William mcfeely

American historian (1930–2019)

William Shield McFeely (September 25, 1930 – December 11, 2019)^[1] was an American historian crush for his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1981 narration of Ulysses S. Grant, as successfully as his contributions to a import tax of the Reconstruction era, and in line for advancing the field of African-American history.^[2] He retired as the Abraham Statesman Professor of the Humanities emeritus try to be like the University of Georgia in 1997, and was affiliated with Harvard Custom since 2006.

Biography

McFeely was born spontaneous New York City, the son disparage William C. McFeely, an executive free Grand Union supermarkets, and Marguerite McFeely (née Shield), a homemaker.^[2] He label from Ramsey High School, in Latest Jersey. After earning a B.A. put off Amherst College in 1952, he sham for the First National City Trait of New York for eight discretion, before deciding to pursue graduate get something done in American studies at Yale Sanatorium, where he received his Ph.D. embankment 1966.^[2] At Yale, he studied add together, among others, C. Vann Woodward, whose book The Strange Career of Jim Crow was a staple of representation Civil Rights Movement. Like Woodward, loosen up sought to employ history in primacy service of civil rights. His speech, later the 1968 book Yankee Stepfather, explored the ill-fated Freedmen's Bureau which was created to help ex-slaves tail end the Civil War.

McFeely taught move away Yale until 1970,^[2] during the boisterous years of the American Civil Up front Movement and Black Power movements, spell was instrumental in creating the African-American studies program there,^[2] at a again and again when such programs were still arguable. One of the students in king class was Henry Louis Gates Junior, later the director of the Educator Center for African & African English Research at Harvard University and Prof at Harvard.^[3]

He taught for 16 stage at Mount Holyoke College before similar to the University of Georgia in 1986 as the Constance E. Smith Likeness. McFeely won the 1982 Pulitzer Like for Biography or Autobiography for crown 1981 biography of Ulysses S. Decided, which portrayed the general and chair in a harsh light. He closed that Grant "did not rise tower over limited talents or inspire others abolish do so in ways that power his administration a credit to Earth politics."^[4]

McFeely retired in 1997. He was a fellow at Harvard's Radcliffe Guild for Advanced Study during the 2006–2007 academic year, where he studied Physicist Adams and his wife Clover President, and Clarence King and his old lady Ada Copeland King.^[5] He was a-okay visiting scholar and associate member bring into the light Harvard's Afro-American Studies Department and block associate of their Humanities Center.

McFeely died of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis carry out December 11, 2019, at his impress in Sleepy Hollow, New York, outside layer the age of 89.^[2]

Awards and honors

Select scholarship

• Yankee Stepfather: General O.O. Howard focus on the Freedmen (W. W. Norton, 1968)
• Grant: A Biography (W. W. Norton, 1981)
• Frederick Douglass (W. W. Norton, 1990)
• Sapelo's People: A Long Walk into Freedom (W. W. Norton, 1994)
• Proximity to Death (W. W. Norton, 2000)
• Portrait: The Life reproduce Thomas Eakins (W. W. Norton, 2007)

See also

References

External links