Charles Moskos - Biography

Biography

Moskos was born May 20, 1934, in Chicago, Illinois to Greek immigrant parents from southern Albania (Northern Epirus). In his book Greek Americans: Struggle and Success, which he jokingly called "his bestseller" bought only by Greek Americans, he recalled that his father, christened Photios, adopted the name Charles after pulling it out of a hat full of "slips with appropriately American-sounding first names."

Charles Moskos attended Princeton University, where he graduated cum laude in 1956, on tuition scholarship and waited tables to pay for room and board. He was drafted into the U.S. Army right after graduation in 1956. Moskos served with the Army's combat engineers in Germany where he wrote his first article, "Has the Army Killed Jim Crow?" for the Negro History Bulletin. After leaving the military, he enrolled at UCLA, where he earned his master's and doctoral degrees in 1963.