Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Wall, Joseph Frazier
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
- Joe Wall
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1920-1995
History
Joseph Frazier Wall was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1920 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Grinnell College in 1941. He received his M.A. at Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Columbia University, both in American history. He joined the Grinnell faculty in 1947 and served as Chair of the Faculty from 1966-70 and as Dean of the College from 1969-73 under President Leggett. After a few years away from Grinnell, Wall returned in 1980 as the first Rosenfield Professor and as Director of the Rosenfield Program in Public Affairs. He retired as professor emeritus of history in 1990.
Wall was a noted author; among his best-known books were Andrew Carnegie (1970); Iowa: a history (1978); and Alfred I. DuPont (1990). At the time of his death in 1995 he was writing a comprehensive history of Grinnell College as part of the College's Sesquicentennial celebration; the book was posthumously published in 1997.