Willard L. (AC 1920) and Clarice Brows Thorp Papers, 1857-1994 (bulk 1920-1967)

Requests for permission to publish material from the Willard L. and Clarice Brows Thorp Papers should be directed to Amherst College Archives and Special Collections. It is the responsibility of the researcher to identify and satisfy the holders of all copyrights.

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Biographical Notes

WILLARD L. THORP

Willard Thorp was born in Oswego, New York in 1899. He was the son of Charles Nicholas Thorp (a Congregational minister) and Susan Long Thorp. Thorp spent his early life in Oswego, Chelsea, Massachusetts, and Duluth, Minnesota. He entered Amherst College in 1916. After an interruption to serve as second lieutenant in the U.S. Army in 1918 (in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), he graduated from Amherst in 1920. Thorp then taught economics at the University of Michigan while obtaining his master's degree in that field. Upon completion of his degree (1921), he became an instructor at Amherst College, noting later that he ended up teaching men who had been his fellow students in 1920. Between 1922 and 1924 he completed the doctoral program in economics at Columbia University and then joined the research staff at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 1927, he became one of the youngest-perhaps the youngest-tenured professor in the United States when he rejoined the Economics Department at Amherst College.

In 1933, Thorp began his long and varied career as a government servant. Appointed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in August, 1933, as Director of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Thorp served in this capacity until May, 1934, when his nomination to that post was blocked in the Senate for political reasons. In spite of this disappointment, Thorp continued to play a role in the Roosevelt administration's program of economic recovery from the Great Depression. Between 1933 and 1938, he served with and was consultant to a number of federal agencies and boards, including the Federal Alcohol Control Administration, the National Recovery Administration, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the National Emergency Council. In 1935, he also became Director of Economic Research at Dunn and Bradstreet and was the founding editor of Dunn's Review. While at Dunn and Bradstreet, he became an advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Harry Hopkins, and represented the Commerce Department on the Temporary National Economic Committee. From 1940-1945, he was tapped by the Federal court to help oversee the reorganization of the bankrupt Associated Gas Electric System. Federal authorities were anxious to avoid a complete breakdown of the sprawling, 26,000-employee system. In 1945, Thorp was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs. In 1946, while still serving as the Chairman of the Board of the newly-reorganized General Public Utilities (formerly Associated Gas and Electric), Thorp was promoted to Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and became deeply involved in negotiating U.S. economic policy in postwar Europe. He served in this post until 1952. Thorp was a member of the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Treaty Conference (1946) and an advisor at the New York meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers the same year. He represented the U.S. on the United Nations Economic and Social Council (1947-1950) and at negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (1950-1952). A primary focus of his work was the development, promotion, and implementation of the Marshall Plan, a massive program of economic assistance initiated by the U.S. State Department in 1947 to facilitate the economic recovery of Western Europe and to strengthen European capitalist democracies. In 1949, Thorp also became responsible for development of the Point IV program of technical assistance to industrially underdeveloped countries.

Thorp appears to have performed his very public duties with aplomb. His appearance was so relaxed that he was sometimes perceived as approaching critical issues "too casually." A 1949 sketch of Thorp in the United Nations World countered this impression by summarizing the view of an unnamed Thorp colleague: Thorp's "air of seeming relaxation is deceptive,… he has a mind of steel-spring tension which makes him one of the most brilliant and effective performers in public life, here and abroad" (May 1949: 54).

Thorp left government service in 1952 and returned to the Economics Department at Amherst College. Although involved in teaching, Thorp almost immediately embraced a new role as Director of the Merrill Center for Economics. Sponsored by Amherst College and located at the former estate of Charles Edward Merrill (AC 1908) in Southampton, New York, the Merrill Center's summer sessions brought economists, policy-makers, and business executives from the U.S. and abroad to discuss economic issues in a relaxed setting. During this time, Thorp was also serving on the Amherst College Board of Trustees (1942-1955) and in 1957 he served for a number of weeks as interim president of the college. In addition, he served on the Board of Trustees of Brandeis University from 1956-1962.

In 1960, Thorp was asked by the United Nations to conduct an economic survey of the newly-independent Republic of Cyprus, and, in 1961, President John F. Kennedy asked him to head the President's Special Study Mission to Bolivia. The Merrill Center had in the meantime ceased operations. Following on these assignments, Kennedy appointed Thorp Chair of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). After repeatedly requesting relief from his teaching duties at Amherst, he retired from teaching in 1965 and continued his work as Chair of the Development Assistance Committee for another two years. He continued to pursue numerous professional and policy-related activities into the 1970s. During his career, Thorp also authored a number of books and articles on economic topics.

