Richard R. Stenberg
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Richard R. Stenberg (b. ) was an American historian. During the 1930s and early 1940s he wrote several influential papers on the U.S. politics and events of the second quarter of the 19th century, sometimes known as the
Jacksonian era Jacksonian democracy, also known as Jacksonianism, was a 19th-century political ideology in the United States that restructured a number of federal institutions. Originating with the seventh U.S. president, Andrew Jackson and his supporters, i ...
. He also worked as regional administrator of Federal One's
Historical Records Survey The Historical Records Survey (HRS) was a project of the Works Progress Administration New Deal program in the United States. Originally part of the Federal Writers' Project, it was devoted to surveying and indexing historically significant rec ...
. He then largely disappeared from the public record himself, apparently having been confined to a hospital in Washington, D.C.


Life and work

Stenberg was born around 1910 in Nebraska. He did his doctorate at the University of Texas. In 1934 he was hired to teach European history at the
University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States. It is the Flagship campus, flagship campus of the University of Arkan ...
. He was a regional director, based in
San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...
, of the New Deal-era
Historical Records Survey The Historical Records Survey (HRS) was a project of the Works Progress Administration New Deal program in the United States. Originally part of the Federal Writers' Project, it was devoted to surveying and indexing historically significant rec ...
, serving from inception until August 1936. At the time of his son's birth in 1937, he reported to the registrar that he had worked as a teacher at the
University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...
for the past four years. Stenberg is remembered for consistently attacking what was then consensus view of historyrepresented in his time by figures including John S. Bassett and Eugene Barkerand he "particularly assaulted the reputations of
Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before Presidency of Andrew Jackson, his presidency, he rose to fame as a general in the U.S. Army and served in both houses ...
,
James K. Polk James Knox Polk (; November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th president of the United States, serving from 1845 to 1849. A protégé of Andrew Jackson and a member of the Democratic Party, he was an advocate of Jacksonian democracy and ...
and
Sam Houston Samuel Houston (, ; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American general and statesman who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two indi ...
." As part of Stenberg's "debunking" set-the-record-straight style, he was in the habit of "ignoring any other possible interpretation of his evidence, unless he use it to show how wrong it was." In 1958, Charles G. Sellers described him "Jackson's most inveterate scholarly foe in the twentieth century." Stenberg intended to produce a book called ''The Insidious Andrew Jackson'', which was never published, but nonetheless "Stenberg's point of view gained some currency through a series of articles." Jackson's research on the relationship between
Sam Houston Samuel Houston (, ; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American general and statesman who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two indi ...
and Jackson and
American expansionism Manifest destiny was the belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand westward across North America, and that this belief was both obvious ("''manifest''") and certain ("''destiny''"). The belief ...
into Texas was considered almost transgressive to some in the 1930s but by the 1970s the work was deemed "brilliant" and "endlessly cited."
Edward Pessen Edward Pessen (1920–1992) was an American historian. Life Edward Pessen was born to a working-class Jewish immigrant family in New York City. After army service Pessen completed undergraduate education (in 1947) and gained a PhD (in 1954) from Co ...
both recommended Stenberg's Jackson-critical articles and called them "studies in vitriol." Donald Ratliffe wrote in his 2015 history of the 1824 U.S. presidential election that "One does not have to accept Richard R. Stenberg's character assassination of Jackson in his 'Jackson, Buchanan, and the
Corrupt Bargain In American political jargon, corrupt bargain is a backdoor deal for or involving the U.S. presidency. Three events in particular in American political history have been called the corrupt bargain: the 1824 United States presidential election, ...
Calumny'...to appreciate his demonstration of the thinness of the evidence for the 'bargain and corruption' charge." Stenberg was an inmate of St. Elizabeth's Asylum 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 ...
at the time of the 1950 U.S. census.


Selected publications

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See also

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James Parton James Parton (February 9, 1822 – October 17, 1891) was an English-born American biographer who wrote books on the lives of Horace Greeley, Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire, and contributed three biog ...
*
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. ( ; born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger; October 15, 1917 – February 28, 2007) was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. The son of the influential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and a ...
*


References


Sources

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Stenberg, Richard R. 20th-century American historians University of Texas System people Year of death unknown Year of birth uncertain Historians of the United States Historians from Texas University of Arkansas faculty American political historians