Leon H. Keyserling papers

American economist and lawyer Leon H. Keyserling was born on January 22, 1908, to William Keyserling (1869-1951) and Jennie Hyman Keyserling (1881-1935), in Charleston, South Carolina. Keyserling grew up on the coastal island of St. Helena and in 1918 moved to Beaufort, South Carolina, with his family. Graduating from Beaufort High School at the age of sixteen in 1924, Keyserling attended Columbia University, finishing in 1928 with a major in economics. Keyserling then entered Harvard Law School, receiving his LLB in 1931 and returning to Columbia to pursue a Ph.D. in economics. At Columbia Keyserling taught economics and conducted research for the Rockefeller Foundation while completing all the requirements for his Ph.D., except for his thesis, interrupted when he entered government service in 1933 at the beginning of the New Deal. From 1933 to 1937 Keyserling was the legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Robert F. Wagner while also serving on the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency. As legislative assistant, Keyserling helped draft the National Industry Recovery Act of 1934, the National Housing Act of 1935, the Wagner National Labor Relations Act of 1935, portions of the Social Security Act of 1935, and the U.S. Housing Act of 1937.

Beginning in 1937, Keyserling served in the United States Housing Authority, first as deputy administrator and general counsel, and then as acting administrator. As general counsel of the National Housing Agency, Keyserling drafted legislation reorganizing federal housing into one central agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 1942, as acting administrator of the National Housing Agency, Keyserling supervised the construction of several million units of government financed housing for war workers.

In 1940 Keyserling married Mary Dublin, also a prominent economist. Before their marriage she had been the executive director of the National Consumers League and a professor of economics at Sarah Lawrence College. In 1964, she was appointed director of the Labor Department's Women's Bureau by President Lyndon B. Johnson, serving in that position until the end of his administration in 1969.

From 1946 to 1953, Keyserling served on President Truman's Council of Economic Advisors, first as vice chairman in 1946, then as acting chairman in 1949, and finally, chairman in 1950, a position he held until 1953, the end of the Truman administration. During this time Keyserling helped formulate economic policies that enabled the nation to smoothly adjust from a wartime to a peacetime economy while meeting the country's demands for increased housing and education without inflation.

After leaving government service in 1953, Keyserling practiced as a lawyer and private consulting economist, working with various national organizations, governments, firms, and individuals. In 1971 Keyserling retired to devote his time as president and director of the Conference on Economic Progress (CEP). Founded by Keyserling in 1954, the CEP was a nonprofit research organization dealing with U.S. economic development and national economic policies. As president and director of CEP, Keyserling authored more than thirty-five book-length publications, including The Toll of Rising Interest Rates, The Coming Crisis in Housing, and Full Employment Without Inflation. During this time he also worked on the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978 with U.S. Senator Hubert Humphrey and U.S. Representative Augustus Hawkins. During his life Keyserling was the recipient of various honors and awards, including an award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Social Change and induction into the National Housing Hall of Fame.