Richard Vincent Gilbert was encountered in an earlier post as one of two Jewish job market candidates being recommended for academic appointments by Harvard’s economics department in 1929. This post provides futher biographical and career information for R. V. Gilbert, a 1930 Harvard economics Ph.D. alumnus. His parents were Meyer Goldberg and Feigel (Fanny) Gaylburd. I presume he chose to change his name to Gilbert from Goldberg to blend in better with his U.S. academic environs. [Cf., The Harvard economist Abram Bergson was born to Isaac and Sophie Burkowsky whose last name morphed to Burk and only after the publication of his famous welfare economics article in the QJE, did Abram Burk become Abram Bergson.]
Richard Vincent Gilbert and his wife, Emma Cohen Gilbert, were the parents of one of the three winners of the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1980, Walter Myron Gilbert.
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PhD Exams of Richard Vincent Gilbert, 1927
General Examination: in Economics, Wednesday, February 9, 1927.
Committee: Professors Young (chairman), Crum, Monroe, Usher, and Woods.
Academic History: University of Pennsylvania, 1919-20; Harvard College, 1920-23; Harvard Graduate School, 1923-. B.S., Harvard, 1923; M.A., Harvard, 1925. Assistant in Economics, Harvard, 1923-.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Money and Banking. 3. Statistics. 4. Economic History since 1776. 5. History of Ancient Philosophy. 6. Theory of International Trade.
Special Subject: Theory of International Trade.
Thesis Subject: Theory of International Trade. (With Professor Taussig.)
Source:Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1926-1927”.
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PhD Dissertation of Richard Vincent Gilbert
Harvard, Ph.D. in Economics, 1930.
Thesis title: Theory of International Payments.
Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1929-1930, p. 119.
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Obituary for R.V. Gilbert
F.D.R. Economics Adviser (d. 6 Oct 1985)
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Richard V. Gilbert, an economics adviser in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Administration, has died at home at age 83.
He had been ill with cancer and suffered a heart attack 10 days before his death last Sunday.
Gilbert served as a speechwriter for Roosevelt on economic issues during World War II. Economist Walter Salant of the Brookings Institution in Washington once called Gilbert “the outstanding, unsung hero of American wartime economic policy.”
He is credited, along with economist Robert Nathan, with persuading Roosevelt to boost aircraft and tank production and to accelerate merchant shipping.
Gilbert left teaching posts at Harvard University, Radcliffe and the Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University to become economic adviser in 1939 to Secretary of Commerce Harry Hopkins. He went on to become economic adviser to the price administrator and director of research in the Office of Price Administration.
Source: Associated Press, from the Los Angeles Times (October 13, 1985).
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Biographical Note for the Richard V. Gilbert Papers at the FDR Presidential Library
Richard Vincent Gilbert was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on September 6, 1902 and educated at Harvard University where he received his Ph.D. degree in 1931 [sic, 1930].
As a member of the Harvard faculty from 1924 to 1939, Gilbert taught courses in economic history and money and banking and participated in the Fiscal Policy Seminar at Littauer School of Public Administration, 1937- 39. He also taught courses in money and banking at Radcliffe College and international trade and finance at the Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy from 1934 to 1939.
In 1939 and 1940, Gilbert was the Director of the Division of Industrial Economics and Economic Advisor to the Secretary of Commerce. He then became Director of the Defense Economics Section of the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply (formerly the Price Stabilization Division of the Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense), Economic Advisor to the Administration, and, from 1941 to 1946, Director of Research for the Office of Price Administration. He was a consulting economist from 1946 to 1949 and then joined Schenley Industries, Inc. as an Assistant to the Chairman of the Board. He later became a Vice President of the company.
Dr. Gilbert is the author of numerous articles and, with others [George H. Hildebrand Jr., Arthur W. Stuart, Maxine Yaple Sweezy, Paul M. Sweezy, Lorie Tarshis, and John D. Wilson], wrote a book entitled An Economic Program for American Democracy, which was published in 1938.
The papers of Richard V. Gilbert cover the period 1939 to 1948, during most of which he was a Federal Government employee. With few exceptions, the papers consist of official correspondence, memoranda, speech drafts, reports, and printed matter. Since Gilbert and his associates collaborated on the numerous reports and speech drafts written for the use of their agency and others, the authorship of certain items is unclear. For this reason, reports and speech drafts are generally filed with the records of the agency for which Gilbert was working at the time. The papers have been arranged in a single alphabetical series.
Died 6 October 1985 in Cambridge, Mass.
Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum. Richard V. Gilbert Papers, 1939-1948. Collection Historical Note
Image Source: Gilbert’s senior year picture in the Harvard Class Album, 1923.