Title: Ben W. Lewis Papers, 1922-1982, n.d.

ID: RG 30/172

Extent: 10.7 Linear Feet

Ben William Lewis was born on November 5, 1900 in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan to William E. and Bertha Louise (Kinney) Lewis. From 1918 to 1919, he attended Central State Teachers College (Central Michigan University) in Mt. Pleasant. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with the A.B. from the University of Michigan in 1922, receiving an A.M. (1923) and Ph.D. (1926) degrees in Economics from the same institution. Lewis’s dissertation focused on the going concern for value in the field of public utility regulation. Lewis studied law at Harvard Law School (1927-28) and the University of Michigan Law School (1929-30), taking the LL.B. degree from Cleveland’s Western Reserve Law School in 1934. In 1955, Lewis was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Oberlin College awarded Lewis the honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1969, two years following his retirement.

Lewis’s professional career spanned over a half-century. From 1925 to 1967, he taught economics at Oberlin College. He began teaching in 1922 at the University of Michigan while working towards his master’s degree. In 1925, he came to Oberlin College as Assistant Professor of Economics, reaching the rank of Associate Professor in 1928 and Professor in 1936. He served as Chairman of the Economics Department from 1951 to 1965. In 1953, he was named to the Avery Professorship in Economics. Ben Lewis trained numerous economics professors, college and university administrators, and public servants. Among his more prominent students were Walter W. Heller (1915-87; A.B. 1935), economic adviser to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson; Everett Hawkins (1906-70; A.B. 1928), development economist and adviser to Southeast Asian governments; and Nancy Hays Teeters (b. 1930; A.B. 1952), the first woman to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Ben Lewis influenced the evolution of faculty-trustee relations at Oberlin from 1945 until his retirement in 1967. He served on the College’s General Faculty and College Faculty councils from 1945 to 1967 and on the Trustee-Faculty Conference Committee from its inception in 1947 until 1959.

Throughout his career, Lewis promoted the cause of economic education. He was Chairman of the American Economic Association Committee on Economics in Teacher Education (1954-64), Consultant to the Business Education Committee of the Committee for Economic Development, founding member and Vice President of the Joint Council on Economic Education (1963-68), and Chairman of the Advisory Selection Committee for Fulbright postdoctoral awards in economics (1952-57). He held summer academic appointments at the Universities of Chicago (1931, 1937), Colorado (1959), Michigan (1946, 1948, 1951-58), Minnesota (1950), California (1949), Columbia University (1947), and Pomona College in California (1952).

Ben Lewis combined teaching duties with service to the federal government. His work for the government began during the first phase of the New Deal under President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945). Lewis held the position of Economic Advisor for the Consumers Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration from 1934 to 1935, when the United States Supreme Court ruled the National Recovery Administration unconstitutional. During the year 1935-36, Lewis studied in England on a traveling fellowship from the Social Science Research Council. His research on government regulatory control of the electrical power industry was published in the 1937 pamphlet, Price Production and Control in British Industry. From 1938 to 1939, he was a part-time member of the Brookings Institution staff. In 1940, Lewis became Chief Economist in the newly established Consumers Division of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s National Defense Advisory Commission. The Division’s purpose was to maintain and strengthen the supply of consumer goods as the nation readied for possible war. As Chief Economist, Lewis recruited economic experts to join the staff of the Commissioner on Consumer Problems. In July 1941, after his position had been eliminated by executive order of the President, Lewis was named Price Executive in charge of the rubber and rubber products section, Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply. Assistant Administrator in charge of the Price Division was John Kenneth Galbraith (d. 2006). In 1943, following Congress’s failure to appropriate sufficient funding for his salary at the O.P.A., Lewis accepted joint positions with the Foreign Economic Administration and the Office of Alien Property Custodian, as Chairman of the Patent Contracts Committee. In August of 1944, the newly established United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) recruited Lewis as Chief of their London Distribution office, in charge of distribution policy for all of Europe. Lewis declined the post to fulfill his obligations in Washington and Oberlin.

In 1959, Lewis began a long association with the Ford Foundation as a consultant for governments of developing countries. These assignments were part-time from 1959 to 1967 and full-time from 1967 to 1971, when he served as Program Advisor with the Foundation’s Middle East and Africa Program. Lewis’s first overseas assignment came in April 1959 when he was appointed Consultant to the Jordan Development Board for a two-month period. Lewis returned several times to Jordan during the period 1959 to 1965. He also consulted in the field of economic planning in Nigeria (1961), Kenya and Tanzania (1962-66), Latin America, (1966-70), Nepal (1970), the Philippines (1970), Southeast Asia (1969-71), and Turkey (1969-73). His recruitment activities for the Ford Foundation also took him frequently to Europe. As an independent consultant, he advised the governments of Venezuela (1953) and Saudi Arabia (1974-76).

