Frank Parsons (social reformer)

Frank Parsons
Born(1854-11-14)November 14, 1854
Mount Holly, New Jersey
DiedSeptember 26, 1908(1908-09-26) (aged 53)
Boston, Massachusetts
EducationCornell University
OccupationAcademic
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Frank Parsons (November 14, 1854 – September 26, 1908) was an American professor, social reformer, and public intellectual. Although he was educated as an engineer at Cornell University, he passed the Massachusetts state bar examination and became a lawyer in 1881. Parsons was a lecturer at Boston University School of Law for more than a decade and taught at Kansas State Agricultural College from 1897 to 1899. As a leading social commentator of the Progressive Era, Parsons authored a dozen books and more than 125 magazine and journal articles on a wide range of reform topics, including currency reform, regulation of monopolies, municipal ownership, establishment of direct democracy, and other matters. Parsons is also widely regarded as the father of the vocational guidance movement.