Joel H. Silbey

Joel Henry Silbey(August 16, 1933 – August 7, 2018) was an American historian who spent his career atCornell Universityand was the President White Professor of History Emeritus there. Silbey was known for his studies of thehistory of the United States in the 19th centuryand especially theJacksonian era,the creation and evolution ofU.S. political parties,the sectional crises of the 1840s and 1850s, and theAmerican Civil WarandReconstruction era.He used the techniques ofquantitative historyand became known as one of "New Political Historians".

Joel H. Silbey
Born	Joel Henry Silbey (1933-08-16)August 16, 1933
Died	August 7, 2018(2018-08-07)(aged 84)
Nationality	American
Education	Brooklyn College University of Iowa
Occupation	Historian

Joel H. Silbey was born on August 16, 1933, to parents Sidney R. and Estelle Silbey. He attendedBrooklyn Collegein his hometown, graduating in 1955, before pursuing graduate study at theUniversity of Iowa,earning his master's and doctoral degrees in 1956 and 1963, respectively. He taught atSan Francisco State College,theUniversity of Pittsburgh,and theUniversity of Marylandbefore joining theCornell Universityfaculty in 1966. Two years later, Silbey became a full professor.

A recipient of the Clark Distinguished Faculty Award for undergraduate teaching,the courses Silbey taught included "The United States in the Middle Period, 1815–1850", "The Structure of American Political History", "The American Civil War and Reconstruction", and "Quantitative Approaches in History", as well as freshman, upper-class, and graduate seminars in various aspects of nineteenth-century American political history.Silbey also directed the Cornell-In-Washington program.

Silbey received aGuggenheim Fellowship.He was appointed President White Professor of History in 1986, serving until retirement in 2002. He died at the age of 84 on August 7, 2018.

Selected publications

• The Shrine of Party: Congressional Voting Behavior, 1841–1852(University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967)
• The Transformation of American Politics, 1840–1860(Prentice-Hall, 1967, American Historical Sources Series) [editor and author of introductory essay]
• The Partisan Imperative: The Dynamics of American Politics before the Civil War(Oxford University Press, 1985)
• The Congress of the United States, 1789–1989(Carlson Publications, 1991) [editor]
• The American Political Nation, 1838–1893(Stanford University Press, 1991)
• Martin Van Buren and the Emergence of American Popular Politics(Rowman & Littlefield, 2002)