Don Divance Lescohier, professor of economics and an industrial consultant, was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1883. After graduation from high school, he enrolled at Albion College, but lack of funds caused him to interrupt his studies in order to serve a series of temporary pastorates. He then returned to school, made up the missed course work, and graduated on schedule. Even as a youth, Lescohier was concerned by labor-management problems, and for a time he considered a career in the ministry as a way of correcting social injustice. Instead, in September 1907 he entered graduate school at the University of Wisconsin in order to specialize in labor-management issues under the direction of professors Ely and Commons.
In 1909 Lescohier was hired as a labor economist by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industries. For the next nine years he worked in the areas of industrial accidents, workmen's compensation, and employer liability, also occasionally teaching at Hamline University. In 1918 Lescohier was invited to return to the University of Wisconsin Economics Department where he pioneered courses in Americanization, personnel management, business cycle theory, and industrial conflict. He was also involved in the early development of the School for Workers.
Throughout his career, Lescohier did a great deal of industrial and labor consulting. During the early 1920's he investigated the influence of the IWW in the wheat harvest for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 1929 he took a leave to work for the Wisconsin Industrial Commission. In 1939 he published a lengthy report on public assistance for the City of New York. Lescohier also worked for a number of private firms including Allis-Chalmers, A.O. Smith, and International Harvester. Among his numerous publications are the third volume of the History of Labor in the United States series (1935) and Can Business Prevent Unemployment?.
Lescohier retired in 1953 and died in 1961.
