James Harvey Robinson

This article is about the historian and academician. For the American popular fiction writer who used the pseudonym, "Dr. J.H. Robinson", see Sylvanus Cobb Jr. For others named James H. Robinson, see James H. Robinson.

James Harvey Robinson
James Harvey Robinson (c. 1922)
Born	(1863-06-29)June 29, 1863 Bloomington, Illinois, US
Died	New York City, US
Resting place	Evergreen Cemetery (Bloomington, Illinois)
Alma mater	1883–1884: Attended, Illinois State Normal College 1887: A.B., Harvard 1888: M.A., Harvard 1890: Ph.D. University of Freiburg
Employer	1891–1995: U. Penn 1895–1919: Columbia 1919–1936: New School for Social Research
Spouse(s)	Grace Woodville Read (maiden; 1866–1927) (m. September 1, 1887)

James Harvey Robinson (June 29, 1863 in Bloomington, Illinois – February 16, 1936 in New York City) was an American scholar of history who, with Charles Austin Beard, founded New History, a disciplinary approach that attempts to use history to understand contemporary problems, which greatly broadened the scope of historical scholarship in relation to the social sciences.

Biography

Robinson was born in Bloomington, Illinois, to James Harvey Robinson (1808–1874), a bank president, and Latricia Maria Drake (maiden; 1821–1908). After traveling to Europe in 1882 Robinson entered Harvard University in 1884, earning his A.B. in 1887 and his M.A. in 1888. He continued his studies at the University of Strasbourg and the University of Freiburg and received his Ph.D. at Freiburg in 1890. In the summer of 1891, Robinson was appointed Lecturer of European history at what then was called the Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania. In 1895, he moved to Columbia University as a full professor, where he mentored numerous students who went on to become influential leaders in various fields, notably professorships around the United States.

Following some departures of faculty from Columbia over disputes of academic freedom – departures that included his friend Charles A. Beard – Robinson resigned from Columbia in May 1919 to become one of the founders of the New School for Social Research and serve as its first director.

Robinson died of a heart attack at his home in Manhattan. His body was interred at Bloomington, Illinois, in the Robinson family plot at the Evergreen Memorial Cemetery.

Notable works

New History

Through his writings and lectures, in which he stressed the "new history"—the social, scientific, and intellectual progress of humanity rather than merely political happenings, Robinson exerted an important influence on the study and teaching of history. An editor (1892–1895) of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, he was also an associate editor (1912–1920) of the American Historical Review, and, in 1929, succeeded James H. Breasted as President of the American Historical Association.

European history textbooks

It may well be the men of science, not kings, or warriors, or even statesmen are to be the heroes of the future.

– Robinson & Beard (1907)

Robinson's An Introduction to the History of Western Europe (1902, followed by several editions) was "The first textbook on European history which was reliable in scholarship, lively in tone, and penetrating in its interpretations. It revolutionized the teaching of European history and put a whole generation of history students and history teachers in debt to the author." (Harry Elmer Barnes)

The Mind in the Making

Robinson's book, The Mind in the Making: The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform (1921), was a bestseller, introducing a generation of readers to the intellectual world of higher education. It argues for freedom of thought as essential to progress. The book also postulated that people usually substituted rationalizations for reason.

The book and the New History movement itself was not without staunch critics. Classical scholar and foe to progressive treatises of history Paul Shorey (1857–1934), in a review of the book, declared:

I have no sympathy with academic superciliousness toward popular fiction, popular drama, or the popularization of the real sciences so far as this is possible. And if Mr. Robinson had exercised his undoubted gifts of vivacity and apparent lucidity in these fields, I would have been the last to cavil at the crudities and superficialities inseparable from all such endeavors. But he makes his appeal as a critical thinker and a lifelong student of history, and it is therefore fair to remind him of what, in spite of the complaisance of American reviewing, he probably knows – that in the judgment of those whom he once would have regarded as his peers he is fast forfeiting his claim to the title of historian by his reckless disregard of the warning historia scribitur ad narrandum, non ad probadum [history is written in the narrative, not proven].

