Perry Miller

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Perry Gilbert Eddy Miller (born February 25, 1905 in Chicago , Illinois ; died December 9, 1963 in Cambridge , Massachusetts ) was an American historian and literary scholar . He was one of the co-founders of American Studies as a separate academic discipline.

life and work

In 1923, Miller dropped out of the University of Chicago in his freshman year and decided to live a vagabond life. After an odyssey through the USA, he landed on board an oil tanker in the Belgian Congo , where, according to his own account, his life's task was revealed to him in an epiphanic moment: he was supposed to track down the origins of the American being and start with the New England Puritans . He then returned to his alma mater , where he graduated in 1928. He continued his research at Harvard University , where he received his doctorate in 1931. From 1931 until his death he also taught there.

Miller wrote primarily about the Puritans of New England and about the continuity of their rhetoric and mentality, for example among the transcendentalists of the 19th century or also with Herman Melville . In 1966 he was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize in the history category for his unfinished work Life of the Mind in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War , a comprehensive intellectual history of the United States. He also wrote biographies on Jonathan Edwards and Roger Williams .

Memberships

In 1943 Miller was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1956 he was accepted as an elected member of the American Philosophical Society .

Works

  • Orthodoxy in Massachusetts, 1630-1650: A Genetic Study . Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1933.
  • (with Thomas H. Johnson): The Puritans . American Book Company, New York 1938.
  • The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century . Macmillan, New York 1939.
  • Jonathan Edwards . W. Sloane Associates, New York 1949.
  • Society and Literature in America . University of Leiden Press, Leiden 1949.
  • (Ed.): The Transcendentalists: An Anthology .
  • The New England Mind: From Colony to Province . Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1953.
  • Roger Williams: His Contribution to the American Tradition . Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis 1953.
  • Errand into the Wilderness . Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1956.
  • (Ed.): The American Puritans: Their Prose and Poetry . Doubleday, Garden City NY 1956.
  • The American Transcendentalists, Their Prose and Poetry . Doubleday, Garden City NY 1957.
  • The Raven and the Whale: Poe, Melville and the New York Literary Scene . Harcourt, Brace, New York 1957.
  • (Ed.): Consciousness at Concord: The Text of Thoreau's Hitherto 'Lost Journal' (1840-1841). Together with Notes and a Commentary . Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1958.
  • (Ed.): The Golden Age of American Literature . Braziller, New York 1959.
  • (Ed.): Philip Schaff : America . Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1961.
  • (Ed.): The Legal Mind in America: From Independence to the Civil War . Doubleday, Garden City NY 1961.
  • (Ed.): Margaret Fuller: American Romantic . Doubleday, Garden City NY 1963.
  • The Life of the Mind in America from the Revolution to the Civil War . Harcourt, Brace & World, New York 1965.
  • (Ed. With Alan Heimert): The Great Awakening: Documents Illustrating the Crisis and Its Consequences . Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis 1967.
  • Nature's Nation . Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 1967.
  • The Responsibility of Mind in a Civilization of Machines: Essays . Edited by John Crowell and Stanford J. Searl, Jr. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst 1979.

Web links

Secondary literature

  • Francis T. Butts: The Myth of Perry Miller . In: American Historical Review 87, 1982, pp. 665-694.
  • Robert Middlekauff : Perry Miller . In: Marcus Cunliffe and Robin W. Winks (Eds.): Pastmasters: Some Essays on American Historians . Harper & Row, New York 1969, pp. 167-190.
  • Murray G. Murphey: Perry Miller and American Studies . In: American Studies 42: 2, 2001. pp. 5-18.
  • Stephen C. Schlesinger (Ed.): Perry Miller and the American Mind . Harvard Review 2: 2, 1964 (special issue on the occasion of Miller's death).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Members of the American Academy. Listed by election year, 1900-1949 ( PDF ). Retrieved September 29, 2015
  2. ^ Member History: Perry Miller. American Philosophical Society, accessed January 8, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Miller, Perry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Miller, Perry Gilbert Eddy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American historian and literary scholar
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois
DATE OF DEATH December 9, 1963
Place of death Cambridge , Massachusetts