Davis Rich Dewey is primarily known today for his work on the Twelfth Census of the United States and his contributions to statistics. Yet he was influential in the development of the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shifting the emphasis within the Institute from an area of study seen as supporting the scientific, engineering and technological disciplines to prominence as a separate field. In addition, his long service as the first editor of the American Economic Review set the tone for those who followed. If these accomplishments were not enough, Dewey was also in his time considered something of a public intellectual, his opinions regularly sought on matters of civic interest.