Beatrice Pitney Lamb

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Beatrice Pitney Lamb
A young white woman, photographed outdoors
Beatrice Pitney (later Lamb), from the 1927 yearbook of Bryn Mawr College
Born
Beatrice Louise Pitney

May 12, 1904
Morristown, New Jersey
DiedDecember 9, 1997 (age 93)
Hightstown, New Jersey
Occupation(s)Editor, writer, photographer
RelativesJohn Oliver Halstead Pitney (uncle); Christopher Reeve (grandson); Matthew Reeve (great-grandson); F. D. Reeve (son-in-law)

Beatrice Louise Pitney Lamb (May 12, 1904 – December 9, 1997) was an American editor and writer. She worked with the League of Women Voters in the 1930s, and with the United Nations in the 1940s. She published several books on India.

Early life and education[edit]

Beatrice Pitney was born in Morristown, New Jersey, the daughter of Mahlon Pitney and Florence Theodora Shelton Pitney. Her father was an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court. Her uncle was lawyer John Oliver Halstead Pitney. She graduated from Westover School and, in 1927, from Bryn Mawr College. She completed further studies in international relations at the Geneva Graduate Institute.[1] Much later, in 1956, she earned a master's degree from Columbia University.[2]

Career[edit]

Lamb wrote pamphlets on policy topics for the National League of Women Voters in the early 1930s, and chaired the League's department of government and economic welfare.[3][4] She also represented the League in a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee in 1935, in support of unemployment compensation.[5] From 1945 to 1950, she was the editor of the United Nations News, and lectured on the United Nations to community groups.[1] "We are never going to save the world from communism without effort and without sacrifice," she told a Pennsylvania audience in 1950, in reference to the Korean War and NATO. "We have been thinking it could be done cheaply and easily."[6]

Lamb was a delegate to a conference on Indo-American relations in New Delhi, and spent much of her later life traveling, photographing, and writing about India. She published several books on the subject,[7] and exhibited her photographs in galleries and museums.[2][8][9] She also revised the India article for the World Book Encyclopedia.[10] "Her intelligence was obvious, her energy formidable, her exuberant enthusiasms contagious," wrote Orville Prescott in a 1963 review for The New York Times.[7]

Publications[edit]

  • Reparations and War Debts in 1932 (1932, pamphlet)[11]
  • Economic causes of war and the hope for the future (1932, pamphlet)[12]
  • Buyers Beware: The Case for New Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Legislation (1935)[13]
  • Government and the Consumer (1935)[14]
  • "Documents of the United Nations" (1947)[15]
  • Trade and Aid (1953)[16]
  • Introduction to India (1960)[17]
  • India: A World in Transition (1964)[18]
  • India (1965)[19]
  • The Nehrus of India: Three Generations of Leadership (1967)[20]
  • "Glimpses of a Great Person" (1988)[21]

Personal life[edit]

Beatrice Pitney married lawyer Horace R. Lamb. They had two daughters, Barbara and Dorothy. One of their grandchildren was actor Christopher Reeve. Her husband died in 1977,[22] and she died in 1997, at the age of 93, at a retirement community in Hightstown, New Jersey.[23]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Author and Lecturer to Speak at Wilson; Beatrice Pitney Lamb to Discuss 'Current U.N. Problems'". Public Opinion. December 5, 1950. p. 2. Retrieved May 15, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ a b Dietz Krebs, Betty (February 20, 1988). "Portraits of India; Visiting exhibition explores a country that stretches the American imagination". Dayton Daily News. p. 25. Retrieved May 15, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ "Mass Meeting to Be Held at the Hotel Astor Is Only One of Three Events by Organization in the Nation This Week". The New York Times. 1935-11-10. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-05-15.
  4. ^ "League of Women Voters Arranges Luncheon for Tomorrow". Chicago Tribune. October 14, 1934. p. 67. Retrieved May 15, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ United States Congress Senate Committee on Finance (1935). Economic Security Act: Hearings Before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, Seventy-fourth Congress, First Session, on S. 1130, a Bill to Alleviate the Hazards of Old Age, Unemployment, Illness, and Dependency, to Establish a Social Insurance Board in the Department of Labor, to Raise Revenue, and for Other Purposes. January 22 to February 20, 1935. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 442–444.
  6. ^ "Editor Asserts A-Bomb Use Now Would Hurt U.N." York Daily Record. December 7, 1950. p. 3. Retrieved May 15, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ a b Prescott, Orville (1963-06-26). "Books of The Times; Encyclopedic Impersonal View of India". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-05-15.
  8. ^ "Museums". New York Magazine: 125. April 9, 1990.
  9. ^ Shine, James G. (October 4, 1985). "Indian Art Exhibit at Vassar Worth a Visit". Poughkeepsie Journal. pp. 11D. Retrieved May 15, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ "Collection: Beatrice Lamb Collection". University of Minnesota Archival Collections Guides. Retrieved 2023-05-15.
  11. ^ Lamb, Beatrice Pitney (1932). Reparations and War Debts in 1932. New York League of Women Voters.
  12. ^ Lamb, Beatrice Pitney; National league of women voters (1932). Economic causes of war and the hope for the future. New York city: National league of women voters, Dept. of international cooperation to prevent war.
  13. ^ Lamb, Beatrice Pitney (1935). Buyers Beware: The Case for New Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Legislation. National League of Women Voters.
  14. ^ Lamb, Beatrice Pitney (1935). Government and the Consumer. National league of women voters.
  15. ^ Lamb, Beatrice Pitney (January 1947). "Documents of the United Nations". American Journal of International Law. 41 (1): 140–145. doi:10.1017/S0002930000085912. ISSN 0002-9300. S2CID 246004920.
  16. ^ Lamb, Beatrice Pitney (1953). Trade and Aid. Public Affairs Committee.
  17. ^ Lamb, Beatrice Pitney (1960). Introduction to India. American Association of University Women, Educational Foundation.
  18. ^ Lamb, Beatrice Pitney (1964). India: a world in transition. Praeger contemporary World series ;no. 7. New York: Frederick A. Praeger.
  19. ^ Lamb, Beatrice Pitney (1965). India. Macmillan.
  20. ^ Lamb, Beatrice Pitney. The Nehrus of India: Three Generations of Leadership. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
  21. ^ Lamb, Beatrice Pitney (November–December 1988). "Glimpses of a Great Person". Darshan. 5 (11): 7–9.
  22. ^ "H. R. Lamb, New York Law Firm Partner". The New York Times. 1977-11-12. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-05-15.
  23. ^ "Beatrice Pitney Lamb (death notice)". The New York Times. 1997-12-14. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-05-15.