Franz Alt - New York

New York

Alt left Austria at the time of its occupation by Nazi Germany in 1938 and came to New York with his wife Alice Modern, whom he married just before leaving Vienna. In the next few years it was their highest priority to save relatives and friends endangered by the Nazi terror in Austria or Germany. This involved finding Americans willing to serve as sponsors for immigration visas, and they were successful in helping about 30 adults and children to escape.

Between 1938 and 1946 Alt worked for six years at the Econometric Institute in New York City, interrupted by two years of service in the United States Army. At the Econometric Institute he served successively as Research Principal and Assistant Director of Research engaged in the analysis of economic time series by methods such as multiple correlation, used for business forecasting. He was concerned with the use of mathematical and statistical methods for the study and forecasting of business conditions in the economy as a whole and in a number of industries, commodity and security markets. One of the clients advised by Alt was the General Motors Corporation.