This new entry in the series “Meet an economics Ph.D. alumna/us” features the 1913 Bryn Mawr Ph.D., Lorinda Jane Perry. Details about the last 25 years of her life are relatively scarce compared to the events leading up to her last academic position as an associate professor at Hunter College in New York City, i.e. up through the first half of the 1920s. She apparently left economics to go to the Law School at the University of Chicago and as of the 1940 Census was sharing a home in Chicago with four likewise single siblings (a former member of the Illinois Legislature, an attorney, a urologist in private practice and a medical doctor working in the Health Department).
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Lorinda Jane Perry
Timeline
1884. Born December 23rd in Melvin, Illinois.
1900-1904. Illinois State Normal University.
From the Index, 1904 Yearbook of I.S.N.U.
While in high school I burned with a desire to know all of the latest slang. But that fire has been quenched. Now I can’t bear such expressions as “Oh! Deah,” or “By Jinks” and others. Now I see the wrong and wish to form a society for the “Purification of the American Girl’s Language.” I have not outlined my course of action, but hope some day to sing with the poet:
“Hail to the graduating girl, who is sweeter far than some,
Who when she talks, speaks no slang and chews no chewing gum.”
Between 1904 and 1906. Lorinda Perry taught in country schools near Melvin and Monmouth, Ill.
1906-1909. A.B. in Economics and History at the University of Illinois.
1909-1910. A.M. University of Illinois. The History of the Lake Shipping Trade of Chicago. Simon Litman, thesis supervisor.
1910-11. Women’s Educational and Industrial Union Fellowship at Radcliffe.
A fellowship of $500.00 established and maintained by the Massachusetts Federation of Women’s Clubs and the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, 1905-1909, has been continued by the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union for the year 1910-11. This fellowship is offered to a graduate student who has been recommended by the Professors of Economics in Radcliffe College. The holder of the fellowship must devote one year to research under the Department of Research of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union with a stipend of $500, and one year to graduate courses at Radcliffe College with the usual tuition fees as stated in the Radcliffe College catalogue; or she may devote one-half time to research work at the Union and one-half time to graduate courses at the College for two years, with a stipend of $300 per year. Applications for the year 1911-12 should be made before May 1, 1911, through the Dean of Radcliffe College.
The fellowship was awarded in 1905-07 to Caroline Manning (Carleton College) A.B. 1898, (Radcliffe) A.M. 1907; in 1907-08 to Grace Faulkner Ward (Smith) A.B. 1900; in 1908-10 to Edith Gertrude Reeves (University of South Dakota) A.B. 1906, (Radcliffe) A. B. 1907, A.M. 1910; in 1910-11 to Lorinda Perry (University of Illinois) A.B. 1909, A.M. 1910.
Source: Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Radcliffe College 1909-10, p. 66.
1911-13. Graduate Student at Bryn Mawr College. Fellow in the Department of Research, Women’s Educational and Industrial Union.
1913. Ph.D. Bryn Mawr. Millinery as a Trade for Women. New York: Longmans, Green, and Company. Susan Myra Kingsbury and Marion Parris Smith, dissertation supervisors.
[From the Preface, written by Susan M. Kingsbury, pp. viii-iv]
“In the fall of 1910, Miss Lorinda Perry, a graduate of the University of Illinois, 1909, securing a Master’s degree in 1910, and Miss Elizabeth Riedell, a graduate of Vassar College, 1904, were awarded Fellowships in the Department of Research of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union and selected for investigation the subject of Millinery as a Trade for Women. During the year employers and employees were interviewed, and the results secured from the former were analyzed and interpreted by Miss Perry, from the latter by Miss Riedell.
