Henry Clay Dethloff is a professor emeritus of history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 at Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas . It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The sixth-largest university in the United States, A&M's enrollment for Fall 2011 was over 50,000 for the first time in school...

 in College Station

College Station, Texas

College Station is a city in Brazos County, Texas, situated in East Central Texas in the heart of the Brazos Valley. The city is located within the most populated region of Texas, near three of the 10 largest cities in the United States - Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio...

 who has written more than two dozen books on topics ranging from the space program to agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

, American business

Business

A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

, and Texas A&M itself, the institution with which he was primarily affiliated during his long academic career.

Background

Dethloff, the son of Carl Curt Dethloff (1900–1977) and the former Camelia Jordan (1907–2000), was born in New Orleans

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...

 and reared in Natchitoches

Natchitoches, Louisiana

Natchitoches is a city in and the parish seat of Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. Established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis as part of French Louisiana, the community was named after the Natchitoches Indian tribe. The City of Natchitoches was first incorporated on February...

, an historic city in north central Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

. His brother was Carl Richard "Dick" Dethloff (1929–2007), a graduate of Kansas State University

Kansas State University

Kansas State University, commonly shortened to K-State, is an institution of higher learning located in Manhattan, Kansas, in the United States...

 in Manhattan

Manhattan, Kansas

Manhattan is a city located in the northeastern part of the state of Kansas in the United States, at the junction of the Kansas River and Big Blue River. It is the county seat of Riley County and the city extends into Pottawatomie County. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 52,281...

, Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

, who became a prominent insurance

Insurance

In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...

 agent in Shreveport

Shreveport, Louisiana

Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....

. Dethloff also has a sister, Cammie D. Girand.

Dethloff graduated in 1952 from Natchitoches High School

Natchitoches Central High School

Natchitoches Central High School is a public high school in Natchitoches, Louisiana, United States. It is a part of the Natchitoches Parish School Board....

, renamed Natchitoches Central High School after desegregation

Desegregation

Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups usually referring to races. This is most commonly used in reference to the United States. Desegregation was long a focus of the American Civil Rights Movement, both before and after the United States Supreme Court's decision in...

. He received his Bachelor of Arts

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 degree from the University of Texas at Austin

Austin, Texas

Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

 in 1956, his Master of Arts

Master of Arts (postgraduate)

A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 from Northwestern State University

Northwestern State University

Northwestern State University, known as NSU, is a four-year public university primarily situated in Natchitoches, Louisiana, with a nursing campus in Shreveport and general campuses in Leesville/Fort Polk and Alexandria. It is a part of the University of Louisiana System.NSU was founded in 1884 as...

 in Natchitoches in 1960, and his Ph.D.

Ph.D.

A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 from the University of Missouri

University of Missouri

The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...

 in Columbia

Columbia, Missouri

Columbia is the fifth-largest city in Missouri, and the largest city in Mid-Missouri. With a population of 108,500 as of the 2010 Census, it is the principal municipality of the Columbia Metropolitan Area, a region of 164,283 residents. The city serves as the county seat of Boone County and as the...

, Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

, in 1964. He joined the TAMU faculty in 1969 and served as the department chairman from 1980 to 1985. From 1962-1968, he was, respectively, an instructor, assistant professor, and associate professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, or UL Lafayette, is a coeducational, public research university located in Lafayette, Louisiana, in the heart of Acadiana...

 in Lafayette

Lafayette, Louisiana

Lafayette is a city in and the parish seat of Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, United States, on the Vermilion River. The population was 120,623 at the 2010 census...

, then known as the University of Southwestern Louisiana.

Dethloff and his wife, the former Myrtle Anne Elliott, married on August 27, 1961. The couples resides in College Station. They have two sons, Carl Henry Dethloff and Clay Elliott Dethloff.

Publications

One of his most publicized works is A Pictorial History of Texas A & M: A Tradition in Higher Education, which was published as two titles in 1975: A Pictorial History of Texas A & M University: 1876-1976 (TAMU Press) and A Centennial History of Texas A & M University: 1876-1976 (the Association of Former Students in conjunction with TAMU Press). In the A&M history, he attributes much of the expansion of the institution and the introduction of women as students to the work of State Senator William T. "Bill" Moore

William T. Moore (Texas politician)

William Tyler Moore, Sr., known as W. T. 'Bill' Moore , was an attorney and businessman in Bryan, Texas, who was a conservative Democratic member of the Texas State Senate from District 5 from 1967 until 1981.Moore originally represented District 14 from 1949 to 1953 and then revised District 11...

, who served in the upper chamber of the legislature from 1949 to 1981.

Dethloff's other books include:

• The United States and the Global Economy Since 1945
• Texas Aggies Go to War: In Service to Their Country (with John A. Adams, Jr.)
• Voyagers Grand Tour: To the Outer Planets and Beyond (with Joli A. Ballew, 2003, includes access to the archives of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
• Suddenly Tomorrow Came: A History of the Johnson Space Center
• A Bookmark: Texas A&M University Press
• Our Louisiana Legacy (an examination at how Louisiana culture has affected the nation)
• Special Kind of Doctor: A History of Veterinary Medicine in Texas
• Southwestern Agriculture: Pre-Columbian to Modern
• Pattillo Higgins and the Search for Texas Oil (with Robert W. McDaniel)
• Sterling C. Evans: Life, Learning, and Literature.

Dethloff has established extensive archives of his publication materials at the Sterling C. Evans Library at TAMU. He has been affiliated with Phi Kappa Phi

Phi Kappa Phi

The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi is an honor society established 1897 to recognize and encourage superior scholarship without restriction as to area of study and to promote the "unity and democracy of education"...

, Sigma Chi

Sigma Chi

Sigma Chi is the largest and one of the oldest college Greek-letter secret and social fraternities in North America with 244 active chapters and more than . Sigma Chi was founded on June 28, 1855 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio when members split from Delta Kappa Epsilon...

, and the Texas State

Texas State Historical Association

The Texas State Historical Association or abbreviated TSHA, is a non-profit educational organization, dedicated to documenting the rich and unique history of Texas. It was founded on March 2, 1897. As of November 2008, TSHA moved from Austin to the University of North Texas in Denton.The executive...

, the Louisiana

Louisiana Historical Association

The Louisiana Historical Association is an organization of professional historians and interested laypersons dedicated to the preservation, publication, and dissemination of the history of the U.S. state of Louisiana, with particular emphasis at the inception on territorial, statehood, and the...

, Agriculture, and Economic history associations.