John F. Henry, 77, died September 26, 2020, at his home in Kansas City, MO.
He was diagnosed with leukemia in 2012 and was informed in early September 2020 that it had transformed into non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. John elected to forego chemotherapy and to spend his remaining time at home under hospice care.
John was the son of Forrest J. and Beulah R. Henry (née Richard) of Red Hill, PA. He attended Upper Perkiomen High School and graduated from Muhlenberg College in 1965. He subsequently attended McGill University, Montreal, receiving his M.A. in 1967 and his Ph.D. in 1974. He taught at California State University – Sacramento from 1970 through 2003 and thereafter at the University of Missouri – Kansas City until 2014. He finished his academic life as senior scholar at the Levy Economics Institute, Bard College, New York.
John made contributions to heterodox economics, particularly in the fields of history of economic thought, economic history, and political economy. He is the author of two books, John Bates Clark (Macmillan, 1995) and The Making of Neoclassical Economics (Unwin Hyman, 1990; reprinted by Routledge, 2011). He published over 50 journal articles and book reviews in Journal of Economic Issues, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, History of Political Economy, Forum for Social Economics, Review of Social Economy, Review of Political Economy, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, History of Economics Review, and Studi e Note di Economia. He also contributed articles to ten books of collected essays.
The CSUS School of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies awarded Dr. Henry the Outstanding Teacher Award in 1998 and the Outstanding Service Award in 2003. In 2001 he was selected by the university to deliver the John C. Livingston Annual Faculty Lecture, the highest honor bestowed by the faculty of that institution.
John served various economics associations for many years, including as president of the Association for Institutional Thought, member of the Steering Committee of the International Confederation of Association for Pluralism in Economics, and member of the editorial boards of Forum for Social Economics and Journal of Economic Issues. More important than his published work was his role as educator. His main objective in his teaching career was to help liberate the minds of students from the shackles of conventional thought.
John was married to Charlene Heinen, originally from Loose Creek, MO, for 41 years. He has two daughters, Jennifer Woods (Tom) and Leith Henry, both of Sacramento, CA, from a previous marriage to Barbara Henry (née Brode) of Sumneytown, PA. Predeceasing Dr. Henry were his parents and two sisters, Mary Jane Maley and Georgianna Kressly.
Commemorative donations may be made to the Frederic S. Lee Heterodox Economics Scholarship Fund, in care of the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, Kansas City, MO (https://gkccfonlinedonations.org/give/leeh00.asp).
Dr. John F. Henry Ph.D. died at home with family in Kansas City on September 26, 2020 after a long illness. John spent most of his career as a professor of economics at California State University, Sacramento, beginning in 1970 as an Assistant Professor and retiring as Professor Emeritus 2004. He also spent more than a decade as a valued member of the faculty in the Department of Economics at the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC). John first came to UMKC for the 2001-2002 academic year as a Visiting Professor of Economics and Visiting Fellow of the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability. After retiring from Sacramento State, he moved to UMKC to serve as a Visiting Professor in 2004, a position he held until 2014. After leaving UMKC John continued to teach as a Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.
Born in Red Hill, PA, John earned an A.B. from Muhlenberg College in 1965, and studied economics as a graduate student at McGill University, earning the M.A. degree in 1967 and a Ph.D. in 1974. John’s doctoral dissertation John Bates Clark and the Origins of Neoclassical Economics was completed under the supervision of the eminent Post Keynesian economist Athanasios "Tom" Asimakopulos.
Dr. Henry’s research focused on the history of economic thought, economic history, and political economy. He was the author of two books, The Making of Neoclassical Economics (Unwin Hyman, 1990; repr., Routledge, 2011) and John Bates Clark (Macmillan, 1995). He also published more than 50 articles in academic journals and numerous book chapters.
Dr. Henry won many teaching, research, and service awards during his career, and was the recipient of the 2016 Veblen-Commons Award from the Association for Evolutionary Economics. The Veblen-Commons Award is presented annually by the Association for Evolutionary Economics in recognition of outstanding scholarly contributions to the field of evolutionary institutional economics and is the association’s highest honor. Recipients of this prestigious award include Gardiner Means, Gunnar Myrdal, John Kenneth Galbraith, Robert Heilbroner, and Hyman Minsky. A festschrift in Dr. Henry’s honor, Marx, Veblen, and the Foundations of Heterodox Economics: Essays in Honor of John F. Henry, was published in 2015 (Tae-Hee Jo and Frederic S. Lee editors, Routledge).
Dr. Henry influenced generations of students. Among the undergraduate students he mentored and guided to careers as academic economists are L. Randall Wray and Stephanie (Bell) Kelton. One of his earliest students, while teaching as a graduate student at McGill University, was Mario Seccareccia. John was an enormously popular teacher and advisor at UMKC, and an important member of the Economics faculty at UMKC when the department became internationally known as a center for heterodox economics. Both undergraduate and graduate students eagerly sought out Dr. Henry’s classes, and he was remarkably generous with his time, often spending hours each day meeting with students. In high demand as an advisor for doctoral students, he served on dozens of dissertation committees at UMKC, and often played a crucial role in patiently guiding students to successful completion of their research.
A passionate advocate for the rights of working people and oppressed people everywhere, he was a fierce critic of the role that economics and economists often play in rationalizing and perpetuating injustice. His loss is deeply felt by his former students, colleagues, friends, and family, but his legacy lives on in those of us whose research, teaching, and understanding of economics continues to be shaped by him. (Source: Professor Erik Olsen, Chair of UMKC Economics Department)
On September 26, 2020, Senior Scholar John F. Henry passed away after a brief illness. As a longtime associate and professor in the graduate programs, Henry was a mentor and a friend to many at the Institute. Born in Red Hill, PA, Henry earned an A.B. from Muhlenberg College in 1965, and studied economics as a graduate student at McGill University, earning an M.A. degree in 1967 and a Ph.D. in 1974. Spending most of his career as a professor of economics at California State University, Sacramento, he was also on the faculty in the University of Missouri–Kansas City’s (UMKC) Department of Economics for more than a decade. Henry joined the Levy Institute Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy’s faculty during its inaugural year, offering his history of economic thought lectures to several cohorts of graduate students. In 2016, Henry won the prestigious Veblen-Commons Award from the Association for Evolutionary Economics in recognition of his outstanding scholarly contributions to evolutionary institutional economics and a festschrift was published in his honor in 2015 (Jo and Lee eds., Routledge). He was also a highly appreciated lecturer in the Institute’s Minsky Summer Seminar, where he annually opined on the relation between Veblen and Minsky. Former students will remember it as heavily influenced by his unique appreciation of Veblen, although much to the satisfaction of the organizers, his last presentation managed to include the institutional linkage to Minsky. As the Levy expert in the history of economic and political thought, he was an avid collector of books on the subject, filling most of the basement of his house, which was shared by an impressive model train set that most visitors found more interesting than the books. He leaves behind his wife and daughters, as well as all who had the honor of knowing him, learning from him, and spending time with him. (Source: Levy Economics Institute)