Lewis was a gifted writer and public speaker. His articles appeared in the leading economic journals, including the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, Public Utilities Fortnightly, and the Journal of Economic History. He also wrote for legal and business periodicals such as The George Washington Law Review, the Cornell Law Quarterly, and the Harvard Business Review. His publications include British Planning and Nationalization (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1952), a Brookings Institution study, “Public Utilities,” in Government and Economic Life (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1940, vol. 2), and Public Utility Regulation (s.l., 195-?). He authored numerous book reviews and served as economics editor for Appleton-Century-Crofts (1958-68). He was a member of the board of editors of the American Economic Review (1941-43), the journal of the American Economic Association.

From 1926 to 1984, Lewis served the Oberlin community in numerous capacities. He was a director of the Oberlin Savings Bank from 1940 to 1959 and a member of the Public Utilities Committee of the Oberlin City Council from 1947 to 1955. He also served as a consultant for the Ohio Public Utilities Commission, testifying at hearings before the Commission on matters relating to going value (1933-35). He was a longtime member of the vestry of Oberlin’s Christ Episcopal Church. For four years (1964-68), he served as a trustee of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association.

Ben Lewis married Gertrude Mae Dodds (1900-85) of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan on September 7, 1923. They had two children, Harriet Patricia (b. 1929; A.B. Oberlin, 1950) and John Francis (b. 1933?; A.B. Amherst College, 1955). Lewis died in Cleveland on November 29, 1987 at age 87. Contributions from friends and Oberlin College Board of Trustee Robert S. Danforth made possible the establishment of the Robert S. Danforth/Ben Lewis Professorship in Economics in December 1987.

SOURCES CONSULTED

Staff file of Ben Lewis (RG 28)

Who’s Who in America, Vol. 35, 1968-69 (Chicago: Marquis-Who’s Who, 1969), p. 317.

Author: Valerie S. Komor

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Administrative Information

Scope and Contents:

The papers of Ben W. Lewis span the years 1922 to 1982, with the bulk of the collection concentrated in the period 1958 to 1974. During these sixteen years, Lewis served with the Ford Foundation’s Overseas Development Program. There is little information in this collection regarding Lewis’s teaching career at Oberlin College or his personal life.

The Lewis papers, originally maintained as general files, are organized into three series: Series I. Correspondence; Series II. General Files; and Series III. Course Related Material. Within series, files are further subdivided into subseries. The six subseries of Series II are arranged according to professional activity and include: 1. Files Relating to Oberlin College and Community; 2. Files Relating to Government Service/United Nations; 3. Files Relating to the Ford Foundation; 4. Files Relating to Foreign Government Service (independent consulting); 5. Files Relating to Professional Activities and Affiliations; and, 6. Writings (published and unpublished). Within these subseries, files are typically arranged chronologically or alphabetically by topic or type of material. Series III consists of notes taken by Lewis while he was a student in law school.

The correspondence of Ben Lewis is found throughout his papers. Series I consists of correspondence which was organized by the archivist in 1984 into three distinct runs: Professional Correspondence (Incoming), 1922-67; Professional Correspondence (Incoming and Outgoing), 1936-81; and, Personal Correspondence (Incoming and Outgoing), 1967-72. In the general files of Series II, letters accompany attached materials and are present in the chronological file (1966-71) relating to Ford Foundation matters.

The largest body of correspondence is the incoming correspondence of Subseries 1, 1922-67, which is indexed by correspondent. It covers the period from Lewis’s graduate work at the University of Michigan to his retirement from teaching at Oberlin College. Included are letters from leading economists and academicians, including John Kenneth Galbraith (d. 2006) of Harvard University, Leon Carroll Marshall (b. 1879) of Johns Hopkins University, and Isaiah Leo Sharfman (d. 1969), Lewis’s mentor at the University of Michigan. Topics covered include public utility regulation and pricing, as well as Lewis’s professional aspirations, his publications and research projects, American Economics Association business, and the scheduling of speaking engagements. Correspondence from Oberlin College President Ernest Hatch Wilkins (1880-1966) and Oberlin Economics Department Chairman Harvey A. Wooster (1886-1963) relates to the terms of Lewis’s appointment at Oberlin, negotiations for leaves of absence, and ancillary personnel and academic matters. Related materials pertaining to Lewis’s service to Oberlin College, housed in Subseries 1 of Series II, cover Lewis’s salary and promotions, the General Faculty Committee on Retirement, trustee-faculty relations and governance issues, and departmental business. There are no teaching materials in these papers, except for Lewis’s notes for lectures delivered at schools other than Oberlin. These are housed in Series II, Subseries 6.

