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Release: Aug. 29, 1995
Contact: Jacquelyn Savani (609/258-5729)


Gerald Breese

Princeton, N.J.--Gerald Breese, age 83, Princeton University
professor of sociology, emeritus, died August 25 at Meadow Lakes
in Hightstown, N.J. The cause of death, according to his son
James, was leukemia.

Breese became an expert on the growth of cities in developing
countries when the field was first emerging. Among his many books
and articles, his most influential work was _Urbanization in Newly
Developing Countries_ (Prentice-Hall, 1966), which was translated
into Spanish, French, Arabic and Japanese. He authored four of
the seven parts of _The Impact of Large Installations on Nearby
Areas_ (a 1966 report for the U.S. Naval Engineering Laboratory,
which was published by Sage Publication in 1969). That work
represented one of the first efforts to assess the impact of large
facilities, industrial or military, on surrounding areas. His PhD
dissertation, subsequently published by the Chicago University
Press in 1949 as _The Daytime Population of the Central Business
District of Chicago,_ was the first major study of the dynamics of
urban commuting. This research was later used to asses how time
of day would vary the effects of nuclear attack on U.S. cities.

Born June 4, 1912, in Breesport, N.Y., Breese obtained his AB
degree from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1935, his BD from Yale
Divinity School in 1938 and his PhD from Chicago in 1947. He
served with the U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Corps in England and
France from 1942 to 1945. And from 1947 to 1949 he was a staff
member for the Social Science Research Council's
committee on housing research in Washington, D.C.

Breese joined the Princeton faculty in 1949 as an assistant
professor. The following year he became director of its Bureau of
Urban Research. Established in 1941, it was among the first
efforts by a university to focus on the study of cities. Breese
held that position until 1966. He was promoted to associate
professor in 1952 and to professor in 1959. He retired from the
active faculty in 1977.

Awarded a Fulbright in 1954-55, he taught at the American
University in Cairo, Egypt. In 1957-58 he was in charge of
creating the Regional Master Plan for New Delhi under a Ford
Foundation grant to the government of India. Another Fulbright in
1963 enabled him to serve as visiting university lecturer at the
University of Natal, South Africa. A visiting fellow at the
Institute of Advanced Studies at Australia National University in
Canberra in 1966, he lectured in 1970 throughout East and
Southeast Asia under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of
State.

A Princeton resident for many years, Breese served on the various
Princeton planning boards, including as chair of the Princeton
Township Planning Board. Active on the Princeton Township Open
Space Commission, he was a member of the Friends of Open Space.

After his retirement he authored _Princeton University Land:
1752-1984,_ a detailed historical account of how Princeton
University came to acquire its properties. He and his wife, Alice
Osborn Brown, co-authored the 1992 _Footprints on Edgehill
Street,_ a study of the history of a single street in Princeton
from Colonial times to the present.

In May of 1995 Breese was awarded Ohio Wesleyan's Distinguished
Achievement Citation, the highest honor bestowed on an alumnus.

He is survived by his wife, Alice Osborn Brown of Meadow Lakes,
Hightstown, N.J.; four children, Adele Overmyer of Arlington, Va.,
James of Denver, Col., Dana, also of Denver, and Brinda Wederich
of Belle Mead, N.J.; seven grandchildren; five stepchildren; and a
sister Viola Ives of Cortland, N.Y. Breese was previously married
to Alice Janette Bailey, who died in 1972.

A memorial service will be held at Mountain Lakes House in
Mountain Lakes Preserve off Mountain Ave. in Princeton at 11:30
a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 17. In lieu of flowers, contributions may
be made to Ohio Wesleyan University in the name of the Gerald
Breese Scholarship Endowment, Mowry Center, Delaware, Ohio, or to
Planned Parenthood, Princeton Friends of Open Space or the
Historical Society of Princeton.

Funeral arrangements were by Mather-Hodge Funeral Home of
Princeton.

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