C. Vann Woodward
Encyclopedia
Comer Vann Woodward was a preeminent American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 focusing primarily on the American South and race relations. He was considered, along with Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter was an American public intellectual of the 1950s, a historian and DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University...

 and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr. was an American historian and social critic whose work explored the American liberalism of political leaders including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. A Pulitzer Prize winner, Schlesinger served as special assistant and "court historian"...

, to be one of the most influential historians of the postwar era, 1940s-1970s, both by scholars and by the general public. He was long a supporter of the approach of Charles A. Beard
Charles A. Beard
Charles Austin Beard was, with Frederick Jackson Turner, one of the most influential American historians of the first half of the 20th century. He published hundreds of monographs, textbooks and interpretive studies in both history and political science...

, stressing the influence of unseen economic motivations in politics. Stylistically, he was a master of irony and counterpoint.

Early life and education

C. Vann Woodward was born in Vanndale
Vanndale, Arkansas
Vanndale, Arkansas is an unincorporated community in Searcy Township, Cross County, Arkansas, United States. Vanndale was the county seat of Cross County from 1886 until 1903, when it was moved to the booming railroad town of Wynne. The community was named for John W. Vann, postmaster...

, a town named after his mother's family and the county seat from 1886-1903. It was in Cross County in eastern Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

. Woodward attended high school in Morrilton, Arkansas
Morrilton, Arkansas
Morrilton is a city in Conway County, Arkansas, United States, northwest of Little Rock. The town was home to Harding College, now Harding University of Searcy, Arkansas, for about a decade in the 1920s and 1930s. The population was 6,550 at the 2000 census...

. He attended Henderson-Brown College
Henderson State University
Henderson State University, founded in 1890 as Arkadelphia Methodist College, is a four-year public liberal arts university located in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, United States. It is Arkansas's only member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges...

 a small Methodist school in Arkadelphia
Arkadelphia, Arkansas
Arkadelphia is a city in Clark County, Arkansas, United States. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city was 10,548. The city is the county seat of Clark County. The city is situated at the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains. Two universities, Henderson State...

, for two years. In 1930 he transferred to Emory University
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...

 in Atlanta
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

, Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

, where his uncle was dean of students and professor of sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

. After graduating, he taught English composition for two years at Georgia Tech
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States...

 in Atlanta. There he met Will W. Alexander
Will W. Alexander
Will W. Alexander was chief executive officer of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation as well as the first president of Dillard University. Alexander originally had no desire to become a college president; he was deeply committed to the CIC. However, he was persuaded to become acting...

, head of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, and J. Saunders Redding, an historian at Atlanta University.

Woodward took graduate courses in sociology at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in 1931 where he met, and was influenced by, Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...

, who was associated with the Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...

 movement. In 1932 Woodward worked for the defense of Angelo Herndon
Angelo Herndon
Angelo Braxton Herndon was an African American labor organizer arrested and convicted for insurrection after attempting to organize black industrial workers in 1932 in Atlanta, Georgia...

, a young Communist Party
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....

 member who had been accused of subversive activities. He traveled to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 in 1932.

He did graduate work in history and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 at the University of North Carolina
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...

. He was granted a Ph.D. in history in 1937, using as his dissertation the manuscript he had already finished on Thomas E. Watson
Thomas E. Watson
Thomas Edward "Tom" Watson was an American politician, newspaper editor, and writer from Georgia. In the 1890s Watson championed poor farmers as a leader of the Populist Party, articulating an agrarian political viewpoint while attacking business, bankers, railroads, Democratic President Grover...

. Woodward's dissertation director was Howard K. Beale
Howard K. Beale
Howard Kennedy Beale was an American historian. He specialized in nineteenth and twentieth-century American history, particularly the Reconstruction Era. He also wrote biographies of Theodore Roosevelt, Edward Bates, and Charles A. Beard. Beale was born in Chicago to Frank A. and Nellie Kennedy...

, a Reconstruction specialist who promoted the Beardian economic interpretation of history that deemphasized ideology and ideas and stressed material self-interest as a motivating factor.

In World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Woodward served on the historical staff of the Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

, writing battle reports, including The Battle for Leyte Gulf (1947).

Academic career

Woodward taught at Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

 from 1946 to 1961 and at Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 from 1961 to 1977, where he taught both graduate and undergraduate Yale students. Among the younger historians who studied under Woodward were Patricia Nelson Limerick
Patricia Nelson Limerick
Patricia Nelson Limerick is an American historian, considered to be one of the leading historians of the American West. She was born and raised in Banning, California....

, Professor of History at the University of Colorado at Boulder
University of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...

; Michael Wayne (historian)
Michael Wayne (historian)
Michael Wayne is a Canadian historian of the United States at the University of Toronto. He is a senior fellow at University College. As an undergraduate, Wayne studied at the University of Toronto and Amherst College. He received his PhD from Yale University where he studied under C. Vann...

, Professor of History at the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

; Steven Hahn, Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania; John Herbert Roper, Richardson Chair of American History at Emory & Henry College and noted Civil War scholar; and David L. Carlton, currently assistant professor of History at Vanderbilt University.

In 1974, the United States House Committee on the Judiciary
United States House Committee on the Judiciary
The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, administrative agencies and Federal law enforcement...

 asked Woodward for an historical study of misconduct in previous administrations and how the Presidents
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 responded. Woodward led a group of fourteen historians and they produced a thorough 400 page report in less than four months, Responses of the Presidents to Charges of Misconduct.

