Background
Brookings grew up on the Little Elk Creek in Cecil County, near Baltimore, Maryland.
Brookings grew up on the Little Elk Creek in Cecil County, near Baltimore, Maryland.
In 1895, Brookings, now financially secure, decided to leave the day-to-day management of the company and focus on charitable and philanthropic endeavors. The university"s administration building, Brookings Hall, is named for him. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Brookings to the War Industries Board, and later named him chairman of its Price Fixing Committee.
In this role, he was the liaison between the United States. government and many different industries.
In 1916, Brookings established the Institute for Government Research, an independent organization dedicated to political study. He later founded an Institute of Economics and a graduate school of public policy.
In 1927, these three entities were merged into the Brookings Institution, which remains one of the leading think tanks in the United States. Brookings wrote three books: Industrial Ownership (1925), Economic Democracy (1929), and The Way Forward (1932).
He died in 1932 in Washington, District of Columbia and is buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery in Saint Louis.
