After a career in professional baseball, Lawson became interested in aviation and, after settling in Milwaukee in 1917, built an 18-passenger plane that completed a round-trip flight from Milwaukee to Washington, D.C. When he was unable to secure sufficient financing to keep his airline solvent he espoused his ideas on economic reform in Direct Credits for Everybody. Lawson's theories evolved into a general critique of science, philosophy, and human relations which formed the basis for Lawsonomy. In 1943 he founded the University of Lawsonomy in Des Moines, Iowa.
