Thomas Sowell – Bio, Wife, Net Worth, Life Achievements and Family

The American-born economist Thomas Sowell is a man of great academic achievement. He is an erudite scholar and has written several books during his career. He was also a university professor for many years. As a nationally syndicated columnist, he influenced cultural conversations across the United States for 25 years.

Sowell’s immense contributions to economics, political science and history have earned him a National Humanities Medal including several other honors. He is a self-proclaimed libertarian although he disagrees with the libertarianism movement on a number of issues. On a personal level, Sowell is known to be very passionate about photography, a hobby he picked up as a teenager and continues to practice to this day.

Thomas Sowell Bio, Age

Thomas Sowell was born on June 30, 1930 in Gastonia, North Carolina. His mother worked as a servant and he had 4 older siblings on his own side of the family. His father died shortly before he was born and as a result he was adopted by a great-aunt who raised him with the help of her daughters. At age 9, his family moved to Harlem, New York, where he spent most of his childhood and adolescence. He attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan but was forced to leave school at age 17 due to financial constraints. Subsequently, he worked as a salesman, delivery man and also a photographer.

In 1951, 21-year-old Sowell enlisted in the military and was assigned to serve with the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. After his release from the force, he got a white-collar job in Washington D.C., and also started taking night classes at Howard University. Due to his high scores in college exams and the recommendation of two of his professors, Sowell was admitted to Harvard University to study economics. He graduated in 1958 and went on to study at Columbia University. Sowell bagged his doctorate in 1968 from the University of Chicago where he studied with future Nobel laureate George Stigler.

life achievements

Thomas Sowell was an assistant professor of economics at Cornell University between 1965 and 1969. He also taught economics at several other colleges, including Howard University, Rutgers University, Brandeis University, Amherst College, and the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1980 he became a Fellow of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.

He is the author of several books and is also a syndicated columnist. His writings are based primarily on economics with the inclusion of history, ethnicity, and social politics. He has often been praised for the originality, great depth, clarity of expression and thoroughness of research in many of his writings.

One of Sowell’s most notable Knowledge and Decisions publications won the 1980 Law and Economics Center Prize. He had a nationally syndicated column which was distributed by Creators Syndicate and published on Forbes magazine, as well as major newspapers like The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, The New York Post and also on digital media. He retired from writing this popular column in December 2016 after writing it for two and a half decades.

Thomas Sowell received several honors in the course of his long career. In 1980 he received the Francis Boyer Award from the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. He received the Sydney Hook Prize from the National Association of Scholars in 1998. In 2002, Sowell received the National Medal of Humanities from US President George Bush for his prolific work in combining history, economics and political science.

He received the Bradley Prize for Intellectual Achievement in 2003 and the following year he received the Lysander Spooner Prize from the online booksellers laissez faire books (LFB) for his book Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond the First Step

wife and family

Thomas Sowell and his wife Mary M. Ash has been married since 1981. Although there is not much information about her in the media, she is known to be a lawyer. Prior to the aforementioned marital union, Sowell was married to Alma Jean Parr. Their marriage lasted about 11 years between 1964 and 1975. He has two children; a son and a daughter.

Net value

Sowell is known to have had a successful career as a writer, college professor, and other profitable business ventures. It is widely believed that he has a favorable financial situation after several decades of hard work and dedication to his career, but his net worth is still unknown as it is currently under consideration.