William Trufant Foster (January 18, 1879 – October 8, 1950) was an American educator and economist, whose theories were especially influential in the 1920s. He was the first president of Reed College.
Foster was an instructor of English at Bates College in Maine, from 1901 to 1903 and served as a coach of Bates' internationally known debate program. Foster was also professor of English and Argumentation at Bowdoin College in Maine in 1905. He authored "Argumentation and Debating", published in 1908. Foster eventually received a Ph.D. in 1911 from Teachers College, Columbia University.[1]
His conception of "the ideal college" set out in the concluding chapter of his dissertation, led to his appointment as the first president of Reed College. He served from 1911 to 1919. He rejected intercollegiate sports and Greek life in favor of an intense academic education. He fostered close intellectual collaboration between faculty and students. He treated undergraduates as if they were graduate students and created a system of small seminars, comprehensive examinations, undergraduate research, and senior theses.[1]
He collaborated with his Harvard classmate Waddill Catchings in a series of economics books that were highly influential in the United States in the 1920s. His influential books, written with Catchings, were Money (1923), Profits (1925), Business Without a Buyer (1927), The Road to Plenty (1928), and Progress and Plenty (1930).[1]
Foster and Catchings rejected traditional laissez-faire economics and called for aggressive federal involvement to balance the economy lest destabilizing forces upset prosperity. The main problem was underconsumption, which could be overcome by strategic government spending in public works. The theory strongly influenced the anti-depression programs of Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Marriner Eccles.[1]
See also
Barber, William J. (1985). From New Era to New Deal: Herbert Hoover, the Economists, and American Economic Policy, 1921–1933. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-30526-8.
Dorfman, Joseph (1959). The Economic Mind in American Civilization. Vol. 4. New York: Viking Press. pp. 339–351.
William Trufant Foster edited and contributed three chapters to "The Social Emergency: Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals". The work was based on an extension course given at Reed College.
