William Howe Tolman
William Howe Tolman was a prominent social economist known for his advocacy of improved working conditions and public safety measures. Born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1861, he pursued his education at Brown University, earning both B.A. and M.A. degrees before completing a Ph.D. in political economy at Johns Hopkins University in 1901. Tolman began his career as an educator and became heavily involved in social reform, working with the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. He is credited with coining the term "industrial betterment," which represents efforts by employers to enhance employee welfare through safe working environments, education, and profit-sharing initiatives.
Throughout his career, Tolman was influenced by notable figures such as Andrew Carnegie, advocating for a mutual benefit between capital and labor. His work included preparing the United States exhibit on industrial betterment for the International Exposition in Paris and founding the American Museum of Safety in 1908. Tolman's legacy includes numerous writings on the history of higher education and municipal reform, as well as efforts to promote safety in various occupations. He lived a long life, passing away in 1958 at the age of ninety-seven, with little biographical information available to fully capture his contributions.
Subject Terms
William Howe Tolman
- William Howe Tolman
- Born: June 2, 1861
- Died: June 16, 1958
Social economist and advocate of improved working conditions and public safety and sanitation, was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the son of William Edward Tolman, the principal of Pawtucket High School, and Martha Lee (Howe) Tolman. He attended University Grammar School in Providence and Pawtucket High School and obtained B.A. and M.A. degrees from Brown University, graduating in 1882. Tolman taught briefly in New York State, then entered John Hopkins University, from which he received his Ph.D. in political economy in 1901.
In August 1891 Tolman married Anna C. Gerhold of Springfield, New Jersey. The couple moved to New York City, where Tolman served as professor of history at Collegiate Institute. In 1894 he began working with the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor and helped administer the Cooper Union Labor Bureau and the association’s summer school. He prepared a careful study of the New York City housing problem and proposed remedies. In 1897 he was appointed to the advisory committee on public baths and comfort stations. Tolman had seen well-managed state-run facilities on his travels through Europe and advocated their expansion in New York.
In these and other matters, Tolman acted on the belief that American businesses would benefit economically from improving the working and living conditions of their employees. He was influenced in part by the English utopian Robert Owen, but more so by the American industrialist Andrew Carnegie, who wrote the introduction to Tolman’s Social Engineering (1909). Tolman coined the term “industrial betterment” to denote the set of measures employers could institute to promote better employer-employee relations: a safe and sanitary work environment; company-financed housing, education, and recreation programs; profit sharing in the form of stock bonuses to employees; and, in general, a sympathetic attitude toward employees’ personal problems. Tolman preached the idea that a mutuality of interests exists between capital and labor. Describing what he considered a model plant—that of the National Cash Register Company at Dayton, Ohio—Tolman noted in his book Industrial Betterment (1900) that “[some] employers are sufficiently farsighted to recognize that whatever makes the worker more human, more contented, more skilled is a positive industrial asset in the business and is a large factor in industrial stability.”
Tolman prepared the United States exhibit in “industrial betterment” for the International Exposition in Paris in 1900. During the next thirteen years, he participated in many similar expositions and congresses, including those in St. Louis (1904), Liege (1905), Milan (1906), Paris (1907), Berlin (1907), London (1908), Budapest (1909), Vienna (1910), The Hague (1911, 1913), and Milan (1912). In 1908 Tolman founded the American Museum of Safety “to study and promote means and methods of safety and sanitation, and the application thereof to any and all public or private occupations whatsoever.” He was the recipient of many honors, including decorations from France, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Prussia, and imperial Russia.
During World War I, Tolman worked for the Young Men’s Christian Association. After the war, he and his wife lived in Europe, where their only child, George Leighton, was in the U.S. consular service. In the early 1920s Tolman returned to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where he lived in semiretirement, involving himself in local matters only. Anna Tolman died in 1945; Tolman died of cancer in 1958, at the age of ninety-seven. Besides the aforementioned works, Tolman was the author of History of Higher Education in Rhode Island (1891), Municipal Reform Movements in the United States (1894), and Safety (1913).
No full-length biography of Tolman exists. There is a some-what dated entry for him in The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, vol. 14 (1910). See also Who Was Who in America, vol. 3 (1960). Some material is available from the Rhode Island Historical Society. An obituary appeared in the Providence Journal, June 17, 1958.