Joseph J. Spengler
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Joseph J. Spengler (1912 - 1991) was an American economist, statistician, and historian of economic thought.
He was a founding professor of Duke University, where he was pivotal in building the Graduate Program in Economics. In 1934 he joined the faculty where he rapidly rose to international preeminence. He retired as James B. Duke Professor of Economics in 1972. Past President of the American Economic Association, Southern Economic Association, Population Association of America, History of Economics Society, and the Atlantic Economics Society, he was also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Statistical Association.
Over his career, prof. Spengler taught at Ohio State University and the Universities of Arizona, Chicago, Pittsburgh, North Carolina, Kyoto, and Malaya. His areas of research were population and resource problems, and economic and social theory and its history. He served as south-eastern regional OPA price executive and on the staff of the United Nations. He served on the National Research Council Division of Behavioral Sciences and on National Academy of Sciences committees.
Joe was the author of Comparative Fecundity of Native and Foreign-Born Women of New England; France Faces Depopulation; French Predecessors of Malthus; Indian Economic Thought: A Preface to Its History; Population Economics; Population Change, Modernization, and Welfare; Population and America's Future; Facing Zero Population Growth; a postlude edition of France Faces Depopulation; and Origins of Economic Thought and Justice. He was coauthor of numerous studies, editor or coeditor of six books, and author of many scientific papers. In 1944 he and his wife received the Pabst Award for an essay entitled "Maintenance of Post-War Full Employment"; in 1951 he received the John F. Lewis Award of the American Philosophical Society for an essay on the development of densely populated areas; and in 1981 he received the Distinguished Fellow Award from the History of Economics Society.
He received his A.B., A.M., and Ph.D. degrees from Ohio State University, which awarded him the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. In 1968, he received the Doctor of Science from Alma College, and in 1978 the Doctor of Law from Tulane University.
At Duke University, professor Spengler was a legend. His stature as a scholar was equaled only by his reputation as a man of wit, which often took the form of practical jokes for which he was justly famous. Those who bore the brunt of such attention were held in high esteem, as were those diligent readers of his dense and voluminous footnotes where an occasional bogus citation (e.g., to Montague H. Crakenthorp) might appear.
[edit] References
- Profile of Joseph J. Spengler at Duke University website.
- Sobel, Irvin (1983). "Joseph J. Spengler: The Institutionalist Approach to the History of Economics" in Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol.1, pp. 243-270
