Charles Seymour

Seymour was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of Thomas Day Seymour, who taught classics at Yale, and Sarah Hitchcock Seymour. His paternal grandfather, Nathan Perkins Seymour, was the great-great grandson of Thomas Clap, who was President of Yale in the 1740s. His paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Day, was the grandniece of Jeremiah Day, who was Yale's president from 1817 through 1846. An ancestor of his mother, the former Sarah Hitchcock, was awarded an honorary degree at Yale's first graduation ceremonies in 1702.[https://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F10D17FD3F55127B93C0A81783D85F478685F9 "Charles Seymour of Yale Dies at 78,"] New York Times. August 12, 1963.

Seymour was awarded a Bachelor of Arts at King's College, Cambridge in 1904; and he earned a second BA from Yale in 1908. He went on to earn a PhD from Yale in 1911. In 1908, he was also tapped as a member of the Skull and Bones Society and in 1919 he was founding member of the Council on Foreign Relations.{{citation needed|date = June 2015}}

Seymour's teaching experience began at Yale in 1911 when he was made an instructor in history. He was made a full professor in 1918; and when he eventually left teaching, he had risen amongst the faculty to become Sterling Professor of History (1922–1927).[https://www.nytimes.com/1949/04/11/archives/seymour-to-retire-as-yale-head-in-50-aged-64-he-says-reshaping-of.html?sq=charles%2520seymour&scp=15&st=cse "Seymour to Retire as Yale Head in '50,"] New York Times. April 11, 1949 He taught history at Yale from 1911 though 1937, when he became president of the university.

Seymour served as the chief of the Austro-Hungarian Division of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace in 1919. He was also the U.S. delegate on the Romanian, Yugoslavian, and Czechoslovakian Territorial Commissions in 1919.

In 1933, he delivered the Albert Shaw Lectures on Diplomatic History at Johns Hopkins University on the subject of American Diplomacy during the First World War.

Seymour served for ten years as the university's provost (1927–1937). During this period, Yale College was re-organized into a system of ten residential colleges, instituted in 1933 with the help of a grant by Yale graduate Edward S. Harkness, who admired the college systems at Oxford and Cambridge. Seymour became the first Master of Berkeley College.[https://www.nytimes.com/1931/05/22/archives/yale-names-3-more-as-college-masters-drs-charles-seymour-cw-mendel.html?sq=charles%2520seymour&scp=12&st=cse "Yale Names 3 More as College Masters; Drs. Charles Seymour, C.W. Mendel and Arnold Whitridge of Colombia Are Named,"] New York Times. May 22, 1931; [http://www.yale.edu/berkeley/index.html Berkeley College:] [http://www.yale.edu/berkeley/about_history.html BK history]

Seymour was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1938 and the American Philosophical Society in 1939.{{Cite web |title=Charles Seymour |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/charles-seymour |access-date=2023-05-12 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |date=9 February 2023 |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Charles+Seymour&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2023-05-12 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}

At age 52, Seymour succeeded James Rowland Angell as the university's 15th president in October 1937.[https://www.nytimes.com/1937/02/14/archives/seymour-named-yale-president-to-succeed-dr-angell-in-june-election.html?sq=charles%2520seymour&scp=5&st=cse "Seymour Named Yale President To Succeed Dr. Angell in June,"] New York Times. February 14, 1937. After his retirement in July 1950, he would be succeeded by Alfred Whitney Griswold.Parke, Richard H. [https://www.nytimes.com/1950/06/13/archives/yale-in-graduation-honors-its-leader-university-to-dr-seymours.html?sq=charles%2520seymour&scp=7&st=cse "Yale in Graduation Honors its Leader,"] New York Times. June 13, 1950.

After his retirement as president, Seymour continued his involvement with the university as curator of the papers of Edward M. House at the Yale University Library.

He died in Chatham, Massachusetts in 1963 after a long illness. His son, Charles Seymour Jr., was a professor of art history at Yale.

{{wikisource|works=or}}

• 1915 – [https://books.google.com/books?id=34kEAAAAYAAJ Electoral Reform in England and Wales: The Development and Operation of the Parliamentary Franchise, 1832–1885.] New Haven: Yale University Press.
• 1916 – [https://archive.org/details/diplomaticbackg00seymgoog The Diplomatic Background of the War, 1870–1914.] New Haven: Yale University Press.
• 1918 – [https://archive.org/details/howworldvotesst04frargoog How the World Votes: The Story of Democratic Development in Elections] with Donald Paige Frary. Springfield, Massachusetts: C. A. Nichols. {{OCLC|557198}}
• 1921 – [https://archive.org/details/woodrowwilsonan05seymgoog Woodrow Wilson and the World War.] New Haven: Yale University Press.
• 1926 – [https://books.google.com/books?id=1oMHy1j-s88C&q=The+Intimate+Papers+of+Colonel+House The Intimate Papers of Colonel House.] New York: Houghton Mifflin. {{OCLC|476286}}
• 1934 – [https://books.google.com/books?id=Gy4qAAAAYAAJ&q=American+Diplomacy+During+the+World+War American Diplomacy During the World War.] Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. [reprinted by Greenwood Press, Westport Connecticut, 1975: {{ISBN|978-0-8371-7746-5}}
• 1935 – [https://books.google.com/books?id=1jKMGAAACAAJ&q=American+neutrality American Neutrality, 1914–17: Essays on the Causes of American Intervention in the World War.] {{OCLC|257742593}}
• 1921 – [https://archive.org/details/whatreallyhappe01seymgoog What Really Happened in Paris: the story of the Peace Conference, 1918–1919] with Edward House. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
• 1963 – Letters from the Paris Peace Conference. New Haven

{{Reflist|2}}

• Kelley, Brooks Mather. (1999). [https://books.google.com/books?id=B2aDRhohtx8C Yale: A History.] New Haven: Yale University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-300-07843-5}}; [http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/810552 OCLC 810552]

• Seymour family papers (MS 440). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. [http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ms.0440]
• Charles Seymour papers (MS 441). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. [http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ms.0441]
• {{Gutenberg author | id=Seymour,+Charles | name=Charles Seymour}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Charles Seymour}}

{{s-start}}

{{s-aca}}

{{succession box

| before = James Rowland Angell

| title = President of Yale University

| years = 1937–1951

| after = Alfred Whitney Griswold

}}

{{s-end}}

{{Yale University presidents}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Seymour, Charles}}

Category:1885 births

Category:1963 deaths

Category:Presidents of Yale University

Category:Burials at Grove Street Cemetery

Category:Yale Sterling Professors

Category:20th-century American academics

Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society

Category:Members of Skull and Bones