Gabriel Hauge

Background

Gabriel Hauge was born on March 7, 1914, in Hawley, Minnesota. He was the son of Reverend Søren G. Hauge, a Lutheran minister and immigrant from Sandane in Sogn og Fjordane, Norway, and Anna B. Thompson Hauge.

Hawley was a small community in northwestern Minnesota whose civic and educational life reflected the region's Scandinavian immigrant heritage. Hauge's family background connected Norwegian Lutheran traditions with the American educational and professional institutions through which he later built his career.

Education

Hauge graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, receiving an A.B. in 1935. Founded by Norwegian immigrants in 1891, Concordia was a Lutheran liberal-arts college whose educational tradition combined academic study with Christian service and civic responsibility.

He continued at Harvard University, receiving an M.A. in 1938 and a Ph.D. in economics in 1947. Harvard's graduate economics program was one of the leading centers of American economic research during the period in which Hauge studied and taught there. He also held a George Christian fellowship at Harvard in 1938 and a Social Science Research Council fellowship in 1946.

Hauge later received honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from Concordia College in 1957, Bryant College in 1958, Muhlenberg College in 1959, and Gettysburg College in 1960. Pace College awarded him a Doctor of Humane Letters in 1969, and he received honorary degrees from Hampden-Sydney College and Yale University, the latter in 1978.

Career

Hauge began his professional career at Concordia College, where he served as assistant dean of men and coached forensic activities from 1935 to 1936. In 1938 he worked as a budget examiner in the Minnesota state budget office and began teaching economics at Harvard University. He was a senior statistician at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York during the summer of 1939 and taught economics at Princeton University from 1940 to 1942. Harvard and Princeton were major American research universities whose economics departments contributed to the expansion of professional economic analysis during the interwar and wartime years.

After the Second World War, Hauge became chief of the research and statistics division of the New York State Banking Department, serving from 1947 to 1950. He then moved into economic journalism and corporate research, working as an editor on the editorial side of Business Week and as assistant chairman of the executive committee of McGraw-Hill Publishing Company from 1950 to 1952. Business Week and McGraw-Hill occupied an important place in the growth of specialized business information and economic commentary in postwar America.

Hauge became research director for Citizens for Eisenhower in 1951–1952 and research director of Dwight D. Eisenhower's personal campaign staff in 1952. After Eisenhower's election, he served as administrative assistant for economic affairs to the president from 1953 to 1956 and as special assistant for economic affairs from 1956 to 1958. His White House work placed him within the administration's effort to coordinate economic policy, fiscal questions, monetary conditions, and private-sector confidence during the early Cold War.

In 1958 Hauge joined Manufacturers Trust Company as chairman of its finance committee and a director. Manufacturers Trust merged with Central Hanover Bank and Trust Company in 1961 to form Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, where Hauge became vice chairman. He was president from 1963 to 1971 and chairman of the board from 1971 to 1979. Manufacturers Hanover was one of the major New York commercial banks of the period, and its expansion reflected the increasing scale and complexity of postwar American banking.

Hauge also served as a director of New York Life Insurance Company, Amax Incorporated, New York Telephone Company, Discount Corporation of New York, Brooklyn Union Gas Company, Chrysler Corporation, Royal Dutch Petroleum, SAS Incorporated, and American Home Products Corporation. He participated in national and international banking discussions, including the 1978 Per Jacobsson Lecture on the international capital market and monetary system. He died in New York City on July 24, 1981.

Achievements

• Hauge helped shape Republican economic policy as a senior economic adviser to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and later became a major commercial bank executive.

• He delivered the 1978 Per Jacobsson Lecture on the international capital market and international monetary system, addressing the growth, risks, and regulation of international banking markets.

Works

• book

  • The International Capital Market and the International Monetary System

    (The 1978 Per Jacobsson Lecture, presented with Erik Hoffm...)

    1978
  • Freedom and the Economic Role of Government

    (A lecture delivered at Kenyon College in 1957 examining e...)

    1957

  • The U.S. Economy: Problems and Promise

    (A work on the condition and prospects of the United State...)

    1960

  • Is the Individual Obsolete?

    (The published Benjamin F. Fairless Memorial Lectures deli...)

    1964

Religion

Hauge was a Lutheran, a tradition within Christianity that developed from the sixteenth-century Reformation associated with Martin Luther. Lutheran theology emphasizes justification by faith, the authority of Scripture, and the importance of vocation in ordinary public and professional life.

His religious background was shaped by his father, Reverend Søren G. Hauge, a Lutheran minister who had immigrated from Sandane in Sogn og Fjordane, Norway. Hauge's career in education, public service, and banking developed within the American Protestant institutional culture of the mid-twentieth century.

