Richard Polenberg (July 21, 1937 – November 26, 2020) was an American historian.

Background

Richard Polenberg was born in

Ithaca, New York Ithaca () is a city in and the county seat of Tompkins County, New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York (state), New York, Ithaca is the largest community in the Ithaca metrop ...

, on July 21, 1937. He received his

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree from

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn in New York City, United States. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls nearly 14,000 students on a campus in the Midwood and Flatbush sections of Brooklyn as of fall ...

and his

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

degree from

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 ...

, the latter supervised by William E. Leuchtenburg.

Career

Polenberg taught history at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

for 45 years, from 1966 to 2011; In 1986, he became Goldwin Smith Professor of American History. After retiring, he became the Marie Underhill Noll Professor of History Emeritus. In retirement, he also taught in the Auburn Correctional Facility as a part of the Cornell prison education program.

Death

Polenberg died at his home in Ithaca, New York, on November 26, 2020, at the age of 83.

Legacy

Former student Tom Allen wrote of Polenberg:

Awards

* Clark Distinguished Teaching Award from Cornell University * Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association for ''Fighting Faiths'' * Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Foundation for ''Fighting Faiths'' * Fulbright Visiting Professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem

Works

Polenberg published several works during this period, the majority concerning the 20th-century US.

Selected works

*''Reorganizing Roosevelt's Government, 1936–1939'' (1966) *''War and Society: The United States, 1941–1945'' (1972) *''One Nation Divisible: Class, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States Since 1938'' (1980) *''Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, the Supreme Court, and Free Speech'' (1989) *''The World of Benjamin Cardozo: Personal Values and the Judicial Process'' (1997) *''Hear My Sad Story: The True Tales That Inspired "Stagolee," "John Henry," and Other Traditional American Folk Songs'' (2015)

References

External links

Bio from Macmillan
1937 births 2020 deaths 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Brooklyn College alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Cornell University Department of History faculty Historians of the United States American male non-fiction writers People from Ithaca, New York {{US-historian-stub