William Z. Ripley | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1867-08-16)August 16, 1867 Medford, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | October 16, 1941(1941-10-16) (aged 74) Edgecomb, Maine, U.S. |
| Academic career | |
| Institution | Columbia University (1893–1901) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1895–1901) Harvard University (1901) |
| Alma mater | Columbia University Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
William Zebina Ripley (October 13, 1867 – August 16, 1941) was an Americaneconomist, lecturer atColumbia University, professor of economics atMIT, professor ofpolitical economy atHarvard University, andanthropologist of race. Ripley was famous for his criticisms of American railroad economics and American business practices in the 1920s and 1930s, and later for his tripartite racial theory of Europe. His contribution to the anthropology of race was later taken up by racial physical anthropologists,eugenicists,white supremacists,Nordicists, andracists in general, and it was considered a valid academic work at the time, although today it is considered to be a prime example ofscientific racism andpseudoscience.[1][2]
He was born inMedford, Massachusetts, in 1867 to Nathaniel L. Ripley and Estimate R. E. Ripley (née Baldwin). He attended theMassachusetts Institute of Technology for his undergraduate education in engineering, graduating in 1890, and he received a master's and doctorate degree fromColumbia University in 1892 and 1893 respectively. In 1893, he was married to Ida S. Davis.
From 1893 to 1901, Ripley lectured on sociology at Columbia University and from 1895 to 1901, he was a professor of economics at MIT. From 1901 onwards, he was a professor of political economics atHarvard University.[3]
He was a corresponding member of the Anthropological Society of Paris, the Roman Anthropological Society, the Cherbourg Society of Natural Sciences, and in 1898 and 1900 to 1901, he was the vice president of theAmerican Economic Association.[4]
In 1899, he authored a book entitledThe Races of Europe: A Sociological Study, which had grown out of a series of lectures he had given at the Lowell Institute at Columbia in 1896. Like many Americans of his time, at every level of education, Ripley believed that the concept ofrace was explanatory of human difference. Even further, he believed it to be the central engine to understanding human history, although his work also afforded strong weight to environmental and non-biological factors, such as traditions. He believed, as he wrote in the introduction toRaces of Europe, that:
Ripley's book, written to help finance his children's education, became a widely accepted work of anthropology, due to its careful writing, compilation of seemingly valid data, and close criticism of the data of many other anthropologists inEurope and the United States.
Ripley based his conclusions about race on his attempts to correlateanthropometric data with geographical data, especially using thecephalic index, which at the time was considered a reliable anthropometric measure. Based on these measurements and other socio-geographical data, Ripley classified Europeans into three distinct races:
In his book, Ripley also proposed the idea that "Africa begins beyond the Pyrenees", as he wrote in page 272:
Ripley's tripartite system of race put him at odds both with others on the topic of human difference, including those who insisted that there was only one European race, and those who insisted that there were at least ten European races (such asJoseph Deniker, who Ripley saw as his chief rival). The conflict between Ripley and Deniker was criticized byJan Czekanowski, who states, that"the great discrepancies between their claims decrease the authority of anthropology", and what is more, he points out, that both Deniker and Ripley had one common feature, as they both omitted the existence of anArmenoid race, which Czekanowski claimed to be one of the four main races of Europe, met especially among the Eastern Europeans and Southern Europeans.[7] Writing at a time when such racialist theories were widely accepted among academics, Ripley was the first American recipient of the Huxley Medal of theRoyal Anthropological Institute in 1908 for his contributions to anthropology.
The Races of Europe, overall, became an influential book of the era in the then-accepted field of racial taxonomy.[8] Ripley's tripartite system of racial classification was especially championed by the racist propagandistMadison Grant, who changed Ripley's "Teutonic" type into Grant's ownNordic type (taking the name, but little else, from Deniker), which he postulated as amaster race.[9] It is in this light that Ripley's work on race is usually remembered today, though little of Grant's racist ideology is present in Ripley's original work.[citation needed]
Ripley worked underTheodore Roosevelt on the United StatesIndustrial Commission in 1900, helping negotiate relations between railway companies andanthracite coal companies. He served on the Eight Hour Commission in 1916, adjusting railway wages to the neweight-hour workday. From 1917 to 1918, he served as Administrator of Labor Standards for theUnited States Department of War, and helped to settle railway strikes.
Ripley was the Vice President of the American Economics Association 1898, 1900, and 1901, and was elected president of it in 1933. From 1919 to 1920, he served as the chairman of theNational Adjustment Commission of the United States Shipping Board, and from 1920 to 1923, he served with theInterstate Commerce Commission. In 1921, he was ICC special examiner on the construction of railroads. There, he wrote the ICC's plan for the regional consolidation of U.S. railways, which became known as theRipley Plan.[10] In 1929, the ICC publishedRipley's Plan under the titleComplete Plan of Consolidation. Numerous hearings were held by the ICC regarding the plan under the topic of "In the Matter of Consolidation of the Railways of the United States into a Limited Number of Systems".[11][12][13] (In 1940, however,Congress declined to adopt the consolidation plan.[14])
Starting with a series of articles in theAtlantic Monthly in 1925 under the headlines of "Stop, Look, Listen!", Ripley became a major critic of American corporate practices. In 1926, he issued a well-circulated critique ofWall Street's practices ofspeculation andsecrecy. He received a full-page profile inThe New York Times with the headline, "When Ripley Speaks, Wall Street Heeds".[15] According toTime magazine, Ripley became widely known as "The Professor Who Jarred Wall Street".[16]
However, after an automobile accident in January 1927, Ripley suffered anervous breakdown and was forced to recuperate at asanitarium inConnecticut. After theWall Street crash of 1929, he was occasionally credited with having predicted the financial disaster. In December 1929,The New York Times said:
He was unable to return to teaching until at least 1929. However, in the early 1930s, he continued to issue criticisms of the railroad industry labor practices. In 1931, he had also testified at aSenate banking inquiry, urging the curbing of investment trusts. In 1932, he appeared at the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, and demanded public inquiry into the financial affairs of corporations and authored a series of articles inThe New York Times stressing the importance of railroad economics to the country's economy. Yet, by the end of the year he had suffered another nervous breakdown, and retired in early 1933.
Ripley died in 1941 at his summer home inEast Edgecomb,Maine. An obituary inThe New York Times implied that Ripley had predicted the 1929 crash with his "fearless exposés" of Wall Street practices, in particular his pronouncement that:
His book,Railway Problems: An Early History of Competition, Rates and Regulations, was republished in 2000 as part of a "Business Classic" series.[18]
