Statistics in U. S. universities in 1933 and the establishment of the statistical laboratory at Iowa State (Q5926356)

This is a sketch of the early history of mathematical statistics in the USA. A Department of Biometry and Vital Statistics was founded in 1918 at Johns Hopkins; in 1930, ``Annals of Mathematical Statistics'' began to appear; and, in 1935, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics was established. The Iowa State [University] Statistical Laboratory exists since 1933. Its first leading figures were Snedecor and Henry Wallace (the future Vicepresident of the USA). Fisher visited Iowa in 1931 and 1936 and played an important part in its development. Initially, the Laboratory was mostly engaged in agricultural statistics and economics. The author also describes the work of several contemporaneous American statisticians, notably Hotelling.