author
Roger Ward Babson
1875–1967
Best remembered for founding Babson College, he built a national reputation as a business forecaster and writer who tried to make economics feel practical and useful. His life mixed entrepreneurship, education, and a strong belief that financial habits could shape everyday life.
2 Audiobooks
Cox—The Man
by Roger Ward Babson
Fundamentals of Prosperity: What They Are and Whence They Come
by Roger Ward Babson
About the author
Roger Ward Babson was an American entrepreneur, economist, and business writer born in 1875 and died in 1967. He became widely known for his market and business forecasting, and he is especially remembered as the founder of Babson College. Sources from Babson College and Encyclopaedia Britannica also credit him with establishing the school in 1919 and note that his public profile grew after he was associated with warnings before the 1929 stock market crash.
His career reached beyond finance alone. Babson wrote extensively, promoted practical business education, and remained closely tied to the institution that grew from Babson Institute into Babson College. Babson College’s historical materials present the school as one of his central achievements, reflecting his long interest in entrepreneurship, management training, and philanthropy.
He also had a public life outside education, including a presidential run on the Prohibition Party ticket. Taken together, the available sources portray him as a distinctive early-20th-century figure: part forecaster, part educator, and part reform-minded public personality.