F. Palmer Weber
Frederick Palmer Weber (March 18, 1914 – August 22, 1986) was an American activist and businessman. Born in Smithfield, Virginia, he became involved in radical politics when he was sent to a tuberculosis sanatorium as a teenager.
Academic career and involvement with the University of Virginia
Weber received a B.A. in 1934, an M.A. in 1938, and Ph.D. in 1940, from the University of Virginia, all in philosophy. While a student, he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Raven Society. Nominated three times for a Rhodes Scholarship, he was denied the prize because of his criticism of British policy in India and because he participated in radical politics.
Between 1934 and 1940, he served as an instructor in Philosophy and Economics. Around 1968, he returned to Charlottesville, where he helped to found the Lawn Society, a fundraising group for the University. He also became a founding member of the Associates of the White Burkett Miller Center for the Study of the Presidency, and an adviser to the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies.
There are three endowed professorships at UVA named after him: The F. Palmer Weber Research Professorship in Civil Liberties and Human Rights in the School of Law; and the F. Palmer Weber Medical Research Professorship, and the F. Palmer Weber - Smithfield Foods Professorship for Oncology in the School of Medicine.
Political career
After receiving his Ph.D. he moved to Washington, D.C. and was a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal group known as the Brain Trust. He served as staff director for the House of Representatives Tolan Committee to Investigate the Concentration of Economic Power; staff director for Sen. Claude Pepper's Committee on Education and Labor, founder of the National Committee to Abolish the Poll Tax, and he served on the staff of the Kilgore Committee.
In 1948 he became Southern Regional Director for the Progressive Party, and ran that portion of former Vice President (under President Roosevelt) Henry A. Wallace's presidential campaign. Because of the Progressive Party's association with Communism, the Wallace campaign was the end of his career in mainstream politics.
Labor and civil rights activism
In 1944, he became research director of the Political Action Committee for the CIO. In 1946 he was elected to the National Board of the NAACP—the first white person to be so recognized. He served for a time on the ACLU President's Advisory Committee.
Business career
Exiled from politics, he was still able to work on Wall Street. Beginning in 1954 he worked for Morris Cohan and Co, then Troster-Singer, then Spear, Leeds & Kellogg, then Tucker Anthony and Day, which was ultimately purchased by John Hancock Insurance.
He also served on the Boards of Smithfield Foods, the Washington Spectator, and the Southern Regional Council.
External links
- Obituary in "The Nation"
- UVA press release announcing endowed chairs
- Virginia Quarterly Review article mentioning his civil rights work
- FERI essay on campus radicalism in the 1930s
- Review of "Days of Hope: Race and Democracy in the New Deal Era" - Discusses many of the political battles of the New Deal in which F. Palmer Weber was involved.