Frederick Ludwig Hoffman (May 2, 1865

Varel Varel () is a town in the district of Friesland, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated near the Jade River and the Jade Bight, approximately south of Wilhelmshaven and north of Oldenburg. With a population of 23,984 (2020) it is the bigge ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

- February 23, 1946,

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

) was an American statistician who showed great foresight on some

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...

issues, but his work in some areas was biased by his

scientific racist Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies can be more e ...

views.

Biography

Hoffman was educated in the common and private schools in Germany. He was a racist against African Americans in his studies of incarceration. He moved to the United States and became statistician for the Prudential Insurance Company of America in 1891. He was employed as statistician by many organizations and did research in ethnology and kindred subjects. He also served as

President of the American Statistical Association The president of the American Statistical Association is the head of the American Statistical Association (ASA). According to the association's bylaws, the president is an officer, and a member of the board of directors and of the executive commit ...

in 1911. A collection of his papers are held at the

National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. Its ...

Works

''The Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro''
(1896) This book, Hoffman's first, characterized

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

s as exceptionally disease-prone. The work was motivated by a concern about issues of race, and also the need of insurance companies to justify the higher life insurance premiums charged to African Americans. An 1897 critique of this work by Kelly Miller in occasional papers of the American Negro Academy of Washington, D.C., pointed out sampling problems with the 1890 census, which was the statistical basis of the work, and that there were insufficient adjustments for environmental factors. * ''Fatal Accidents in Coal Mining'' (1910)
''Mortality from Cancer Throughout the World''
(1915) * ''Mortality from Respiratory Diseases in Dusty Trades'' (1917)

References

Sources

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hoffman, Frederick Ludwig 1865 births 1946 deaths American statisticians American white supremacists German emigrants to the United States Scientists from Lower Saxony Presidents of the American Statistical Association