Politics

Hauge was associated with the Republican Party and became an economic adviser to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. His political work developed within the Republican tradition of the 1950s, which combined support for private enterprise, fiscal responsibility, constitutional government, and resistance to communist expansion with acceptance of a significant federal role in national defense, infrastructure, and economic administration.

His writings and public lectures emphasized economic freedom, individual responsibility, stable monetary conditions, and limits on centralized economic control. In his 1957 lecture Freedom and the Economic Role of Government, he argued that government should maintain the conditions for a free and dynamic economy while avoiding unnecessary substitution of political decision-making for market activity.

Views

Hauge's public thought centered on the relationship between economic freedom, individual responsibility, and the proper scope of government. In Freedom and the Economic Role of Government, he argued that a free society required stable fiscal and credit policies, protection of opportunity, and vigilance against both excessive private concentration and excessive governmental control.

His later work on international capital markets emphasized the importance of sound domestic economic policies, monetary stability, responsible banking practices, and international coordination. His approach treated financial institutions and markets as instruments whose usefulness depended on institutional discipline and a stable economic framework.

Membership

Hauge belonged to professional, civic, cultural, and policy organizations that connected economics, banking, public affairs, and the arts. His memberships included the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Economic Association, the American Bankers Association, the Association of Reserve City Bankers, the United States Naval Institute, and the Pilgrims of the United States.

He also served as a trustee of the Juilliard Museum Foundation, participated in the Committee for Economic Development and the Advertising Council's public policy committee, and belonged to several New York civic and social organizations, including the Economic Club, University Club, Links Club, Century Association, New York Athletic Club, and Metropolitan Club.

• Director.

  Council on Foreign Relations , United States

  1964 - 1981

• Member.

  Harvard Foundation for Advanced Study and Research , United States

  1959 - 1964

• Visiting committee member.

  Harvard Center for International Affairs , United States

  1964 - 1970

• Board member.

  Committee for Economic Development , United States

• Trustee.

  Juilliard Museum Foundation , United States

  1963 - 1979

• Public policy committee member.

  Advertising Council , United States

  1964 - 1973

• Member and later president.

  Association of Reserve City Bankers , United States

• Member.

  American Economic Association , United States

• Member of the economics policy committee.

  American Bankers Association , United States

• Member.

  United States Naval Institute , United States

• Member.

  Pilgrims of the United States , United States

• Member.

  Economic Club of New York , United States

• Member.

  University Club of New York , United States

• Member.

  Links Club , United States

• Member.

  Century Association , United States

• Member.

  New York Athletic Club , United States

• Member.

  Metropolitan Club , United States

Personality

Hauge was described by contemporaries as an unusual combination of intellectual seriousness and practical business ability. At his death, banking leaders characterized him as a distinguished economist and a person who was comfortable in both intellectual and commercial settings.

Quotes from others about the person

• Manufacturers Hanover chairman John F. McGillicuddy described Hauge as a rare combination of a successful businessman and an intellectual who was at home in the marketplace. Citicorp chairman Walter Wriston said that Hauge had been an important contributor to the organizations and activities with which he was involved.

Interests

• Politicians

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

Connections

Hauge married Helen Lansdowne Resor on November 6, 1948. They had seven children: Ann Bayliss, Stephen Burnet, John Resor, Barbara Thompson, Susan Lansdowne, Elizabeth Larsen, and Caroline Clark.

His parents were Reverend Søren G. Hauge and Anna B. Thompson Hauge. The family combined Norwegian immigrant and Lutheran ministerial backgrounds with Hauge's later academic, governmental, and financial career.

Father:

Søren Gabrielson Hauge

A Lutheran minister and immigrant from Sandane in Sogn og Fjordane, Norway.

Mother:

Anna B. Thompson Hauge

Daughter:

Caroline Clark Hauge

Daughter:

Susan Lansdowne Hauge

Daughter:

Ann Bayliss Hauge

Daughter:

Barbara Thompson Hauge

Son:

Stephen Burnet Hauge

Twin of John Resor Hauge.

Son:

John Resor Hauge

Twin of Stephen Burnet Hauge.

Daughter:

Elizabeth Larsen Hauge

Wife:

Helen Lansdowne Resor

References

• Gabriel Hauge Records, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library Archival finding aid documenting Hauge's White House work, economic policy interests, and correspondence during the Eisenhower administration.
• Gabriel Hauge, 67, former chairman of Manufacturers Hanover Trust Obituary reporting Hauge's death, education, teaching, government service, banking career, and public reputation.
  1981
• Personnel: Smooth Shift Contemporary profile describing Hauge's transition from academic economics and presidential advising to senior leadership at Manufacturers Hanover Trust.
  1963
• The International Capital Market and the International Monetary System International Monetary Fund account of the 1978 Per Jacobsson Lecture and Hauge's analysis of international capital markets and monetary stability.
  1978