A. Ross Eckler

Who was A. Ross Eckler?

Albert Ross Eckler served as Deputy Director of the United States Census Bureau from 1949 to 1965, and its Director from 1965 until 1969. He was the first career employee ever to become director of the agency.

Eckler was born in Van Hornesville, New York in 1901 and lived on a farm until he attended Hamilton College. He then earned a master's degree and a PhD at Harvard University in 1934. Eckler joined Census Bureau in 1939 as chief of the economic statistics in the Population Division. He then became assistant chief of the Population Division and then the Special Surveys Division and chief social scientist. In 1949 he became Deputy Director and in 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him director. He worked as director until 1969 and later died in Maryland in 1991.

He authored The Bureau of the Census, and was president of the American Statistical Association. He is also the father of logologist and centenarian researcher A. Ross Eckler, Jr.