Bio: (1899-1977) American sociologist and demographer. Dorothy Thomas received her Ph.d. from the London School of Economics and has taught at Columbia, Yale, Berkeley, and Stockholm Universities. Thomas was the first woman president of the American Sociological Association. In the book Social Aspects of the Business Cycle (1925), she published her doctoral thesis, she analyzed the statistical relationship between changes in demographic and social statistics and short-term business cycles. She participated in a long-term study of the relationship between demographic characteristics and the economy, which resulted in the three-volume book Population Redistribution and Economic Growth: United States 1870–1950 (1957, 1960, 1964). This research showed that internal migration within the United States depended on the level of economic activity in different areas of the state. Thomas also conducted significant research on forced evacuation and incarceration of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II, and the results of that research are presented in the two-volume book Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement (1946, 1952). Dorothy Thomas, together with William I. Thomas (her future husband), wrote the book The Child in America (1928).

Main works

Social Aspects of the Business Cycle (1925);

The Child in America: Behavior Problems and Programs (1928);

Research Memorandum on Migration Differentials (1938);

Social and Economic Aspects of Swedish Population Movements, 1750–1933 (1941); Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement, 2 vols. (1946, 1952);

Population Redistribution and Economic Growth: United States 1870–1950, 3 vols. (1957, 1960, 1964).