Historical records matching Jessica Blanche Peixotto
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About Jessica Blanche Peixotto
Jessica Blanche Peixotto, born in New York, October 9, 1864, essentially belonged to California--to both the State and the University. She came to the state in her early childhood, and her connection with the University lasted from her enrollment in 1891 until her death, October 19, 1941, a full fifty years. Graduated in 1894, awarded the degree of Ph.D. in 1900 (the second woman to receive this distinction), made a member of the teaching staff in 1904, in 1918 given the full rank of professor (the first woman thus honored), in 1936 she received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.
Miss Peixotto's career covered three fields. As a writer she published French Revolution and Modern French Socialism (1901), Getting and Spending at the Professional Standard of Living (1927), and numerous reports and articles in periodicals.
In the field of public service she was a member of the Berkeley Commission of Public Charities (1910-1913), and of the State Board of Charities and Corrections (1912-1924). On the latter board she served as chairman of the Committee on Children, and of the Committee on Research. During the first World War she served with the Council of National Defense as a member of a subcommittee of Women in Industry, and of the Committee on Child Welfare of the General Medical Board. In 1918 she received the more important appointment as Executive Chairman of the Committee on Child Welfare of the Women's Committee of the Council, and later in the same year she was Chief of the Child Conservation Section.
But most to be remembered is her distinguished service in the University of California. The courses she offered included Contemporary Socialism, Control of Poverty, The Child and the State, the Household as an Economic Agent, and Crime as a Social Problem. In the later years of her teaching her interest shifted somewhat to problems of the consumer and general economic theory, culminating in a graduate seminar on the History of Economic Thought. Unstinting in the time and attention given to the advanced courses, she stimulated and inspired her students, proof of which is given in their contributions to the memorial volume, Essays in Social Economics, published in her honor in 1935 by the University of California Press.
In addition to formal instruction, Miss Peixotto served both the University and the community by organizing the first training in California for social work. This developed, in 1917, into a professional and graduate curriculum in the Department of Economics, later to become the Department of Social Welfare.
In 1923, under her chairmanship, the Heller Committee for Research in Social Economics was established at the University. This chairmanship she held until she was made Professor Emeritus in 1935.
The University as a whole, and more especially those in the Department of Economics, have been enriched by association with Dr. Peixotto. She was primarily an economist and insisted on laying a firm basis of economics for all her social work. But, as Professor Wesley Mitchell said in the memorial volume, her interests were so wideranging that her instruction has given intellectual stimulus not only to social workers and sociologists but also to psychologists, pediatricians, psychiatrists, economists, statisticians, and lawyers.
Fitly was she characterized in the citation when given the honorary degree of LL.D.: “Chosen counselor of the State in matters concerning the protection of children and the care of the unfortunate; social economist marshaling stubborn facts in the service of mankind; comrade among students, inspiring teacher, true lover of humanity.”
From http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=hb3199n7tr&doc.view=frames&...
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Jessica Blanche Peixotto's Timeline
| 1864 |
October 9, 1864
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New York, New York, NY, United States
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| 1941 |
October 19, 1941
Age 77
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Berkeley, Alameda, CA, United States
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