C. Bertrand Thompson

Clarence Bertrand Thompson (1882 - 1969) was an American business academic, chemist, business consultant and Unitarian minister. He was the first African-American graduate of the University of Southern California Law School, known for his work on scientific management.[1] Thompson was the brother of Black newspaperman Noah Davis Thompson whose wife was Eloise Bibb Thompson. Thompson was also the uncle of Anita Thompson Dickinson Reynolds.

Biography

Thompson was born in Denver, where his father, a former Union Navy soldier, worked as jeweler. At the age of 8 his parents got divorced, and he moved with his mother, the daughter of an escaped slave, to Los Angeles. He studied law at the University of Southern California, attending a law degree at the age of 18.[2]

After graduation in 1900 Thompson in Los Angeles joined an independent liberal congregation, called The Fellowship, where he became assistant minister in 1905. That year he moved to Massachusetts, where he served as minister of the Unitarian Church of Peabody, Massachusetts and started his studies at Harvard University. In 1906 he obtained his BA in law, and in 1907 his MA in sociology and economics in 1907.[2]

In 1908 he resigned from the Unitarian Church, and started working at the Boston Chamber of Commerce, where he was introduced by Edward Filene. He was an early proponent of the techniques developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor. In 1910 Harvard opened a new Business School, where he was appointed lecturer on manufacturing. He became a proponent of scientific management, and started working as business consultant.[2] With the death of Taylor in 1914 Thompson became one of the best known speakers on Taylors methods.

In 1940 Thompson put an end to his business career, and started to study biochemistry at Harvard and Berkeley. Until his retirement he was researcher in cellular biochemistry at Berkeley. He died at the age of 87 in Montevideo, Uruguay.[2]

Publications
Articles, a selection
About C. Bertrand Thompson.
gollark: Well, the standard English one.
gollark: They should really just accept people using what's basically now the standard gender neutral pronoun.
gollark: You should probably just always use "they" if in doubt, or indeed all the time on the internet because it's more convenient than trying to remember genders or whatever.
gollark: Fortunately not that many people here, at least.
gollark: Or refuse to apply any actual thinking, sometimes...

References
  1. Wren, Daniel A., et al. "C. Bertrand Thompson and management consulting in Europe, 1917-1934." Journal of Management History 21.1 (2015): 15-39.
  2. John A. Buehrens. "Famous consultant and forgotten minister: Grandson of a slave, Clarence Bertrand Thompson was a Unitarian minister, management expert, and biochemist." in: UU World, January/February 2004. p. 64
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