Under the threat of Nazi persecution for his devastating critique of socialism and fascism, Ludwig von Mises emigrated to America in 1940. By the end of the 1940s, Mises writings had elevated him to the leading figure in Austrian economics in the 20th century. Through their participation with the Foundation of Economic Education, Mises’s work came to the attention of J. Howard Pew, chairman of the Board of Trustees of Grove City College. Seeing the compatibility of Mises’s economics with a Christian worldview, Pew became a supporter of Mises and his scholarship. When Pew sought to hire an economist to head the department at GCC, he consulted Mises who recommended his young protégé, Hans Sennholz. In 1955, Sennholz became the first of four students to earn a Ph.D. in economics under Mises at New York University. Pew hired Sennholz in 1956 and under his direction, Grove City College became the world’s leading undergraduate institution for the study of Austrian economics. At commencement the following year, the College conferred an honorary doctorate degree on Mises. At Sennohlz’s invitation, Mises lectured on campus several times during the 1960s.
Sennholz and his wife, Mary, had a warm personal relationship with Mises and his wife, Margit. In 1955, Margit became godmother to the Sennholzes’ son, Robert. In 1957, Mary Sennholz edited a festschrift commemorating the 50th anniversary of the awarding of Mises’ doctorate degree.
Five years after Mises died in 1973, his widow, Margit von Mises, sought out their friend, Hans Sennholz, to make GCC permanent home to his papers and library. On behalf of the College, Sennholz gratefully accepted custody of the papers and hoped that Mises’s library would wind up at a graduate program where students would be capable of benefiting from it. The 20,000-page Mises Archive at GCC has been the source of four books of his previously unpublished manuscripts. At the end of 2024, the Mises Archive was fully digitized. In 2025, scholars from anywhere in the world will be able to access its pages. By facilitating interest in the life and work of Mises, the archive may help foster further research in and advance of Misesian economics.
After 36 years as chairman of the department of economics at the College, Sennholz retired in 1992. During his tenure, Sennholz taught economics to more than 10,000 undergraduates. He even managed to mentor a handful of Ph.D. students in economics. The tradition he established at GCC still flourishes. The Master of Arts in Economics program is the next step in Grove City College’s place in the development of Austrian economics. Its success has been made possible because of the tremendous growth of the community of scholars in Austrian economics since Sennholz and Pew began the College’s tradition 70 years ago.