Mary Abby van Kleeck was an American social scientist of the 20th century. She was a notable figure in the American labor movement as well as a proponent of scientific management and a planned economy. She rose to prominence as director of the Russell Sage Foundation’s Department of Industrial Studies, which she led for over 30 years.
About Mary van Kleeck in brief
Mary Abby van Kleeck was an American social scientist of the 20th century. She was a notable figure in the American labor movement as well as a proponent of scientific management and a planned economy. She rose to prominence as director of the Russell Sage Foundation’s Department of Industrial Studies, which she led for over 30 years. During World War I, she was appointed by US President Woodrow Wilson to lead the development of workplace standards for women entering the workforce. After the war, she led the creation of a federal agency to advocate for women in the workforce, before returning to the Sage Foundation and continuing her determined research into labor issues. By the 1930s, van K Leeck had become a socialist, arguing that central planning of economies was the most effective way to protect labor rights. As a long-time advocate of planned economies, she became a defender of Soviet-American friendship, leading to suspicion from the powerful anti-communist movement. She died aged 88 in 1972. She is buried at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where she was a member of the Board of Trustees for the New York City Historical Society and served as president of the Society for the Preservation of the City of New York. She never completed a doctoral degree, but studied under experienced labor economists Henry Seager and Franklin Giddings. She also undertook graduate work in social economy at Columbia University during this time. Her work with the Consumers College led to the beginning of her research on child labor and irregular working conditions of women in industry and the manufacture of artificial flowers.
She wrote a poem in Smith College’s yearbook dedicated to the ideal of a free woman, an ideal she dedicated to which she dedicated a poem to in her valedictory address. She ran for New York State Senate in 1948, but lost the election and turned her focus to peace activism and nuclear disarmament. She had a close relationship with her father, who was often sick when she was young, and died in 1892, aged only nine. She became the youngest of five siblings, including a brother who died in infancy. Her grandfather was Charles F. Mayer, a prominent Baltimore lawyer and politician, She was the child of Eliza Mayer of Baltimore and Robert Boyd vanKleeck, an Episcopal minister of Dutch origin. Her mother was close with her mother, but had a distant relationship to her father. Van Kleecks was a lifelong New Yorker, with the exception of her undergraduate studies at Smith College in Massachusetts. She studied calculus, writing poetry, and enjoying popularity among her fellow students. After graduating from Smith College, she received a joint postgraduate fellowship from the College Settlement Association and the Smith College Alumnae Association which enabled her to perform research in NewYork City. In 1903 she became involved in the SCACW, the main student organization on campus. Through this organization, she encountered the YWCA, and she remained affiliated with for the remainder of her life. She worked for the NY Child Labor Committee and the Alliance Employment Employment Bureau.
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