Kreps, Juanita Morris (1921-2010), a labor economist, served as secretary of commerce from 1977 to 1979 under President Jimmy Carter. She was the first economist and the first woman to head the Department of Commerce.
Blair Juanita Morris was born on Jan. 11, 1921, in Lynch, Kentucky. She graduated from Berea College and earned master’s and doctor’s degrees in economics at Duke University. In 1944, she married Clifton H. Kreps, Jr., also an economist. From 1945 to 1955, she taught economics at colleges in California, New York, and Ohio. Juanita Kreps then taught at Duke until 1977 and also served as university vice president from 1973 to 1977. In 1979, she returned to Duke as professor emerita and vice president emerita.
In 1972, Kreps became the first woman on the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange. She also served on the boards of several large corporations and on boards at Duke and the University of North Carolina.
Kreps was known for her outspokenness and her dedication to women’s rights. As an economist, she specialized in issues affecting working women and the aged. Her books include Lifetime Allocation of Work and Income: Essays in the Economics of Aging (1971), Sex in the Marketplace: American Women at Work (1971), and Women and the American Economy (1976). She died on July 5, 2010.