The Human Comedy

Robinson's last book The Human Comedy: As Devised and Directed by Mankind Itself (1937) contains his mature reflections on history after a lifetime of study.

• From Chapter 1: "It is a poor technic when attempting to convert one's neighbor to attack his beliefs directly, especially those of the sacred variety. We may flatter outselves that we are undermining them by our potent reasoning only to find that we have shored them up so that they are firmer than ever. Often history will work where nothing else will. It very gently modifies one's attitude. Refutations are weak compared with its mild but potent operation. To become historically-minded is to be grown-up."
• From Chapter 2: "It is true that biologists have, many of them, given up what they call 'Darwinism'; they have surrendered Spencer's notion of the hereditary transmission of acquired characters, and they even use the word 'evolution' timidly and with many reservations. But this does not mean that they have any doubts that mankind is a species of animal, sprung in some mysterious and as yet unexplained manner from extinct wild creatures of the forests and plains."
• From Chapter 9: "And, with supreme irony, the war to "make the world safe for democracy," ended by leaving democracy more unsafe in the world than at any time since the collapse of the revolutions of 1848."

Other selected works

Books

• LCCN 07-36724; OCLC 1089721.

• LCCN 16-6108 (2nd ed.); OCLC 643613304.
• LCCN 02-23763; OCLC 717561.
• LCCN 12-5184; OCLC 614912.

1. "The New History". JSTOR 984033.
2. "The History of History"
3. "The New Allies of History"
4. "Some Reflections on Intellectual History"
5. "History for the Common Man"
6. "'The Fall of Rome'"
7. "'The Principles of 1789'"
8. "The Conservative Spirit in the Light of History"

• LCCN 14-30277; OCLC 645050.

• LCCN 14-30277; OCLC 645050.

• History of Europe: Ancient and Medieval (with James Henry Breasted), 1920 online edition
• History of Europe: Our Own Times: The Eighteenth and Eineteenth Centuries: The Opening of the Twentieth Century and the World War (with Charles A. Beard). Boston: Ginn and Co., 1921 online edition
• OCLC 251290603.

→

→

→ London: Watts & Co. (publisher). (introduction by H.G. Wells). The Thinkers Library, No. 46.

→ 1st impression (1934)

→ 2nd impression (May 1933)

→

→

→ London & New York: Harper & Brothers (publisher) (1939). LCCN 39-2958.

→ New York: Harper & Brothers (publisher) (1950). LCCN 50-6284.

• LCCN 26-27483; OCLC 392259.

Reissued as OCLC 870859475.

Vol. 1: "The Middle Ages"

Vol. 2: "Renaissance, Reformation, Revolution"

• LCCN 37-623 (1st ed.); OCLC 33050032.

Articles

• OCLC 251097060, 458065317 and 601706752, 1073282942.
• ISSN 0002-7162 (publication); JSTOR 1008806 (article); OCLC 5546411901 and 5723433640 (article).
• ISSN 0032-3195 (publication); JSTOR 2139955 (article); OCLC 5545334054 and 4951155283 (article).
• OCLC 24451003.
•   LCCN agr16000592 ; OCLC 3571848.
• OCLC 10141764.

→

→

→

• ISSN 0003-049X (publication); JSTOR 984033 (article); OCLC 7836150273 (article).
• ISSN 0036-8075 (publication); OCLC 5552131098 (article).
• LCCN 29-17944 (24 volume book set); OCLC 494104867 (article).

Translations and Reprints, History Department, University of Pennsylvania

• LCCN unk83018682, LCCN 04-35794; OCLC 56478266 (volumes 1 & 2), OCLC 20158026.

→ "The Reaction After 1815 and European Policy of Metternich" (revised ed.).

→ "The Restoration and The European Policy of Metternich (1814–20)". (4th ed.)

→ "The French Revolution". (3rd ed.).

→ "The Naploeonic Period" (1895) (rev. ed.).

OCLC 7851839.

→ "Period of the Early Reformation in Germany" (1898). (5th ed.).

OCLC 55495427.

