Jesse Macy (June 21, 1842 – November 2, 1919) was an American

political scientist Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

of the late 19th and early 20th century, specializing in the history of American political parties, party systems, and the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. He spent most of his professional career at his alma mater,

Grinnell College Grinnell College is a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, United States. It was founded in 1846 when a group of New England Congregationalists established the Trustees of Iowa College. Grinnell has the fifth highest endowment-to-stu ...

Life

Jesse Macy, the thirteenth of fourteen children, was born to Quaker parents in

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

, but the family moved to central

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to th ...

in 1856 and started farming outside Lynnville, near the newly founded town of Grinnell.Grinnell College Archives
Jesse Macy Papers
. Accessed May 10, 2008. At age 17, he entered

Iowa College Grinnell College is a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, United States. It was founded in 1846 when a group of New England Congregationalists established the Trustees of Iowa College. Grinnell has the fifth highest endowment-to-stu ...

, now

. During the

, he served in the

Union army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union of the collective states. It proved essential to th ...

and he did not graduate until after the war, earning an

A.B. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

in 1870.Jones, Alan
"A Brief History of Grinnell College"
pp. 10–17. Accessed May 10, 2008. During the 1870s, Macy started what would become a long-term correspondence with James Bryce, a noted British jurist and politician. In 1884, he completed his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

. The next year, he returned to the Midwest to take a professorship at

. For the next forty-two years, Macy taught history and political science at the college. In the 1890s, Macy defended radical aspects of the burgeoning social gospel taught at Iowa College by professor of Applied Christianity George Herron and college president George A. Gates. Macy supported liberal education in a newspaper article, saying: He was also a leading author of political science textbooks. Macy's 1896 manual on American civil government, ''Our Government. How It Grew, What It Does, And How it Does It'', was an influential primer for university students and his 1897 ''The English Constitution: A Commentary on its Nature and Growth'' was acclaimed for providing the necessary foundation in English law to correctly understand American law. Jenks, Jeremiah W. (1897). "Review of ''The English Constitution: A Commentary on Its Nature''", ''The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science''. 10(107):107–109. In his 1904 work ''Party Organization and Machinery'' Macy wrote, "While our party system is without Old World models, it is strikingly in harmony with our other forms of political activity...." and "Various references to party and faction found in The Federalist illustrate the type of American ideas which prevailed before the American party system appeared" (pp. xiv-xvi). The work also included a whole chapter entitled "Effect of the City upon the Party System". In 1911, Grinnell awarded Macy an honorary degree of

Doctor of Laws A Doctor of Law is a degree in law. The application of the term varies from country to country and includes degrees such as the Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D. or S.J.D), Juris Doctor (J.D.), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and Legum Doctor ...

. After retiring in 1912, Macy traveled widely and continued writing until his death in 1919. In February 2008, Grinnell's board of trustees voted to name one of the college office buildings "Jesse Macy House" in memory of the long-serving professor. The building, at 1205 Park St., houses a number of interdisciplinary centers, including the Center for Peace Studies and the Rosenfield Program.Grinnell College
"February 11, 2008 Board of Trustees Meeting"
Accessed May 10, 2008. Macy's descendants include

SLAC SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departme ...

physicist H. Pierre Noyes.

Publications

* ''Institutional Beginnings in a Western State'' (1884), .Internet Archive: Details: Institutional beginnings in a western state
at www.archive.org * ''Our Government. How It Grew, What It Does, And How it Does It'' (1886, 1890)
Full text of 1901 edition
* ''The English Constitution: A Commentary on its Nature and Growth'' (1897)
Full text
* ''Political Parties in the United States, 1846–1861'' (1900, reprinted 1974)
Full text
* ''Party Organization and Machinery'' (1904)
Full text of 1912 edition
* ''The Anti-Slavery Crusade: a Chronicle of the Gathering Storm'' (1919)
Full text

References

Sources

* ''Jesse Macy: An Autobiography / edited and arranged by his daughter, Katharine Macy Noyes''. Springfield, Ill. : C.C. Thomas, 1933.

External links

* *
Jesse Macy Papers
at the

Archives, including some biographical information {{DEFAULTSORT:Macy, Jesse 1842 births American political scientists Grinnell College alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni Grinnell College faculty American political writers American male non-fiction writers 1919 deaths