Waddill Catchings

Waddill Catchings (September 6, 1879 - December 31, 1967), was an American economist who collaborated with his Harvard classmate William Trufant Foster in a series of economics books that were highly influential in the United States in the 1920s. His influential books, written with Foster, were "Money" (1923), "Profits" (1925), "Business Without a Buyer" (1927), "The Road to Plenty" (1928), and "Progress and Plenty" (1930). The books influenced many policy makers, including Herbert Hoover and Marriner Eccles.

He was a leading banker and financier in the 1910s and 1920s, making (and losing) a fortune of over $250 million. He was a director of major corporations in diverse fields, including leather, motion pictures (Warner Brothers), radio, television, recorded music (Muzak Holdings), tin cans, dry goods, rubber, pharmaceuticals, automobiles (Studebaker and Chrysler), typewriters, breakfast cereals, lumber, mail-order merchandising, music publishing, and electric power.

A superb phrase maker and popularizer, he had a major impact on Franklin D. Roosevelt. For example, FDR's talk of a nation "one-third ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed" used one of Catchings' expressions.

References

* William J. Barber. "Herbert Hoover, the Economists, and American Economic Policy, 1921-1933" (1985)
* Joseph Dorfman, "The Economic Mind in American Civilization" (1959) vol 4 pp 339-351
* Alan H. Gleason, "Foster and Catchings: A Reappraisal," "Joural of Political Economy" (Apr. 1959). 67:156+