OBIT: Henry Steele Commager, 1902-1998

OBIT: Henry Steele Commager, 1902-1998
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 16:58:11 -0600


Date: Tue, 03 Mar 1998 14:26:52 -0800
From: "Richard B. Bernstein" < rbernstein@nyls.edu >
Subject: Re: Henry Steele Commager, 1902-1998

Henry Steele Commager, formerly John Woodruff Simpson Lecturer in
History at Amherst College, died on Monday, 2 March 1998, at his home
in Amherst, Massachusetts. He was 95.

Commager, who was born on 25 October 1902 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
worked his way through the University of Chicago, earning the B.A.,
M.A., and Ph.D. degrees by the time he was 28. He taught at several
universities and colleges, most notably Columbia (from 1936 to 1956)
and Amherst (from 1956 to 1992).

Though Commager's initial training was in Danish history, he soon
became an expert in American history, and his work spanned the full
range of that subject. He was coauthor, with Samuel Eliot Morison (and,
in later editions, William E. Leuchtenburg), of THE GROWTH OF THE
AMERICAN REPUBLIC, still the best single history of the United States
(7th ed., 1980; abr. eds. in 1980 and 1983). His anthology, DOCUMENTS
OF AMERICAN HISTORY, now in its tenth edition, is a standard
reference-work for historians and political scientists. And his two
great documentary histories, THE BLUE AND THE GRAY and THE SPIRIT OF
SEVENTY-SIX (the latter coedited with the late Richard B. Morris), are
superb treatments of the Civil War and the American Revolution,
respectively, as seen by participants. And, again with Richard B.
Morris, he coedited the New American Nation Series, a multivolume
collaborative history of the United States under whose aegis appeared
some of the most significant works of historical scholarship of this
century -- including David M. Potter (completed by Don E.
Fehrenbacher), THE IMPENDING CRISIS, 1848-1861; Eric Foner,
RECONSTRUCTION: AMERICA'S UNFINISHED REVOLUTION, 1863-1877; Richard B.
Morris, THE FORGING OF THE UNION, 1781-1789; William E. Leuchtenburg,
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT AND THE NEW DEAL, 1932-1940; and Allen J.
Matusow, THE UNRAVELING OF AMERICA: A HISTORY OF LIBERALISM IN THE 1960s.


Commager's most significant works of sustained historical scholarship
are his biography of the Unitarian minister, Transcendentalist,
reformer, and abolitionist Theodore Parker; his 1950 monograph THE
AMERICAN MIND; and his 1977 study THE EMPIRE OF REASON: HOW EUROPE
IMAGINED AND AMERICA REALIZED THE ENLIGHTENMENT. As these books would
suggest, he was principally an intellectual and cultural historian, but
he also worked extensively in the fields of constitutional and
political history.

Commager was an ardent defender of the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights, courageously opposing McCarthyism in the 1940s and 1950s and
the Vietnam Conflict (on constitutional grounds) before it was
fashionable to do so, and combating the rampant illegalities and
unconstitutionalities perpetrated by the administration of Richard Nixon.

The writer of many essays on history for popular magazines and
newspapers (many of them collected in such notable books as FREEDOM,
LOYALTY, DISSENT; THE SEARCH FOR A USABLE PAST; THE DEFEAT OF AMERICA;
and JEFFERSON, NATIONALISM, AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT) Henry Steele
Commager insisted that historians must write not only for one another
but for a wider audience. He was an inspiring lecturer -- learned,
erudite, but never dull and always committed to making his thought and
work accessible. He was a great teacher, devoted to his calling and
concerned about his students as people.

Commager once said about teaching, "What every college must do is hold
up before the young the spectacle of greatness." He was talking about
historical figures, but his dictum applies equally well to his own life
and career.

A personal note: I first encountered him in 1971, when, as a
15-year-old high-school student, I wrote him a letter responding to a
letter he had written to THE NEW YORK TIMES about the Pentagon Papers
case. Not only did he respond -- he urged me to apply to Amherst
College and became my mentor there and thereafter. He encouraged my
aspirations as a historian, and gave me the confidence to pursue that
dream at a time when confidence was severely lacking. I owe him more
than I can ever recount or repay.

Richard B. Bernstein
Daniel M. Lyons Visiting Professor in American History, Brooklyn
College/CUNY (1997-1998)
Adjunct Professor, New York Law School
Assistant Book Review Editor for Constitutional History, H-LAW
< rbernstein@nyls.edu >