Alonzo Bettis Cox, professor emeritus of marketing, died
on December 25, 1968. He was 84.
Professor Cox was born on April 2, 1884,
in Enfield, Illinois. He earned bachelors and masters degrees from
The University of Texas at Austin in 1911 and 1914, respectively. He was
awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1920.
He served as president
of Abilene Christian University in 1911-12. He worked with Texas A&M
University, where he was in charge of the Division of Farm and Ranch Economics.
He worked with the United States Department of Agriculture, directing cotton
marketing research. In 1924-25 he served in Europe as an agricultural economist
for the department.
Professor Cox joined the faculty of UT Austin in 1926, and retired
in 1957. In 1926 the Bureau of Business Research was established with Cox
serving as its director until 1945. Cox then created the Cotton Economic
Research Center (CER). The center became internationally acclaimed under
his leadership for a worldwide program that standardized scientific cotton
testing. The CER eventually became part of what is now known as the Natural
Fibers Information Center.
In
1927 Professor Cox organized and chaired the Texas Cotton Committee, a policy-making
group. In 1939 he worked with the Texas Cotton Research Congress. In 1942
he assisted the Texas Statewide Cotton Committee in preparing the "Charter
for Cotton," which established economic principles governing the cotton
industry.
Professor Cox served on the State Intercollegiate Schools of Business
Administration Committee. He also served on the Texas Postwar Planning Commission
and as a consultant on cotton price fixing for the U.S. government.
Professor
Cox authored or coauthored
An Economic Study of a Typical
Ranching Area on the Edwards Plateau of Texas (1922),
The Cottonseed
Crushing Industry of Texas in its National Setting (1949), and
Cotton-Demand-Supply-Merchandising (1952).
Professor
Cox addressed the International Cotton Congress on three occasions, in
Prague in 1933 and in Cairo in 1937 and 1951.
In 1987 the University dedicated the A. B. Cox Memorial
Library in his honor. The library contained approximately 1,000 volumes
dating from 1847 to 1950 and included a rare collection of books on cotton
as well as Professor Cox's papers. In 2000 these books became part of the
University of Texas General Libraries collection, and Professor Cox’s
papers are archived in the Natural Fibers Information Center.
<
Signed>
Sue Alexander Greninger , Secretary
The General Faculty
Original biographical
sketch found in the
Documents of the General Faculty on page
D1071.
Revisions made on May 23, 2005, with input from Julie Apodaca, director, Natural
Fibers Information Center. Additional biographical sources can be found in Barker
Texas History Center and the
New
Handbook of Texas, Texas State Historical Association, 1996.