In 1978 the National Endowment for the Humanities
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...

 selected Woodward for the Jefferson Lecture
Jefferson Lecture
The Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities is an honorary lecture series established in 1972 by the National Endowment for the Humanities . According to the NEH, the Lecture is "the highest honor the federal government confers for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities."-History of...

, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....

. His lecture, entitled "The European Vision of America," was later incorporated into his book The Old World's New World.

Woodward won the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

 in 1982 for Mary Chesnut's Civil War, an edited version of Mary Chesnut's Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 diary. He won the Bancroft Prize
Bancroft Prize
The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas. It was established in 1948 by a bequest from Frederic Bancroft...

 for The Origins of the New South. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...

 called The Strange Career of Jim Crow "the historical bible of the civil rights movement."

C. Vann Woodward died in Hamden, Connecticut
Hamden, Connecticut
Hamden is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The town's nickname is "The Land of the Sleeping Giant." Hamden is home to Quinnipiac University. The population was 58,180 according to the Census Bureau's 2005 estimates...

.

The Southern Historical Association
Southern Historical Association
The Southern Historical Association is an organization of historians focusing on the history of the Southern United States . It was organized on November 2, 1934...

 has established the C. Vann Woodward Dissertation Prize, awarded annually to the best dissertation on Southern history. There is a Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Chair of History at Yale; it is now held by southern historian Glenda Gilmore
Glenda Gilmore
Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore is an award-winning historian of the American South at Yale University.-Life:An eighth-generation North Carolinian, Gilmore received her B.A. in Psychology from Wake Forest University...

.

Major journal articles by Woodward

  • "Tom Watson and the Negro in Agrarian Politics," Journal of Southern History, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Feb., 1938), pp. 14-33 in JSTOR
  • "The Irony of Southern History," Journal of Southern History, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Feb., 1953), pp. 3-19 in JSTOR
  • "The Political Legacy of Reconstruction," Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 26, No. 3, The Negro Voter in the South (Summer, 1957), pp. 231-240 in JSTOR
  • "The Age of Reinterpretation," American Historical Review, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Oct., 1960), pp. 1-19 in JSTOR
  • "Seeds of Failure in Radical Race Policy," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 110, No. 1 (Feb. 18, 1966), pp. 1-9 in JSTOR
  • "History and the Third Culture," Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 3, No. 2, Reappraisals (Apr., 1968), pp. 23-35 in JSTOR
  • "The Southern Ethic in a Puritan World," William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jul., 1968), pp. 344-370 in JSTOR
  • "Clio With Soul," Journal of American History, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Jun., 1969), pp. 5-20

in JSTOR
  • "The Future of the Past," American Historical Review, Vol. 75, No. 3 (Feb., 1970), pp. 711-726 in JSTOR
  • "The Erosion of Academic Privileges and Immunities," Daedalus, Vol. 103, No. 4, (Fall, 1974), pp. 33-37 in JSTOR
  • "The Aging of America," American Historical Review, Vol. 82, No. 3 (Jun., 1977), pp. 583-594 in JSTOR
  • "The Fall of the American Adam," Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Nov., 1981), pp. 26-34 in JSTOR
  • "Strange Career Critics: Long May they Persevere," Journal of American History, Vol. 75, No. 3 (Dec., 1988), pp. 857-868 in JSTOR
  • "Look Away, Look Away," Journal of Southern History, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Aug., 1993), pp. 487-504 in JSTOR

Books by Woodward

  • Tom Watson, Agrarian Rebel (1938) online.
  • The Battle of Leyte Gulf (1947, new ed. 1965) *online
  • Origins of the New South, 1877–1913 (1951) ACLS ebook edition
  • Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction (1951, rev. ed. 1991).
  • The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Third Revised Edition (1955; Oxford University Press, 1974). ISBN 0-19-501805-2 ACLS ebook edition
  • The Age of Reinterpretation (1961). pamphlet
  • The Burden of Southern History (1955; 3rd ed. 1993) ACLS ebook edition
  • The Comparative Approach to American History (1968). editor
  • American Counterpoint (1971). essays
  • Mary Chesnut’s Civil War (1981), editor. Pulitzer prize
    Pulitzer Prize
    The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

    .
  • The Oxford History of the United States (1982–99)
    Oxford History of the United States
    The Oxford History of the United States is an ongoing multi-volume narrative history of the United States published by Oxford University Press.-Woodward editorship:The series originated with a plan laid out by historians C...

    , series editor.
  • The Private Mary Chestnut: The Unpublished Civil War Diaries (1984) edited, with Elizabeth Muhlenfeld.
  • Thinking Back: The Perils of Writing History (Louisiana State University Press, 1986). memoirs
  • The Old World's New World (1991). lectures

About Woodward

  • Ferrell, Robert. "C. Vann Woodward" in Clio's Favorites: Leading Historians of the United States, 1945-2000. ed by Robert Allen Rutland; (2000) pp 170-81
  • J. Morgan Kousser and James McPherson, eds. Religion, Race and Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward (1982)
  • David M. Potter, "C. Vann Woodward," in Pastmasters: Some Essays on American Historians, ed. Marcus Cunliffe and Robin W. Winks (1969).
  • Roper, John Herbert. C. Vann Woodward, Southerner (1987), biography
  • Roper, John Herbert, ed. C. Vann Woodward: A Southern Historian and His Critics (1997) essays about Woodward

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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