Garrett Mattingly
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Garrett Mattingly (May 6, 1900 – December 18, 1962) was a professor of
European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD 500), the Middle Ages (AD 500–1500), and the modern era (since AD 1500). The first early Eu ...
at
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
who specialized in early modern diplomatic history. In 1960 he won a
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
for ''
The Defeat of the Spanish Armada ''The Armada'' is a popular history by Garrett Mattingly—a historian who taught at Columbia University—about the attempt of the Spanish Armada to invade England in 1588. It was published in 1959 by Houghton Mifflin Company, and Mattingly won ...
''.


Early life and education

Born in
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, Mattingly attended elementary school in Washington and public high school in
Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...
after his family moved to
Kalamazoo Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 73,598. It is the principal city of the Kalamazoo–Portage metropolitan are ...
in 1913. Following graduation, Mattingly served, 1918-1919, as a sergeant in the U. S. Army. He then earned an A. B. summa cum laude at
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
(1923) and, while still an undergraduate, studied in France at Strasbourg and Paris and in Florence, Italy. After two years spent working in a New York City publishing house he received his M.A. in history at Harvard (1926) and began his academic career at
Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...
in
Evanston, Illinois Evanston is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States, situated on the North Shore (Chicago), North Shore along Lake Michigan. A suburb of Chicago, Evanston is north of Chicago Loop, downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skok ...
, teaching history and literature. There he formed a close personal and professional friendship with writer Bernard DeVoto.James Friguglietti. "Mattingly, Garrett", ''American National Biography''. DeVoto and Mattingly each dedicated a book to the other. Mattingly completed his PhD at Harvard in 1935, having developed a strong interest in the sixteenth century and coming under the influence of Roger B. Merriman, a specialist in the history of the Spanish Empire. Aided by a
Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...
—of which he was a four-time winner—he spent the academic year 1937-1938 doing intensive research in European archives. In order to read the primary sources, Mattingly taught himself several foreign languages as well as sixteenth-century script.


Academic career

Mattingly's first book was the biography, ''
Catherine of Aragon Catherine of Aragon (also spelt as Katherine, historical Spanish: , now: ; 16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was List of English royal consorts, Queen of England as the Wives of Henry VIII, first wife of King Henry VIII from their marr ...
'' (1941), a book "extremely careful and accurate and enormously erudite" but with traces of the care, accuracy and erudition "carefully concealed or utterly obliterated." The book was chosen as a selection of the
Literary Guild The Literary Guild of America is a mail order book sales club, book club selling low-cost editions of selected current books to its members. Established in 1927 to compete with the Book of the Month Club, it is currently owned by Bookspan. It was a ...
. During World War II Mattingly served in the U.S. Naval Reserve as a lieutenant commander, but he spent most of his service in Washington, D.C., instructing intelligence officers. In the process, Mattingly learned much about naval operations that would later prove useful writing a best-seller about the Armada. Following the war Mattingly, disappointed in not attaining a Harvard appointment, found a position in the adult program of
Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly known as Cooper Union, is a private college on Cooper Square in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-s ...
in New York City, where he "perfected his dramatic style of lecturing."Donald R. Kelley, "Mattingly, Garrett, ''Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 7: 1961-1965'' (1981). In 1947 Mattingly joined the department of history at Columbia University where he spent the remainder of his career and was appointed William R. Shepherd Professor of European History in 1959. His lectures at Columbia were popular both for their learning and their sprightly presentation. A friend, Leo Gershoy, recalled that Mattingly lectured with head "cocked, eyes sparkling, his smile benign, he talked in a flow of words, witty, gay, and serious, about poetry and drama and novels, about music he loved dearly, about tapestries and paintings he admired, about rich wines and fine food that few appreciated with equal discrimination. He loved, too, to talk about explorers whose voyages he could so fully trace, and about sailing ships, how they were built and manned and how navigated." Mattingly treated his job as a historian "as that of telling a story about people" and he had "a wide-range panoramic vision." In 1955 Mattingly published ''Renaissance Diplomacy'', a book that made his historical reputation. Exceptionally well researched and citing sources in six languages, Mattingly wrote it in a style both erudite and limpid. As J. H. Hexter later wrote, "If any amount of skill could have made ''Renaissance Diplomacy'' a popular book, its author had the skill; but the cards were stacked against him." Nevertheless, Mattingly was so determined not to publish the book with a university press that, at his publisher's recommendation, he cut the manuscript by a third and destroyed the original draft. "It is perhaps a measure of that achievement that the ''Renaissance Diplomacy'' which historians read with such admiration is not as good as Mattingly could have made it; it is, indeed, not as good as he had made it. Even so, it remains one of the finest historical works of the past half century." Mattingly's most successful book was ''The Armada'' (1959). As one biographer has written, the book was "written in purple prose but a royal purple, which read like historical fiction." Hailed enthusiastically by critics, the book was a bestseller as both Book-of-the-Month Club and History Book Club selections. Mattingly also won a special Pulitzer Prize for the work."Special Awards and Citations"
The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2013-12-02.
He was an elected member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) 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, and other ...
and the
American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...
.


Critical assessment

Although a mild " Norman Thomas socialist" in politics, Mattingly had a "low tolerance for ideologies" both political and professional. He once joked that he was an old-fashioned literary historian like "
Will Durant William James Durant (; November 5, 1885 – November 7, 1981) was an American historian and philosopher, best known for his eleven-volume work, '' The Story of Civilization'', which contains and details the history of Eastern and Western civil ...
,
Irving Fisher Irving Fisher (February 27, 1867 – April 29, 1947) was an American economist, statistician, inventor, eugenicist and progressive social campaigner. He was one of the earliest American neoclassical economists, though his later work on debt de ...
and William Hickling Prescott."


Marriage and later years

Mattingly married Gertrude L. McCollum, a teacher, in 1928; the couple had no children. Although his health had been poor for several previous years, Mattingly died unexpectedly of
emphysema Emphysema is any air-filled enlargement in the body's tissues. Most commonly emphysema refers to the permanent enlargement of air spaces (alveoli) in the lungs, and is also known as pulmonary emphysema. Emphysema is a lower respiratory tract di ...
in 1962 while serving as George Eastman Visiting Professor at
Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...
.''American Historical Review'', 68 (April 1963), 907.


Works

* ''
Catherine of Aragon Catherine of Aragon (also spelt as Katherine, historical Spanish: , now: ; 16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was List of English royal consorts, Queen of England as the Wives of Henry VIII, first wife of King Henry VIII from their marr ...
'' (
1941 The Correlates of War project estimates this to be the deadliest year in human history in terms of conflict deaths, placing the death toll at 3.49 million. However, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program estimates that the subsequent year, 1942, wa ...
) * '' Renaissance Diplomacy'' ( 1955)
Penguin edition (1964) from the Internet Archive
** * ''The Armada'' (
1959 Events January * January 1 – Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 – Soviet lunar probe Luna 1 is the first human-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reaches the ...
) * ''Renaissance Profiles'' (1978)


References


Bibliography

* J. H. Hexter, "Garrett Mattingly, Historian", ''Doing History'' (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971), 157-72.


External links

*.
Finding aid to Garrett Mattingly papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.The Mattingly Award
an annual prize for diplomatic history. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mattingly, Garrett 1900 births 1962 deaths Pulitzer Prize winners Harvard University alumni Columbia University faculty 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers Scholars of diplomacy 20th-century American male writers United States Army non-commissioned officers Members of the American Philosophical Society