Mary Dublin Keyserling (1911–1997) was a liberal economist and federal employee noted for her sometimes contrarian views on issues faced by working women.
Both of her parents, Augusta Salik, her mother, and Louis I. Dublin, her father, were immigrants to the United States.
Mary Dublin Keyserling was influenced by various social reforms that took place in the United States since young age due to her parents' positive interactions and open minds with many of these social reforms, such as women gaining more rights, that took place during the United States Progressive Era.
[2] She first went to school at Barnard College to study economics and graduated in 1930 as president of her senior class.
[3][4] While in college, Mary Dublin Keyserling was taught by economist Wesley Clair Mitchell.
[3] She worked for the United States government as an economist under the presidential administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Lyndon B.
Within a year Keyserling worked in the State Charities Aid Association of New York City as an administrator.
[1] She later returned to working for the government at a later date, as shown in her accepting the position of head of the Women's Bureau in 1964.
However, she was an associate director on the Council on Economic Progress before selected by President Johnson to be the head of the Women's Bureau in 1964.
Due to these allegations, Keyserling had to take a leave of absence from her job in the United States' Commerce Department until being found innocent of being a communist.
Starting in the early 1930s, Keyserling was a part of a network of female experts and activists who tried to resolve social inequalities in gender, class, and race.
In the last few decades of her life, Keyserling was a part of Radcliffe's Women in the Federal Government Oral History Project.