Ferry, Wilbur Hugh, 1910-1995
Biography
Wilbur Hugh Ferry (1910-1995) graduated from Dartmouth College in 1932. He spent much of the 1930’s working as a newspaper reporter before getting more involved with public policy and social issues, first as a consultant for the International Labor Organization, then as a NH’s chief investigator for the Office of Price Administration. However, for the bulk of his professional career, he served as Vice President of the Fund for the Republic as well as Staff Director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions (posts which he held from 1954 through 1969). From 1970 until his death in 1995, he sat on the board of the DJB Foundation (a progressive organization for social change; started by Daniel J. Bernstein). Starting in 1959, he became a published author of books and articles relating to social, economic, and governmental issues. Ferry was known for his outspoken, sometimes iconoclastic, opinions on various issues of the century, including racism in America, nuclear disarmament, the effect of technology on society, the possibility of world peace, and the Cold War. Toward the end of his life, the publisher of the liberal weekly "The Nation" called Ferry a “a radical philanthropist, a free spirit, letter-writer and troublemaker.” Ferry died on September 30, 1995.