From 1956 to the early 1960s, Thorp's experience with anti-trust law led to his work as an expert consultant on several high-profile cases involving price-fixing and price gouging by oil companies and electrical equipment manufacturers. During his retirement, Thorp served for several years on the Pelham (Mass.) Finance Committee and as Town Treasurer. In 1947, Thorp married Clarice F. Brows, who had been a staff attorney with Associated Gas and Electric. After their marriage, Clarice Brows Thorp became his assistant and accompanied him on most of his foreign assignments. Thorp was previously married to Hildegarde Ellen Churchill, with whom he raised three children. Willard Thorp died in 1992.

CLARICE BROWS THORP

Clarice Brows Thorp was born Clarice Florence Brows in 1912 in New York City. Graduating from Washington Square College in 1933 and New York University School of Law in 1935, she was admitted to the New York State bar in 1936. While working as a law clerk and later at the Bureau of Internal Revenue, Brows Thorp found most of her professional satisfaction in her vibrant political and legal activities. A strong proponent of civil liberties, alien rights, women's engagement, and the Democratic Party, she was an active organizer, speaker, and supporter on behalf of many organizations throughout her life. She worked for several years with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Democratic National Committee. Her resume relates that she delivered hundreds of speeches in support of President Roosevelt. While working as legal staff at Associated Gas and Electric, Brows Thorp met and later married Willard L. Thorp. She accompanied and supported Thorp in his political trips and work, attending U.N. sessions and other official functions whenever permitted. She also assisted in management of the Merrill Center for Economics. Brows Thorp remained active in national and local affairs throughout her life, especially in women's organizations, in defense of civil liberties, and in the Thorps' eventual hometown of Pelham, Mass. She was widowed in 1992, and died in 2003.

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Scope and Contents of the Collection

The collection includes papers and artifacts gathered by Willard L. and Clarice Brows Thorp in the course of their personal, professional, and social activities from circa 1900 until their deaths in 1992 and 2003, respectively. The collection is a rich source of information about U.S. domestic and international economic policy-making in the politically and economically turbulent decades of the 1930s and 1940s. It also provides insights into the economic dimensions of U.S. foreign policy during the Truman administration. It documents in considerable detail Thorp's perspective on and involvement in large scale international programs of economic and technical assistance undertaken by the U.S., the United Nations, and other organizations from the post-war period through the 1960s. It provides detailed information about the activities of the Merrill Center for Economics between 1953 and 1961, which drew scholars, researchers, businessmen, and policymakers from around the world for wide-ranging discussions of economic issues and problems. The collection also provides insights into how an intelligent, ambitious husband-wife team negotiated the gendered power structures of Washington, D.C. and United Nations organizations from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Willard Long Thorp's papers include biographical materials, photographs, transcripts of testimony, writings, publications, conference proceedings, and scrapbooks and newsclippings documenting his many professional activities. Thorp's collection includes correspondence and numerous reports and speeches on a wide variety of economic topics produced in the course of his work as a statesman, economist, statistician, and international development specialist. The Thorps' social engagements and travels, particularly during their years in Europe, are also documented in the collection. The collection includes legal documents generated in the course of Thorp's work as an economic consultant and corporate board member. The activities of the Merrill Center for Economics, which Thorp directed, are documented by correspondence, curriculum vitae, financial records, memoranda, and bound summaries of the Center's summer sessions. Teaching materials, reports, and memoranda document Thorp's career in the Economics Department at Amherst College.

Clarice Brows Thorp's papers consist largely of materials collected before her marriage to Thorp in 1947. These materials include professional and personal correspondence, typescripts, newsclippings, and financial records, biographical materials, memorabilia, and photographs. Pamphlets, legal briefs, typescripts, printed materials and correspondence document Brows Thorp's work in the 1930s for the American Civil Liberties Union, the Democratic National Committee Women's Division and Speakers Bureau, the New York Young Democratic Club, the Women's City Club of New York, and other Democratic and women's organizations. Professional and personal correspondence and printed material document Brows Thorp's continued involvement in advocacy of civil liberties; women's, minority, and voters rights; and her interest in insurance and labor law. Writings in the collection also reveal her political passions: a project proposal for a political radio program for women, several speech drafts, and note cards from a speech on civil liberties written in the wake of the 1940 passing of the Alien Registration Act. The collection also contains some records and correspondence from her private legal practice. The work of Willard Thorp after their marriage is also revealed in later records, notably in her collection of correspondence, visiting cards, pamphlets and other descriptive material from the couple's trip to Europe in 1948 for the Third General Assembly of the United Nations, as well as in materials from later travels.

The collection also includes a small amount of material (manuscripts, correspondence, genealogical information, clippings) created or collected by Willard Thorp's father, Charles N. Thorp.

