Biography/History

During much of the Great Depression, throughout the nineteen forties, and well into the fifties, the name of Arthur Altmeyer was synonymous with social security. First as chairman of the Technical Board appointed by the President's Committee on Economic Security, later as member and chairman of the Social Security Board, and finally as Commissioner for Social Security, he was charged with responsibility for administering the Social Security Act of 1935 and its amendments. He guided the program through its first eighteen years of trial and development. By the time he left government service, social security in the United States was firmly established and the original act had been strengthened, extended, and expanded.

Altmeyer, the son of John G. and Carrie A. (Smith) Altmeyer, was born May 8, 1891 in DePere, Wisconsin. Due to family difficulties, he supported himself from the age of fourteen. At twenty-one, attracted by the reputation of John R. Commons, Altmeyer began his studies at the University of Wisconsin, earning his degree and a Phi Beta Kappa key in three years. He received an M.A. in 1921, and a Ph.D. in 1931, both under Commons; and was awarded an honorary LL.D. in 1939, all from the University of Wisconsin.

After graduating in 1914, he spent four years as a teacher and principal in the schools of the iron range country in northern Minnesota. Returning to the University of Wisconsin graduate school in 1918, he became an assistant to economist John R. Commons, and served part-time as a statistician with the Wisconsin State Tax Commission. In 1920 he was made chief statistician for the Wisconsin Industrial Commission and two years later became secretary of the Commission. For more than a decade he was directly concerned with labor legislation, including the Wisconsin Unemployment Act which was passed in January 1932--the first such law in the United States. Following the financial crash of 1929, he became involved also with unemployment relief, and in 1931 began having more direct contact with the government in Washington as he sought federal relief money for Wisconsin.

In 1933 Mr. Altmeyer was appointed chief of the federal government's Labor Compliance Division under the National Recovery Act (NRA), and served from June 1934 to November 1935 as Second Assistant Secretary of Labor. In this latter position he was given responsibility for strengthening the administrative organization of the Labor Department and was also made chairman of the Technical Board appointed by the President's Committee on Economic Security. Thus, he was directly involved in helping to frame the Social Security Act. This led to his appointment to the new Social Security Board where he served as a member and chairman, and later as Commissioner of Social Security under the Federal Security Agency.

When Mr. Eisenhower became president, Mr. Altmeyer did not remain in office but returned to Madison, Wisconsin, to lecture, write, and serve as advisor to various labor groups and pension organizations. He also spent some time in Iran, Turkey, and Peru as an advisor for the development of social welfare programs. In 1964 he and Mrs. Altmeyer moved back to Washington to live, to continue his advisory work in connection with private pension plans.

During the years when Mr. Altmeyer was administering the Social Security Act he served in various other positions requiring a man of his capabilities, experience, and interests. In 1935 he was a member of the executive committee of the National Youth Administration (NYA); he served as a member of the Interdepartmental Committee to Coordinate Health and Welfare Activities from 1935 to 1940. This committee then became the Interdepartmental Advisory Council to Coordinate Health, Welfare, and Related Activities Affecting the National Defense. In 1939 he was chairman of the U.S. delegation to the Regional Conference of American States of the International Labor Organization in Havana, Cuba; and again in 1942 headed an American delegation, this time to the first Inter-American Conference on Social Security at Santiago, Chile. From 1942 to 1952 he was chairman of the Permanent Inter-American Committee on Social Security. In 1942 he was executive director of the War Manpower Commission and a member of the Commission until 1945. He was advisor to the U.S. representative on the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations in 1946. He was then appointed the U.S. representative on the Social Commission and served in that position until 1953. He spent the spring and summer of 1947 in Switzerland as executive director of the Preparatory Commission for the International Refugee Organization.

During the last nineteen years of his life he taught, lectured, traveled, advised labor groups and foreign governments, and met and corresponded with friends and former associates. As a visiting professor, he taught at the Universities of Utah, California at Los Angeles, North Carolina, Chicago, and Wisconsin as well as at the Salzburg (Austria) Seminar in American Studies. As an international authority on social welfare systems, he advised the governments of Turkey and Iran, non-governmental organizations in Peru and Colombia, and the Agency for International Development. Although urged by Wisconsin Democratic Party leaders to run for elective office, Altmeyer decided against a political career. His activism in the social welfare field did lead to his appointment as chairman of the Social Security Committee of the Democratic Advisory Council during the 1960 presidential campaign and to his return in 1964 to Washington, where he continued his advisory work with private pension funds. Having been the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Retirement Fund of the Coat and Suit Industry in the New York Metropolitan Area from 1943 to 1965, he became Chief Appeals Officer for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) Pension Fund in 1965. In 1966, he was chosen Public Trustee for the National Industrial Group Pension Plan. He also remained active both in the National Association of Social Workers of which he had been president in 1954-55, and in the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. In 1966 the Altmeyers returned to Madison. The final years of Altmeyer's life saw a gradual reduction of his activities due to unstable health. He resigned his ILGWU post in 1969 and his position with the National Industrial Group in 1971. Until his death on October 16, 1972, he maintained an active membership in the Committee for National Health Insurance and close contact with his associates in various social welfare endeavors.

Altmeyer wrote many articles and monographs in the field of employment and social welfare. He was the author of The Industrial Commission of Wisconsin--A Case Study in Labor Law Administration, Madison, University of Wisconsin, 1932 (his Ph.D. thesis) and The Formative Years of Social Security, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1966. He also co-authored Estudio Economico de la Legislacion Social Peruana y Sugerencias para su Mejoramiento, Lima, 1957, with Romulo A. Ferrero and America's Role in International Social Welfare, Gloucester, Mass., P. Smith, 1967, with Alva Myrdal and Dean Rusk.

Note

Copy of the 1932 Industrial Commission study is in the Wisconsin Historical Society Library. Copy of the 1957 Peruvian publication and manuscript for The Formative Years of Social Security are in Box 11.

Altmeyer's appointments while in Federal service

1935	Executive Committee of the National Youth Administration
1936-1939	Interdepartmental Committee to Coordinate Health and Welfare Activities
1938	President's Committee on Retirement
1939	Chairman-United States Delegation to the Regional Conference of American States Members to the International labour Organization
1941	Interdepartmental Advisory Council to Coordinate Health, Welfare and Related Defense Activities
1942-1952	Chairman-United States Delegation to the First through Fifth Inter-American Conference on Social Security
1942-1953	Chairman-Permanent Inter-American Committee on Social Security
1943	Special Committee on Labor Standards and Social Security
1944	Interdepartmental Committee on Reconversion Statistics
1946	Advisor to the United States Representative on the Economic and Social Committee of the United Nations
1946-1953	United States Representative on the Social Committee of the United Nations
1946	United Nations Benefits Committee
1947	Executive Secretary-Preparatory Commission of the International Refugee Organization
1948	Vice-Chairman-International Labour Organization Correspondence Committee on Social Insurance
1951	United States Delegation to the International Labour Organization