÷PAR@ ` ªTEXT ` ÿDewson, Mary Williams1874╨1962economist and political organizerBorn in Quincy, Massachusetts, on February 18, 1874, Mary Dewson graduated from Wellesley College in 1897. For three years she worked as a research economist for the Woman╒s Educational and Industrial Union of Boston (then led by Mary M. K. Kehew), and in 1900 she was appointed superintendent of the Massachusetts Girls╒ Parole Department, a post she held for 12 years. In 1911 she served also as secretary of the Commission on Minimum Wage Legislation for Massachusetts. From 1912 to 1917 she engaged in dairy farming. She returned to public service in the latter year and for two years served as zone chief of the Bureau of Refugees of the American Red Cross in France. In 1919╨1924 she was research secretary of the National Consumers╒ League, and from 1925 to 1931 she was president of the Consumers╒ League of New York. In 1928 Eleanor Roosevelt prevailed upon Dewson to help organize women within the Democratic party, and thenceforth she was politically and personally close to the Roosevelt family. She took an active role in Franklin D. Roosevelt╒s gubernatorial campaign in New York in 1930, and in his presidential campaign in 1932 she was chairman of the Women╒s Division of the Democratic National Campaign Committee. In 1933 James A. Farley appointed her director of the Women╒s Division of the Democratic National Committee. The next year she became director of the General Advisory Committee of the Women╒s Division. During 1933╨1935 she sat on the Consumers╒ Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration (originally under the chairmanship of Mary H. Rumsey). She again headed women╒s campaign activities in the party in 1936, a task that involved considerable travel through the country, and in 1936╨1937 she was vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee. She served as well on the advisory council of the President╒s Advisory Committee on Economic Security, where much of the planning for the Social Security system was done, and in 1937 Roosevelt named her to the Social Security Board, where she sat as the only woman member until ill health forced her to resign in 1938. She emerged from retirement in 1940 to take part in Roosevelt╒s third presidential campaign. In later years she was a director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Foundation and of the International Migration Service. She died in Castine, Maine, on October 22, 1962. ■styl ` ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ C !I * !I ▐ : !I ä 5¬ à !I ì !I ▐ ₧ !I q !I ▐ !I >link ` HYPR * :HYPR ì ₧HYPR q
