark, 16-year-old high school student, and Misses Dorothy Gerbens and Mildred Bowman, Delphi high school students. According to Clark’s version of the accident the car in which Hilb was riding drove onto the highway from the Black and White filling station and barbecue, where the car had been filled with gasoline. It was hit in the rear by the car driven by Weckerly. The collision came with terrific force and Hilb was thrown to the pavement, suffering a fractured skull. In the car with Hilb and Miss Potter were Bernard Amber of Gary, and Miss Mary Mitchell, of Lafayette. Hilb was manager of the Purdue University base ball team and was very popular on the college campus.
Source: Flora Hoosier Democrat of Flora, Indiana (September 23, 1933).
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Work for the National Catholic Community Service
(& Consumers League of NY, BLS, Wells College, Western College)
“Miss Helen Potter, West Lafayette, Ind., has recently taken up her duties as Resource Secretary for the Division.” [Women’s Division of the National Catholic Community Service]…”Miss Potter has served as field worker for the Consumers League of New York, Social Economist in the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Instructor of Economics at Wells College Aurora, N.Y., and Western College, Oxford, O.”
Source: Catholic News Service, Newsfeeds, 30 June 1941.
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Ph.D. 1942, Johns Hopkins University
Helen Potter of the District of Columbia, A.B. Vassar College, 1933.
Political Economy. Thesis: “Federal protection for the consumer: an economic analysis”.
Source: Johns Hopkins University Commencement. June 2, 1942.
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Miss Potter Joins Purdue Faculty as Prof
(Feb. 21, 1968)
Miss Helen C. Potter has been appointed professor in the Department of Home Management and Family Economics at Purdue university effective Sept. 1.
Miss Potter, a native of Kansas, grew up in West Lafayette where her parents, Dean Emeritus and Mrs. A. A. Potter, still reside. She received her AB degree at Vassar College and her PhD degree from Johns Hopkins University in Political Economy.
She is professor in the Department of Finance at Loyola University in Chicago. Prior to her appointment to Loyola, Miss Potter taught at the University of California at Davis; Seton Hill College in Pennsylvania; Western College in Ohio, and Wells College in New York.
She has been an associate economist in the Bureau of Human Nutrition and Home Economics in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She also has been associated with the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the U.S. Department of Labor.
[…]
Source: Journal and Courier of Lafayette, Indiana (Feb. 21, 1968), p. 26.
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Prof. Helen Potter Comes Home to Teach
(Dec. 4, 1968)
[…]
Prof. Potter grew up in West Lafayette where her father — Dean Emeritus A. A. Potter — still resides. She received her AB degree at Vassar and her PhD from Johns Hopkins University in political economy.
Presently, she is a professor in the Department of Home Management and Family Economics at Purdue, but the road home for her was a long one by way of New York, California and Washington, not to mention a great portion of the Midwest where she taught or consulted in the exciting and complex world of finance.
Her professional experience includes many years as a professor of economics, at several American universities including Loyola of Chicago. In addition she has had government posts with the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Labor.
What’s a professor of finance doing in Purdue’s School of Home Economics? “It’s simple,” explains Miss Potter. “Consumer economics and the relations between business and customer are extremely important parts of our curricula.”
At the core of this education it is the individual who looks at himself to see what he wants out of life and how he can most effectively attain it. “It teaches the consumer how to make decisions for using limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants,” says the fragile looking professor who’s spent the last 15 years teaching male executives from some of the largest businesses about their dependence on society and their reciprocal responsibilities.
Equally important to Miss Potter is teaching the consumer how to use his time, energy and money to obtain a better life. “While showing him the relevance of economic principles to personal economic competence, it gives him the basic understanding which is a requisite for citizenship,” she added.
[…]
In addition to her teaching, Prof. Potter is involved in the research assignment of cataloging present consumer education in this country — a gigantic task. For her, it is tremendously exciting. “You might even say it’s a hobby,” she muses, “for all my life I’ve collected materials in consumer education.”
