William Willard Wirtz was a former U.S. administrator, cabinet officer, attorney, and law professor. He served as the Secretary of Labor between 1962 and 1969 under the administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Wirtz was born at DeKalb, Illinois. He attended Northern Illinois University while at home, where he became a brother of Alpha Phi Omega. While a student at Beloit College, he met his wife, Jane Quisenberry. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1937 and was immediately appointed to the faculty of the University of Iowa College of Law by the Dean of the... Law School Wiley B. Rutledge. Wirtz was a professor of law at Northwestern University from 1939 to 1942. He served with the War Labor Board from 1943 to 1945, and was chairman of the National Wage Stabilization Board in 1946. Wirtz returned to teach law at Northwestern until 1954. His students included future U.S. Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens, whom Wirtz recommended for what became his 1947–48 clerkship with Justice Rutledge.
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