Consultant, Journalist, Philanthropist – and Fluent in Five Languages
Charles Whiting Williams 1894 is best known as a management consultant and journalist – one who went undercover to study working conditions in the early 20th century.
Charles earned a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College, then studied at the University of Berlin and later the University of Chicago.
In 1912 he co-founded the Cleveland Federation for Philanthropy and Charity, precursor to such organizations as Community Chest and United Way. More than 2,400 United Appeals were created from his work. He also began to sell group life insurance, believing that it would be of value for workers who could not afford individual life insurance.
As his reputation grew, Charles worried that his common name could easily be confused with that of others. In 1917, he legally changed his name to Whiting Williams.
In 1918, Whiting left the world of philanthropy to become Vice President and Personnel Director at the Cleveland Hydraulic Pressed Steel Company. This brought him face-to-face with the harsh realities confronting industrial workers and awakened a deep interest in the social and economic challenges of factory life in early 20th century America.
His fluency in French, German, Spanish and Italian enabled him to infiltrate industries to research labor relations. He disguised himself as a laborer in coal mines, railroads, shipyards and oil refineries in the U.S., Europe, Central and South America. He authored several books, including “What’s on the Workers Mind, Put on Coveralls to Find Out.”
In 1933 Whiting journeyed to Ukraine to learn how those he had met five years earlier were faring. He covertly photographed the horror of starvation from Stalin’s planned famine that killed 4 million Ukrainians and was one of the first to report that atrocity.
He devoted the rest of his career – into his 90s – to writing and lecturing at Harvard, Dartmouth and Case Western Reserve universities. Whiting died in 1975 and a collection of his papers is located at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland.