Persia Campbell

Academic, adult educator, economist, feminist, public servant and socialist, Persia Campbell (1898 – 1974) has, arguably, made more of an impact on the international scene than has any other individual from the South Coast.

In the 1930s Persia became a pioneering advocate for consumer protection and this was to remain her main professional concern throughout her life. She was to become a highly-respected academic, working with international organisations such as the United Nations, UNESCO and the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), and was an advisor to several American Presidents. She also helped with the establishment of the Australian Consumers Association.

Yet, as the Australian Women’s History Network concluded, 'while Campbell’s promotion of social and economic justice spanned six decades and five continents, leaving powerful legacies upon international development and consumer economics, her career is today little known in Australia. Once a rising star of the local intelligentsia – and one of the few female economists of her generation – she has since slipped under the radar of both economic and gender historians.'

Persia was born in Nerrigundah, west of Bodalla, a once-thriving gold mining town that, at the time of her birth, was very much in decline. Her father was a schoolteacher.

Persia was obviously ‘a very bright young cookie’ attending the selective Fort Street Girls High School in Sydney, then receiving bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Sydney, before winning a travelling scholarship to the prestigious London School of Economics in 1921, where she completed a master’s degree in economics.

She then returned to Australia and became an associate editor of the 'Australian Encyclopedia' before becoming a research economist with the NSW Government and later joining the Australian Bureau of Statistics. She won a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship to the United States which led, in 1940, to her receiving a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

That same year she joined the faculty of economics at Queens College, City University of New York. Ultimately (1960 – 1965) she became chair of its economics department.

But it was through her research and her advisory work that she became extraordinarily influential and received most acclaim. In most cases her ideas, when first expressed, were considered quite radical – with many, since, having been adopted as ‘mainstream’ thinking:

• material comforts that were commonplace within Australia should be extended worldwide, and particularly to those living in Asiatic and Pacific countries;

• national policies should be directed ‘towards the goal of a better living standard for all’;

• the emphasis on production-oriented metrics such as Gross National Product was misguided and people, not numbers, should be at the heart of ‘progress’;

• ‘rapid industrialisation might worsen rather than improve the social situation. It’s not enough to get things produced, they must also be gotten into the hands of the people who can use them’;

• the ‘interest’ of consumers should be the lens through which all economics are viewed, and the consumer point-of-view should be taken into account in all policy-making.

She also championed the educational and professional advancement of women. She was chairman of the American branch of the Pan Pacific and South East Asian Women's Association and the UN’s official representative to the International Federation of University Women, a world-wide forum where university women could examine international issues.

When she retired in the mid-1960s, she ‘almost lived at the United Nations’ where she ‘boasted contacts, shared opinions and opened doors’ and was the UN correspondent for the International Development Review. She was a party to the establishment of the United Nations Environment Program in 1972.

Persia married in 1929 (and then made her home in New York) and had two children. Unfortunately, her husband died in 1939. Persia herself died in 1974 at age 73, with the International Council of Society Welfare then lamenting ‘no one can take her place.’

Photograph: JFK with members of the Consumer Advisory Body, 1962. Persia is front row at right.