Allan Nevins

Allan Nevins
Born	Joseph Allan Nevins (1890-05-20)May 20, 1890 Camp Point, Illinois,U.S.
Died	March 5, 1971(1971-03-05)(aged 80) San Mateo, California,U.S.
Alma mater	University of Illinois(MA)
Spouse	Mary Fleming Richardson
Scientific career
Institutions	Columbia University
Doctoral students	Bernard Bellush Margaret Clapp Louis Filler Philip S. Foner Carlton C. Qualey James A. Rawley

Joseph Allan Nevins(May 20, 1890 – March 5, 1971) was an American historian and journalist, known for his extensive work on the history of theCivil Warand his biographies of such figures asGrover Cleveland,Hamilton Fish,Henry Ford,andJohn D. Rockefeller,as well as his public service. He was a leading exponent ofbusiness historyandoral history.

Biography

Nevins was born inCamp Point, Illinois,the son of Emma (née Stahl) and Joseph Allan Nevins, whom he later described as a sternPresbyterianfarmer.His father was ofScottishheritage and his motherGerman.After education in local public schools, Nevins attended theUniversity of Illinois,where he earned an M.A. in English in 1913.

He married Mary Fleming (Richardson) in 1916, and the couple had two daughters, Anne Elizabeth and Meredith.

Career

Nevins wrote his first book,The Life ofRobert Rogers(1914) (about a Colonial AmericanfrontiersmanandLoyalist) and a history of theUniversity of Illinois(1917) during his postgraduate studies in that institution.

Nevins then accepted positions with theNew York Evening PostandThe Nationand worked as a journalist inNew York Cityfor twenty years, as well as continued writing and editing history books. He resigned from theNationin 1918, and thePostabout a year after publishing its historyThe Evening Post: A Century of Journalismin 1922. In 1923 Nevins publishedAmerican Social History as Recorded by British Travellers(reissued asAmerica through British Eyesin 1957) andThe American States During and After theRevolution,1775–1789in 1924.

In 1924 Nevins resigned from thePostto becomeliterary editorof theNew York Sunand about a year later gave up that position to become aneditorial writerwith theNew York World.Nevins continued extensive private research in theNew York Public Libraryand publishedThe Emergence of Modern America, 1865–1878in 1927, and a biography of explorerJohn Charles Frémont,Frémont: The West's Greatest Adventurerin 1928. During a leave of absence from his newspaper job, Nevins spent a term teaching American history atCornell University.Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr.,arranged for Nevins to have this position.

As a journalist, Nevins covered the campaigns ofAl Smith.After the1928 Presidential Campaignwhich he covered forWalter Lippmann,Nevins grew dismayed at what he perceived asintoleranceandprovincialism,religiousbigotryandracial prejudicein theAmerican South,which as a historian he contrasted toreligious freedomandseparation of church and statethat the same region had brought to the new nation in the revolutionary era.

In 1928, Nevins joined the history faculty ofColumbia University,where he remained for three decades until his mandatory retirement in 1958. In 1931 he gave up hisjournalismjob in order to become a full-time faculty member and in 1939 succeededEvarts Boutell Greene(his teacher at Illinois and mentor at Columbia), as theDewitt ClintonProfessor of History. His major works during this period included:Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage(1932, which won his firstPulitzer Prize),History of the Bank of New York and Trust Company, 1784–1934(1934),Hamilton Fish:The Inner Story of theGrant Administration(1936, which won his second Pulitzer Prize),The Gateway to History(1938), a two-volume biography ofJohn D. Rockefeller,The Heroic Age of American Enterprise(1940; rewritten and expanded asA Study in Power: John D. Rockefeller, Industrialist and Philanthropistin 1953).

DuringWorld War II,Professor Nevins taught (as Harmsworth Professor of American History) atOxford Universityfrom 1940 to 1941. In 1942, he publishedAmerica: The Story of A Free People(withHenry Steele Commager,reworked and republished in 1954). Nevins served as special representative of theOffice of War Informationin Australia and New Zealand in 1943–1944, and in 1945–1946 worked inLondonas chief public affairs officer at the American embassy.

