né
A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth reg ...
Fröhlich; June 20, 1923 – May 12, 2015) was a German-American historian, educator, and author. He was a Sterling Professor of History at
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
and former director of the
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress) ...
's Center for Scholars and Writers (1997–2003). He received the
American Historical Association
The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
in 1923 and emigrated, via Cuba, to the United States in 1941. From 1948 to 1955 he was a political science professor at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, and then a history professor from 1955 to 1969. He left Columbia in 1969 to join Yale University's History Department as Professor of Comparative and Intellectual European History and was named Sterling Professor of History in 1984.
Gay was the interim editor of '' The American Scholar'' after the death of
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...
, called Gay "one of the major American historians of European thought, period".
Early life and education
Born Peter Joachim Fröhlich to a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family in Berlin, he was educated as a child at Berlin's Goethe- Gymnasium. He and his family fled
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', 25 November 2007. Their original ticket was on the MS ''St. Louis'', whose passengers were eventually turned away and forced to return to Europe, but they fortuitously changed their booking to the SS ''Iberia'', which left two weeks earlier. Gay arrived in the United States in 1941, took American citizenship in 1946, and changed his name from Fröhlich (German for "happy") to Gay (an English
calque
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language ...
).
Gay was educated at the University of Denver, where he received his B.A. in 1946, and at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, where he received his M.A. in 1947 and his Ph.D. in 1951. Gay taught political science at Columbia between 1948–1955 and history from 1955 to 1969. He taught at
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
from 1969 until his retirement in 1993.
Career
Scholarship
According to the American Historical Association's Award Citation, Gay's range of "scholarly achievements is truly remarkable". ''The New York Times'' described him in 2007 as "the country's pre-eminent cultural historian".
Gay's 1959 book, ''Voltaire's Politics: The Poet as Realist,'' examined
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his '' nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—e ...
as a politician and how his politics influenced the ideas that Voltaire championed in his writings. Accompanying ''Voltaire's Politics'' was Gay's collection of essays, ''The Party of Humanity: Essays in the French Enlightenment'' (1964). Gay followed the success of ''Voltaire's Politics'' with a wider history of the Enlightenment, ''The Enlightenment: An Interpretation'' (1966, 1969, 1973), whose first volume won the 1967 U.S.
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
in History and Biography.Annelien de Dijn argues that Gay, in ''The Enlightenment'', first formulated the interpretation that the Enlightenment brought political modernization to the West, in terms of introducing democratic values and institutions and the creation of modern, liberal democracies. While the thesis has many critics, it has been widely accepted by Anglophone scholars and has been reinforced by the large-scale studies by
Robert Darnton
Robert Choate Darnton (born May 10, 1939) is an American cultural historian and academic librarian who specializes in 18th-century France.
He was director of the Harvard University Library from 2007 to 2016.
Life
Darnton was born in New Yor ...
, Roy Porter, and most recently by Jonathan Israel. His 1968 book, ''Weimar Culture'', was a study on the
cultural history
Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing t ...
of the
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a Constitutional republic, constitutional federal republic for the first time in ...
."Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider"
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''Th ...
. Retrieved 2015-05-11.
Gay was also a champion of psychohistory and an admirer of
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...
. Starting in 1978 with ''Freud, Jews and Other Germans'', an examination of the impact of Freudian ideas on German culture, his writing demonstrated an increasing interest in psychology. Many of his works focused on the social impact of
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...
. For example, in ''A Godless Jew: Freud, Atheism, and the Making of Psychoanalysis'', he linked Freud's atheism to his development of psychoanalysis as a field. He wrote history books applying Freud's theories to history, such as ''The Bourgeois Experience: From Victoria to Freud''. He also edited a collection of Freud's writings called ''The Freud Reader''. His writing was generally favorable, though occasionally critical, toward Freud's school of thought.
Gay's 2007 book '' Modernism: The Lure of Heresy'' explores the modernist movement in the arts from the 1840s to the 1960s, from its beginnings in Paris to its spread to Berlin and New York City, ending with its death in the pop art of the 1960s.
