Graves, W. Brooke

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W. Brooke Graves (May 4, 1899 – September 3, 1973) was a professor of political science at Temple University, Philadelphia, from 1925 to 1941 and also chair of the department. He earned his Ph.D. in 1936 from the University of Pennsylvania. During his career, he wrote, edited, and compiled about thirty books.

He is best known to students of federalism for his monumental text, American Intergovernmental Relations (1964), but he was often known as “Mr. State Government” because of the several editions of his textbook, American State Government (1936). Graves’ work on federalism focused mainly on cooperative federalism and intergovernmental relations.

During 1933-35, Graves chaired the Pennsylvania Commission for Constitutional Revision. He left Temple University in 1941 to serve as a director of recruitment for the U.S. Civil Service Commission. He was appointed chief of the State Law Section in the Library of Congress’s Legislative Reference Service (LRS) in 1946 and then chief of the Government Division in 1951. He retired in 1969 as a member of the LRS Senior Specialist Division. He served as an adjunct professor of political science at American University during 1949-1973.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: W. Brooke Graves, American Intergovernmental Relations: Their Origins, Historical Development, and Current Status (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1964); W. Brooke Graves, ed., Major Problems in State Constitutional Revision (Chicago: Public Administration Service, 1960); W. Brooke Graves, Public Administration in a Democratic Society (Boston: D.C. Heath, 1950); W. Brooke Graves, Anti-Discrimination Legislation in the American States (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1948); W. Brooke Graves, ed., “Intergovernmental Relations in the United States,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 207 (January 1940); W. Brooke Graves, “Public Reporting in the American States,” Public Opinion Quarterly 2, No. 2 (April 1938): 211-228; W. Brooke Graves, “Influence of Congressional Legislation on Legislation in the States,” Iowa Law Review 23, No.4 (1937-38): 519-538; W. Brooke Graves, “The Future of the American States,” American Political Science Review 30, No. 1 (February 1936): 24-50; W. Brooke Graves, Uniform State Action: A Possible Substitute for Centralization (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934, 2013).

John Kincaid

January 2022