Ensley, Grover Papers

Executive Director, Joint Economic Committee of the Congress, 1951-1957

The papers of Grover W. Ensley contain transcripts and printed materials relating to his work as a member of the staff of the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress.

See also Grover Ensley oral history.

Size: Less than one linear foot (about 1,000 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: The donor gave his copyright interest in these papers to the United States of America. Documents created by U.S. government officials in the course of their duties are also in the public domain. Copyright interest in other documents in the collection presumably belongs to the creators of those documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Erwin J. Mueller (1976); Randy Sowell (2025).

Grover William Ensley was born in Colfax, Washington on April 13, 1915. He attended the University of Washington, earning a B.A. degree in 1937 and a Master of Business Administration degree in 1938. He received a Master’s degree in government management from the University of Denver in 1940, and a Ph.D. degree from New York University in 1947. Ensley worked as a fiscal analyst at the U.S. Bureau of the Budget from 1941 to 1947. From 1947 to 1949, he served as a technical adviser to Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont. In 1949, he became a member of the staff of the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress. Established by the Employment Act of 1946, the Joint Economic Committee was composed of selected members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. It was responsible for evaluating the President’s annual report on the state of the economy and preparing an official response to the report. The Joint Committee also considered various economic problems and recommended Congressional measures to address them.

Ensley served as Deputy Director of the Joint Committee from 1949 to 1951, and as Executive Director from 1951 to 1957. After leaving this position, he served as vice president and then president of the National Association of Mutual Savings Banks. He died in Escondido, California on August 19, 2000.

The papers of Grover W. Ensley contain transcripts and printed materials relating to his work as a member of the staff of the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress. The papers document his service as Deputy Director and, later, Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee (which was also known as the Joint Committee on the Economic Report) during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.

The bulk of the collection consists of transcripts of the Committee’s executive sessions, which were devoted to discussions of the President’s annual economic report, the preparation of an official response to the report, various economic issues, and organizational or procedural matters. The sessions also included meetings with members of several U.S. Senate subcommittees and the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. The transcripts of the executive sessions feature exchanges between members of the Committee and comments by government officials, private economists and financiers, and others who were invited to participate.

The printed materials in the collection include published Congressional reports prepared by the Committee, and articles relating to Ensley’s career and the Employment Act of 1946.