Upon returning to Columbia, Nevins began working on a multi-volume series on the American Civil War. The first volumeThe Ordeal of Union(1947) won theBancroft Prizeand a $10,000 Scribners Literary Prize. In 1948 Nevins created the firstoral historyprogram to operate on an institutionalized basis in the U.S., which continues asColumbia University's Center for Oral History.In addition to publishing four more volumes of the Civil War series, Nevins reworked the Rockefeller biography to cast a more favorable light upon the magnate. In 1954 withFrank Hill,Nevins published the first of a three-volume biography ofHenry Fordand theFord Motor Company,Ford: The Times, the Man, and the Company.

From May 6, 1938, until August 18, 1957, Nevins hosted a 15-minute radio showAdventures in Science,which covered a wide variety of medical and scientific topics, and was broadcast as a segment ofCBS'Adult Education Seriesvarious days, usually in the late afternoon.

After retiring from Columbia, Nevins relocated toCalifornia,where he worked as senior researcher at theHuntington LibraryinSan Marino,and also returned to Oxford from 1964 to 1965. Nevins also publicly supportedJohn F. Kennedyin the1960 Presidential Campaignand wrote an introduction for Kennedy'sProfiles in Courage.Nevins headed the national Civil War Centennial Commission, edited its 15-volume Impact series and finished the final volumes of his eight-volume series on theAmerican Civil War.He also publishedHerbert H. Lehmanand His Era(1963) andJames Truslow Adams:Historian of the American Dream(1968).

In 1966, Nevins received the Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievement.

As an historian, Nevins supervised more than 100 doctoraldissertations,published over 50 books and possibly more than 1000 articles, as well as serving as president of theAmerican Historical Association,theSociety of American Historians,and theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters.

Death and legacy

Nevins died inMenlo Park, California,in 1971. He was buried at Kensico Cemetery inWestchester County, New York.The last two volumes of his Civil War series won the U.S.National Book Awardin History in 1972. Historians includingRay Allen BillingtoncompiledAllan Nevins on History(1975) to celebrate his accomplishments. His granddaughterJane Mayeralso became a journalist and author. The Society of American Historians awards anAllan Nevins Prizeannually in his honor.

Published work

Nevins wrote more than 50 books, mainly political and business history and biography focusing on the nineteenth century, in addition to his many newspaper and academic articles. The hallmarks of his books were his extensive, in-depth research and a vigorous, almost journalistic writing style. Subjects of his biographies included:Grover Cleveland,Abram Hewitt,Hamilton Fish,Henry Ford,John C. Frémont,Herbert Lehman,John D. Rockefeller,andHenry White.The biographies cover United States political, economic and diplomatic history of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His biography of Grover Cleveland won the 1933Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography,as did his biography of Hamilton Fish four years later. Nevins also published an annotated diary of PresidentJames K. Polk,and a volume of Cleveland's correspondence spanning the years 1850–1908.

Ordeal of the Union

Nevins' greatest work wasOrdeal of the Union(1947–1971), an 8-volume comprehensive history of the coming of the Civil war, and the war itself. (He died before he could address Reconstruction, and thus his masterwork ends in 1865.) It remains the most detailed political, economic and military narrative of the era. Nevins'sOrdeal of the Unionhas a slight but perceptible pro-Union bias, just asShelby Foote's three-volume masterwork has a slight but perceptible bias towards the Confederacy. The last two volumes jointly won the 1972 U.S.National Book Awardin History.

Nevins also planned and helped to edit a pioneering 13-volume series exploring Americansocial history,"A History of American Life".

His biographer explained Nevins' style:

Nevins used narrative not only to tell a story but to propound moral lessons. It was not his inclination to deal in intellectual concepts or theories, like many academic scholars. He preferred emphasizing practical notions about the importance of national unity, principled leadership, [classical] liberal politics, enlightened journalism, the social responsibility of business and industry, and scientific and technical progress that added to the cultural improvement of humanity.

John D. Rockefeller

Nevins wrote several books onJohn D. Rockefellerand the Rockefeller family, including a two-volume authorized biography of John D. Rockefeller. Business journalistFerdinand Lundberglater criticized Nevins for deferring to power and thereby misleading readers.By contrast, historian Priscilla Roberts argues that his studies of inventors and businessmen brought about a reassessment of American industrialization and its leaders. She writes:

Nevins argued that economic development in the United States caused relatively little human suffering, while raising the general standard of living and making the United States the great industrial power capable of defeating Germany in both world wars. The great capitalists of that period should, he argued, be viewed, not as "robber barons", but as men whose economic self-interest had played an essentially, positive role in American history, and who had done nothing criminal by the standards of their time.

