Grosvenor Clarkson

Grosvenor Blaine Clarkson (September 13, 1882 – January 23, 1937) was an American journalist, writer, and government official. In the early 1900s, he was a reporter with the New York Mail and Express, the New York World, and The New York Times. He then worked as an investigator for the United States Department of the Interior in New Mexico before a career in advertising in New York City. He served as assistant chairman of the committee on industrial preparedness of the United States Naval Consulting Board and later as director of the Council of National Defense.

Early life Grosvenor Blaine Clarkson was born on September 13, 1882, in Des Moines, Iowa, as one of three children to Anna (née Howell) and James Sullivan Clarkson. His father was a newspaper editor and Republican politician. His grandfather was Iowa state senator Coker F. Clarkson. His mother wrote biographical magazine articles and a biographical book on Drusilla A. Stoddard. His brother Coker Fifield Clarkson was an automotive lawyer and manager of the Society of Automotive Engineers. Clarkson was educated at DeLancey School in Philadelphia and Berkeley School in New York City.

From 1904 to 1906, Clarkson led investigations for the United States Department of the Interior in the southern district of New Mexico. Clarkson declined a posting as chief inspector of the Department of the Interior and a posting as secretary of the U.S. embassy in Russia.

In the fall of 1916, Clarkson declined the role of director of the newly formed Council of National Defense. Starting in 1918, he organized the council's economic reconstruction and readjustment work. This effort was to help with the high cost of living and demobilization. He helped to spark the movement for community councils in the United States. In September 1918, he directed the council's field division, which was the merging of state and territorial council's section with similar divisions of the women's committees in the council. The field division's organization was across 48 states, 162,000 cities, towns, and community units, and 18,000 committees of women. He was chairman of the Interdepartmental Defense Board, which studied and classified economic resources for defense in the United States in peace time. He retired as director of the council in March 1920.

Clarkson was senior fellow and counselor of the Engineering Economics Foundation. He was a Republican. An Analysis of the High Cost of Living (1919) He later married Helah Reeder, widow of Harold Reeder and daughter of Mrs. A. Cornell Sullivan, of New York City on September 14, 1917. They divorced in 1927. He was a member of the Metropolitan Club of Washington, D.C., and the Sleepy Hollow Country Club of New York.

Clarkson died on January 23, 1937, in New York City.