James G. Randall

James Garfield Randall (born June 4, 1881 in Indianapolis , Indiana , † February 20, 1953 ) was an American historian , who is known for his biography of Abraham Lincoln .

Live and act

Randall graduated from Butler College with a bachelor's degree in 1903 and received his PhD in 1912 from the University of Chicago under Andrew C. McLaughlin (the work was inspired by Claude H. Van Tyne at the University of Michigan ). Even before his doctorate he taught at various colleges and universities, from 1912 at Roanoke College in Virginia , was a historian of the United States Shipping Board during World War I (he had volunteered for the army, but was turned down because of too low weight) and by 1920 to 1950 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign .

Randall's Lincoln biography was considered to be scientifically exemplary and based on thorough study of sources. He also wrote a popular textbook on the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era.

In contrast to many contemporary historians and historians before him, Randall saw the civil war not as an inevitable conflict between the industrialized north and the agrarian south, but as a politically avoidable event triggered by radicals on both sides, especially radical abolitionists in the northern states .

With his wife Ruth P. Randall (Ruth Elaine Painter, marriage 1917) he also wrote a biography of Lincoln's wife ( Mary Lincoln ) and their marriage.

1939/40 he was president of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association. In 1952 he chaired the American Historical Association . Lincoln biographer David Herbert Donald is one of his PhD students .

Honors

1953 Loubat Prize for Medstream. Lincoln the President
1956 Bancroft Award for Last Full Measure. Lincoln the President (with Richard Current )

Fonts

Lincoln the President , 4 volumes, New York: Dodd Mead, 1945 to 1955 (completed by Richard Current), University of Illinois Press 2000
Lincoln the Liberal Statesman , New York: Dodd Mead 1947
Lincoln and the South , 1946, Greenwood Press 1980 (lectures at Louisiana State University)
The Civil War and Reconstruction , 1937, Boston: Heath 1953, reprinted by David Herbert Donald 1961
Constitutional Problems under Lincoln , New York, London: Appleton 1926, University of Illinois Press 1951
with Ruth P. Randall Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage , 1953
Has the Lincoln Theme Been Exhausted? , American Historical Review 1936
The confiscation of property during the Civil War , Indianapolis 1913 (dissertation)
Editor with Theodore C. Pease The Diary of Orville Hickman Browning , Springfield, Illinois State Historical Library, 1927, 1933

literature

Harry E. Pratt, James Garfield Randall, 1881-1953, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol. 46, 1953, pp. 119-128
Ruth Painter Randall I Ruth: Autobiography of a Marriage , Boston: Little, Brown, 1968
Benjamin P. Thomas: Portrait for Posterity: Lincoln and His Biographers , New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1947
Thomas J. Pressly: Americans Interpret Their Civil War , Princeton University Press, 1954
Don E. Fehrenbacher : The Changing Image of Lincoln in American Historiography , Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Randall, James G.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Randall, James Garfield (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American historian
DATE OF BIRTH	June 4, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH	Indianapolis , Indiana
DATE OF DEATH	February 20, 1953