Herbert R. Northrup, 89, Wharton School professor

Herbert R. Northrup, 89, of Haverford, professor emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a labor specialist who developed groundbreaking theories on race in the workplace, died of a stroke Monday at Bryn Mawr Hospital.

In the 1960s, while chairing the department of industry at Wharton, Dr. Northrup edited The Negro and Employment Opportunity. The book concluded that economics, not civil rights, was the chief factor underlying racial tension in the United States. According to his research, the typical black male received his peak salary at age 25 and thereafter suffered a decline in income while that of his white counterpart rose.

In the book and in interviews with the media, Dr. Northrup emphasized that laws fostering employment opportunities were more effective than those securing voting rights. A later study he directed at Wharton cited the automobile industry's success in hiring African Americans to work side by side with whites in all types of jobs. His research pointed to the need for apprentice programs and on-the-job training for minorities.

In 1983, a reporter interviewed him about a study he directed on organized labor. Union violence, often with law enforcement's tacit approval, he said, "was a blight on industrial relations that arises with distressing frequency during strikes."

Even after retiring from teaching in 1988, Dr. Northrup continued to do research and to publish. The textbook he coauthored with Gordon F. Bloom in 1950, The Economics of Labor Relations, has been reprinted numerous times and was digitized this year. He had recently completed a book on labor relations in the construction industry.

A native of Newark, N.J., Dr. Northrup graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Duke University, with a varsity letter in baseball. He was a catcher on Duke's championship team.

He earned a master's degree and a doctorate in economics from Harvard University.

During World War II, he was an economist with the War Labor Board in Detroit and met a statistician there, Eleanor Pearson. They married in 1944.

From 1945 to 1949, he was an assistant professor at Columbia University, then worked in private industry before joining the Wharton faculty in 1961.

While at Penn, he was an adviser to the secretaries of labor in the Nixon and Reagan administrations.

Dr. Northrup consulted extensively for Fortune 500 companies, his son Philo said. He was a successful fund-raiser for Wharton, his son said, and personally provided numerous scholarships to graduate students. Many of his former students continued to collaborate with him after establishing their own careers.

A lifelong New York Yankees fan, Dr. Northrup also followed the Phillies and Eagles football. He loved his work, his son said, but his wife and children were always his priority.

In addition to his wife and son, Dr. Northrup is survived by sons James, Jonathan and David; a daughter, Nancy Northrup-Black; and seven grandchildren.

Services were private.

Memorial donations may be made to Bryn Mawr Hospital Foundation, 130 S. Bryn Mawr Ave., Bryn Mawr, Pa. 19010.