Financial History 134 (Summer 2020) | Page 13

Personal History David LeFevre Dodd was born on August 23, 1895 in Martinsburg, WV, a small town in the northeast panhandle of the state. He was the second of four children of David H. Dodd (1855–1953) and Mary V. Shaffer (1857–1944). His father was a stern, demanding teacher and long-term principal of High Street High School in Martinsburg, where young David graduated. This may explain his son’s life-long interest in teaching. Dodd enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania to study economics, but his education was interrupted by World War I. In June 1917, he joined the US Navy and served in Florida for a year as chief yeoman and boatswain, before being transferred to the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, for a three-month intensive officer training program. In September 1918, he was commissioned an ensign and assigned to the USS Harrisburg, a troop transport ship that brought US troops home from France after the armistice in November 1918. He served on active duty until July 1919, when he resumed his university studies. He received a Bachelor of Science in economics in February 1920. The Pennsylvania Gazette noted that his degree, along with those of 43 other economics graduates, was retroactive “as the class of 1918,” indirectly acknowledging their time served in the military. Columbia University (1920–1961) Dodd wasted no time after graduation in pursuing an academic career in economics. He moved to New York and enrolled in Columbia University’s master’s degree program in economics in 1920 and received his degree the following year. Upon graduation, he worked briefly as a research assistant in economics at the National Bank of Commerce in New York. In 1922, he returned to Columbia University as an instructor in economics. Dodd married Elsie Marguerite Firor from Washington, DC in 1924. The couple lived initially at 540 W. 123rd Street, and for many years later at 39 Claremont Avenue, both near the Columbia University campus in Morningside Heights. Their daughter, Barbara, was born in 1932. Dodd’s focus evolved from economics to finance in 1925, when he became an instructor in finance at Columbia Business School. It was in this capacity that he met Benjamin Graham and began a lifelong partnership. Graham recalls their early collaboration in his memoirs: Courtesy of David Anderson Dodd family circa 1928–1930. David L. Dodd, top row, third from right with his two brothers, Earle and Donald on each side. Elsie M. Dodd (wife), middle row, left. David H. Dodd (father), bottom row. www.MoAF.org | Summer 2020 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 11