American historian
William W. Freehling
Born William Wilhartz Freehling
(1935-12-26 ) December 26, 1935 (age 88) Nationality American Alma mater
Harvard College
University of California, Berkeley Occupation Historian Spouses
Natalie Paperno
(
m. ;
div. )
Alison Goodyear
(after
)
Children 4
William Wilhartz Freehling (born December 26, 1935) is an American
historian , and Singletary Professor of the Humanities Emeritus at the
University of Kentucky .
[1]
Early life
Freehling was born in
Chicago, Illinois on December 26, 1935, a son of Norman Freehling and Edna (
née Wilhartz) Freehling.
[2] He received his undergraduate degree from
Harvard College , graduating
Phi Beta Kappa in 1958. He wrote his undergraduate honors thesis under noted U.S. historian
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. He received his M.A. in 1959 and his Ph.D. in 1964, from the
University of California, Berkeley , with historian
Kenneth M. Stampp serving as his dissertation supervisor.
[2]
Career
Freehling taught at Berkeley,
Harvard , the
University of Michigan , and
Johns Hopkins University . He also held endowed chairs at
SUNY, Buffalo and Kentucky.
[3]
Freehling has written several well-respected works on the
American South during the
antebellum era and on the
American Civil War . His most notable book, Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina , won the 1967
Bancroft Prize .
As of 2011, he was senior fellow at the
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities .
[4]
Personal life
On January 27, 1961, Freehling married Natalie Paperno. Before their divorce in April 1970, they became the parents of two children, Alan and Deborah Freehling,
[2] and on June 19, 1971, he married fellow historian Alison Harrison (
née
Goodyear ) Bradshaw.
[5] The former wife of William Emmons Bradshaw,
[6] she was a daughter of Frank H. Goodyear Jr. and a granddaughter of lumber baron
Frank H. Goodyear and
Edmund P. Rogers .
[7] Together, they are the parents of two children, Alison and William Freehling.
[2]
Awards
Works
The Road to Disunion: Volume I: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854 . Oxford University Press. 1991.
ISBN
978-0-19-507259-4 .
[11]
William W. Freehling; Craig M. Simpson, eds. (1992).
Secession Debated: Georgia's Showdown in 1860 . Oxford University Press.
ISBN
978-0-19-507945-6 .
Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836 . Oxford University Press. 1992.
ISBN
978-0-19-507681-3 .
The Reintegration of American History: Slavery and the Civil War . Oxford University Press. 1994.
ISBN
978-0-19-508808-3 .
[12]
"The Civil War: Repressible or Irrepressible" (with Allan Nevins), in Francis G. Couvares, George Athan Billias, Martha Saxton, eds., Interpretations of American History: Through Reconstruction . Simon & Schuster, 2000.
ISBN
978-0-684-86773-1
The South vs. the South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War. Oxford University Press, 2001
The Road to Disunion: Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861 . Oxford University Press. 2007.
ISBN
978-0-19-505815-4 .
"Arthur Schlesinger Jr: William W. Freehling Remembers", OUP blog
William W. Freehling; Craig M. Simpson, eds. (2010).
Showdown in Virginia: The 1861 Convention and the Fate of the Union . University of Virginia Press.
ISBN
978-0-813-92991-0 .
Becoming Lincoln . University of Virginia Press, 2018.
ISBN
9780813941561
References
Further reading
Ward, John William (1955). Andrew Jackson: Symbol for an Age . New York: Oxford University Press.
External links
Appearances on
C-SPAN
"The South Vs. the South , Reviewed by Gary Smith, Department of History, University of Dundee", American Studies Online , 14 November 2005
"A Very Special Visit: William W. Freehling", Civil War Memory , September 25, 2007
"Historical Reconstructions", The Historical Society , 2002
"Four American Presidents (But What Did They Have to Do with the Civil War?)", The Museum of the Confederacy , February 20, 2010
International National Other