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Harold Hyman

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Harold Melvin Hyman (July 24, 1924 – August 6, 2023) was an American historian of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era and the William P. Hobby Professor of History at Rice University.[1]

During World War II, Hyman served in the Marines in the South Pacific and there earned his high school diploma. Hyman received a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (1948) and an M.A. (1950) and Ph.D. (1952) from Columbia University.

Teaching

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Hyman was an instructor in modern history at City College (1950–1952); assistant professor of history, Earlham College, 1952–1955; visiting assistant professor of American history, UCLA 1955–1956; associate professor of American history, Arizona State University, 1956–1957; professor of history, UCLA 1963–1968; William P. Hobby Professor of History, Rice University, 1968–2003.

Personal life and death

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In 1946, Hyman married Ferne Handelsman, later chief reference librarian at Rice. The couple celebrated 65 years of marriage before her death in 2011.[2]

Harold Hyman died on August 6, 2023, at the age of 99.[1]

Honors and awards

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Hyman was a Ford Foundation Fellow, a Senior Fulbright Lecturer, an Organization of American Historians Lecturer, and a judge for the Pulitzer Prize and the Littleton-Griswold prize of the American Historical Association.[3]

His Era of the Oath: Northern Loyalty Tests during the Civil War and Reconstruction (1954) won the American Historical Association's Beveridge Award.[4]

Selected works

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  • Era of the Oath: Northern Loyalty Tests during the Civil War and Reconstruction (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1954, reprinted, Hippocrene Books, 1978).
  • To Try Men's Souls: Loyalty Tests in American History, (University of California Press, 1959, reprinted, Greenwood Press, 1981). online
  • (With Benjamin P. Thomas) Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln's Secretary of War (Knopf, 1962, reprinted, Greenwood Press, 1980). online
  • Soldiers and Spruce: The Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen, the Army's Labor Union of World War I (University of California Press, 1963).
  • A More Perfect Union: The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the Constitution (Knopf, 1973). online
  • Union and Confidence: The 1860s (Crowell, 1976), survey with emphasis on business history online
  • With Malice toward Some: Scholarship (Or Something Less) on the Lincoln Murder (Abraham Lincoln Association, 1978) online
  • Equal Justice Under Law: Constitutional Development, 1835-1875 (New American Nation Series) with William Wiecek ISBN 978-0-06-014937-6
  • Quiet Past and Stormy Present?: War Powers in American History (American History Association, 1986), pamphlet
  • American Singularity: The 1787 Northwest Ordinance, the 1862 Homestead- Morrill Acts, and the 1944 G.I. Bill (University of Georgia Press, 1986). online
  • The Reconstruction Justice of Salmon P. Chase: In Re Turner and Texas v. White (University Press of Kansas, 1997).
  • Oleander Odyssey: The Kempners of Galveston, Texas, 1854-1980s (Kenneth E. Montague Series in Oil and Business History) ISBN 978-0890964385 (Texas A & M University Press, 1990).
  • Craftsmanship and Character: A History of the Vinson & Elkins Law Firm of Houston, 1917-1997 (Studies in the Legal History of the South) ISBN 978-0820319735 (University of Georgia Press, 1998).

Hyman was editor, contributor, or joint author:

  • The Radical Republicans and Reconstruction Policy, 1861-1870 (Bobbs- Merrill, 1966), primary sources
  • New Frontiers of the American Reconstruction (University of Illinois Press, 1966), scholarly essays
  • (With Leonard W. Levy) Freedom and Reform: Essays in Honor of Henry Steele Commager (Harper, 1967).
  • (With H. C. Allen and others) Heard 'round the World: The Impact Abroad of the Civil War (Knopf, 1969).
  • (author of introduction) Carleton Parker, The Casual Laborer and Other Essays (new edition of 1919 original, University of Washington Press, 1972).
  • (author of introduction, with wife, Ferne Hyman) The Circuit Court Opinions of Salmon Portland Chase (new edition of 1875 original, Da Capo Press, 1972).
  • (author of introduction) Sidney George Fisher, The Trial of the Constitution (new edition of 1862 original, Da Capo Press, 1972).
  • (author of introduction) Edward McPherson, The Political History of the United States of America during the Great Rebellion, 1860-1865 (new edition of 1865 original, Da Capo, 1972).
  • (With Hans L. Trefousse) McPherson, Handbook of Politics, six volumes, new edition of 1894 original, Da Capo, 1972–73.
  • (With Hans L. Trefousse) Lincoln's Decision for Emancipation (J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1975) ISBN 0-397-47336-2
  • (With Trefousse) McPherson, The Political History of the United States of America during the Period of Reconstruction, new edition of 1871 original, Da Capo, 1973.
  • (With Kermit L. Hall and Leon V. Sigal) The Constitutional Convention as an Amending Device, American Historical Association/American Political Science Association, 1981.
  • Editor, with Stuart Bruchey, of the "American Legal and Constitutional History Series," Garland Publishing, 1986–87.
  • Member of board of editors, Reviews in American History, 1964—, Ulysses S. Grant Association, 1968—, American Journal of Legal History, 1970—, and Journal of American History, 1970–74.

Evaluations

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Bodenhamer (2012) says, "The best guide to the constitutional changes brought by the Civil War and Reconstruction is Harold Hyman, A More Perfect Union: The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the Constitution (1973).[5] Mayer (2001) says Hyman, "wrote the definitive work on loyalty tests throughout American history."[6]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Harold M. Hyman". Legacy. Retrieved 17 August 2023.
  2. ^ Houston Chronicle obituary
  3. ^ "Hyman Collection". Prairie View A&M University. Archived from the original on 27 February 2013. Retrieved 12 September 2012.
  4. ^ bonniekaryn.wordpress.com
  5. ^ David J. Bodenhamer, (Oxford University Press, 2012) p 251
  6. ^ Kenneth R. Mayer, With the Stroke of a Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power (2001) p 153