| Roger W. Babson | |
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Babson pictured in The Babsonian 1920, Babson yearbook |
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| Born | July 6, 1875 Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA |
| Died | March 5, 1967 (aged 91) Lake Wales, Florida, USA |
| Education | MIT (1898) |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, Businessman, Economist, Writer, Philanthropist |
| Known for | Business forecasting, founding of universities, predicting Wall Street Crash of 1929 |
| Political party | Prohibition Party |
| Religion | Protestantism |
| Spouse | Grace Margaret Knight (m. 1900 - d. 1956) Nona M. Dougherty (m. 1957 - d. 1963) |
| Children | Edith Low Babson |
| Parents | Nathaniel Babson and Ellen Starns |
Roger Ward Babson (July 6, 1875 – March 5, 1967), remembered today largely for founding Babson College in Massachusetts, was an entrepreneur and business theorist in the first half of the 20th century. He also founded Webber College, now Webber International University, in Babson Park, Florida, and the defunct Utopia College, in Eureka, Kansas.
He was born to Nathaniel Babson and his wife Ellen Stearns as part of the tenth generation of Babsons to live in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Roger attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked for investment firms before founding, in 1904, Babson's Statistical Organization, which analyzed stocks and business reports. It continues today as Babson-United, Inc..[1]
On March 29, 1900, Babson married his first wife, Grace Margaret Knight.
According to biographer John Mulkern, Babson attributed the business cycle
Babson authored more than forty books on economic and social problems, the most widely read being Business Barometers (eight editions) and Business Barometers for Profits, Security, Income (ten editions). Babson also wrote hundreds of magazine articles and newspaper columns. He was a popular lecturer on business and financial trends.
Babson was an investor and sometimes director of many corporations, including some traded on the New York Stock Exchange. He established an investment advisory company Babson's Reports which published one of the oldest investment newsletters in America.
Babson had "ten commandments" he followed in investing and encouraged his readers to do the same. These were:
On September 5, 1929, he gave a speech saying, "Sooner or later a crash is coming, and it may be terrific." Later that day the stock market declined by about 3%. This became known as the "Babson Break". The Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression soon followed.
Babson was the Prohibition Party's candidate for President of the United States in 1940. Election was won by incumbent President Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the Democratic Party. Babson was surpassed by two other unsuccessful candidates:
Babson founded the Gravity Research Foundation in 1948.[4] The Foundation established a research facility in the town of New Boston, New Hampshire after Babson determined that this location was far enough away from the city of Boston, Massachusetts to survive a nuclear attack.
Babson was interested in the history of an abandoned settlement in Gloucester known as Dogtown. To provide charitable assistance to unemployed stonecutters in Gloucester during the Great Depression, Babson commissioned them to carve inspirational inscriptions on approximately two dozen boulders in the area surrounding Dogtown Common. The Babson Boulder Trail exists today as a well-known hiking and mountain-biking trail. The inscriptions are clearly visible. The boulders are scattered, not all are on the trail, and not all of the inscriptions face it, making finding them something of a challenge. Samples of some of the two dozen inscriptions include: "HELP MOTHER", "SPIRITUAL POWER", "GET A JOB", "KEEP OUT OF DEBT", and "LOYALTY".[5][6]
He became a widower in 1956.[7] In 1957 he remarried to Nona M. Dougherty, who died in 1963.[8] Babson died in 1967.
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