Harold A. Freeman correspondence

Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Harold A. Freeman majored in mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was an instructor in economics before studying at Harvard University from 1936 to 1938. He returned to MIT as an assistant professor in 1939, winning promotion to associate professor in 1944 and full professor in 1950. He retired from that post in 1976 but continued as a senior lecturer for 14 years.

Freeman was a member of the Statistical Research Group assembled at Columbia University during World War II to devise methods of sampling inspection and quality control for use in wartime industry. He was co-author of several books which emerged from that work, notably Sequential Analysis of Statistical Data: Applications (1945) and Sampling Inspection (1948). He produced two other statistical books during his MIT career; after retiring, he wrote books of social criticism, including Towards Socialism in America (1982).

Freeman served as a consultant to the US Army and governmental agencies including the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as the Royal Statistical Society, the American Statistical Association (of which he also served as vice president) and the American Society for Quality Control.

MIT News Office, Prof. Harold Freeman of economics dies at 88, November 26, 1997.