Wilbur Cortez Abbott

Wilbur Cortez Abbott (born December 28, 1869 in Kokomo , Indiana , † February 3, 1947 in Boston , Massachusetts ) was an American historian and educator .

Life

Wilbur Cortez Abbott was the son of Thomas W. and Eleanor L. Holiday Abbott. He attended Wabash College , located in Crawfordsville, Indiana , where he graduated in 1892. In 1897 he earned a Bachelor of Letters degree from the University of Oxford . He then taught history at Cornell University and the University of Michigan and became a history lecturer at Dartmouth College in 1899 . On September 6, 1899, he married Margaret E. Smith, with whom he had the daughter Mary Eleanor and the son Charles Cortez.

Abbott then held chairs from 1902 to 1908 at the University of Kansas and from 1908 to 1920 at Yale University , whereupon he moved to Harvard University in 1920 to replace Harold Laski . In 1921 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He held the professorship at Harvard University until 1937.

Abbott's main historical area of ​​interest was the era of the eminent 17th century British politician Oliver Cromwell , for which area he was recognized as an expert. He impressed on his students that historiography was more than a mere accumulation of facts, but that these facts should be embedded in their overall context; furthermore, historians would also have to strive for high literary quality of their works so that they would be read.

Abbott also tried his hand at poet. After retiring from teaching, he continued his studies from 1938 to 1946 as a research fellow at Yale University. He died in Boston in 1947 at the age of 77.

Works

• Colonel Thomas Blood, Crown Stealer, 1618-1680 , 1910
• The Expansion of Europe. A History of the Foundations of the Modern World , 2 vol., 1918
• Colonel John Scott of Long Island , 1918
• Conflicts with Oblivion , 1924
• The New Barbarians , 1925
• A Bibliography of Oliver Cromwell , 1929
• New York in the American Revolution , 1929
• An Introduction to the Documents Relating to the International Status of Gibraltar, 1704-1934 , 1934
• Adventures in Reputation, with an Essay on "Some New History and Historians" , 1935
• The Writing and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell; with an Introduction, Notes, and Sketch of His Life , together with CD Crane, 4 vols., 1937–1947

literature

• Abbott, Wilbur Cortez . In: Encyclopedia Americana , Vol. 1, p. 18.