Juanita Morris Kreps (born 1921) was an economist, university professor, U.S. secretary of commerce (1977-79), and author of several books about women, the aged, and economics. She was the fourth woman to serve in an American presidential cabinet and the first to become Secretary of Commerce.

Juanita Morris Kreps was born in Lynch, Kentucky, on January 11, 1921, the daughter of a coal mine operator. Her parents were divorced, and she remembered a childhood of poverty and unhappiness. She worked her way through Berea College and graduated as a Phi Beta Kappa economics major in 1942. During the next six years she won a scholarship to Duke University, received her Ph.D., and married Clifton H. Kreps, Jr., an economist. She followed her husband to various academic positions, teaching part-time at Denison and Hofstra universities and at Queens College. In 1955 she returned to Duke as a part-time instructor. She co-authored an...