Alan Zelick Trachtenberg (March 22, 1932 – August 18, 2020) was an American historian and the Neil Gray Jr. Professor of English and professor emeritus of American Studies at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

Biography

Born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Trachtenberg attended Temple University, and earned his Ph.D. in

American Studies American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American literature, History of the United States, history, Society of the United States, society, and Culture of the Unit ...

at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

, writing his dissertation on the Brooklyn Bridge in American literature. Trachtenberg taught at Penn State for eight years, then spent a year at the Stanford

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research institution at Stanford University designed to advance the frontiers of knowledge about human behavior and society, and contribute to the resoluti ...

, before joining the faculty at Yale in 1969. He resided in Hamden, Connecticut with his wife Betty (née Glassman), pianist and college administrator, who was dean of students at

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

from 1987 to 2007. Trachtenberg's landmark 1990 book, ''Reading American Photographs: Images as History,

Mathew Brady Mathew B. Brady ( – January 15, 1896) was an American photographer. Known as one of the earliest and most famous photographers in American history, he is best known for his scenes of the American Civil War, Civil War. He studied under invento ...

to Walker Evans– A Study of American Photography from 1839 to 1938'', won the Charles C. Eldredge Prize that year.

Selected works

* ''Lincoln's Smile and Other Enigmas,'' Hill and Wang, 2007, . * ''Shades of Hiawatha: Staging Indians, Making Americans, 1880-1930'', Hill and Wang, 2004, . * ''Distinctly American: The Photography of Wright Morris'' (with Ralph Lieberman) exh. cat. Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, Merrill, 2002. . * ''Reading American Photographs: Images as History, Mathew Brady to Walker Evans'', Hill and Wang, 1990, . * ''The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age'', Hill and Wang, 1982, . * ''Hart Crane, A Collection of Critical Essays''. Prentice-Hall, 1982. . * ''Classic Essays in Photography'' (editor), Leetes Island Books, 1981, . * ''Brooklyn Bridge: Fact and Symbol'', University Of Chicago Press, 1965, .

References

External links

''The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age''
online version. *Photographi
portrait
by Walker Evans, 1974, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Tribute
in the online ''Yale News'', August 18, 2020. 1932 births 2020 deaths Writers from Philadelphia University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts alumni Yale University faculty 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers American academics of English literature Jewish American historians Historians of photography 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American Jews {{US-English-academic-bio-stub