John Morton Blum

John Morton Blum (; April 29, 1921 – October 17, 2011) was an American historian, active from 1948 to 1991. He was a specialist in 20th-century American political history, and was a senior advisor to Yale officials.

Life and career

Blum was born in New York City, the son of Edna (LeVino) Blum, a confectioner, and Morton Gustave Blum, a businessman and inventor. He came from a Jewish household of limited means. In high school he met Harvard University administrator Henry Chauncey, who spotted his talent and arranged for him to spend his senior year at Phillips Academy. He went on to attend Harvard University on scholarships and campus jobs. Upon graduation in 1943, he was commissioned as an ensign in the United States Navy, serving in the Caribbean, the South West Pacific theatre of World War II, and Iwo Jima. In 1950 he returned to Harvard to write his PhD dissertation on "Tumulty and the Wilson Era" under the direction of Frederick Merk.David M. Kennedy, "John Morton Blum, 1921–2001: Historian of Modern America," ''Perspectives on History'' (December 2011). Blum married Pamela Zink in 1946 and had three children."Storied professor dies"
. ''The Yale Daily News''. Accessed October 21, 2011. He taught at MIT from 1948 to 1957 before moving to Yale University in 1957. He retired in 1991."Ivy League Insider"
''Harvard Magazine'' (November–December 2004). Accessed October 21, 2011.
. University Press of Kansas."Iconic historian passes away"
. ''Yale Daily News''. Accessed October 21, 2011.

Professor at Yale

Blum was on the history faculty at Yale for 34 years, where he taught and influenced thousands of students. One of them in his large lecture class was future U.S. President George W. Bush. Blum later admitted "I haven't the foggiest recollection of him", but Bush remembered and cited Blum's influence in his commencement speech at Yale in May 2001."Commencement Address at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut May 21, 2001"
The American Presidency Project. Accessed October 21, 2011. Other prominent students of his include Professor Henry Louis Gates, who considered Blum to be his mentor, as well as Professor Laura Kalman (University of California, Santa Barbara),"Department of History"
. University of California, Santa Barbara. Accessed October 21, 2011. Steve Gillon, resident historian of the History Channel, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, and Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman.

Blum was one of the "Big Three" in Yale's History Department along with C. Vann Woodward and Edmund Morgan,"From Here to There: A Review"
. PM Press. Accessed October 21, 2011. and served as chairman of the History Department in the late 1960s.

After his death, the John Morton Blum Fellowship in American History and Culture was established at Yale.
. Yale University. Accessed October 21, 2011.

Historian

Author

Blum is the author of several historical works, including ''Joseph Tumulty and the Wilson Era'' (1951) (about President Woodrow Wilson's private secretary Joseph Patrick Tumulty), ''The Republican Roosevelt'' (1954), ''V Was for Victory'' (1977) (about World War II), and ''Years of Discord: American Politics and Society, 1961–1974'' (1992) (covering U.S. politics from the inauguration of U.S. President John F. Kennedy to the resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon). He also published a mystery novel based on Yale, ''An Old Blue Corpse'' (2005)."John Morton Blum, 1921–2011"
. ''Yale Alumni Magazine''. Accessed October 21, 2011. He also wrote a memoir, ''A Life with History'' (2004), detailing his years on the nation's top history faculty, where he witnessed the privileged mostly white WASP student body grow in diversity, describing it as "not a refuge from reality but an alternative reality".

Perhaps Blum's most widely read work was ''The National Experience: A History of the United States'' (1963), a university history textbook he edited and co-authored with William S. McFeely, Edmund S. Morgan, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Kenneth M. Stampp."John Morton Blum, Yale presidential historian, dies at 90"
''The Washington Post''. Accessed October 25, 2011.

His 1954 book ''The Republican Roosevelt'' restored the reputation of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, rescuing it from Henry F. Pringle's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1931 biography ''Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography'', which portrayed him as a blustering politician who never grew up that kept him from being taken seriously. However Blum's prose came under attack: "In contrast to many biographers, Blum is not a natural writer; his style is neither elegant nor smooth. Instead, his sentences are often awkward and clunky and force the reader to sip rather than drink freely."Stephen Floyd
"Review of ''The Republican Roosevelt'' by John Blum" (22 March 2015)
/ref>

A specialist on the New Deal, Blum wrote ''From the Morgenthau Diaries'' (3 vols., 1959–1967), a biography closely based on the diaries of Henry Morgenthau Jr. (1891–1967), United States Treasury Secretary in 1934–1945. Blum was also prolific as an editor, serving as co-editor of ''The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt'' (8 vols., 1951–1954), edited by Elting E. Morison.

In 1980 Blum published ''Liberty, Justice, Order: Writings on Past Politics'', 13 essays containing profiles of 10 political leaders representing the first seven decades of the 20th century, including Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Croly, Mark Hanna, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Wallace, Archibald MacLeish, Walter Lippman, and Earl Warren, bringing out their efforts to foster social justice and economic equality.

He also edited the letters of Walter Lippmann and Henry A. Wallace.

Film and television

Blum made a cameo appearance as himself in the 1983 Woody Allen film ''Zelig'',"John Morton Blum Filmography"
''The New York Times''. Accessed October 21, 2011. and he has appeared in various documentaries on PBS such as the '' American Experience'' series, including ''Theodore Roosevelt'' in 1996 with fellow historian David McCullough."American Experience"
PBS. Accessed October 21, 2011. In 1999 he appeared in "The Great War" segment of '' The Century: America's Time''."The Century" full cast and credits
Internet Movie Database. Accessed October 21, 2011.

Honors and awards

*American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1960)
*Pitt Professorship at Cambridge (1963–1964)
* Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University (1976–1977)
*Honorary Degree from Harvard University (1980)

Works

* ''Joseph Tumulty and the Wilson Era'' (1951).
* ''The Republican Roosevelt'' (1954
read online
* ''The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt'' (8 vols.) (1954) (ed. with Elting E. Morison).
* ''From the Morgenthau Diaries'' (3 vols.) (1959–1967). "Years of Crisis, 1928–1938" (1959), "Years of Urgency, 1938–1941" (1965), "Years of War, 1941–1945" (1967).
* ''The National Experience: A History of the United States'' (with William S. McFeely, Edmund S. Morgan, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Kenneth M. Stampp) (1963)
* ''V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During World War II'' (1977
read online
* ''The Progressive Presidents: Roosevelt, Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson'' (1980
online
* ''Liberty, Justice, Order: Writings on Past Politics'' (1980, 1993
read online
* ''Years of Discord: American Politics and Society, 1961–1974'' (1992

*''A Life with History'' (autobiography) (Harvard University Press, 2004)

References

External links

*

"Memorial Service for Historian John Morton Blum", November 11, 2011
**John Morton Blum papers (MS 86). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blum, John Morton
1921 births
2011 deaths
United States Navy officers
Military personnel from New York City
American political writers
Historians of the United States
Phillips Academy alumni
Jewish American historians
American male non-fiction writers
Writers from New Haven, Connecticut
Yale University faculty
Fellows of Queens' College, Cambridge
Writers from New York City
Academics of the University of Cambridge
Harvard University alumni
Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professors of American History
Historians from New York City
Historians from Connecticut
United States Navy personnel of World War II
21st-century American Jews