Bean, Louis H. Papers

Economist, research staff of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1923-33; Economic Adviser, Agricultural Adjustment Administration, 1933-39; Counselor, Office of the Chief of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, 1939-41; Assistant to the Director of the Board of Economic Warfare, 1942-43; Chief Fiscal Analyst, Fiscal Division, Bureau of the Budget, 1943-47; member of the staff of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1947-53.

The papers of Louis H. Bean include correspondence, unpublished articles, reports, statements, printed materials, charts, graphs, statistical tables, and handwritten notes relating to his career in government and his activities as an analyst and consultant in the fields of agriculture, economics, and politics.

Size: 10.8 linear feet (approximately 21,600 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: The donor of the papers has also donated his copyright interest in unpublished writings in the collection to the United States of America. Records created by employees of the U.S. Government as part of their official duties are in the public domain. Otherwise, copyright interest is presumed to belong to the authors of the documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Randy Sowell (2023).

Louis Hyman Bean was born in Lithuania on April 15, 1896. Bean’s family came to the United States when he was a child, and they settled in Laconia, New Hampshire. Bean graduated from the University of Rochester and then attended Harvard Business School, earning a Master of Business Administration degree in 1922. In 1923, Bean joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as an official with the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. During his years in the Department, he became a friend and adviser of Henry A. Wallace, who served as Secretary of Agriculture from 1933 to 1940. When the United States entered World War II, Bean left his position as an agricultural economist at the USDA to join the Board of Economic Warfare. He later served as a fiscal analyst in the Bureau of the Budget before returning to the USDA in 1947.

Bean developed statistical methods for forecasting future agricultural developments, methods that he later applied to such fields as meteorology, economics, and politics. Prior to the 1948 election, he published a book, How to Predict Elections, in which he argued that President Harry S. Truman had a very good chance to win. Bean was acclaimed as one of the few political analysts who correctly predicted the outcome of the election.

Bean retired from the USDA in 1953 and subsequently worked as a consultant and analyst, using statistics to forecast election results and to predict future agricultural and economic trends. He wrote articles on these topics for a variety of publications and prepared reports for such clients as the Agriculture Department; Cargill, Inc.; Heublein, Inc.; and Dwayne Andreas of Archer Daniels Midland. Bean died in Arlington County, Virginia on August 5, 1994.

The papers of Louis H. Bean mostly concern his activities as a government official, election analyst, political prognosticator, and agricultural expert. The papers are comprised of correspondence, unpublished articles, reports, statements, printed materials, charts, graphs, statistical tables, and handwritten notes relating to these topics and other aspects of Bean’s life and career.

The papers are arranged in four series. The first series, the Correspondence File, consists almost entirely of copies of letters, memoranda, and reports written by Bean and other officials from 1941 to 1947. During this period, Bean left his post with the Agriculture Department to work at the Board of Economic Warfare, an agency that supervised the production and procurement of imported materials that were vital to military production and the civilian economy during World War II. Bean initially worked as an analyst in the British Empire Division and later became an assistant to the Board’s Director. In the spring of 1943, Bean moved to the Bureau of the Budget, where he served as chief fiscal analyst in the Bureau’s Fiscal Division. The correspondence in the series ends in early 1947, when Bean returned to the USDA. Included in the series are memoranda to Vice President Henry A. Wallace, who served as head of the Board of Economic Warfare; to William T. Stone, chief of the Board’s British Empire Division; and to J. Weldon Jones, assistant director of the Bureau of the Budget. Also included are letters to members of Congress, other government officials, and journalists. Most of the correspondence pertains to Bean’s official duties, although some of his memoranda to Wallace and others relate to elections, public opinion polls, and political matters.

The second series, the Elections and Politics File, consists of materials concerning Bean’s work as a political commentator and forecaster of election results. The series contains published and unpublished articles by Bean and others, other printed materials, transcripts of radio broadcasts, charts, graphs, tables, and correspondence relating to Congressional and Presidential elections from the early 1940s to the early 1980s. Included are Bean’s observations on the 1948 Presidential election, which earned him a reputation as one of the few analysts to predict Truman’s victory. In addition to interpreting the results of public opinion polls and projecting election outcomes, Bean also used statistical methods to analyze political trends and such controversial issues as the effect of U.S. Supreme Court decisions on crime rates. Press clippings and other printed materials in the series reflect Bean’s status as an authority in the field of election analysis.

The third series, the Agriculture and Weather File, contains documents concerning Bean’s involvement in forecasting future agricultural and meteorological trends, first as a USDA official and later as a private consultant and analyst. Charts, graphs, statistical tables, correspondence, articles, reports, and printed materials pertaining to agricultural and meteorological conditions comprise much of the series, which includes file units devoted to individual crops such as corn, soybeans, and wheat; to farm production and weather conditions in various states and countries; and to statistics on such meteorological subjects as hail damage, rainfall, and tornadoes. Much of this material is related to India, a country that Bean studied closely as an agricultural expert. Some of Bean’s work in this field, especially during the 1960s, was as a consultant for his former employer, the Department of Agriculture.

The fourth series, the Subject File, contains correspondence and other materials relating to Bean’s career in government, his work as an economic consultant and political analyst, and his personal associations. The most extensive correspondence in the series is with Henry A. Wallace, covering the period from his appointment as Secretary of Agriculture in 1933 to his death in 1965. Interfiled with the correspondence between Bean and Wallace are copies of Wallace’s speeches, as well as related letters and printed materials. Other materials concerning the Wallace-Bean relationship are filed in the series under “Agriculture Department,” “Murphy, Donald,” and “Pioneer Hi-Bred Corn Company.” Another frequent correspondent in the Subject File is Dwayne Andreas of Archer Daniels Midland, the food processing company. The personal and professional connection between Andreas and Bean is documented in correspondence, charts, graphs, and reports dating from the early 1950s to the late 1980s; related information is filed under “Thatcher, M. W.” Also in the Subject File is Bean’s correspondence with his friend A. N. Spanel, the founder of the International Playtex Corporation, dating from the 1920s to the 1960s. Other prominent correspondents in the series include Hubert H. Humphrey, George McGovern, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Herman Wouk. The Subject File also includes Bean’s published and unpublished articles on business and economic affairs, his articles on agricultural issues in the periodical Implement and Tractor, charts and graphs pertaining to fluctuations in the stock market, a transcript of Bean’s 1952-53 Columbia University oral history interview, and materials relating to his association with such corporate clients as Heublein, Inc.

The Truman Library has the papers of Clinton Anderson, Charles Brannan, and J. Weldon Jones, all of whom worked with Bean during his years with the Bureau of the Budget and the USDA. The Library also has on oral history interview with Bean. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library has a collection of Bean’s papers that document his career in government and his activities prior to 1960.