Leon Keyserling

Keyserling was born in 1908 in Charleston, South Carolina and grew up on Saint Helena Island.[http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/keyserling-leon-hirsch/ South Carolina Encyclopaedia: Keyserling, Leon Hirsch] Retrieved 2018-06-17. He earned an A.B. from Columbia University in 1928 and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1931. He returned to Columbia as a graduate student in the Department of Economics from 1931 to 1933, where he also taught for a short time.{{cite journal |author=Virgo, John M. |title=Articles In Memoriam: Leon H. Keyserling 1908–1987 |journal=Atlantic Economic Journal |volume=15 |issue=3 |date=September 1987 |issn=1573-9678 |doi=10.1007/BF02316880 |page=1 |s2cid=189874376 |doi-access=free }} While there, Keyserling studied under Rexford Tugwell, but never finished his dissertation.{{cite journal |author=Brazelton, W. Robert |title=Retrospectives: The Economics of Leon Hirsch Keyserling |url=https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/1167/item/2390 |journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives |volume=11 |issue=4 |date=Fall 1997 |pages=189–197 |doi=10.1257/jep.11.4.189|doi-access=free }}

Keyserling married Mary Dublin Keyserling, also an economist.

In 1933 Keyserling became an attorney for the newly constituted Agricultural Adjustment Administration, a New Deal agency that distributed subsidies to reduce crop area. From 1933 to 1946 he was a consultant economist to the Senate on a variety of social, economic, industrial, and financial issues, during which time he also served as a legislative assistant to Democratic New York Senator Robert F. Wagner (1933–37) and held several positions, including general counsel, in the US Housing Authority (later, the Federal Public Housing Authority in the National Housing Agency) (1937–46). It was during his time with Wagner that Keyserling was participating in drafting various New Deal initiatives, including the National Industrial Recovery Act, the Social Security Act, and the National Labor Relations Act.{{cite news |first=Leslie |last=Wayne |title=Leon Keyserling, Economic Aide to Truman, Dies |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE3DA1431F932A2575BC0A961948260 |work=The New York Times |date=1987-08-11}}

In 1946 Keyserling became the Vice Chairman of the newly created Council of Economic Advisers. He became its Acting Chairman in 1949 and the chairman in 1950. In 1952 Keyserling and his wife were attacked by Joseph McCarthy as part of the Second Red Scare as "belonging to Communist front groups."{{Cite journal|date=2003-09-01|title=Red Scare Politics and the Suppression of Popular Front Feminism: The Loyalty Investigation of Mary Dublin Keyserling|journal=Journal of American History|volume=90|issue=2|pages=491–524|doi=10.2307/3659442|issn=0021-8723|jstor=3659442|last1=Storrs|first1=Landon R. Y.}} Keyserling left as chairman in 1953.

During his time at the CEA, Keyserling strongly promoted the pursuit of sustained economic growth and full employment.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yFZ8ETl9q6gC|title=More: The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America|last=Collins|first=Robert M.|date=2002-04-04|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195348484|language=en}} He also introduced the reporting of the Gross National Product in real as well as nominal dollars {{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yFZ8ETl9q6gC|title=More: The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America|last=Collins|first=Robert M.|date=2002-04-04|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195348484|pages=36|language=en}}

Following his time advising President Truman, Keyserling consulted with Congress on a variety of economic issues and also practiced law. In 1954 he founded the Conference on Economic Progress (CEP), serving as its president until 1987. His wife had left the Department of Commerce in 1953 and joined him in consulting as well as the founding of the CEP, where she served as associate director from its inception to 1963.{{cite web |title= Keyserling, Mary (Dublin) Papers, 1924-1988: A Finding Aid |url=http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00666 |publisher=Harvard University Library |access-date=2009-01-11}}

In 1969 Keyserling served as president of the National Committee for Labor in Israel, a US organization that worked with the Israeli Histadrut.

He died on August 9, 1987, at Washington, D.C.'s George Washington University Hospital.

Based on Leon H. Keyserling Papers in the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum.

• Redirecting Education (with Rexford Tugwell) (1934)
• Toward Full Employment and Full Production (1954)
• Consumption-Key to Full Prosperity (1957)
• The Federal Budget and the General Welfare (1959)
• The Peace by Investment Corporation (with Benjamin Javitts) (1962)
• Taxes and the Public Interest (1963)
• Progress or Poverty (1964)
• The Move Toward Railroad Mergers (1965)
• A Freedom Budget for All Americans (1966)
• The Scarcity School of Economics (1973)
• Liberal and Conservative National Economic Policies and Their Consequences, 1919-79 (1979)
• The Current Significance of the New Deal (1984)

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite book |last=Brazelton |first=W. Robert |title=Designing U.S. Economic Policy: An Analytical Biography of Leon H. Keyserling |year=2001 |publisher=Palgrave |location=New York |isbn=978-0-333-77575-2 }}

• [https://findingaids.library.georgetown.edu/repositories/15/resources/10122 Leon Keyserling Papers] at Georgetown University
• [http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hstpaper/keyserli.htm Leon H. Keyserling Papers] at the Truman Library

{{s-start}}

{{s-off}}

{{s-bef|before=Edwin Nourse}}

{{s-ttl|title=Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers|years=1949–1953
Acting: 1949–1950}}

{{s-aft|after=Arthur Burns}}

{{s-end}}

{{CEA Chairs}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keyserling, Leon H.}}

Category:1908 births

Category:1987 deaths

Category:20th-century American economists

Category:Columbia College (New York) alumni

Category:Harvard Law School alumni

Category:People from Saint Helena Island, South Carolina

Category:Economists from South Carolina

Category:Chairs of the United States Council of Economic Advisers