Edwin Griswold Nourse

Edwin Griswold Nourse (May 20, 1883 – April 7, 1974) was an American economist who served as the first chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1946 to 1949.

Early life and education Nourse was born in Lockport, New York, Nourse moved to a western suburb of Chicago at the age of four months, and considered himself a Midwesterner. His father worked in the city as a supervisor of public school music. His sister, Alice Tisdale Hobart, went on to become a bestselling novelist. In high school Nourse enjoyed English and history, and after spending a year at the Louis Institute, went on to Cornell University with an interest in civil engineering. In 1903, he was caught in a wave of typhoid fever that hit campus; upon his return he decided to simply get his A.B., but also took several classes at the College of Agriculture.

Career Following college, Nourse taught for two years in high school, spent a year on graduate studies, and then taught at the Wharton School, where he conceived of agricultural economics. From there he transited through the University of South Dakota, the University of Arkansas, Iowa State College, and on to the University of Chicago, where he received his Ph.D. in 1915 for the dissertation "The Chicago Produce Market: A Study of Market Mechanism as a Factor in Price Determination". He continued to study and write about agricultural cooperation:

Selected publications Nourse, E. G., Tryon, F. G., Drury, H. B., Leven, M., Moulton, H. G., & Lewis, C. America's capacity to produce. 1934. Nourse, Edwin Griswold, and Horace Bookwalter Drury. Industrial price policies and economic progress. 1938.