Leverett S. (Leverett Samuel) Lyon

Born in 1885, Leverett Samuel Lyon was an American economist, lawyer, and business executive whose writing ranged across education, marketing, government, and economic organization. He studied at Beloit College, Kent College of Law, and the University of Chicago, building a career that moved between academic research and practical public affairs.

Lyon taught economics at several institutions, including the University of Chicago, Washington University, and the Robert Brookings Graduate School of Economics and Government. He became known for clear, wide-ranging studies of business and policy, and for books such as Education for Business, Salesmen in Marketing Strategy, and The National Recovery Administration: An Analysis and Appraisal.

His career reflects a time when economists were deeply engaged with the big institutional questions of modern life: how markets work, how businesses organize themselves, and how government responds in moments of crisis. He died in 1959, leaving behind a body of work that still offers a window into American economic thought in the first half of the twentieth century.