Walter Francis Willcox (March 22, 1861 – October 30, 1964) was an American statistician. He was professor of economics at Cornell University. He founded the statistical research office in the

U.S. Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U ...

Early life and education

He was born in

Reading, Massachusetts Reading ( ) is a New England town, town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, north of central Boston. The population was 25,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. History Settlement Many of the Massachusetts Bay Colony ...

, to William Henry Willcox, a congregational minister, and Anne Holmes Goodenow. He was graduated from

Phillips Academy Phillips Academy (also known as PA, Phillips Academy Andover, or simply Andover) is a Private school, private, Mixed-sex education, co-educational college-preparatory school for Boarding school, boarding and Day school, day students located in ...

Andover Andover may refer to: Places Australia *Andover, Tasmania Canada * Andover Parish, New Brunswick * Perth-Andover, New Brunswick United Kingdom * Andover, Hampshire, England ** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station United States * Andov ...

, in 1880, from

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...

in 1884 with an A.B., and in 1888 received an A.M. degree from

. He received an LL.B degree (1887) and a Ph.D. (1891) from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. In 1906 he received an honorary LL.D. degree from

Life

Willcox was a

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

faculty member from 1891 to 1931. He was initially an instructor in philosophy but became a professor of economics at Cornell. He held the presidency of the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 27, 1839, and is the second-oldest continuous ...

from 1911 to 1912 and of the

American Economic Association The American Economic Association (AEA) is a learned society in the field of economics, with approximately 23,000 members. It publishes several peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Review, an ...

in 1915. He published ''The Divorce Problem, A Study in Statistics'' (1891; second edition, 1897). In his research on

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganising of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the M ...

, he estimated that one in 12 marriages in the United States ended in divorce in 1909 and that if trends continued, approximately one in two marriages would end in divorce. He also published ''Supplementary Analysis and Derivative Tables'', twelfth census (1906). He contributed the "Negroes in the United States" subsection to the "Negro" article in the 1911

Encyclopædia Britannica The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...

. (The main section, by

Thomas Athol Joyce Thomas Athol Joyce OBE FRAI (4 August 1878 – 3 January 1942) was a British anthropologist. He became an acknowledged expert on American and African Anthropology at the British Museum. He led expeditions to excavate Maya sites in British Hond ...

, is of interest today for the insight it gives into racial prejudices of the time.) Between 1900 and 1910 he corresponded with Alfred H. Stone of Mississippi, a cotton farmer and public official who became a race theorist who attempted to give a scientific basis to

prejudice Prejudice can be an affect (psychology), affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived In-group and out-group, social group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classifi ...

and white superiority. Willcox initiated the first

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

course at Cornell in 1892, one of the earliest university courses in statistics in the United States, and one among 16 universities with such courses in the 1890s. His research interest was in vital statistics.

Emil Julius Gumbel Emil Julius Gumbel (18 July 1891, in Munich – 10 September 1966, in New York City) was a German mathematician and political writer. Gumbel specialised in mathematical statistics and, along with Leonard Tippett and Ronald Fisher, was instrum ...

described his body of work, collected in Studies in American Demography, as "the type of old-fashioned writings which will continue to be of value notwithstanding all progress achieved in mathematical statistics." In 1911, Willcox claimed there would be "no children in the United States under five years of age" by the year 2020. Perpetuating ideas of

race suicide Race suicide was an alarmist Eugenics, eugenicist theory, coined by American sociologist Edward Alsworth Ross, Edward A. Ross around 1900 and promoted by, among others, Harry J. Haiselden. According to the American Eugenics Archive, "race suicid ...

, Willcox erroneously explained that the United States' birth rate meant that importing babies from France would be the only option for maintaining population levels. After serving as one of five chief statisticians for the U.S. Census in 1900, Willcox proved that for any method of

apportionment The legal term apportionment (; Mediaeval Latin: , derived from , share), also called delimitation, is in general the distribution or allotment of proper shares, though may have different meanings in different contexts. Apportionment can refer ...

that involves rounding, a priority list can be created by dividing the rounding point into each state's population, by which each seat can be assigned in successive order based on each state's priority listings. Willcox was an advocate for reducing the number of seats in the House of Representatives. He proposed to reduce one seat per year. In 1947, Willcox served a short term as the president of the

International Statistical Institute The International Statistical Institute (ISI) is a professional association of statisticians. At a meeting of the Jubilee Meeting of the Royal Statistical Society, statisticians met and formed the agreed statues of the International Statistical ...

. Willcox died in Ithaca, New York leaving 3 sons and one daughter. These were Mary Goodenow Willcox, Bertram Francis Willcox (1895-1987) who practiced law in New York before taking up a position at Cornell,

Alan Willcox Alanson Work Willcox (July 30, 1901 – April 27, 1978) was an American lawyer who served as general counsel to the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Willcox was born in Akron Ohio, the son of statistician Walter Francis Willco ...

(1901-1978), who served as general counsel to the

U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the US federal government created to protect the health of the US people and providing essential human services. Its motto is "Im ...

, and William B. Willcox (1907-1985) who was an academic historian.

Publications

* '' Studies in American Demography'', Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press (1940). * ''International Migrations, Volume II: Interpretations'' (Editor), New York: National Bureau of Economic Research (1931).
Walter Francis Willcox papers
#14-10-504. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

References

1861 births 1964 deaths Phillips Academy alumni 20th-century American mathematicians American statisticians American men centenarians Amherst College alumni Columbia Law School alumni Cornell University Department of History faculty Presidents of the American Statistical Association Presidents of the International Statistical Institute 20th-century American essayists Presidents of the American Economic Association {{US-statistician-stub