F. Taylor Ostrander had a long career as an international economist. Ostrander studied economics at Williams College, Oxford University, and the University of Chicago. He went on to work in the U.S. Treasury Department on international monetary policy. During World War II, he served as an intelligence officer at the American Embassy in London.
After the war, Ostrander moved to Germany, where he worked at the Chief of Price Control for the U.S. Military Government in Berlin. It was a challenging time. The black-market currency when he arrived included coffee, beer and cigarettes. He supervised the transition from the Reichsmark to the Deutsche Mark.
Ostrander then moved on to Paris as a foreign service officer working on the administration of the Marshall Plan. In 1954, his career in government ended and he joined AMAX, a large international mining company. At AMAX he developed an expertise on economic aspects of copper mining in southern Africa.
Learn more in the F. Taylor Ostrander papers at UW’s American Heritage Center