Name Oscar Austin Role Statistician | Died 1933 | |
Oscar Phelps Austin (27 July 1847 – 6 January 1933) was an American statistician. The earlier years of his life were spent in journalism, and he served as reporter, editor, and correspondent.
Contents
- Early life
- Education
- Expanded description
- Marriage and children
- Published works
- Elections of Memberships
- References
Early life
Oscar was born in Newark, Illinois, to Benjamin Austin, a farmer and state legislator of Nebraska and Emeline Phelps. Toward's the end of the Civil War, Oscar served the Union Army.
Education
According to his biography, Oscar never received an education above the basic education available to males at the time. On June 11, 1913, George Washington University awarded Oscar a Masters of Arts.
Expanded description
To start his journalism career, Oscar moved to Chicago in 1871. By 1873, Oscar moved to Cincinnati and continued his journalism career there until 1881. To further his writing career, he moved to Washington D. C., where he became a correspondent for Metropolitan dailies. He helped edit campaign documents for the Republican national committee.
While living in Washington, D. C., Oscar applied for a patent. Patent number US429079, was for the "Process of Resurfacing Phonograph-Blanks". According to the paperwork, this patent was approved and later cited by another inventor when patenting a similar technique for records.
Oscar was appointed chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce and Labor on May 9, 1897 by President William McKinley. The President had noticed, while Oscar was a newspaperman, that his news stories always contain figures. When the Bureau of Statistics was merged into the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce in 1912, Austin became its assistant chief.
From 1903 to 1914, Austin was a professor of commerce and statistics at George Washington University. He then became statistician of the foreign trade department of the National City Bank in New York City. He wrote about the commerce of nations and continents, comparisons of colonial systems, and national debts.
Marriage and children
While in Cincinnati, Ohio, Oscar meet and married Anna May Richardson (21 May 1854 - 10 June 1938), daughter of John Richardson and Mercy Maria Ames. Oscar and Anna had one daughter.