Frieda Wunderlich was the only female member of the original group of German Jewish émigrés who formed the University-in-Exile (also known as the Graduate Faculty, and, later, as the New School for Social Research), in 1933. Born in Berlin on November 8th, 1884, she received her doctorate from the University of Freiburg in 1919 with a dissertation on the importance of the applied psychologist Hugo Munsterburg for the national economy. Her activities in Germany showed broad and humanitarian-oriented social and political interests: membership in the Prussian State Parliament and the Berlin City Council; service as a judge of the German Supreme Court for Social Welfare; and, most notably, editorship from 1923-1933 of the anti-Hitler weekly magazine, Soziale Praxis. Her scholarly writing often focused on white collar work, the displacement of laborers by technology, and the conditions for working women--especially the latter. Of the scholarly works, her most important in Germany was probably the theoretically-oriented Productivität (Jena: G. Fischer, 1926). Immediately before coming to New York City, from 1930-1933, Wunderlich was a professor at the Vocational Pedagogic Institute in Berlin.

Once at the New School, Wunderlich's research concentrated on social problems, labor markets and, after 1939, on resource allocation methods used during wartime by totalitarian governments, especially Germany and the USSR. Her work on resource allocation is among her most important after emigrating to the United States. Much of it, as well as her work on other topics, including social and economic policy during the Weimar Republic, was published initially in the New School’s flagship journal, Social Research. From 1938-1940, Wunderlich served as dean of the Graduate Faculty. As a professor, she was active from 1933-1954, teaching courses on economics, labor, and sociology. In addition, she served as the official foreign student advisor to students in the Graduate Faculty. She died on December 19, 1965, in East Orange, New Jersey at the age of 76.

Her memorial in Social Research, written by a close teaching colleague, Julie Meyer, highlights Wunderlich's cool head, warm heart, and extremely meticulous research. Former New School president, Alvin Johnson, commended her for her “far-sighted social policy based on scholarly training in economics” (p.21). Wunderlich's research bears evidence of a multidisciplinary approach, demonstrating an engagement and range of experience in economics, sociology, social work, and politics. Finally, the memorial indicates that Wunderlich left an enduring legacy as one of the first social scientists to focus on the "role and status of women in industrial economies” (p.122).

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“Dr. Wunderlich, Taught ‘in Exile’[:] New School Professor Who Left Germany in 1933 Dies.” New York Times, December 31, 1965, p.21.

Rutkoff, Peter and William B. Scott. New School: A History of the New School for Social Research. New York: The Free Press, 1986, p.122.