Historian arthur schlesinger wikipedia

American historian (–)

"Arthur M. Schlesinger" redirects here. For his son, see Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

Arthur Meier Schlesinger (SHLESS-in-jər; February 27, &#;– October 30, ) was an American historian who taught at Harvard University, pioneering social history and urban history.

He was a Gradual Era intellectual who stressed material causes (such as economic earnings and conflict between businessmen and farmers) and downplayed ideology and values as motivations for historical actors.

Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. The son of the formative historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. In particular, his work focused on leaders such as Harry S.

He was highly formative as a director of PhD dissertations at Harvard for three decades, especially in the fields of social, women's, and immigration history. His son, Arthur M. Schlesinger&#;Jr. (–), also taught at Harvard and was a noted historian.

Life and career

Schlesinger's father, Bernhard Schlesinger, was a Prussian Jew, and his mother, Kate (née Feurle), was an Austrian Catholic. The two converted to Protestantism together and emigrated to Xenia, Ohio, in ^[1][2]

He was born in Xenia, Ohio, and graduated from Ohio State University in While a student at Ohio State, he was initiated into the Ohio Zeta chapter of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity.^[3] He got his PhD in history at Columbia University, where he was influenced by both Herbert L.

Osgood and Charles A. Beard. He taught at Ohio State and the University of Iowa before he joined the faculty of Harvard University as a professor of history in , succeeded Frederick Jackson Turner and taught at Harvard until Harvard's Schlesinger Library in women's history is named after him and his wife, Elizabeth, a noted feminist.

He became an editor of the New England Quarterly in That same year, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[4] He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in ^[5]

In Boston in , city officials, under the leadership of James Curley, threatened to arrest Margaret Sanger if she spoke on birth manage.

Arthur Meier Schlesinger (/ ˈ ʃ l ɛ s ɪ n dʒ ər / SHLESS-in-jər; February 27, – October 30, ) was an American historian who taught at Harvard University, pioneering social history and urban history.

In response, she stood on stage, silent with a gag over her mouth, while her speech was read by Schlesinger.^[6][7]

He enjoyed strong family ties and commitment. His two sisters, Olga and Marion Etna, became schoolteachers and made it doable for their three younger brothers (George, Arthur, and Hugo) to attend college graduating in engineering, history and law.

One of his sons was born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger and replaced his middle name with "Meier," adding Jr., later in life.

Schlesinger died at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.^[8]

Ideas

He pioneered social history and urban history.

He was a Progressive Era intellectual who stressed material causes (like economic profit) and downplayed ideology and values as motivations for historical actors. He was highly influential as a director of PhD dissertations at Harvard for three decades, especially in the fields of social, women's, and immigration history.^[9] He commented in , "From reading history in textbooks one would reflect half of our population made only a negligible contribution to history."^[10] He promoted social history by co-editing the volume History of American Life (–) series with Dixon Ryan Fox.

These thick volumes, written by principal young scholars, mostly avoid politics, individuals, and constitutional issues.

Arthur Schlesinger - Wikipedia: Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. (/ ˈʃlɛsɪndʒər / SHLESS-in-jər; born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger; October 15, – February 28, ) was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual.

They instead focus on such topics as society, demographics, economic, housing, fashion, sports, education, and cultural life.^[11]

In "Tides of American Politics," a provocative essay in the Yale Review in , he presented his cyclical view of history which identified irregular oscillations between liberal and conservative national moods, but it attracted few historians apart from his son.

Schlesinger introduced the plan of polling historians to rank presidential greatness, which attracted much attention.

In an essay on "The Significance of Jacksonian Democracy" (in New Viewpoints in American History ()), Schlesinger drew attention to the fact that "while democracy was working out its destiny in the forests of the Mississippi Valley, the men left behind in the eastern cities were engaging in a struggle to establish conditions of equality and social well-being adapted to their special circumstances."

As a historian of the climb of the city in American life, he argued that for a full understanding of the Jacksonian democratic movement: "It is necessary to consider the changed circumstances of life of the common man in the modern industrial centers of the East since the opening years of the nineteenth century." That was a challenge to the frontier thesis of his Harvard colleague Frederick Jackson Turner.

In Schlesinger's essay, the common man of the Mississippi Valley and the common man of eastern industrialism stood uneasily side by side. Schlesinger characterized prejudice against Catholics as "the deepest bias in the history of the American people".^[12]

Schlesinger and his students took a group approach to history, sharply downplaying the role of individuals.

Groups were defined by ethnicity (Germans, Irish, Jews, Italians, Hispanics, etc.) or by class (working class, middle class). Their model was that the urban environment, including the interaction with other groups, shaped their history and group outlook in deterministic fashion.^[13]

Works

• The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, –online
• "The American Revolution Reconsidered," Political Science Quarterly, Vol.

  34, No. 1 (Mar., ), pp.

online

• New Viewpoints in American History, historiographical essays online
• Political and Social Growth of the American People, –, with Homer C. Hockett; college textbook in numerous editions
• Political and Social History of the United States, –; The Macmillan Company, New York
• "A Critical Period in American Religion, –," Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 64 (–32) pp: –
• The Rise of the City, –online
• The Colonial Newspapers and the Stamp ActJSTOR&#;
• "The City in American History: Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol.

  27, No. 1 (Jun., ), pp. 43–66 JSTOR&#;, highly formative article

• "Patriotism Names the Baby," New England Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Dec., ), pp.&#;– JSTOR&#;
• "Biography of a Nation of Joiners," American Historical Review, Vol.

  50, No. 1 (Oct., ), pp.&#;1–25 JSTOR&#;

• Learning How to Behave: A Historical Examine of American Etiquette Books
• Paths to the Present
• The soar of modern America, online
• Prelude to Independence: The Newspaper War on Britain, –online
• The American As Reformer.
• "A Note on Songs as Patriot Propaganda –," William and Mary Quarterly Vol.

  11, No. 1 (Jan., ), pp.&#;78–88 JSTOR&#;

• "Political Mobs and the American Revolution, –," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society' Vol. 99, No. 4 (Aug. 30, ), pp.&#;– JSTOR&#;
• In Retrospect: The History of a Historian, autobiography online
• Birth of the Nation: A Portrait of the American People on the Eve of Independenceonline

See also

References

Further reading

• McDonald, Terrence J. (). "Theory and Practice in the 'New' History: Rereading Arthur Meier Schlesinger's The Rise of the City, –".

  Reviews in American History. 20 (3): – doi/ JSTOR&#;

• Bruce M. Stave, ed. (), The Making of Urban History: Historiography through Oral History; at Google Books

Primary sources

External links