Edward R. Dewey founded the Foundation for the Study of Cycles in 1941. He was Chief Economic Analyst for the Department of Commerce carrying out an assignment from President Herbert Hoover to identify the causes of the Great Depression when he stumbled upon cycles.

He found that when certain cycles came together at the same time it coincided with significantly large dips in the market. In his important paper, The Case for Cycles (July 1967), Dewey writes, "There is considerable evidence ... that there are natural environmental forces that alternately stimulate and depress mankind in the mass."