The remaining correspondence in Series I, contained in Subseries 2 (1936-81) and Subseries 3 (1967-72), sheds light on many of the topics covered in greater detail in Series II. Letters (1936-38) relate to Lewis’s year of study in England (1935-36) under a grant from the Social Science Research Council and to his efforts to parlay that experience into further government service. There is no correspondence for the period 1943 to 1949. Later correspondence (1967-72) mainly relates to securing Lewis’s participation on committees and at conferences or his valuable support for candidates for employment or graduate study. While there is some correspondence in Subseries 3 (mainly file copies) relating to Lewis’s work with the Ford Foundation, it is almost entirely of a routine nature. The files in Series II, Subseries 3, contain the bulk of material relating to his service with the Ford Foundation, as described below.

Correspondence, memoranda, and reports document Lewis’s early service to the federal government (1933-44) during the Roosevelt administration. Files relate to his sixteen months with the National Recovery Administration (1934-35), arrangements for his fellowship to Great Britain (1935-38) and his activities there, his work with the Consumers Division of the National Defense Advisory Commission (1939-42), the Office of Price Administration (1941-43), the Foreign Economic Administration (1943-44), and the Office of Alien Property Custodian (1944). Of particular interest are several memos drafted by Lewis and his colleagues at the Office of Price Administration, immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, relating to the national rubber stock, its projected supply and plans for rubber rationing. Among Lewis’s files on the Foreign Economic Administration is a secret report written by staff of the Department of State, Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations, dated September 8, 1943. Titled “Preliminary Draft of a Program for Relief Operations in Italy,” it contains statistics compiled from Italian sources on food and supplies in Italy. Official memoranda issued by Lewis as Chairman of the Patent Contracts Committee in the Office of Alien Property Custodian pertain to patent contracts negotiated in time of war between American concerns and foreign owners of patents.

The best-documented phase of Lewis’s career is his work (1958-71) as an independent consultant for the Ford Foundation. From 1958 to 1971, and intermittently thereafter, Lewis served as an economic advisor specializing in economic planning to governments in Africa, Latin American, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Most of his work was done under the auspices of the Ford Foundation’s Overseas Development Program, Near East and Africa Division, for a project known as the Middle East and Africa program (MEA). Included in the files are appointment and reappointment letters (1966-71); general correspondence with Foundation personnel relating to living arrangements abroad, travel plans, expenses incurred, and salary matters; and lists of individuals to be contacted in various countries. Country files include correspondence, reports, memoranda, and related materials pertaining to Lewis’s consultations. The bulk of these files relate to Lewis’s work in Amman, Jordan (1959-65) for the Jordan Development Board; in East Africa, particularly Kenya and Tanzania (1962-72); and in Latin America (1966-70), in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru. Files titled “Europe” include miscellaneous papers concerning Lewis’s trips to England, Norway, Denmark, Holland, and Sweden to recruit promising economists to the Foundation staffs in Africa and the Middle East. The correspondence mainly concerns arrangements for interviews and requests from colleagues for names of potential candidates. Special files relate to Lewis’s involvement with the Middle East and Africa Law and Development Project (1968-71) and to the 1971 conference of Middle East and Africa Program Advisors. The complete files of the Middle East and Africa Program are located in the Archives of the Ford Foundation in New York City.

Ben Lewis’s numerous publications are listed in a bibliography housed in Series VI. Present in these files are ms. drafts of articles, including several variants (1958-59) of the well-known piece, “Economics by Admonition,” and drafts for talks and for the monograph, British Planning and Nationalization (1951-54). Also present are drafts of four chapters (1968-69) for a projected volume on the British economy in a Charles E. Merrill series, Comparative Economic Systems, and drafts of Lewis’s contribution to an economics textbook (1971-72) published by the Dushkin Publishing Group. Manuscript submissions are accompanied by related correspondence from colleagues, editors, and friends requesting copies.