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Organization of the Collection

This collection is organized into five series:

• WILLARD L. THORP (1857-1992; bulk 1920-1967)
• CLARICE BROWS THORP (1925-1994, n.d.; bulk 1934-1959)
• CHARLES N. THORP (1882-1962, n.d.)
• MERRILL CENTER FOR ECONOMICS (1952-1961)
• PRINTED MATERIAL (1850-1992)

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Series 1: WILLARD L. THORP 1857-1992 (bulk 1920-1967)

Series 1, WILLARD L. THORP, consists of Thorp's personal and professional papers collected over the course of his long and varied career as an economist, U.S. government official, international development specialist, business consultant, and teacher. It also includes family photographs and material related to Thorp's hobbies.

The series is divided into fourteen subseries:

Subseries A: PERSONAL AFFAIRS AND EDUCATION 1899-1992

Consists of curriculum vitae and biographical sketches of Thorp's career, clippings about Thorp, early writings and school records, diplomas, transcripts of oral history interviews with Thorp, and travel-related materials. The subseries also includes information about Thorp's two marriages and divorce, a minor personal lawsuit, and several of Thorp's hobbies. Two boxes of realia are included in this subseries.

Subseries B: FINANCIAL AFFAIRS 1923-1992

consists of account books, receipts, wine-cellar inventories, and tax-related documents. It includes correspondence of Clarice Brows Thorp during several months of 1952, when the Thorps were planning their move from Washington, D.C. to Amherst and undertaking renovation of their Harkness Road home.

Subseries C: SCRAPBOOKS 1933-1945

The scrapbooks include numerous clippings, correspondence, invitations, and additional ephemera documenting the years when Thorp became a nationally-known figure in the field of economics. They document the particularly eventful year of 1933-1934, when Thorp served as Director of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce until the Senate blocked his confirmation. The scrapbooks provide details of Thorp's continued career in public service and as Director of Economic Research for Dunn and Bradstreet for the remainder of the 1930s.

Subseries D: PHOTOGRAPHS 1891-1991

The collection's photographs provide a nearly comprehensive photographic document of Thorp's career. They include professional portraits from the 1930s and 1940s as well as official and unofficial photographs of Thorp's work with the United Nations in the 1960s. This subseries also includes numerous family and ancestral photographs in addition to many unlabeled snapshots from the Thorps' travels. Photographs of the Amherst Class of 1920 (from 1920 and 1970) are also part of this subseries.

Subseries E: NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH (NBER) 1932-1992

Contains records of Thorp's career-long relationship with NBER, a non-partisan economic research organization founded in 1920. The subseries consists primarily of correspondence, meeting minutes, printed material, reports, and conference papers.

Subseries F: AMHERST COLLEGE 1912-1991

Consists of materials Thorp gathered in the course of teaching at the college for nearly twenty years, while serving on various committees and on the Board of Trustees (1942-1955), and while serving as interim College President briefly in 1957. Documentation of the latter two roles is fragmentary. The subseries also includes Thorp's correspondence with college offices and affiliated organizations, including the fraternity Chi Phi, of which he was a member, and the Class of 1920. A small amount of material documents responses to the student-led protests in 1969 and 1970 ("The Moratoria"). Materials include correspondence, open letters, minutes, reports, memoranda, printed material, syllabi, and exams. Where possible, folders have been grouped by Amherst organization or department and arranged chronologically within each grouping.

Subseries G: DUNN AND BRADSTREEET 1936-1941

Consists of a small amount of material (3 folders) collected during Thorp's work for the business information company as a researcher and as founding editor of Dunn's Review. Materials include clippings, speeches, editorials, and printed material.

Subseries H: GOVERNMENT SERVICE I 1933-1940

Includes materials gathered after Thorp was recruited into President Roosevelt's "Brain Trust," whose members crafted the economic policies of the New Deal. Materials here provide a rich but incomplete history of Thorp's work for several government agencies and boards. It includes materials related to the Federal Alcohol Control Administration; which managed the end of Prohibition. This subseries also documents Thorp's role as Director of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Research and his subsequent failure to receive Senate confirmation to that post; his advisory role to the National Recovery Administration and the Commerce Department; and his service on the Temporary National Economic Committee (TNEC). Materials include correspondence, notes, clippings, reports, transcripts of Congressional testimony, speeches, press releases, minutes, and printed material.

Folders have been arranged by agency or board and then by date.

Subseries I: ASSOCIATED GAS AND ELECTRIC 1940-1946

Documents collected by Thorp in his capacity as one of two trustees appointed by a Federal court to oversee reorganization of the bankrupt Associated Gas and Electric System (AGE), the third largest utility system in the U.S. Reorganization was mandated after a lengthy investigation of the company by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The investigation had uncovered a massive pyramid scheme devised by Howard Hobson, the founder of the two companies that made up AGE (AGEco and AGEcorp). Materials in the collection include correspondence, memoranda, office diaries, legal documents, spreadsheets, reports, and printed material. Where a clear original order existed, as with binders of correspondence, memoranda, and office diaries, this order has been maintained. Remaining material has been grouped by general topic.