In contending that Rockefeller did "nothing criminal", in light of his central role in theLudlow Massacre,Nevins seems to have equated non-prosecution with innocence.

Historians and biographers who followed Nevins' lead includeJean Strouse,Ron Chernow,David Nasaw,andT. J. Stiles,chronicling the lives and careers of such figures asJ. Pierpont Morgan,John D. Rockefeller,Andrew Carnegie,andCornelius Vanderbilt.Though these later biographers did not confer heroic status on their subjects, they used historical and biographical investigations to establish a more complex understanding of the American past, and the history of American economic development in particular.

John F. Kennedy

An enthusiastic supporter of then-SenatorJohn F. Kennedy,Nevins wrote the foreword to the inaugural edition of Kennedy'sProfiles in Courage.He also joined his friend, frequent co-editor, and Columbia colleagueHenry Steele Commagerin organizing "Professors for Kennedy", a political advocacy group in the1960 presidential election.In the late 1960s Nevins and Commager parted ways over the issue of theVietnam War,a war that Commager opposed on constitutional grounds, while Nevins thought it necessary in theCold WaragainstCommunism.

Major books

Many of the titles areavailable free online here

• The Evening Post; a Century of Journalism(1922), history of the NYC newspaperonline
• The American States During and After the Revolution, 1775–1789(1927)online editiononline free
• A History of American Life vol. VIII:The Emergence of Modern America 1865–1878(1927)
• Frémont, the West's Greatest Adventurer; being a biography from certain hitherto unpublished sources of General John C. Frémont, together with his wife, Jessie Benton Frémont, and some account of the period of expansion which found a brilliant leader in the Pathfinder(1928)online edition*
• Polk: The Diary of President, 1845–1849, covering the Mexican war, the acquisition of Oregon, and the conquest of California and the Southwest(1929)
• Henry White: Thirty Years of American Diplomacy(1930)
• Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage(1932). Won the 1933Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.
• Letters of Grover Cleveland, 1850–1908(1933)
• Dictionary of American Biography(1934–1936); Nevins wrote 40 articles on Alexander Hamilton, Rutherford B. Hayes, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, etc.
• Abram Hewitt:With Some Account of Peter Cooper(1935)
• Hamilton Fish; The Inner History of the Grant Administration(1936)online edition vol 1online edition vol 2
• The Gateway to History1938.online edition
• John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American Enterprise.2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons (1940)
• The Emergence of Modern America, 1865–1878(1941)
• Ordeal of the Union(1947–1971)online here
  1. Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847–1852 (1947);
  2. A House Dividing, 1852–1857 (1947);
  3. Douglas, Buchanan, and Party Chaos, 1857–1859 (1950);
  4. Prologue to Civil War, 1859–1861 (1950);
  5. The Improvised War, 1861–1862 (1959);
  6. War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863 (1960);
  7. The Organized War, 1863–1864 (1960);
  8. The Organized War to Victory, 1864–1865 (1971)
• Study In Power: John D. Rockefeller, Industrialist and Philanthropist.2 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. (1953)
• Fordwith the collaboration ofFrank Ernest Hill.3 vols. (1954–1963)

Further reading

• Fetner, Gerald L.Immersed in Great Affairs: Allan Nevins and the Heroic Age of American History(State University of New York Press. 2004). 243pp; scholarly biography.excerpt
• Krout, John A. "Allan Nevins—An Appreciation" pp v-vii in Donald Sheehan and Harold C. Syrett, eds.Essays in American Historiography: Papers Presented in Honor of Allan Nevins(1962)(INVALID LINK)online
• Middlekauff, Robert. "Telling the Story of the Civil War: Allan Nevins as a Narrative Historian."The Huntington Library Quarterly(1993): 67–81.in JSTOR
• Tingley, Donald F. "Allan Nevins: A Reminiscence."Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society66.2 (1973): 177–186.

External links

• Works by or about Allan NevinsatInternet Archive
• Finding aid to Allan Nevins papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.