To the irregular series “Meet an Economics Ph.D. alumna” I am pleased to add the 1924 Ph.D. graduate of Radcliffe, Margaret Elliott. I was hard-pressed to uncover much a a publication record for her, but what could be found indicates a career-long interest in the occupational experience of women.
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Margaret Elliott’s 1924 Radcliffe Ph.D.
Margaret Elliott, A.M.
Subject, Economics.
Special Field, Labor Problems.
Dissertation, “Statistics of Occupation: A Study in Classification.”
Source: Annual Report of Radcliffe College, 1923-24, (March, 1925), p. 31.
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Biographical Note from the University of Michigan Archives
Margaret Elliott was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1891 [28 October]. She received her A.B. degree from Wellesley in 1914, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Radcliffe in 1921 and 1924, respectively. Her dissertation was titled Earnings of Women in Business and the Professions.
Margaret Elliott was an instructor at Abbott Academy, Andover, Massachusetts from 1915 to 1917, and was appointed as an assistant professor of Personnel Management in the newly organized School of Business Administration at the University of Michigan in 1924, after she received her doctoral degree. In 1929, she was promoted to associate professor in both the business school and the Department of Economics in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. She was promoted to full professor in 1931 in both departments. Margaret Elliott was the first woman to be a full professor at the School of Business Administration.
Margaret Elliott was an active member of several organizations, including the National Federation of Business and Professional Women, and the American Association of University Women (AAUW). After she retired from her work with the AAUW, a national fellowship was established in her name.
Margaret Elliott married Professor John Evarts Tracy of the Michigan Law School in 1933. The couple had no children of their own, but they did raise his sister’s children after her death. John Tracy died in 1959. Margaret Elliott Tracy died in 1978 [12 May] at the age of 87.
Source: University of Michigan, Bentley Historical Library. Papers of Margaret Elliott: 1920-1954.
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Biographical Note (5 July 1941)
Personnel Expert Holds Chairs On Two Faculties: Margaret Elliot Tracy
The housewife who has been convinced by bouts with the family budget that men are welcome to the lion’s share of participation in economic matters would look with awe upon the achievements of Dr. MARGARET ELLIOTT TRACY, Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics and Professor of Personnel Management in the School of Business Administration.
Mrs. Tracy is the wife of Professor John E. Tracy, of the Law School. A native of Lowell, Massachusetts, where she was born on October 28, 1891, she went to Wellesley College after completing her early schooling in the Lowell public schools, and in 1914 received her Bachelor’s degree. She was Instructor at Abbot Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, from 1915 to 1917, when she determined to fit herself to teach economics.
At Radcliffe College in 1917-1918, she pursued graduate study in this field, but with American entry into World War I left college to assume personnel duties at the U. S. Ordnance Department’s Watertown Arsenal in charge of women’s work. Finding this type of occupation to her liking, she sought and obtained the position of Personnel Director for Waitt and Bond, Inc., of Newark, New Jersey, after the close of the war, staying for a year, 1919-1920, before returning to Radcliffe to complete her graduate studies. From Radcliffe in 1921, she received the M.A. degree, and in 1924, the Ph.D. degree. It was in this latter year that she took the first of the trips abroad which became her chief extra-curricular interest, although the jaunt over England and the Continent as a Whitney Traveling Fellow from Radcliffe combined much business with pleasure, since she was engaged throughout in study of European labor conditions.
In 1925, she came to Michigan as Assistant Professor of Economics, in 1929 was made Associate Professor, and assumed her present duties in the two branches of the University in 1932. While on sabbatical leave in 1931-1932, she took her longest trip, a complete globe-circling journey in which she centered her interest in the Far East and some of the remote islands of that region. Had the present war not intervened, she and Professor Tracy planned to continue sight-seeing in Egypt and the Near East on their sabbatical leave this year.
Mrs. Tracy is the author of Earnings of Women in Business and the Professions, published by the University of Michigan Press in 1930, and of a number of articles, including “Some Factors Affecting Earnings of Women in Business and the Professions,” appearing in Annals of the American Academy, May, 1929. She has been a member of the Board of Trustees of Wellesley College since 1936, and is affiliated with the American Economic Association, American Statistical Association, American Association for Labor Legislation, and the Personnel Research Federation.
Source: University of Michigan, The Michigan Alumnus (5 July 1941) posted at the University of Michigan Faculty History Project page for Margaret Elliot Tracy.
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Biographical Note (1 September 1955)
Memoir: Margaret Elliot Tracy
The Regents of the University express to Margaret Elliott Tracy, Professor of Personnel Management, upon the occasion of her retirement from active membership on the University faculty, their kind appreciation of the contributions she has made as a brilliant scholar, a stimulating teacher, and a wise counselor of students.
Dr. Elliott received the A.B. degree from Wellesley College in 1914. From 1915 to 1917 she was Instructor at Abbot Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. In 1918, working for the United States Ordnance Department, she was in charge of Women’s Work at Watertown Arsenal. From 1919 to 1920, she was Personnel Director of Waitt & Bond, Inc. She earned the A.M. degree in 1921 and the Ph.D. in 1924 from Radcliffe College.
After studying at London University in 1924 as a Whitney Traveling Fellow of Radcliffe College, Dr. Elliott joined the faculty of the School of Business Administration of the University of Michigan as Assistant Professor of Personnel Management. Dr. Elliott held the dual appointment first as Associate Professor and later as Professor of Economics in the College of Literature, Science. and the Arts and as Professor of Personnel Management in the School of Business Administration, from 1931 to 1950.
On December 22, 1933, Dr. Elliott married John Evarts Tracy, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. She was a member of the American Statistical Association, of the American Association for Labor Legislation, and of the American Economic Association. From 1926 to 1938 she belonged to the National Federation of Business and Professional Women, acting as Research Chairman of the Association from 1926 to 1930. Professor Tracy, in addition to her teaching and research, gave much time and ability to the consideration of student problems. As a member of the first Board of Governors of Residence Halls and of the first Executive Committee of the Institute for Human Adjustment, she helped establish fundamental policies of these organizations. Her work in the American Association of University Women, particularly while she was Chairman of the National Fellowship Awards Committee from 1949 to 1951, reflected her executive capacity. She did much good work in the University community and in her city to bring them into closer harmony.
The Regents in granting Professor Tracy’s request that she retire before her seventieth birthday extend to her their sincere congratulations upon her distinguished career and confer upon her the title Professor Emeritus of Personnel Management and hope that she may enjoy the courtesies usually offered emeritus members of the faculty.
Source: University of Michigan, Regents’ Proceedings (1 September 1955) posted at the University of Michigan Faculty History Project page for Margaret Elliot Tracy.
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Publications
Elliott, Margaret, and Grace E. Manson. “Some Factors Affecting Earnings of Business and Professional Women.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 143 (1929): 137–45.
____________. Earnings of Women in Business and the Professions. Michigan Business Studies, vol. III, No. 1 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1930).
Reviewed: American Economic Review, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Jun., 1931), pp. 321-323.
____________. “Review of The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization, by E. Mayo.” American Economic Review 24, no. 2 (1934): 322–23.
____________. “Review of Women and Wealth, by M. S. Branch.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 175 (1934): 271–271.
____________. “Review of College Women and the Social Sciences, by R. E. Mills.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 175 (1934): 272–272.
____________. “Review of The Women’s Trade Union Leagues in Great Britain and the United States of America, by G. Boone.” American Economic Review 32, no. 4 (1942): 919–20.
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Image Source: Margaret Elliott Tracy giving a lecture [1958-59?]. University of Michigan, Bentley Historical Library, Ross School of Business Records.