Irving Fisher

Irving Fisher was an American economist, statistician, inventor, and public-health campaigner associated for much of his career with Yale. His extensive output ranged well beyond monetary theory. The Modern Crusade Against Consumption grew from his own experience of tuberculosis and argued for contemporary health measures. The Health of New Haven examined local civic conditions, while Suggested Problems For Teachers was prepared for use with his textbook Elementary Principles of Economics. After the war, what? advocated international organisation in the early years of the First World War. Eugenics records his support for a now discredited social movement and must be read within that harmful historical context. Yale's Fisher papers preserve this unusual mixture of economic research, health advocacy, educational material, peace campaigning, and reform projects.