Ralph E. Flanders was born in Barnet, Vermont, September 28, 1880. He graduated from the Central Falls, Rhode Island high school and took courses from the International Correspondence Schools. At the age of fifty-two he was awarded an M.A. from Dartmouth, and later received honorary doctorates from several institutions, including Northwestern University and Harvard.
Starting as a machine apprentice and draftsman in Rhode Island, Flanders soon became a designer and mechanical engineer. In 1912 he was made a director and manager of Jones and Lamson Machine Company, and served as president of that firm from 1933 to 1946. From 1934 to 1946 he was also president of Bryant Chucking Grinder Company, from 1944 to 1946 was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and in 1946 was president of the American Research and Development Corporation.
Throughout the 1930's and the early 1940's, while serving as a director or officer for several New England machine companies, Flanders was a member of United States governmental committees and boards dealing with economic development and production. A Republican, in 1946 he was elected to the United States Senate from Vermont, and remained in office two terms.
Senator Flanders was the author of numerous technical papers as well as the following books: Gear Cutting Machinery, 1900; Taming Our Machines, 1931; Platform for America, 1936; The American Century, [1937?] and co-author of Toward Full Employment, 1938.