Subseries J: GOVERNMENT SERVICE II 1936-1986

The materials in this subseries were gathered by Thorp during his service as Deputy Assistant and then Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (1945-1952) and in the course of a series of appointments in the 1960s. The materials Thorp retained from his work at the State Department consist largely of speeches and notes for speeches on distinct topics that he gave at a wide variety of institutions to immensely varied audiences between 1945 and 1952. Many of these were these were public statements and addresses; others were for a limited audience of government officials. This portion of the collection also includes some correspondence, memoranda, notes, organizational charts, and directories.

Thorp's Chairmanship of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, his role as the U.S. delegate to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and his other activities in the field of international development are more thoroughly documented with memoranda, minutes, correspondence, reports, and printed material. The Thorps' extremely full social calendar during their years in Paris, Geneva, and elsewhere in Europe is documented through correspondence, menus, and invitations. Willard Thorp's relatively brief official research trips to the Republic of Cyprus in 1960 and to Bolivia in 1961 are also well documented with correspondence, reports, and printed material.

Materials are organized into sections by organization or agency and chronologically within each section. Speeches (1945-1952) are contained in a subsection of the Department of State materials (Boxes 28 and 29). Maintaining Thorp's organization of these materials, these folders contain U.N. and GATT speeches as well as addresses delivered in his capacity as Assistant Secretary of State. The United Nations section contains some retrospective material on Thorp's overlapping roles and activities in the 1960s.

Subseries J is divided into six sections:

• Department of State (DOS)
• United Nations Economic Survey of Cyprus
• United States Special Study Mission to Bolivia
• Development Assistance Committee (DAC)
• United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and related roles; retrospective material
• General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)

Subseries K: PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES 1913-1992

The materials in this subseries encompass most of Thorp's professional and scholarly activities outside of his government service and employment at Amherst College. Included are appointment books, speeches, scholarly and humorous writings, book reviews, conference proceedings, and correspondence and minutes documenting his involvement with professional associations. Included as well are syllabi and correspondence related to Thorp's guest teaching at the Army and National War Colleges, at the University of Florida, and as Honors Examiner at Swarthmore College. Thorp served as Chairman for several years of the Claremont-Bologna international economic conferences and his work in this regard, especially between 1968 and 1983, is well documented in the collection.

This subseries contains some documentation of Thorp's corporate and institutional board membership. It also contains extensive documentation of four legal cases in which he was involved as an expert economic analyst or witness. Three of these involved major U.S. oil companies; the fourth concerned price-fixing by dozens of electrical equipment manufacturers. In the United States v. Arkansas Fuel Oil, et al., Thorp was a consultant to a group of 29 U.S. oil companies indicted by the U.S. Justice Department for plotting to fix oil and gas prices during the 1956 Suez Canal crisis. A federal district court judge acquitted the defendants in February, 1960. In the "ECA" case, the U.S. government lodged a series of complaints against several oil companies, claiming that they had overcharged for crude oil purchased with dollars for eventual sale to countries included the Marshall Plan. Thorp's research provided evidence that they had not done so. Thorp's precise role in a third oil case-The Federal Trade Commission v. Texaco-is less clear. The collection also contains extensive material relating to the Anti-trust Investigation Group (ATIG). In February, 1961, a large number of U.S. electrical equipment manufacturers were found guilty in Federal court of price-fixing. A consortium of the victims-a large number of American utility companies and government entities-wanted to know to what extent damage claims would be justified. They hired Thorp and Jerry Cohen of Columbia University to assemble price data research for use by their attorneys. The collection includes Thorp's subject files and correspondence related to the case. These files contain notes, spreadsheets, correspondence, meeting minutes, reports and draft reports, legal proceedings, clippings, and additional printed material. For additional information on the legal proceedings, see Charles A. Bane. The Electrical Equipment Conspiracies: the treble damage actions. New York: Federal Legal Publications, 1973. The subseries contains some additional documentation of Thorp's consulting work and expert testimony and a series of subject files on economic topics.

The final section of this subseries includes retrospective views of the Marshall Plan and Point IV (Thorp's and others') as well as writings by unidentified authors.

Subseries K is divided into nine sections:

• Appointment diaries
• Speeches
• Writings
• Board memberships and trusteeships
• Consulting and expert testimony (Oil Cases, ATIG)
• Conferences
• Professional associations
• Teaching (outside Amherst College)
• Subject files