Juanita M. Kreps

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Clara Juanita Morris Kreps (January 11, 1921 – July 5, 2010) was an American government official and businesswoman.

She served as the United States Secretary of Commerce from January 23, 1977 to September 31, 1979, under President Jimmy Carter, the first woman and first economist to serve in that position, and the fourth woman to hold any cabinet position in the United States Executive Branch.

Education

Around age 12, Kreps was admitted to boarding school at the now defunct Stuart Robinson School for the 1938-Class of 1938. She later discovered that her curiosity about learning was the primary factor that led her to seek a private education. Teachers at her boarding school came from all around the South, and the education she was receiving at the time was highly regarded. Her high school counselors tried to compel her to Berea College, a free college, or other Presbyterian colleges, like Flora McDonald. However, Kreps' financial constraints barred her from attending colleges with high tuition, which made the cheaper alternatives more appealing.

Kreps went from Berea College in the late 1930s to the 1940s, and Kreps said the national atmosphere had changed. Ethnic theories and the belief that gender and ethnicity did not distinguish anyone intellectually, motivated her undergraduate years. Kreps worked as a dishwasher, a college gymnastics instructor, a theater department costume designer, and later as an aide to one of the department's top Economics professors as a paper grader. Kreps was able to attend graduate school at Duke University thanks to her acquaintances with Rector Hardin, a Duke professor who had earned a Ph.D. Frank Deviyver, one of Duke's mentors, was one of her mentors. Kreps assisted with edit his book and wrote her dissertation under Deviyver's guidance over the years as a student. Kreps attributed her ability to continue her education with less discrimination during her college years because she was not a man. Men were being drafted for war and women were not, and Kreps said that after graduating, there was no one around to tell her not to teach almost immediately. Kreps discovered that the majority of her students were women with some men scattered here and there.

She first met her husband in Atlanta while working with the National War Labor Board in 1943, and she later reunited with him when he was already doing his Ph.D. at Duke University. Kreps and her husband were wage analysts, who were in charge of preventing inflation and making sure wage increases were not rising at a much faster rate this summer.

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Early life and career

Clara Juanita Morris was born in Lynch, Kentucky, on January 11, 1921. She was the niece of Cenia (née Blair) and Elmer M. Morris. She graduated from Berea College in 1942 and received her master's and Ph.D. in economics at Duke University in 1944 and 1948, respectively. She was accepted into Phi Beta Kappa. Kreps, a labor demographic researcher, taught at Denison University, Hofstra College, Queens College, and Duke. She climbed through the ranks to become the university's first female vice president. She was the first woman director of the New York Stock Exchange in 1972.

Clifton Holland Kreps, Jr., a former professor at the University of North Carolina, married Clifton Holland Kreps, Jr. on August 11, 1944. They had two daughters and one son.

Kreps received the North Carolina Award for public service and 20 honorary degrees in 1976. She served on the board of ten major companies. The Rubenstein Library at the Duke University houses a collection of Kreps' papers.

Anne Wexler, a senior advisor on President Jimmy Carter's transition team after his 1976 election, recommended Kreps for a position in the Carter administration. Kreps was elected to serve as the Secretary of Commerce. She resigned on October 31, 1979, just a few months later. Philip M. Klutznick had her replaced her.

Kreps died in Durham, North Carolina, on July 5, 2010, after suffering with Alzheimer's disease at the age of 89. She was buried in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, at the Cross Episcopal Churchyard.

Marital teaching career

Kreps and her husband were often having trouble keeping up with their schedules during the mid-1940s. Both of them were able to find teaching positions in Ohio but at two separate colleges. Kreps' husband was given a job in Pomona College in 1950, and their relationship began by seeing each other very little, and Kreps used this time to finish her dissertation. The two men stayed in Ohio for a few years until her husband was offered a job with the Federal Reserve Bank in New York in the mid-1950s, and the children became Kreps' main concern at this time in their lives.

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