Hower, Ralph M. (Ralph Merle), 1903-1973

Biography

Ralph Merle Hower was born in Salinas, Kansas, in 1903 and died in Massachusetts in 1973. He received a BA in economics from the University of Kansas in 1925. He was a Rhodes Scholar from 1925-1928 at Oxford University, where he received a BA in modern history. He earned a DCS in business history from the Harvard Business School in 1935. He also received an MA from Oxford in 1953 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Navarre (Spain) in 1967.

Prior to coming to the Harvard Business School, Hower was an Instructor of Economics at the University of Kansas from 1928 to 1930. At the Harvard Business School, he held the following positions: Research Assistant, 1930-1934; Instructor, 1934-1935; Assistant Professor, 1935-1946; Associate Professor, 1946-1949; and Professor, 1949-1970. He taught in the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. He also participated in Advanced Management Programs at Durham and Strathclyde in Great Britain; at the University of Western Ontario in Canada; at the Management Development Institute (IMEDE) in Switzerland; and at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE) in Barcelona, Spain. In addition to teaching at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE), Hower helped to establish this business school in the 1960s.

Hower was a major in the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps during World War II. He served as a Trustee of the Business History Foundation, and he was a member of the Board of Assessors of Weston, Massachusetts. He authored History of an Advertising Agency in 1939, a book about the Ayers Co.; History of Macy’s of New York, 1943; The Administrator (with J.D. Glover), 1952; and Managers and Scientists (with C.D. Orth), 1963. He served as a consultant for Arthur D. Little, DuPont Corp., Esso Oil, Johnson and Johnson, Lederle Laboratories, Eli Lily & Co., Shell Oil, Standard Oil, United Parcel Service, and other corporations.

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