In the years 1911 to 1913, Miss Perry held a Fellowship at Bryn Mawr College and under the direction of Dr. Marion Parris Smith, Associate Professor of Economics, continued the study of the millinery trade in Philadelphia. Miss Perry’s discussion of the trade in the two cities was accepted by Bryn Mawr College in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in May, 1913. In Philadelphia the field work was conducted by the Consumers’ League and at their expense under Miss Perry’s direct supervision. Fortunately the information on the trade in Boston was brought up to date by the courtesy of a number of Boston employers who permitted their entire pay rolls to be copied from their books by the secretaries of our Research Department. Tabulations of this data and retabulations of the earlier Boston material by our secretaries enabled Miss Perry to unify the two studies and to revise most of her earlier work and that prepared by Miss Riedell. Those sections dealing with the effect of seasons on Boston employees and on Boston workers in the trade as secured from personal interviews are therefore the combined work of the two students.
The method of attack, the range of inquiry and the extent of returns in the investigation are all presented in the introductory chapter. As this was one of the first studies of the type by the department and indeed in the country, the schedules were far from perfect resulting in an incompleteness which in later studies of the series has been avoided. It is to be regretted that the opportunity to use pay rolls came only within the last year so that detailed information as to wages was not obtained from the workers who were visited in their homes, as was done in the study of The Boot and Shoe Industry in Massachusetts as a Vocation for Women. It is also unfortunate that pay rolls could not be secured in Philadelphia.
Prepared for the purpose of affording students training in social investigation, the study must lack in finish of presentation and completeness of interpretation; but the work has been carefully supervised and supplemented by every means available to the Research Department. In order that the survey may serve as large a group as possible, the material is often presented in much greater detail and the tables arranged with much smaller class intervals than might at first appear necessary or desirable, although discussions in the text often deal with larger groupings. Indeed in many tables the facts are presented for each case, especially where subclassification has made the number considered too small for generalization. We hope that agencies interested in a study of minimum wage laws, in other regulation of working conditions by legislation, in vocational guidance and placement, in industrial education, and especially, in awakening the public conscience may each find here data which can be rearranged or grouped so as to form a basis upon which to act.”
1914-1916. Head of Department of Political and Social Sciences at Rockford College
1916. Dissertation published The Millinery in Boston and Philadelphia: A Study of Women in Industry. Binghamton,New York: Vail-Ballou.
1916-1920. Associate in Department of Household Science. University of Illinois.
DR . PERRY TO GIVE COURSE IN HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTING
Dr . Lorinda Perry, associate in home economics, will have charge of a class in household accounting to be given under the auspices of the Home Improvement association of Champaign . The course will be open to members of the association only, but membership in the organization is open to any who wish to join. The object of the course is to teach the women how to place their homes on a business basis.
Source: Daily Illini, March 8, 1919, p. 5.
1917-1918. “Some Recent Magazine Articles on the Standard of Living,” Journal of Home Economics. Vol. 9 (December 1917), pp. 550-558. Concluding Part. Vol. 10 (January 1918), pp. 9-17.
1919. Taught in Chicago according to report in the Daily Illini, Nov. 22, 1919, p. 8.
1920. Appointed Associate Professor of Economics at Hunter College, New York City.
Ca. 1928. J.D. University of Chicago.
1926-27 Registration of Second Year Student, Lorinda Perry, Resident Autumn, Winter, Spring Quarters.
Source: University of Chicago, The Law School, 1927-28. In Announcements Vol. XXVII, no. 22 (May 10, 1927). p. 20.
1931. [Miss Lorinda Perry of Chicago] while in Melvin during the Thanksgiving season, learned that she had been successful in passing the state bar examination”. The Paxton Record (Illinois), Dec. 3, 1931, p. 10.
1940. U.S. census. Living with brothers and sisters, in Chicago Ward 5, University Ave. No occupation listed either for her or her older sister Josephine (who had twice been elected to the Legislature of Illinois from the Fifth district from 1930 to 1934).
1951. Died August 30th in Chicago, Illinois. Last residing at 6221 University Ave., Chicago.
Principal Source: Obituary in The Paxton Record (Illinois), September 6, 1951, p. 1.
Image Source: from the Holton/Kinney/Foster/Watson family tree posted at ancestry.com.