Reflections by other historians

Historian Jay Green, in 1999, stated:

From his innovations in historical methodology and research to his revisions of secondary and undergraduate pedagogy, Robinson endeavored to reform the modern study of history, making it relevant and useful to contemporary peoples. A quintessential Progressive, he combined astute in erudite thinking with a penchant for activism in order to challenge his professional colleagues' "obsolete" conception of history and to demonstrate written history's potential for inspiring social improvement.

Jack Pole, an American history specialist from Britain, in 1972, skeptically remarked:

[S]everal of the major figures of the period, including Osgood, Andrews, Morison, Wertenbaker, Miller and Nevins, writing history that would probably have been exactly the same if the New History school had never existed; and later commentators, so far from accepting the triumph of the New History, came to conclusion that, by at latest the end of World War II, its frontier of settlement had closed.

Selected former students

Barnard College, Columbia College, Columbia University (1895–1919)

• James Thomson Shotwell (1874–1965)
• Francis William Coker (1878–1963)
• Edmund H. Oliver (1882–1935)
• Clara Woolie Mayer (1895–1988)
• Edgar Wallace Knight (1886–1953)
• Harry Elmer Barnes (1889–1968)
• Katharine DuPre Lumpkin (1897–1988)
• Preserved Smith, (1880–1941)

Family

James Harvey Robinson – on September 1, 1887, in Bloomington, Illinois – married Grace Woodville Read (maiden; 1866–1927). They had no children. Robinson was a brother of botanist Benjamin Lincoln Robinson (1864–1935). By way of Robinson's wife's sister – Isabel Hamilton "Delle" Read (maiden; 1858–1923), the second wife of John Lewis (1842–1921) – Robinson was an uncle to Read Lewis (1887–1984), a lawyer who, among other things, in 1921 founded the Foreign Language Information Service and in 1940 co-founded the literary magazine Common Ground.

Bibliography

References

News media

Books, journals, magazines, and papers

OCLC 810042772.

LCCN 98-193149; ISBN 1-8849-6433-8; OCLC [1].

OCLC 903699115 and 903699115.

ISSN 0022-1546 (publication); JSTOR 1976157 (article); OCLC 8142350295 and 7348905875 (article).

ISSN 0080-4401 (publication); JSTOR 3678879 (article); OCLC 9522304, 4937688516 and 8271560744 (article).

LCCN 07-36724; OCLC 1089721.

OCLC 251290603.

→

→

→ London: Watts & Co. (publisher). (introduction by H.G. Wells). The Thinkers Library, No. 46.

→ 1st impression (1934)

→ 2nd impression (May 1933)

→

→

→ London & New York: Harper & Brothers (publisher) (1939). LCCN 39-2958.

→ New York: Harper & Brothers (publisher) (1950). LCCN 50-6284.

LCCN 37-623 (1st ed.); OCLC 33050032.

LCCN 2004-55135; ISBN 978-0-2311-2644-1; OCLC 896998682.

Genealogical archives

OCLC 944029064.

→ Holton, David-Parsons (1812–1883). New York (1877). LCCN 86-211025 (microfilm); LCCN 09-18732.

→ Parsons, Henry (1835–1905). New York: Frank Allaben Genealogical Company (1912) (link – via Internet Archive). LCCN 13-21459; OCLC 3789524.

→ Vol. 2.

→ Parsons, Gerald James (1924-2003 ). Baltimore: Gateway Press, Inc. (1984) (link – via Internet Archive) → (registration required). LCCN 83-82833.

Nabu Press (2010)

LCCN 14-19056; OCLC 16422116.

Further reading

LCCN a46006010; LCCN a47000848; OCLC 715774512.

ISSN 1537-7814 (publication); doi:10.1017/S1537781400002358 (article); JSTOR 25144317 (article); OCLC 8271564816 and 211125774 (article).

ISSN 0018-2745 (publication); doi:10.2307/494125 (article); ERIC: EJ440293 (article); JSTOR 2141735 (article); OCLC 425262233 (article).

External links

•  Author:James Harvey Robinson. Wikisource. 
• ISSN 0002-8762 (publication); JSTOR 1839356 (article); OCLC 5545171621 and 4646107022 (article).
• Works by James Harvey Robinson at Project Gutenberg