The balance of Lewis’s papers include files relating to his professional activities. Included is correspondence (1958-68) with textbook editors at Appleton-Century Crofts, files on the National Task Force on Economic Education (1954-68), speaking invitations (1959-66), and miscellaneous papers (1949-56) pertaining to Lewis’s participation at various conferences.

Lewis’s efforts to assemble a photo gallery of distinguished graduates of the Oberlin Economics Department is documented in Series II, Subseries 1.

SERIES DESCRIPTIONS

The papers of Ben Lewis are organized into three series: I. Correspondence; II. General Files; and III. Course Related Material. File headings are largely those established by the archivist in 1984. Minimal alterations to the file headings serve to accommodate the revised arrangement and description.

Series I. Correspondence, 1922-81, n.d. (1.4 l.f.)

Personal and professional correspondence of Ben Lewis, arranged into three subseries according to the order in which the correspondence was received in 1984: 1. Professional Correspondence (Incoming); 2. Professional Correspondence (Incoming and Outgoing); and 3. Personal Correspondence (Incoming and Outgoing).

Subseries 1. Professional Correspondence (Incoming), 1922-67 (0.8 l.f.)

Incoming correspondence is arranged alphabetically by correspondent. An index to the correspondence, prepared by archives staff, is housed with the correspondence.

Subseries 2. Professional Correspondence (Incoming and Outgoing), 1936-81, n.d. (0.3 l.f.)

Incoming and outgoing correspondence is largely professional in nature. Chronologically arranged.

Subseries 3. Personal Correspondence (Incoming and Outgoing), 1967-72 (0.3 l.f.)

Incoming and outgoing correspondence is chronologically arranged. Designated as personal correspondence by the archivist in 1984, it is both personal and professional in nature.

Series II. General Files, 1926-76, 1979-82, n.d. (8.7 l.f.)

Files originally maintained by Ben Lewis in one alphabetical run, organized into six subseries by professional activity. Within subseries, files are arranged either chronologically or alphabetically by type of material, topic, or title.

Subseries 1. Files Relating to Oberlin College and Community, 1926-75, 1979-82, n.d. (1.4 l.f.)

Incoming and outgoing correspondence (file copies), with attached and related materials, including memoranda, meeting agendas, reports, budget sheets, financial data, misc. notes, newspaper clippings and other printed material, is organized under the headings of “Oberlin College” and “Oberlin Community,” and there under alphabetically. Files related to the Lewis Photo Galley are contained in this series. Permission of the Archivist required to examine the restricted contents of Box 5, folder titled “Economics Department correspondence (1953-67).”

Subseries 2. Files Relating to Government Service/United Nations, 1933-44, 1967 (1.0 l.f.)

Correspondence, memoranda, confidential government reports (copies), transcripts of testimony and interviews, meeting agendas, misc. notes, newspaper clippings and other printed material are arranged according to type of service (state or federal), and there under chronologically. This series also contains files related to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA).

Subseries 3. Files Relating to the Ford Foundation, 1958-74, n.d. (3.8 l.f.)

Chronological files include letters sent, with incoming correspondence, memoranda, reports, and cables; letters of appointment; conference programs and papers (copies of drafts); and working files on individual countries, containing correspondence and attached and related materials, memoranda, misc. and official reports, misc. notes, invitations, and invoices. Arranged alphabetically by type of material. The Ford Foundation may hold copyright over certain materials in this subseries. Consult the Archivist for further information.

Subseries 4. Files Relating to Foreign Government Service (Independent Consulting), 1953, 1961-64, 1974-76 (0.7 l.f.)

Contains correspondence, memoranda, misc. and official reports, receipts, and appointment calendars. Arranged alphabetically by country.

Subseries 5. Files Relating to Professional Activities and Affiliations, 1949-68 (0.6 l.f.)

Correspondence, memoranda, meeting agendas, conference reports and proceedings, and miscellaneous printed materials are arranged alphabetically by topic or type of material.

Subseries 6. Writings (Published and Unpublished), 1928-75, n.d. (1.2 l.f.)

Consists of misc. typescript drafts of articles and talks, both published and unpublished, with attached correspondence; reprints of articles; typescript drafts of books and monographs with attached correspondence; and lecture notes. Includes bibliographies. Arranged alphabetically by type of material and there under chronologically or alphabetically by title. A separate box contains writings of others collected by Lewis. Arranged chronologically.

Series III. Course Related Materials, 1927-30, 1933-34, n.d. (0.6 l.f.)

Includes notebooks and loose notes compiled by Lewis for his law courses at Harvard Law School, The University of Michigan Law School, and Western Reserve Law School in Cleveland.

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