Education
Ferry graduated from Dartmouth College in 1932 and landed a job teaching English and Latin at Choate Rosemary Hall.
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William Hugh Ferry
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From 1933-1941, he pursued a career in journalism, though in 1936 he briefly held the position of Director of Publicity for Eastern Airlines. The Ford Foundation used this public relations agency, and Ferry was responsible for writing speeches for Henry Ford. In 1951, while still working for Earl Newsom, Ferry became a public relations adviser for the Ford Foundation.
Ferry became Vice President of the fund in 1954 and was responsible for its administration and public relations.
He continued to work for the fund after it moved from New York to Santa Barbara, California in 1959, when it changed its name to the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions (CSDI). Ferry published a number of essays while at CSDI, including "The Corporation and the Economy" (1959), "The Economy Under Law" (1961), "Caught in the Horn of Plenty" (1962), "What Price Peace" (1963), "Masscom as Educator" (1966), "Farewell to Integration" (1967), "Tonic and Toxic Technology" (1967), and "The Police State is Here" (1969).
On August 7, 1962, Ferry delivered a speech titled "Myths, Cliches and Stereotypes" to the Western States Democratic Conference in Seattle, Washington, where he was very critical of the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover. Ferry stayed at the CDSI until 1969, when he was sacked after an internal feud.
He then created his own job, hiring himself out for $6,000 a year to ten California philanthropists.
One of the ten was Carol Bernstein, whose late husband was part of the Loews Incorporated. communications empire. Ferry’s marriage to Jolyne Marie Gillier in 1937 ended in divorce in 1972. Ferry ran Carol Underwood Bernstein’s DJB Foundation, which spent out its $18 million endowment on a variety of left-wing causes.
In the Philanthropy Roundtable, drawing on a recent biography, an article about Ferry stated:
If you were in trouble with the law in the 1970s and 1980s, knew who Ferry was, and told him you were a political prisoner, he would provide bail.
As a peace activist, Ferry also spent the 1980s on a grand tour of America’s enemies, including trips to Havana and Moscow.
Politics
This led to criticism across the political divide including from Attorney General Robert Kennedy and attacks by the press across the country. However, Ferry"s critical view of Hoover came to be shared among many in later years.
Membership
Between 1942-1945 Ferry held a series of positions including consultant for the International Labour Organization (1940-1944), Chief Investigator in New Hampshire for the Office of Price Administration (1942-1944), Director of Public Relations for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (1944), and member of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Southwest Pacific Area (1945).