Personal life
Gay married Ruth Slotkin (1922-2006) in 1959 and had three stepdaughters.
Death
Gay died at his home in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', May 12, 2015.
Awards and recognition
Gay received numerous awards for his scholarship, including the
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
in History and Biography for ''The Rise of Modern Paganism'' (1967), the first volume of ''The Enlightenment''; the first Amsterdam Prize for Historical Science from The Hague, 1990; and the Gold Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1992. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1967–68 and 1978–79; a visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, Germany; and an Overseas Fellow of Churchill College University from 1970 to 1971. He was elected to the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 1987.
In 1988, he was honored by The New York Public Library as a Library Lion. The following year, he was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Professor Gay held an ACLS Fellowship in 1959–60. He has also been recognized with several honorary doctorates.
*
American Historical Association
The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...
ABC News
ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast '' ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include morning news-talk show '' Good Morning America'', '' ...
. Retrieved 2015-05-11.
*
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...
. Retrieved 2015-05-11.
*
American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headq ...
, 1989 "Arts : Arts and Letters Group Admits 10"
LA Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
. Retrieved 2015-05-11.
*
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress) ...
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
. Retrieved 2015-05-22.
*
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
, 1967
*
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...
Author
*''The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism: Eduard Bernstein's Challenge to Marx'', 1952.
*''Voltaire's Politics: The Poet as Realist'', 1959.
*''The Party of Humanity: Essays in the French Enlightenment'', 1964.
*''The Enlightenment: An Interpretation: The Rise of Modern Paganism'', 1966 — winner of the
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
."National Book Awards – 1967" National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-18. Reissued 1995.
*''The Loss of Mastery: Puritan Historians in Colonial America'', 1966.
*''Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider'', 1968.
*''The Enlightenment: An Interpretation: The Science of Freedom'', 1969. Reissued 1995.
*''The Bridge of Criticism: Dialogues on the Enlightenment'', 1970.
*''Modern Europe to 1815'', co-written with Robert Kiefer Webb, 1973.
*''Style in History'', 1974.
*''Art and Act: On Causes in History: Manet, Gropius, Mondrian'', 1976.
*''Freud, Jews and Other Germans: Masters and Victims in Modernist Culture'', 1978.
*''The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud'', 5 vols., 1984–1998:
**''The Education of the Senses'' (1984)
**''The Tender Passion'' (1986)
**''The Cultivation of Hatred'' (1993)
**''The Naked Heart'' (1995)
**''Pleasure Wars'' (1998)
*''Freud for Historians'', 1985.
*''A Godless Jew: Freud, Atheism, and the Making of Psychoanalysis'', 1987.
*'' Freud: A Life for Our Time'', 1988 — finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction.
*''Reading Freud: Explorations & Entertainments'', 1990.
*''Sigmund Freud and Art: His Personal Collection of Antiquities'', 1993.
*''My German Question: Growing Up in Nazi Berlin'', 1998 (autobiography).
*''Mozart'', 1999.
*''Schnitzler's Century: The Making of Middle-Class Culture 1815–1914'', 2002.
*'' Modernism: The Lure of Heresy: from Baudelaire to Beckett and Beyond'', 2007.
*''Why the Romantics Matter'', 2015.
Editor
* ''Deism: An Anthology'', 1968.
* ''The Enlightenment; A Comprehensive Anthology'', 1973.
* ''Historians at Work'' – 4 vols., 1972–1975.
* ''The Freud Reader'', 1989.
Essays
*"Rhetoric and Politics in the French Revolution," ''The American Historical Review'' Vol. 66, No. 3, April 1961
* "An Age of Crisis: A Critical View," ''The Journal of Modern History'' Vol. 33, No. 2, June 1961
References
Further reading
* Becker, Carl L. (1932), ''The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers'', 1991 reprint, New Haven: Yale.
* Daum, Andreas W., Hartmut Lehmann, James J. Sheehan (eds.), ''The Second Generation: Émigrés from Nazi Germany as Historians. With a Biobibliographic Guide''. New York: Berghahn Books, 2016, .
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