Looking thoroughly relaxed, surrounded by hundreds of volumes on property insurance, statistical methods and investments, the animated professor speaks warmly about her homecoming. “I’ve found life here very exciting both in the community and at the university. The inter-disciplinary activity among the schools is splendid, and I find my students to be the best I’ve ever had.”
Having taught men for so many years, Miss Potter had the notion that women would be less interested in the subject matter and that they would be weighted down with insurmountable family problems, since all are graduate students some returnees with growing children and much family responsibility. Instead, she finds them hardworking, studious and dedicated.
[…]
Source: Journal and Courier of Lafayette, Indiana (Dec. 4, 1968), p. 12.
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Helen C. Potter, 75, retired Purdue professor
Obituary (October 23, 1986)
Helen C. Potter, 75, a, retired professor of home management and family economics at Purdue University, died at 9:46 a.m. Tuesday in St. Elizabeth Hospital, where she had been a patient one week. Miss Potter, 814 S. 14th St., was the daughter of the late Professor A.A. and Eva Burtner Potter. He was a former dean of engineering at Purdue. The new engineering building was named in his honor.
Miss Potter was born March 18, 1911, in Manhattan, Kan. She received degrees from Vassar College, Johns Hopkins University, New York University and Purdue. She graduated from West Lafayette High School in 1928.
She taught and lectured at the University of California, Davis, was an associate professor and chairman of -the department of economics at Seton Hill College in Greensburg, Pa., was assistant professor at St. Francis College in Lafayette, was an instructor and chairman of the department of economics at Western College in Oxford, Ohio, was an assistant professor in the Department of political economy at Johns Hopkins University.
She also was an assistant at the College of Notre Dame in Baltimore, taught at Wells College in Aurora, N.Y., and was an associate professor in the Department of Finance at Loyola University.
Besides her teaching responsibilities, Miss Potter spent one year at the Library of Congress doing research on economics, worked for the Better Business Bureau in Pittsburgh, Pa., was an associate economist of human nutrition and home economics for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., was a statistician and director of personnel for the National Catholic Community Service, and was a junior social economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor.
She organized and served as chairman of the Tippecanoe Consumers Council, worked with the League of Women Voters, National Council of Catholic Women, the American Association of University Women, and was active in the National Association for Social Economics.
Miss Potter was a member of St. Boniface Catholic Church, Mary L. Mathews Home Economics Club and the Parlor Club. She also served as deanery president of the National Council of Catholic Women in the Lafayette Diocese.
Surviving is a brother, James G. Potter of Indialantic, Fla.
Source: Journal Courier of Lafayette, Indiana (October 23, 1986), p. 22.
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A Memorial Tribute from the Association for Social Economics
Member of the first (May 1948) board of editors of the journal Review of Social Economy, associate editor up to her death October 21, 1986. Also an official portrait Helen C. Potter in included with the brief note.
Source: “IN MEMORIAM.” Review of Social Economy 45, no. 3 (1987).
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Helen C. Potter Scholarship, Johns Hopkins University
This scholarship is awarded to students in the field of political economy.
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Helen Potter Award of the the Association for Social Economics
The Helen Potter Award was created and endowed in 1975. It is presented each year to the author of the best article in the Review of Social Economy by a promising scholar of social economics. Award recipients receive a plaque and a $500 prize.
Recent recipients:
2019 Céline Bonnefond & Fatma Mabrouk
2018 C. W. M. Naastepad & Jesse M. Mulder
2017 Michael J. Roy & Michelle T. Hackett
2016 Caroline Shenaz Hossein
2015 Karen Evelyn Hauge
2014 Peter-Wim Zuidhof
2013 Ayman Reda
2012 Pavlina Tcherneva
2011 Adel Daoud
2010 Aurelie Charles
2009 Huascar F. Pessali
2008 Sebastian Berger
2007 Nuno Martins
2006 Mark Hayes
2005 Benedetta Giovanola
2004 Ellen Mutari
2003 Geoffrey E. Schneider
2002 Stephen T. Ziliak
2001 Wilfred Dolfsma
2000 John E. Murray
Image Source: Portrait of Helen C. Potter, A.B., Instructor of Social Science. Western College for Women (Oxford, Ohio) Yearbook, Multifaria 1941.