William W. Freehling

{{Infobox person

| name = William W. Freehling

| image =

| alt =

| caption =

| birth_name = William Wilhartz Freehling

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1935|12|26}}

| birth_place = Chicago, Illinois

| death_date =

| death_place =

| spouse = {{plainlist|

{{marriage|Natalie Paperno
|January 27, 1961|April 1970|reason=div}}
{{marriage|Alison Goodyear
|June 19, 1971|}}

}}

| children = 4

| nationality = American

| other_names =

| alma_mater = Harvard College
University of California, Berkeley

| occupation = Historian

| known_for =

}}

William Wilhartz Freehling (born December 26, 1935) is an American historian, and Singletary Professor of the Humanities Emeritus at the University of Kentucky.{{cite web |url=http://abolitionisminblackandwhite.com/wordpress/?p=111 |title=William W. Freehling Reexamines Nullification in Worcester, Oct. 22 « Abolitionism in Black and White |website=abolitionisminblackandwhite.com |access-date=13 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091125001133/http://abolitionisminblackandwhite.com/wordpress/?p=111 |archive-date=25 November 2009 |url-status=dead}}

Early life

Freehling was born in Chicago, Illinois on December 26, 1935, a son of Norman Freehling and Edna ({{nee}} Wilhartz) Freehling. 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.

Career

Freehling taught at Berkeley, Harvard, the University of Michigan, and Johns Hopkins University. He also held endowed chairs at SUNY, Buffalo and Kentucky.{{Cite web |title=William W. Freehling |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/william-w-freehling/ |access-date=2023-05-16 |website=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation... |language=en-US}}

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.{{cite news |last1=Freehling |first1=William W. |title=Henry Wise's Pistol |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/16/henry-wises-pistol/ |access-date=16 May 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=16 April 2011 |language=en}}

Personal life

On January 27, 1961, Freehling married Natalie Paperno, with whom he had two children, Alan and Deborah Freehling. Freehling and Natalie divorced in 1970, and on June 19, 1971, Freehling married historian Alison Harrison ({{nee}} Goodyear) Bradshaw.{{Cite journal |last=Crofts |first=Daniel W. |date=1991 |title=Review of The Road to Disunion. Volume 1: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4249218 |journal=The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography |volume=99 |issue=2 |pages=207–210 |jstor=4249218 |issn=0042-6636}} The former wife of William Emmons Bradshaw,{{cite news |title=William Bradshaw Marries Alison Harrison Goodyear |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/06/21/archives/william-bradshaw-marries-alison-harrison-goodyear.html |access-date=16 May 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=21 June 1964}} she was a daughter of Frank H. Goodyear Jr. and a granddaughter of lumber baron Frank H. Goodyear and Edmund P. Rogers.{{cite news |last1=Times |first1=Special to The New York |title=Alison H. Goodyear Prospective Bride |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/12/21/archives/alison-h-goodyear-prospective-bride.html |access-date=16 May 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=21 December 1963}} Together, they are the parents of two children, Alison and William Freehling.{{cite web |title=Freehling, William W(ilhartz) 1935- |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/freehling-william-wilhartz-1935 |website=www.encyclopedia.com |publisher=Encyclopedia.com |access-date=16 May 2023}}

Awards

1965 Allan Nevins Prize of the Society of American Historians{{cite web|title=Allan Nevins Prize - Past Winners|url=http://sah.columbia.edu/content/past-winners-0|publisher=Society of American Historians|accessdate=16 March 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719175234/http://sah.columbia.edu/content/past-winners-0|archive-date=2011-07-19|url-status=dead}}
1967 Bancroft Prize
Senior Fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities {{Cite web |url=http://www.virginiafoundation.org/pressreleases/2006/lincoln.html |title=VFH - Press Release - William Freehling - Lincoln Discussion |access-date=2010-01-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101130090145/http://virginiafoundation.org/pressreleases/2006/lincoln.html |archive-date=2010-11-30 |url-status=dead }}
2007 Louis R. Gottschalk Lecture {{Cite web |url=http://louisville.edu/history/lewis-r-gottschalk-lectures.html |title=Louis R. Gottschalk Lectures — University of Louisville |access-date=2010-01-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100528104528/http://louisville.edu/history/lewis-r-gottschalk-lectures.html |archive-date=2010-05-28 |url-status=dead }}

Works

{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OCSL1OEwV6AC| title=The Road to Disunion: Volume I: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854| publisher=Oxford University Press |year= 1991| isbn= 978-0-19-507259-4 }}{{cite news |last1=Remini |first1=Robert V. |title=Plunging Into Civil War |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/30/books/plunging-into-civil-war.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230516145236/https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/30/books/plunging-into-civil-war.html?searchResultPosition=2 |archive-date=2023-05-16 |access-date=16 May 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=30 September 1990}}
{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1xKD6b-w1JMC| title=Secession Debated: Georgia's Showdown in 1860|editor=William W. Freehling |editor2=Craig M. Simpson| publisher=Oxford University Press | year= 1992| isbn= 978-0-19-507945-6 }}
{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FPZOEitjDFwC&pg=PP1| title=Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836| publisher=Oxford University Press |year= 1992| isbn=978-0-19-507681-3 }}
{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MOainyyGxhsC| title=The Reintegration of American History: Slavery and the Civil War| publisher=Oxford University Press | year= 1994| isbn= 978-0-19-508808-3 }}{{cite news |last1=Chaffin |first1=Tom |title=In Short/Civil War |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/12/books/in-shortcivil-war.html |access-date=16 May 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=12 June 1994}}
"The Divided South, Democracy's Limitations, and the Causes of the Peculiarly North American Civil War", in {{cite book| editor = Gabor Boritt| editor-link = Gabor Boritt| title = Why the Civil War Came| year = 1996| publisher = Oxford University Press| isbn = 0-19-507941-8 }}
[https://books.google.com/books?id=DVNhXPy6suoC&dq=William+W+Freehling&pg=PT376 "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
{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AsjRsGPOXKMC&pg=PP1| title=The Road to Disunion: Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861| publisher=Oxford University Press |year= 2007| isbn= 978-0-19-505815-4 }}
[http://blog.oup.com/2007/03/arthur_schlesin/ "Arthur Schlesinger Jr: William W. Freehling Remembers", OUP blog]
{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XSysQsHnI7kC| title= Showdown in Virginia: The 1861 Convention and the Fate of the Union|editor=William W. Freehling |editor2=Craig M. Simpson| publisher=University of Virginia Press |year= 2010| isbn= 978-0-813-92991-0 }}
Becoming Lincoln. University of Virginia Press, 2018. {{ISBN|9780813941561}}

References

External links

{{C-SPAN|1023662}}
[http://www.americansc.org.uk/Reviews/SouthVsSouth.htm "The South Vs. the South, Reviewed by Gary Smith, Department of History, University of Dundee", American Studies Online, 14 November 2005]
[http://cwmemory.com/2007/09/25/a-very-special-visit-william-w-freehling/ "A Very Special Visit: William W. Freehling", Civil War Memory, September 25, 2007]
[http://www.bu.edu/historic/conference.html "Historical Reconstructions", The Historical Society, 2002]
[http://www.moc.org/site/PageServer?pagename=prg_lectures "Four American Presidents (But What Did They Have to Do with the Civil War?)", The Museum of the Confederacy, February 20, 2010]