Louis Reichenthal Gottschalk (February 21, 1899 in Brooklyn – June 23, 1975 in Chicago
[.]) was an American
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 ...
, an expert on
Lafayette and the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
. He taught for many years at the University of Chicago, where he was the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of History.
[. Review of Gottschalk and Maddox, ''Laffayette in the French Revolution: Through the October Days'', University of Chicago Press, 1969.]
Biography
He was born as Louis Gottschalk, the sixth of eight children of Morris and Anna (née Krystal) Gottschalk, Jewish immigrants to Brooklyn from
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
.
He graduated from Cornell University with an A.B. in 1919, A.M. in 1920, and the Ph.D. in 1921, under the supervision of
Carl L. Becker.
During World War I, he served as an apprentice seaman from October 4, 1918 to
November 11, 1918, a total of thirty eight days, at the Naval Unit at Cornell in
Ithaca
Ithaca most commonly refers to:
*Homer's Ithaca, an island featured in Homer's ''Odyssey''
*Ithaca (island), an island in Greece, possibly Homer's Ithaca
*Ithaca, New York, a city, and home of Cornell University and Ithaca College
Ithaca, Ithaka ...
, New York. He taught briefly at the University of Illinois,
and joined the University of Louisville faculty in 1923,
but resigned in protest in 1927 after a friend and colleague in the history department was fired as part of an attempt by the university administration to abolish
tenure
Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program disco ...
.
He joined the University of Chicago in 1927, was promoted to full professor in 1935, and chaired the history department from 1937 to 1942.
He was given his
endowed chair
A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are of ...
, the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professorship of History, in 1959.
In 1965, facing forced retirement from Chicago, he moved again to the University of Illinois at Chicago so that he could continue teaching.
From 1929 to 1943, he served as assistant editor of the ''
Journal of Modern History
''The Journal of Modern History'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering European intellectual, political, and cultural history, published by the University of Chicago Press. Established in 1929, the journal covers events from appr ...
''; for three years following, he was acting editor.
He was president of 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 ...
in 1953
and the second president of the
American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
The American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) is an academic society for humanities research related to the "long" eighteenth century, from the later seventeenth through the early nineteenth centuries. ASECS was established in 1969, ...
.
He met poet
Laura Riding, then known by her maiden name, Laura Reichenthal, while she was a student at Cornell and he was a graduate assistant there. They married on November 2, 1920, and he took her last name as his middle name. However, they divorced in 1925.
He later married Fruma Kasden, in 1930; they had two sons.
Fruma Gottschalk later taught Russian at the University of Chicago, and died in 1995.
Awards and honors
Gottschalk was a
Guggenheim Fellow
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 ar ...
in 1928 and 1954,
and a Center for Advanced study of the Behavioral Sciences fellow in 1957.
In 1953 he was honored as Chevalier in the
Legion of Honor
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
and in 1954 he won a Fulbright award.
He received honorary doctorates from the
University of Toulouse
The University of Toulouse (french: Université de Toulouse) was a university in the French city of Toulouse that was established by papal bull in 1229, making it one of the earliest universities to emerge in Europe. Suppressed during the Frenc ...
,
Hebrew Union College
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, and the University of Louisville.
In 1965 his students presented him with a
festschrift
In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the ...
, ''Ideas in History: Essays Presented to Louis Gottschalk by his Former Students'',
Duke University Press
Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...
.
Gottschalk was an elected member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
and 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 ...
.
A series of lectures is named for him at the
University of Louisville
The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one ...
. The annual $1000 Louis
Gottschalk Prize, named in his honor, is given by the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies to the author of "an outstanding historical or critical study".
ACECS Awards and Prizes
, ACECS, retrieved 2010-08-06.
Works
Gottschalk published seven volumes on the history of Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (, ), was a French aristocrat, freemason and military officer who fought in the American Revoluti ...
revolution
In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
s.
online
*
*''Jean Paul Marat: a study in radicalism '' New York: Greenberg, Publisher, Inc. 1927; Ayer Company Publishers, Incorporated, 1972,
*"Studies since 1920 of French Thought in the Period of the Enlightenment," ''The Journal of Modern History'' Vol. 4, No. 2, June 1932
*''Lady-in-waiting: the romance of Lafayette and Aglaé de Hunolstein'', The Johns Hopkins press, 1939
*''Lafayette comes to America'' University of Chicago Press, 1935; Kessinger Publishing, 2008,
*"Carl Becker: Skeptic or Humanist?" ''The Journal of Modern History'' Vol. 18, No. 2, June 1946
*"Our Vichy Fumble," ''The Journal of Modern History'' Vol. 20, No. 1, March 1948
*''Lafayette in America, 1777–1783'', L'Esprit de Lafayette Society, 1975
*''Lafayette and the Close of the American Revolution'' The University of Chicago Press, 1942; UMI books on demand, 1998,
*''Lafayette between the American and the French Revolution, 1783–1789'' University of Chicago press
*''Lafayette In the French Revolution'', University of Chicago press, 1969
*''Lafayette joins the American army'', University of Chicago Press, 1974,
*''Social Science Research Council. Committee on Historical Analysis''
*''Lady In Waiting The Romance of Lafayette and Aglae de Hunolstein ''
*''Lafayette : a guide to the letters, documents, and manuscripts in the…''
''The Life of Jean Paul Marat''
(Little blue book No. 433) Kessinger Publishing, 2006,
*''The Foundations of the Modern World 300–1775', Allen & Unwin, 1969
*''Toward the French Revolution: Europe & America in the Eighteenth-Century…'' Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973,
*''The use of personal documents in history, anthropology, and sociology'' Editors Louis Reichenthal Gottschalk, Clyde Kluckhohn, Robert Cooley Angell, Social Science Research Council, 1945
*Generalization in the Writing of History
*''Understanding history; a primer of historical method
Historical method is the collection of techniques and guidelines that historians use to research and write histories of the past. Secondary sources, primary sources and material evidence such as that derived from archaeology may all be draw ...
''
His papers are held at the University of Chicago.
References
Further reading
*.
External links
The University of Chicago Photographic Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gottschalk, Louis R.
20th-century American historians
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
Jewish American historians
American male non-fiction writers
Cornell University alumni
1899 births
University of Chicago faculty
1975 deaths
University of Louisville faculty
University of Illinois Chicago faculty
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty
Historians of the French Revolution
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American Jews
World historians
Members of the American Philosophical Society