William S. McFeely

William Shield McFeely (born September 25, 1930 in New York City) is an American historian. He retired as professor of history at the University of Georgia in 1997, and has been affiliated with Harvard University recently.

McFeely received his B.A. from Amherst College in 1952, and Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University in 1966. He studied there with, among others, C. Vann Woodward, whose book The Strange Career of Jim Crow was a staple of the Civil Rights movement. Like Woodward, he sought to employ history in the service of civil rights. His dissertation, later the book Yankee Stepfather, explored the ill-fated Freedmen's Bureau which was created to help ex-slaves after the Civil War. While at Yale, during the tumultuous years of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, he was instrumental in creating the African-American studies program, at a time when such programs were still controversial. He taught for 16 years at Mount Holyoke College before joining the University of Georgia in 1986. McFeeley won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for his 1981 biography of Ulysses S. Grant, which portrayed the general and president in a harsh light. McFeeley concluded that Grant, "Did not rise above limited talents or inspire others to do so in ways that make his administration a credit to American politics." He retired in 1997, and was a fellow at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study during the 2006-2007 academic year. He is a Visiting Scholar and Associate Member of Harvard's Afro-American Studies Department and an Associate of their Humanities Center.

Awards

• 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for Grant: A Biography.
• 1982 Parkman Prize for "Grant: A Biography"
• Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 1987)
• The Lincoln Prize 1991 for Frederick Douglass (based upon the life of Frederick Douglass).
• 1992 Avery O. Craven Award from the Organization of American Historians.

Select scholarship

• Yankee Stepfather: General O.O. Howard and the Freedmen (W. W. Norton, 1968)
• Grant: A Biography (W. W. Norton, 1981)
• Frederick Douglass (W. W. Norton, 1990)
• Sapelo's People: A Long Walk into Freedom (W. W. Norton, 1994)
• Proximity to Death (W. W. Norton, 2000)
• Portrait: The Life of Thomas Eakins (W. W. Norton, 2007)

See also

• List of historians

External links

• William S. McFeely at Library of Congress