Thomas North Whitehead
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Thomas North Whitehead | |
|---|---|
| Born | 31 December 1891 |
| Died | 22 November 1969 (aged 77) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge University College London |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Human relations |
| Institutions | Harvard University Radcliffe College |
Thomas North Whitehead (31 December 1891, Cambridge, England – 22 November 1969, Cambridge, Massachusetts) was an early human relations theorist and researcher, best known for The Industrial Worker, a two-volume statistical analysis of the Hawthorne experiments.[1] He worked as a professor at Harvard University and Radcliffe College, and in the British Foreign Office during World War II.
Whitehead was the son of the prominent English philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, and was known as "North" to his family.[2] He read economics at Trinity College, Cambridge,[3] earning a B.A. in 1913. He then did graduate studies in mechanical engineering at University College London.[4]
Government service
Whitehead served as an army officer in France and East Africa during World War I, taking a leave from his graduate studies to do so. On the completion of his studies in 1920 after the war, he began working for the Admiralty, and remained there until his 1931 move to Harvard.[4]
During World War II, he again took a leave, this time from his professorship at Harvard, to work as an expert on American relations in the British Foreign Office.[3][4] In 1940, before America entered the war, he advised Winston Churchill that American isolationism would not be a permanent obstacle, and after the Pearl Harbor attacks he communicated a message of solidarity to Franklin D. Roosevelt.[5] It was also Whitehead's suggestion that Churchill compare America's proposed Lend-Lease policy to Magna Carta, and that one of the original copies of Magna Carta then on display in America be made into a more permanent gift to seal the deal.[6] However, this proposal fell through because the British government did not own any of the four surviving copies of Magna Carta.[7]
Academia
Whitehead joined the Harvard Business School in 1931, following his father who had moved to Harvard in 1924. He stayed at Harvard for the rest of his career except for a leave of absence during World War II. After the war, Whitehead ran the Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration, a business program for women at Radcliffe College, keeping also his appointment at Harvard. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1952. When Harvard's business school began admitting women in 1955, he returned to a full-time position at Harvard.[3][4] He remained at Harvard until his retirement.[8]
