Henry Steele Commager
Prolific liberal historian and public intellectual
Henry Steele Commager was an American historian born October 25, 1902 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[1][2] At age ninety-five, Commager passed away from pneumonia on March 2, 1998, in Amherst.[1]
Quick Facts
- Birth name
- Henry Irving Commager
- Born
- 25 October 1902
- Birthplace
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
- Died
- 2 March 1998
- Place of death
- Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S.
- Thesis year
- 1928
- Influences
- Andrew C. McLaughlin, Vernon Louis Parrington
- Discipline
- History
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
Commager was raised by his maternal grandfather in Chicago after his mother died when he was ten.[2] Commager married Evan Alexa Carroll in 1928, and the couple had three children.[3] He taught at New York University from 1926 to 1939, at Columbia University from 1939 to 1956, and at Amherst College from 1956 to 1992.[4] His anthology Documents of American History (1938) reached its tenth edition in 1988.[5]
He preferred to devise sweeping interpretations of history while making primary sources available for public study.[1] Commager held the view that a populace educated in American history would back liberal initiatives such as the New Deal.[1]
What the cited sources add
Bernstein's review notes that Commager was probably the most famous historian of his time and a highly respected participant in public debate.[6] Jumonville's biography shows Commager brought together the two worlds of scholarship and public intellectual activity.[6] Commager scorned gaps separating professional and general audiences, rejecting the idea a historian had to choose between scholarship and public discourse.[6] Jumonville chronicles Commager's courageous stand against blacklisting in the 1940s and 1950s, undertaken at personal risk.[6]
Commager showed enthusiasm for Adlai Stevenson in the 1950s and for John, Robert, and Edward Kennedy in the 1960s and 1970s.[6] Jumonville's book devotes surprisingly little attention to Commager's activism during the Watergate crisis of 1973-1974.[6]
References
- Wikipedia, "Henry Steele Commager" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Jumonville 1999, p. 281 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Henry Steele Commager" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Jumonville 1999, p. 281; Jumonville 1999, p. 281; "Commager Chronology", Amherst College; Jumonville 1999, p. 281 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Henry Steele Commager" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Commager Chronology", Amherst College; Jumonville 1999, p. 281; "Collection: Henry Steele Commager Papers", Amherst College, 2023-03-01; Roots 1994, p. 108 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Henry Steele Commager" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bernstein, "Scholarship and Engagement: Henry Steele Commager as Historian and Public Intellectual", H-Net, 1999; Jumonville 1999, p. 281 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Henry Steele Commager" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Adams 1967, p. 251ff (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Bernstein, "Scholarship and Engagement: Henry Steele Commager as Historian and Public Intellectual", H-Net, 1999. facts only, no text reused. h-net.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Henry Steele Commager (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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