William e gienapp biography for kids

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He was one of the great teachers of this faculty. In addition to teaching popular courses on the American Civil War, Reconstruction, and antebellum America, he also taught a popular course on the history of baseball in the United States.

Many years after his death, his wife, Erica Gienapp, completed one of his final projects: The Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles, Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy: The Original Manuscript Edition (2014).

Beth . In 2000, Gienapp was named a Harvard College Professor for his commitment to undergraduate teaching.

Gienapp is survived by his wife, Erica, and his children, William and Jonathan. Nativism was so powerful that the Republicans could not avoid it, but they did minimize it and turn voter wrath against the threat that slave owners would buy up the good farm lands wherever slavery was allowed.

william e gienapp biography for kids

Later he wrote Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America: A Biography (2002). He became a visiting associate professor at Harvard in 1988 before formally joining the faculty the following year. He did not claim to be a great historian, although he was one.”

Donald praised Gienapp’s “The Origins of the Republican Party” for its unique use of two distinct approaches to history, an econometric analysis of data such as voting returns or census data and a more traditional narrative approach.

A native of Texas, Gienapp received his B.A.

and Ph.D.

Civil War historian, beloved professor, William Gienapp, at 59

William E. Gienapp, Harvard College Professor, professor of history, and a prominent authority on the Civil War, died Oct. 29 at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Mass., of complications related to cancer. 396–402 online

  • William Gienapp, "Nativism and the Creation of a Republican Majority in the North before the Civil War." Journal of American History 72.3 (1985): 529–559 online.
  • Bryon Andreasen (March 2004).

    "While the heart of the book focuses on the Civil War, Gienapp begins with a finely etched portrait of Lincoln's early life, from pioneer farm boy, to politician and lawyer in Springfield, to his stunning election as sixteenth president of the United States. The realignment was powerful because it forced voters to switch parties, as typified by the rise and fall of the Know-Nothings, the rise of the Republican Party, and the deep splits in the Democratic Party.[2][3]

    Publications

    • The Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles, Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy: The Original Manuscript Edition (University of Illinois Press, 2014), edited with Erica L.

      Gienapp.

    • Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America: A Biography (Oxford University Press, 2002)
    • This Fiery Trial: The Speeches and Writings of Abraham Lincoln (Oxford University Press, 2002), edited.[4]
    • The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Documentary Collection (W. 529-559. Oxford University Press.

      He was survived by his wife and two sons.[1]

      During his tenure at Harvard University, Gienapp acquired a reputation as a teacher and mentor of graduate students. “A leading historian who studied America of the time of its greatest internal crisis, the Civil War, Bill Gienapp was also unparalleled as teacher, adviser, and mentor to countless undergraduates, graduate students, and Extension School students from all walks of life.

      We see how Lincoln grew during his years in office, how he developed a keen aptitude for military strategy and displayed enormous skill in dealing with his generals, and also how his war strategy evolved from a desire to preserve the Union to emancipation and total war.". online

    • "'Politics Seem to Enter into Everything': Political Culture in the North, 1840-1860," in Stephen E, Maizlish, ed., Essays on American Antebellum Politics, 1840-1860 (Texas A&M University Press, 1982), pp.14–69.

      In short, Bill Gienapp was a man of exacting standards, for himself, for his students, and for his profession. Most of his boyhood was spent in rural Iowa, about 30 miles outside of Des Moines, but in his early teens the family moved on to Southern California. Gienapp argues that the great realignment of the 1850s began before the Whig party collapse, and was caused not by politicians but by voters at the local level.

      If it could not be done at Yale, he would return to Berkeley and work under Stampp's direction.

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      Image: Harvard Gazette

  • William Gienapp Explained

    William E. Gienapp (February 27, 1944 – October 29, 2003) was an American historian noted for his writing on the period of the American Civil War.

    His prize-winning The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856 (1987) was based on original research and revised the traditional understanding of the political party's origins. (Indeed, I recall well, when I was chair of History, the unhappiness of students who couldn’t get into his baseball seminar; those who got in never complained!) He was simply an outstanding lecturer, in the best Harvard tradition, and his ability to fully engage students was widely admired.

    The Know-Nothing party embodied the social forces at work, but its weak leadership was unable to solidify its organization, and the Republicans picked it apart.