Ekstrom, Claus Emanuel

Claus Emanuel Ekstrom (1892-1981), professor of education, was born in Falkenberg, Sweden, on November 5, 1892. He attended Classical High School in Providence and graduated from Brown in 1916. He earned his master’s degree at Brown the next year, while teaching history at Hope Street High School. During World War I he was a captain in the Army. He did graduate work at Columbia University Teachers College from 1919 to 1922. He was appointed instructor in education at Brown in 1919 and promoted to assistant professor in 1923 and associate professor in 1931. In 1927 he was named acting director of the School of Education. He became Director of University Extension in 1931. He took a strong interest in opposing legalized gambling in Rhode Island in the 1930s as being “detrimental to business and social and political welfare,” maintaining that the state’s gain from taxation would come mainly from persons in the lower wage brackets, who could least afford to lose even a small amount of their earnings. He helped organize “Majblommen,” the Swedish-American anti-tuberculosis association in the United States in 1922, and for his work in anti-tuberculosis education was awarded the first class medal, Royal Order of Vasa, by King Gustaf V of Sweden. He retired from Brown in 1957. He died on November 22, 1981 in Middletown, Rhode Island.