Juanita Kreps was a Duke vice president and professor of economics when she became Secretary of Commerce – the first and only woman appointed to President Jimmy Carter’s cabinet, serving from 1977 to 1979.
Her Los Angeles Times obituary in 2010 quoted Duke colleague Craufurd Goodwin, who was James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Economics, as saying about her appointment, “It was an unusual appointment, since most Commerce secretaries at that time were businessmen who just wanted that line on their resume … she wasn’t in the inner circle in Washington, but she was very self-confident and didn’t take any nonsense from anybody.”
In the Carter administration, she actively promoted international trade, initiating an agreement with China in 1979.
Kreps had joined Duke’s Department of Economics in 1963, after serving on the faculties at Denison University, Hofstra University and Queens College. She became the James B. Duke Professor of Economics in 1972. At Duke, Kreps also served as dean of the Woman’s College and assistant provost (1969-72) and became vice president in 1973.
Kreps often wrote about issues facing women in the workplace, including equal pay and flexible schedules. A University of Chicago Press journal review in 1973 wrote about her book “Sex in the Marketplace: American Women at Work” (1971): “It is not a statistical handbook for the women’s liberation movement, but it might as well serve this function.”
The New York Times quoted Kreps about why she chose the field of economics: “Our generation grew up with the Depression and World War II, and economic affairs were very much in the front of our minds as college students. I felt economics would give me more insight into what was going on.”
