Leon E. Truesdell papers (Ms. 2011.004)

Biographical note

Leon Edgar Truesdell was born on March 15, 1880, in Rowe, Massachusetts. He was the son of Clarence and Lina V. Truesdell. After graduating in 1903 from the Leland and Gray Seminary in Townshend, Vermont, he enrolled at Brown University. He earned both an A.B. and A.M. degree in four years, graduating with the class of 1907. While at Brown he was the editor of the student publication The Brunonian and was elected to the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Robert Brookings Graduate School in 1928 and was awarded an honorary Sc.D. degree (Doctor of Science) from Brown University in 1931.

Truesdell and Constance Ethel Cole (1886-1957) were married on June 19, 1916. They had two daughters, Constance Emma, born in 1918, and Miriam Helen (1924-2006).

After graduating from college, Truesdell held several positions as a high school principal in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and worked part time as a research assistant for Professor Walter G. Everett, a professor of philosophy at Brown. In 1911, he obtained a position as a clerk in the Bureau of Fisheries in Washington, D.C. Truesdell quickly transferred to the Bureau of the Census, where he worked from 1911 to 1914. After working as a field assistant in the Department of Agriculture for five years he returned to the Bureau of the Census in 1919. From 1925 to 1948 he was the Chief of the Population Division, when he was promoted to the position of Chief Demographer. After he retired in 1950 Truesdell worked as a consultant for the Bureau until 1967.

Both the 1930 and 1940 censuses of the United States and the 1935 census of Puerto Rico were prepared under Truesdell's supervision. He also wrote a number of monographs related to the study of population, among them Farm Tenancy in the United States (1924), The Canadian Born in the United States (1943), Farm Population: 1880 to 1950 (1960), and The Development of Punch Card Tabulation in the Bureau of the Census, 1890-1940, which was published in 1965 when Truesdell was 85. Truesdell also contributed many articles on the subject of population statistics to professional journals, yearbooks and encyclopedias, including The Encyclopaedia Britannica. In 1957 he published a book of his original poetry entitled Early Poems

Truesdell was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Statistical Association; a member of the American Economic Association; and was president of the Population Association of America from 1939 to 1940. In 1928, he was elected to membership in the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., whose members are selected based on their meritorious original work in science, literature, or the arts, or are recognized as distinguished in a learned profession or in public service. When he retired from the Bureau of the Census in 1950 Truesdell received an exceptional service award from the Commerce Department in recognition of his "outstanding contribution to census statistics of population and to long term improvement of the professional staff, techniques, and publications of the Bureau of the Census".

Truesdell passed away on January 12, 1979, in Washington, D.C. His daughter Miriam stipulated that a bequest be made in memory of her father to the Phi Beta Kappa Foundation after her death. The Leon Edgar Truesdell Fund was established in 2006 as a permanent fund within the Foundation to provide unrestricted support for its programs.