Joseph Frazier Wall (July 10, 1920 in Des Moines, Iowa – October 9, 1995) was an American historian and professor of history at Grinnell College.^[1]

He was born in Des Moines, and graduated in from Grinnell in 1941.^[1] He gained an MA from Harvard University and a PhD from Columbia University.^[2] He joined Grinnell in 1947. He took a leave of absence in the late 1980s to be chairman of the History Department at the State University of New York in Albany. He retired as Professor Emeritus in 1990.^[1]

His biography of Andrew Carnegie won the Bancroft Prize in 1971,^[1] and was recommended by Charlie Munger in his book Poor Charlie's Almanack. His biography on the Du Pont family was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.^[2]

He married Beatrice Mills Wall (1918–2012); they had three children.^[1]

Books

• Henry Watterson: Reconstructed Rebel, 1956, Oxford University Press
• Andrew Carnegie, 1970, Oxford University Press
• Skibo, 1984, Oxford University Press
• The Andrew Carnegie Reader, 1992, University of Pittsburgh Press
• Alfred I. Du Pont; The Man and His Family, 1990, Oxford University Press