Henry Clay Dethloff (born August 10, 1934) is professor of History Emeritus at Texas A&M University in College Station who has written more than two dozen books on topics ranging from the space program to agriculture, American business, and Texas A&M itself, the institution with which he was primarily affiliated during his academic career.
Dethloff, the son of Carl Curt Dethloff (1900—1977) and the former Camelia Jordan (1907—2000), grew up in Natchitoches, an historic city in north central Louisiana. His brother was Carl Richard "Dick" Dethloff (1929—2007), a graduate of Kansas State University in Manhattan who became a prominent insurance agent in Shreveport. Dethloff also has a sister, Cammie D. Girand.
Dethloff graduated in 1952 from Natchitoches High School, renamed Natchitoches Central High School after desegregation. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1956, his Master of Arts from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches in 1960, and his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri in Columbia in 1964. He joined the TAMU faculty in 1969 and served as the department chairman from 1980 to 1985.
One of his most publicized works is A Pictorial History of Texas A & M: A Tradition in Higher Education, which was published as two titles in 1975: A Pictorial History of Texas A & M University: 1876-1976 (TAMU Press) and A Centennial History of Texas A & M University: 1876-1976 (the Association of Former Students in conjunction with TAMU Press).
Dethloff's other books include:
The United States and the Global Economy Since 1945
Texas Aggies Go to War: In Service to Their Country (with John A. Adams, Jr.)
Voyagers Grand Tour: To the Outer Planets and Beyond (with Joli A. Ballew, 2003, includes access to the archives of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
Suddenly Tomorrow Came: A History of the Johnson Space Center
A Bookmark: Texas A&M University Press
Our Louisiana Legacy (an examination at how Louisiana culture has affected the nation)
Special Kind of Doctor: A History of Veterinary Medicine in Texas
Southwestern Agriculture: Pre-Columbian to Modern
Pattillo Higgins and the Search for Texas Oil (with Robert W. McDaniel)
Sterling C. Evans: Life, Learning, and Literature.
Dethloff has established extensive archives of his publication materials at the Sterling C. Evans Library at TAMU.
Dethloff and his wife, Myrtle Ann Dethloff, reside in College Station. They have two married sons, Carl Henry Dethloff and Clay Elliott Dethloff.