Maurice Parmelee papers

Maurice Parmelee was born on October 20, 1882 in Istanbul, where his parents were Protestant missionaries. The family spent the first twelve years of Maurice's life in the eastern Mediterranean region before returning to the United States and settling in New York state. Parmelee attended finishing school at Oberlin College and received a B.A. in 1904 and an M.A. in 1908 in economics from Yale University and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1909. For two years following his graduation from Yale College, he worked through the University Settlement House as a "probation fellow." This position allowed him to closely observe the criminal justice system and led to many articles and books on criminology.

In the years leading up to World War I, Parmelee held academic appointments in the fields of economics and sociology at Syracuse University (summer 1909), University of Kansas (1909-1910), University of Missouri (1910-1913), College of the City of New York (1913-1914 and 1917-1918), and the University of Minnesota (1915-1916). In 1918 he served as a representative of the United States on the War Trade Board in London and he subsequently served the U.S. government as an economist for the Department of State in 1920 and as an economic consul in Berlin from 1920 to 1923.

In 1923, Parmelee resigned from the government and spent twelve years traveling widely, doing research, and writing on a number of topics including economic warfare, poverty, gymnosophy, sexuality, Bolshevism, fascism and world government. During this period, Parmelee published the books Blockade and Sea Power(1924), The New Gymnosophy(1927), Oriental and Occidental Culture, An Interpretation(1928), Bolshevism, Fascism, and the Liberal-Democratic State(1934), and Farewell to Poverty(1935).

Parmelee began working for the government again in 1935 briefly as an economist in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in the Department of Agriculture. In 1938 he began a number of successive government positions as an economist working in the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of the Department of Agriculture (1938-1939), the Division of Monetary Economics of the Treasury Department (1939-1940), the Department of Interior (1940-1941), the Board of Economic Warfare (1941-1942), and the Railroad Retirement Board (1942-1952). While working for the Board of Economic Warfare, Parmelee was accused of subversion by Congressman Martin Dies. The accusation was based on the content of Parmelee's books on nudism and socialism and led to his dismissal from the Board. While working for the Railroad Retirement Board, Parmelee again came under scrutiny and was investigated by the Kerr Committee, a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. He was not found guilty however, and he continued with the Retirement Board until his retirement in 1952. After retiring, Parmelee resumed his world travels and also finished a book he referred to as his "magnum opus," The History of Modern Culture. He married three times and had one daughter. Maurice Parmelee died in 1969.