Rexford Guy Tugwell

Background

Rexford Guy Tugwell was born on July 10, 1891 in Sinclairville, N. Y. , south of Buffalo. His father, Charles Henry Tugwell, was a cattle dealer and entrepreneur; his mother, Dessie Rexford, was a former schoolteacher.

Education

Tugwell attended primary school near home but later transferred to Masten Park High School in Buffalo, from which he graduated in 1911.

Tugwell attended the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, earning his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees (1915, 1916, 1922). A liberal economist who believed in economic planning, he joined the faculty of Columbia University, New York City, in 1920.

Career

In 1932 Raymond Moley persuaded Tugwell and Adolph A. Berle, Jr. , to join together in advising Roosevelt during the 1932 presidential contest. After Roosevelt’s victory, Tugwell joined the administration as assistant secretary of agriculture (later becoming undersecretary).

In 1936 he left the Roosevelt administration for private business and in 1938 became chairman of the New York City Planning Commission, but in 1941 he accepted appointment as chancellor of the University of Puerto Rico. Later that year he became governor of the island, where for the next five years he tried to better economic and social conditions—a goal that led to conflict with wealthy sugar planters. From his experiences in Puerto Rico, he wrote The Stricken Land (1946).

From 1946 to 1952, Tugwell directed the Institute of Planning at the University of Chicago, where he also served as a professor of political science (1946–57). He eventually settled in Santa Barbara, Calif. , where he held the post of senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. He spent his remaining years working on a model for a new Constitution of the United States.

He died on July 21, 1979.

Achievements

• Rexford Guy Tugwell was an economist who became part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first "Brain Trust, " a group of Columbia University academics who helped develop policy recommendations leading up to Roosevelt's New Deal. He wrote twenty books, covering the politics of the New Deal, biographies of major politicians, issues in planning, and memoirs of his experiences. In 1968 Tugwell won the Bancroft prize in history for his book The Brains Trust.

Works

More photos

• book

  • How They Became President 36 Ways To The

    (How They Became President is an analysis of the way in wh...)

  • In Search of Roosevelt

    ( Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the author comments, "was o...)

  • The Brains Trust

    (SEE OUR PHOTOS! This 538-page hardback was published in 1...)

  • Our Economic Society and its Problems: A Study of American Levels of Living and How to Improve Them

    (A study of American levels of living and how to improve t...)

  • The Economic Basis Of Public Interest FACSIMILE

    (HIGH QUALITY FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION: Tugwell, Rexford G. ...)

  • Soviet RussiaIn The Second Decade.

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • Grover Cleveland - Library of the Presidents

    (Brand new LEATHER BOUND book accented in 22kt gold.)

  • The Democratic Roosevelt: A Biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt

    (Biography, American Studies, Political Studies)

  • FDR: Architect of an Era

    (Excellent book!!!!!)

  • The Diary of Rexford G. Tugwell: The New Deal, 1932-1935 (Contributions in Economics and Economic History)

    ( Rexford G. Tugwell's diary of the New Deal era is one o...)

  • Changing the colonial climate (American imperialism)
  • The enlargement of the Presidency
  • American economic life and the means of its improvement,
  • The place of planning in society. Seven lectures on the place of planning in society with special reference to Puerto Rico
  • Industry's coming of age,
  • The light of other days
  • The Industrial Discipline and the Governmental Arts,
  • The battle for democracy,
  • Puerto Rican public papers of R.G. Tugwell, governor
  • Forty-Third Annual Report of the Governor of Puerto Rico Honorable Rexford G. Tugwell, 1943
  • The Art Of Politics
  • Proposed new constitution for the newstates of America: A review and commentary of Rexford G. Tugwell's book "The emerging Constitution"
  • The Stricken Land: The Story of Puerto Rico
  • A Chronicle of Jeopardy, 1945-55

Politics

Tugwell served in FDR's administration until he was forced out in 1936. He was a specialist on planning and believed the government should have large-scale plans to move the economy out of the Great Depression because private enterprise was too frozen in place to do the job. He helped design the New Deal farm program and the Resettlement Administration that moved subsistence farmers into small rented farms under close supervision. His ideas on suburban planning resulted in the construction of Greenbelt, Maryland, with low-cost rents for relief families. He was denounced by conservatives who said his government-imposed planning violated the values of individualism.

Roosevelt appointed Tugwell as Governor of Puerto Rico during World War II (1941-1946). He became a professor at various universities, with lengthy service at the University of Chicago and the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Personality

Although generally vigorous, he suffered from asthma all his life.

Connections

Tugwell married Florence E. Arnold in 1914; they had two children and were divorced in 1938. In the same year he married Grace Falke; they had two children.

Father:

Charles Henry Tugwell

He was a cattle dealer and entrepreneur.

Mother:

Dessie Rexford

She was a former schoolteacher.

Daughter:

Marcia Jane Tugwell

Son:

Franklin Tugwell, Dr.

Spouse (2):

Grace Falke

Spouse (1):

Florence E. Arnold

References

• Rexford G. Tugwell: A Biography
• Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal