Bernard Bailyn

Bernard Bailyn (September 10, 1922 – August 7, 2020) was an American historian, author, and academic specializing in U.S. Colonial and Revolutionary-era History. He was a professor at Harvard University from 1953. Bailyn won the Pulitzer Prize for History twice (in 1968 and 1987).^[2] In 1998 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected him for the Jefferson Lecture.^[3] He was a recipient of the 2010 National Humanities Medal.

He specialized in American colonial and revolutionary-era history, looking at merchants, demographic trends, Loyalists, international links across the Atlantic, and especially the political ideas that motivated the Patriots. He was best known for studies of republicanism and Atlantic history that transformed the scholarship in those fields.^[4] He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1963^[5] and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1971.^[6]

Early life and education

Bailyn was born in

Bernard Bailyn was the author of The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967), which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1968. He was the editor of The Apologia of Robert Keayne (1965) and of the two-volume Debate on the Constitution (1993).

He co-authored The Great Republic (1977), an American history textbook, and was co-editor of The Intellectual Migration, Europe and America, 1930–1960 (1969), Law in American History (1972), The Press and the American Revolution (1980), and Strangers Within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (1991).

Major themes and ideas

Bailyn's dissertation and first publications dealt with

The modernization of

libertarian

ideas. In the process they ... infused into American political culture ... the major themes of eighteenth-century radical libertarianism brought to realization here. The first is the belief that power is evil, a necessity perhaps but an evil necessity; that it is infinitely corrupting; and that it must be controlled, limited, restricted in every way compatible with a minimum of civil order. Written constitutions; the separation of powers; bill of rights; limitations on executives, on legislatures, and courts; restrictions on the right to coerce and wage war—all express the profound distrust of power that lies at the ideological heart of the American Revolution and that has remained with us as a permanent legacy ever after.^[10]

In Bailyn's assessment, contested libertarian meanings change through time as "the colonists" struggled to define, and to pursue, the property of independence. Recent historians hold that more than any other "colonist," Boston waterfront rebels channeled their "cosmopolitanism into a belief that 'the cause of America' was a libertarian 'cause for all mankind."^[11]

In her memorial tribute, Harvard historian Joyce Chaplin noted Bernard Bailyn's resistance to "dichotomies" and his attention to "granular" records and culture.^[12]

Social history

In the 1980s, Bailyn turned from political and intellectual history to social and demographic history. His histories of the peopling of colonial North America explored questions of immigration, cultural contact, and settlement that his mentor Handlin had pioneered decades earlier.

Bailyn was a major innovator in new research techniques, such as

[Bailyn] is very clearly a believer in the distinctiveness of

American civilization. Although he rarely, if ever, uses the phrase "American exceptionalism," he repeatedly insists upon the "distinctive characteristics of British North American life." He has argued...that the process of social and cultural transmission resulted in peculiarly American patterns of education (in the broadest sense of the word); and he believes in the unique character of the American Revolution.^[13]

As a leading advocate of Atlantic history, Bailyn organized an annual international seminar on the "History of the Atlantic World" from the mid-1980s onward. Through the seminar, he promoted social and demographic studies, especially regarding flows of population into colonial America.^[14] Bailyn's Atlantic History: Concepts and Contours (2005) explores the borders and contents of the emerging field, which emphasizes cosmopolitan and multicultural elements that have tended to be neglected or considered in isolation by traditional historiography dealing with the Americas.

Personal life

Bailyn was married to MIT Professor of Management

Bailyn died on August 7, 2020, at his home in Belmont, Massachusetts, after suffering from heart failure.^[16] He was 97.

Students

Former students of Bailyn include Pulitzer Prize winners Michael Kammen,^[17] Jack N. Rakove,^[18] and Gordon S. Wood,^[19] as well as Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary Beth Norton.^[16] Other notable Bailyn students include:

• Fred Anderson (Crucible of War and A People's Army);
• Virginia DeJohn Anderson (Creatures of Empire)
• Mary Sarah Bilder^[20]
• Richard L. Bushman (From Puritan to Yankee);
• Philip J. Greven (The Protestant Temperament, Spare the Child);
• Richard D. Brown (Revolutionary Politics in Massachusetts: The Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Towns, 1772–1774 and Knowledge Is Power: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 1700–1865);
• Sally E. Hadden (Slave Patrols)^[20]
• David Hancock (historian) ("Oceans of Wine: Madeira and the Emergence of American Trade and Taste," "Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735–1785)
• James Henretta (Families and farms: Mentalité in Pre-Industrial America);
• Peter Charles Hoffer (Law and People in Colonial America, among others)
• Daniel Hulsebosch, Russell D. Niles Professor of Law at New York University School of Law^[20]
• Stanley N. Katz
  (Newcastle's New York)
• James Kettner (The Development of American Citizenship, 1608–1870)^[20]
• David Konig, Washington University in St. Louis professor of law and history^[20]
• Pauline Maier (American Scripture on the Declaration and Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787–1788, winner of the 2011 George Washington Book Prize and the Fraunces Tavern Book Prize);
• William E. Nelson, legal and constitutional historian and Edward Weinfeld Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, author of The Fourteenth Amendment: From Political Principle to Judicial Doctrine (1988), winner of the Littleton-Griswold Prize of the American Historical Association, and many other books^[21]
• Daniel Oliver (policymaker), former executive editor of National Review and former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission
• Jeffrey Pasley (The First Presidential Contest, The Tyranny of Printers, Beyond the Founders
• Mark A. Peterson (The City State of Boston);
• George David Smith (practitioner of applied economic and business history and founding partner of The Winthrop Group, Inc. Anatomy of a Business Strategy" [Co-winner: Best book on Business and Industry, American Publishers' Assn.]; "From Monopoly to Competition;" "The New Financial Capitalists, with George Baker; History of The Firm [McKinsey & Co.], lead author,
• Peter H. Wood (Black Majority);
• Michael Zuckerman (Peaceable Kingdoms)

Many of these historians have gone on to train a new generation of American historians; others have branched out into fields as diverse as law and the history of science.

See also

• Early American publishers and printers#American Revolution

Bibliography

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (August 2018)

• Bailyn, Bernard (1955). The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century. Harvard University Press.
  ISBN 978-0-674-61280-8
  .
• Massachusetts Shipping, 1697–1714: A Statistical Study (with Lotte Bailyn). Harvard University Press, 1959.
• Education in the Forming of American Society: Needs and Opportunities for Study. University of North Carolina Press, 1960.
• Pamphlets of the American Revolution, 1750-1776, Volume I: 1750-1765, Edited by Bernard Bailyn Jane N. Garrett, Harvard University Press
• Bailyn, Bernard (1967). The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
  ISBN 9780674443013. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize
  in 1968.
• The Origins of American Politics. Knopf, 1968.
• The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson. Harvard University Press, 1974; winner of the 1975 National Book Award in History.^[22]
• The Great Republic: A History of the American People. Little, Brown, 1977; coauthored college textbook; several editions.
• The Peopling of British North America: An Introduction. Knopf, 1986.
• Society of Colonial Wars and the Society of the Cincinnati
  .
• Faces of Revolution: Personalities and Themes in the Struggle for American Independence. Knopf, 1990.
• Bailyn, Bernard, ed. The Debate on the Constitution: Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters During the Struggle for Ratification. Part One: September 1787 to February 1788. Library of America, 1993.
  ISBN 978-0-940450-42-4
• Bailyn, Bernard, ed. The Debate on the Constitution: Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters During the Struggle for Ratification. Part Two: January to August 1788. Library of America, 1993.
  ISBN 978-0-940450-64-6
• On the Teaching and Writing of History. 1994.
• — (March 1996). "Context in History". History. Quadrant. 40 (3): 9–15.[23]
• To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders. Knopf, 2003.
• Atlantic History: Concept and Contours. Harvard University Press, 2005.
• The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600–1675, Alfred A. Knopf, 2012,
  ISBN 978-0-394-51570-0
  .
• Sometimes an Art: Nine Essays on History, Alfred A. Knopf, 2015,
  ISBN 978-1-101-87447-9
  .

References

1. American Academy of Achievement
   .
2. ^ "History". Past winners & finalists by category. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2012-03-17.
3. ^ Jefferson Lecturers Archived October 20, 2011, at the Wayback Machine at NEH Website (retrieved January 22, 2009).
4. ^ Jack N. Rakove, "Bernard Bailyn" in Robert Allen Rutland, ed. "Clio's Favorites: Leading Historians of the United States, 1945–2000" (2000) pp 5–22
5. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved May 5, 2011.
6. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved August 25, 2022.
7. ^ "Bailyn, Bernard 1922- | Encyclopedia.com".
8. ^ ^{a b} A. Roger Ekirch, "Bernard Bailyn," in Clyde N. Wilson, ed. Twentieth-century American Historians (Gale Research Company, 1983) pp 19–26
9. ^ Bailyn, The ideological origins of the American Revolution (1992 edition) Page v
10. ^ Bernard Bailyn, "The Central Themes of the American Revolution: An Interpretation," in S. Kurtz and J. Hutson, eds., Essays on the American Revolution (1960), pp. 26–27.
11. ISBN 9780195378559.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
12. ^ Chaplin, Joyce (March 2020). "Bernard Bailyn, 97 - Memorial Minute".
13. ^ Michael Kammen and Stanley N. Katz, "Bernard Bailyn, Historian, and Teacher: An Appreciation." in James A. Henretta, Michael Kämmen, and Stanley N. Katz, eds. The Transformation of Early American History: Society, Authority, and Ideology (1991) p 10.
14. ^ See See course details
15. ^ "Heads of the Two New Residential Colleges Are Named" (July 6, 2016). YaleNews (News.Yale.edu). Retrieved October 3, 2018.
16. ^ ^{a b c} McLean, Renwick; Schuessler, Jennifer (August 7, 2020). "Bernard Bailyn, Eminent Historian of Early America, Dies at 97". The New York Times. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
17. ^ Schudel, Matt (December 4, 2013). "Michael Kammen, Pulitzer-winning historian, dies at 77". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 13, 2021.
18. ^ "Bernard Bailyn's Ideological Origins at Fifty". Harvard University Press Blog. April 19, 2017. Archived from the original on April 30, 2017. Retrieved September 13, 2021.
19. ISSN 0190-8286
    . Retrieved September 13, 2021.
20. ^ ^{a b c d e} "Sally Hadden: Reflections on Bernard Bailyn". Law & History Review. Archived from the original on October 26, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2021.
21. ^ Konig, David Thomas (2014). "Americanization of the Common Law: The Intellectual Migration Meets the Great Migration". Chicago-Kent Law Review. 89: 917.
22. ^ "National Book Awards – 1975". National Book Foundation. Archived from the original on September 9, 2011. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
23. ^ Edited version of the 1995 Charles La Trobe Lecture.

Further reading

• Boyd, Kelly, ed. Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writers (Rutledge, 1999) 1:66–68.
• Coclanis, Peter A. "Drang Nach Osten: Bernard Bailyn, the World-Island, and the Idea of Atlantic History." Journal of World History 13.1 (2002): 169–182.
• Ekirch, A. Roger "Bernard Bailyn," in Clyde N. Wilson, ed. Twentieth-century American Historians (Gale Research Company, 1983) pp 19–26
• Kammen, Michael and Stanley N. Katz, "Bernard Bailyn, Historian, and Teacher: An Appreciation." in James A. Henretta, Michael Kämmen, and Stanley N. Katz, eds. The Transformation of Early American History: Society, Authority, and Ideology (1991) pp 3–15
• Rakove, Jack N. "'How Else Could It End?' Bernard Bailyn and the Problem of Authority and Early America." in James A. Henretta, Michael Kämmen, and Stanley N. Katz, eds. The Transformation of Early American History: Society, Authority, and Ideology (1991) pp 51–69
• Rakove, Jack N. "Bernard Bailyn" in Robert Allen Rutland, ed. "Clio's Favorites: Leading Historians of the United States, 1945–2000" (U of Missouri Press. 2000) pp 5–22.
• Wood, Gordon. "The creative imagination of Bernard Bailyn," in James A. Henretta, Michael Kämmen, and Stanley N. Katz, eds. The Transformation of Early American History: Society, Authority, and Ideology (1991) pp 16–50.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Bernard Bailyn.

• "To Begin the World Anew"-Politics and the Creative Imagination Jefferson Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities
• Bernard Bailyn: An Appreciation
• Considering the Slave Trade: History and Memory
• History News Network
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• "Into the Wilderness: ‘The Barbarous Years,’ by Bernard Bailyn", Charles C. Mann, The New York Times, 4 January 2013