Biography/History

Helen Laura Sumner Woodbury, a student of John R. Commons, was one of the early women labor economists. She was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, March 12, 1876, received an AB from Wellesley College in 1898, and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1908, where she was an honorary fellow in political economy. From 1904 she collaborated in the work of the American Bureau of Industrial Research. Before her marriage, Helen Sumner was an industrial expert at the Department of Labor from 1913 to 1915 and assistant chief of the Children's Bureau, Department of Labor, 1915 to 1918. In 1918 she married Robert Morse Woodbury, an economist, and from 1924 to 1926 she was associated with the Institute of Economics.

Her works include:

• The White Slave (1896)
• Labor Problems: A Textbook with Thomas Sewall Adams (1905)
• Equal Suffrage: The Results of an Investigation in Colorado Made for the Collegiate Equal Suffrage League of New York State (1909)
• A Documentary History of American Industrial Society, ed., with John R. Commons, Ulrich B. Phillips, Eugene H. Gilmore, and John B. Andrews (1910 and 1911) (11 volumes)
• History of Women in Industry Vol. IX, Report on Women and Children in Industry, U.S. Labor Bureau (1911)
• Industrial Courts in Europe (1911)
• Child Labor Legislation in the United States with Ella A. Merritt (1915)
• Administration of Child Labor Laws in Connecticut and in New York with Ethel E. Hanks (1915, 1916)
• History of Labor in the United States with John R. Commons, David J. Saposs, E. B. Mittelman, H. E. Hoagland, John B. Andrews, and Selig Perlman Vol. I & II, (1918)
• The Working Children of Boston (1922)
• Standards Applicable to the Administration of Child Labor Laws (1924)