Francis Townsend

Francis Everett Townsend (; January 13, 1867 – September 1, 1960) was an American physician and political activist in California. In 1933, he devised an old-age pension scheme to help alleviate the Great Depression. Known as the "Townsend Plan", this proposal would pay every person over age 60 $200 per month, with the requirement it all be spent quickly. It was never enacted but the popularity of the Plan influenced Congress to start the Social Security system, which involved much smaller amounts. The Plan was organized by real estate salesman Robert Clements, who made Townsend only a figurehead while the Plan expanded to thousands of clubs in many states. Townsend was born just outside Fairbury, Illinois, where he is memorialized by a post office named in his honor. Life and career Francis Everett Townsend was born the second of six children on January 13, 1867, in Fairbury, Illinois. After Townsend contracted swamp malaria as an infant, the Townsend family moved to Nebraska where Townsend had two years of high school education. In 1898, Townsend borrowed $1,000 from his father and moved to Southern California to develop a hay farming business. The business was not successful, and Townsend enrolled in Omaha Medical College when he was 31. After graduating, Townsend worked in the medical field in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, and met a nurse and his future wife, Wilhelmina "Minnie" Bogue. At age 50, Townsend enlisted as a doctor in the army one year before the end of World War I. After the war ended in 1918, Townsend moved to Long Beach, California, to run a dry ice factory. After that business quickly failed, Townsend worked for real estate agent Robert Earl Clements in Midway City, California. Clements later masterminded the Townsend Plan. In 1930, at the start of the Great Depression, Townsend became a Long Beach city public health officer at age 63, but lost his job three years later. Townsend died in Los Angeles on September 1, 1960.