Eaton was born in
Nuremberg, Germany, the son of Jakob Wechsler and Flora Wechsler (née Goldschmidt). His father owned a shaving brush factory. When the business failed following the stock market crash, the family moved to Berlin, in 1930. After the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Joseph's parents arranged for him and a younger brother to emigrate to the United States by themselves, with the assistance of the
German Jewish Children's Aid program; By that time he had changed his last name to Eaton (the name of his foster family), out of concern for the safety of his parents, who were then living in the Netherlands, under Nazi occupation. They were killed in
Sobibór in 1943. Eaton graduated from
Cornell University in 1940, and completed his Ph.D. in sociology at
Columbia University in 1948. He spent most of his professional career at the
University of Pittsburgh, where he was appointed professor of social work research in the School of Social Work in 1959. He is credited with the creation of a masters of social work research major there, and, in the 1980s, organized the dual degree program between Pitt's School of Social Work and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. ==References==