Edwin Nourse
Nourse (second from right) at theWhite House in July 1949
1st Chair of theCouncil of Economic Advisers
In office August 9, 1946 – November 1, 1949
President	Harry S. Truman
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Leon Keyserling
Personal details
Born	(1883-05-20)May 20, 1883 Lockport,New York, U.S.
Died	April 7, 1974(1974-04-07) (aged 90) Bethesda,Maryland, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Education	Illinois Institute of Technology Cornell University(BA) University of Chicago(MA,PhD)

Edwin Griswold Nourse (May 20, 1883 – April 7, 1974) was an American economist who served as the first chairman of theCouncil of Economic Advisers from 1946 to 1949.

Nourse was born inLockport, New York, Nourse moved to a western suburb ofChicago at the age of four months, and considered himself aMidwesterner. His father worked in the city as a supervisor of public school music. His sister,Alice Tisdale Hobart, went on to become a bestselling novelist. In high school Nourse enjoyed English and history, and after spending a year at theLouis Institute, went on toCornell University with an interest incivil engineering. In 1903, he was caught in a wave oftyphoid fever that hit campus; upon his return he decided to simply get his A.B., but also took several classes at theCollege of Agriculture.^[1]

Following college, Nourse taught for two years in high school, spent a year on graduate studies, and then taught at theWharton School, where he conceived ofagricultural economics. From there he transited through theUniversity of South Dakota, theUniversity of Arkansas,Iowa State College, and on to theUniversity of Chicago, where he received his Ph.D. in 1915 for the dissertation "The Chicago Produce Market: A Study of Market Mechanism as a Factor in Price Determination". He continued to study and write aboutagricultural cooperation.^[1]

Nourse was a friend of Harold Moulton, the first president of theBrookings Institution, and in 1923 he convinced Nourse to come work on the agriculture side of the Institute of Economics. He remained there until 1946, moving from the head of the agriculture division to director of Institute of Economics in 1929 and then vice president in 1942.^[1]

Two years later in July he met PresidentHarry S. Truman for the first time by way ofCharles Griffith Ross to speak about becoming member of the newly createdCouncil of Economic Advisors; Nourse subsequently resigned from Brookings to become its first chairman, withLeon Keyserling as his vice-chairman and John D. Clark as a member.^[1]

Nourse was an elected member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences and theAmerican Philosophical Society.^[2][3]

• Nourse, E. G., Tryon, F. G.,Drury, H. B., Leven, M., Moulton, H. G., & Lewis, C.America's capacity to produce. 1934.
• Nourse, Edwin Griswold, andHorace Bookwalter Drury.Industrial price policies and economic progress. 1938.

• Newspaper clippings about Edwin Griswold Nourse in the20th Century Press Archives of theZBW

• 1883 births
• 1974 deaths
• 20th-century American economists
• Chairs of the United States Council of Economic Advisers
• American cooperative organizers
• Cornell University alumni
• Directors of the Office of Management and Budget
• Economists from New York (state)
• Presidents of the American Economic Association
• University of Chicago alumni
• Members of the American Philosophical Society

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata