The combination of government service during the Second World War and marriage followed by the birth of a daughter and son was probably sufficient to have gotten in the way of Dorothy Beal Christelow completing an economics Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia.
I stumbled across Dorothy Beal in an economics department request for emergency funding on her behalf in 1938 (transcribed below). This led me to conduct my own background check on her life and career, the results of which are included in this post. Her obituary in the Springfield Reporter provides most of the details.
__________________________
Almost certainly related to
Dorothy Beal’s Family’s
“Financial Catastrophe”
“Henry S. Beal, president of the Sullivan Machinery company since March, 1933, resigned his position Friday at a meeting of the directors in Boston. Preston Upham of Boston, grandson of one of the company’s founders, was named as chairman of the board…Mr. Beal assumed the presidency of the Sullivan Machinery company March 6, 1933.
Source: From the Springfield Reporter (Springfield, VT, 13 October 1938, p. 1.
__________________________
Emergency Funding Request
on Behalf of Dorothy Beal
Columbia University
in the City of New York
Faculty of Political Science
September 27, 1938
Committee on Education,
Board of Trustees,
Columbia University.
Gentlemen:
One of our outstanding students in Economics, Miss Dorothy Beal, very suddenly finds herself facing a financial emergency, due to a financial catastrophe which has just struck her family. Instead of having her year’s work financed, as she expected, she finds herself completely without resources. Inasmuch as she is one of the strongest students we have had in the Department from the standpoint of social and scholastic background, as well as in terms of work done with us during the past year, it is my hope that your Committee may find it possible, out of accumulated funds, to make a grant which will relieve her necessities sufficiently to enable her to go on to complete this year’s academic work. I know her personally, and colleagues with whom she has studied confirm my judgment that she is a very exceptional person. At the moment she is engaged on one piece of scientific research which Professor Wolman pronounces so promising that he is eager to have it pushed to successful completion. If an award could be made her which would cover tuition and a meagre allowance for living expenses for about eight months, I am sure that such action would be not only generous but wise. [handwritten insert:] $800 in all.
I might add that if the grant-in-aid fund had not already been exhausted, Miss Beal would unquestionably have received recognition from that quarter.
Yours faithfully,
[signed] Roswell C. McCrea
* * * * * * * * * * *
Copy of letter
October 8, 1938
Professor Roswell C. McCrea
Department or Economics
Dear Professor McCrea:
Pursuant to the recommendation contained in your recent letter, the Trustees at their meeting today made available for a special award to Miss Dorothy Beal for the current academic year the sum of $800, chargeable to the accumulated income of the Garth Fellowship Fund.
Very truly yours,
[unsigned]
Frank D. Fackenthal
VJ
* * * * * * * * * * *
Columbia University
in the City of New York
Faculty of Political Science
October 6, 1938
Mr. Philip M. Hayden,
213 Low Memorial Library.
Dear Mr. Hayden:
Thank you for the information that the Trustees had acted favorably on my request that $800 from the accumulated income in the Garth Fellowship be given to Miss Dorothy Beal, candidate for the degree of Ph. D. in the Department of Economics. I now wish formally to nominate Miss Beal for a Special Fellowship from the fund mentioned above.
Will you kindly arrange with the Bursar to have made available to Miss Beal now, at his office, a check for $400, and another check for $400 on Wednesday, February 1st. Miss Beal’s present address is 220 East 73d Street, New York.
With appreciation of your cooperation, I am
Yours faithfully,
[signed] Roswell C. McCrea
Source: Columbia University Archives. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Central Files 1890-, Box 329, Folder “McCrea, Roswell C., 7/1938 — 5/1942”.
__________________________
Cherchez l’homme!
“[Miss Beal] attended Mont Choisi in Lausanne and Wellesley college. She was graduated from the University of Chicago and after graduate work at Columbia university has been on the research staff of a division of the Treasury Department in Washington.” … [Mr. Allan] Christelow studied at the University of Leeds, Oxford university and the University of California, and has been on the teaching staff of Oxford [Tutor in Queens College Oxford in 1939] and of Princeton university [1940]. He is with the British Advisory Council in Washington.”
Source: From the wedding announcement published in the Springfield Reporter (Springfield VT), 14 May 1942, p. 7.
__________________________
Background of Dorothy’s husband,
Allan Christelow
b. January 31, 1911, Bradford, Yorkshire, England
d. August 8, 1975, New Canaan, Connecticut
A.B. University of Leeds, 1932.
B. Litt. Oxford University, 1934
Commonwealth Fund Fellow, History.
__________________________
Obituary of Dorothy Beal Christelow
HANOVER — Dorothy Beal Christelow, 89, died May 28, 2005, in Hanover.
Mrs. Christelow was an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s. specializing in Japanese economics. She was the author of When Giants Converge: The Role of U.S.-Japan Direct Investment, which was published by M.E. Sharpe in 1995, as well as many articles.
She was born in Springfield. Vt., on March 19, 1916. the oldest of three daughters of Henry Starr Beal and Alice Ada (Colburn) Beal. On graduating from Springfield High School, she began studies at Wellesley College. She received a bachelor’s degree in 1937 from the University of Chicago.
She was accepted into Columbia University’s graduate program in journalism. While in New York City, about to embark on this new stage of her life, a family friend asked her what she was interested in writing about. When she replied “economics,” he recommended that she study economics rather than journalism. She took his advice to heart and entered Columbia’s economics program instead. She was a student there from 1937 to 1940, with the exception of a year of work as a researcher at Fortune magazine. She ultimately completed all of the requirements for a doctorate except for a dissertation.
In 1941, she moved to Washington, D.C., to work as an economist for the U.S. Treasury Department, Division of International Monetary Research. Over the next six years she went on to work for the U.S. Offices of Price Administration and of War Mobilization and Reconversion. During this period. she was introduced by a friend to Allan Christelow, an Englishman who was working in Washington, D.C. for the British Treasury. They were married in 1942, in Westerly, R.I.
In 1953. Mr. Christelow went to work for Standard Vacuum Oil Co. and the family moved to New Canaan, Conn. His work took him to Asia frequently, and the family moved to Japan for a year in 1957. Four years later, with their two children in college and boarding school, they returned to Tokyo. A series of strokes incapacitated Mr. Christelow, leaving him an invalid until his death in 1974 [sic, death was August 8, 1975]. They returned to New Canaan, and Mrs. Christelow to the work force, to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
On retirement from the Federal Reserve in 1986, she continued to work for it as a consultant for a time while also embarking on the writing of her book. She was an active member of the Yale China Association, acting as a trustee from 1983 to 1988 and from 1990 to 1995, and traveling to China on a trip organized by that organization. She served on the town of New Canaan’s board of finance from 1976 to 1992.
Mrs. Christelow maintained close ties to Vermont throughout her life. On retirement her parents purchased a farm in Windsor. The family spent a portion of each summer there. In 1996, she moved to Kendal at Hanover, where she continued to be active in fiscal affairs, serving on the community’s finance committee for several years.
Mrs. Christelow is survived by a daughter, Eileen Christelow of East Dummerston, Vt., a son, Allan Christelow of Pocatello, Idaho; and two grandchildren.
Source: Valley News (West Lebanon, N.H.), 11 June 2005, p. 4.
Image Source: Picture of Eileen, Dorothy, and Allan Christelow. From the “About Me” page of the website of Eileen Christelow, Picture Book Author & Illustrator. Image mildly enhanced by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.